The St. Philip’s Home Missions Team sends out a big thank you to St. Philippians and friends in the community for answering the call to donate blood at our recent blood drive! It was a huge success––with a goal of 37 pints, we collected 47 pints of blood, a new record for St. Philip’s! We filled 48 of our available 55 appointments with nine walk-ins! We continue to have first-time donors with seven at this recent drive. It was truly heartening to see the Red Cross, our parish, and the community come together as a team to facilitate the giving of the lifesaving gift of blood.

According to the Red Cross, the national blood inventory has now fallen to the lowest it has been at this time of the year since 2015, which underscores the importance of our ministry over the last several months. As our own Justin Hare shared in his testimony from our previous blood drive, reflecting on the love of Jesus in pouring out his blood to the point of death and giving life to the world, we can rejoice in our small part in bringing life to the world in Jesus’ name. Well done, good and faithful servants! See you at our next blood drive!

The Grammy Award–winning Christian rock band Switchfoot wrote those awesome words almost two decades ago. It is a call to be all you can be in Christ and live for Jesus in the everyday moments. Get up and go and live!

On Saturday, September 18, at 9:00 a.m., many adventurous souls from St. Philip’s youth group descended on Waterfront Park to participate in the annual river sweep event. St. Philip’s youth group has been participating and collecting trash out of the marsh for 13 years. Part of my vocation as a youth pastor is to educate the youth on our Christian calling. We are called to be stewards of God’s creation! Our theme for this new season of youth ministry (my 20th year) is “Casting a net for truth and beauty.” I want these kids to realize that our world, the people around us, and our culture are all in need of truth and beauty. So when these brave kids jump over the railing into the pluff mud and start pulling out hundreds of pounds of trash, I try to use that as a teachable moment. This is what Christ came to do. He came to save sinners, clean out the garbage and filth of our hearts and beautify us in the process.

You never know what you’re going to find when you are in the marsh, and that is part of the mystery. Right upon landing into the very aromatic pluff mud, I hear shouts. “OOOOooooo, look what I found ...” as one of the young ladies held up a creepy, deranged-looking baby doll! I thought to myself, “This is the stuff of horror movie legends.” Despite the evil-looking doll, we pressed onward and upward. Tourists and locals always stop and ask us what we are doing, and we proudly proclaim to them that we are “St. Philip’s Youth Group, and we are God’s stewards on this earth!”

Each Sunday morning during worship, we pray for “victims of genocide and AIDS in Rwanda.” The Dufatanye Organization (DO) in Nyanza, Rwanda, is a non-government organization (NGO) that reaches out to these victims, most of whom are desperately scarred—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Many suffer from PTSD, but they now experience a sense of belonging by living in this community that surrounds a farm of ten hectares and provides a safe, Christ-centered haven to its members.

The DO empowers this community, along with other vulnerable communities nearby, by cultivating a spirit of reconciliation among those who formerly eyed one another with terrific enmity. The term dufatanye means to “join and cooperate together.” Using a variety of different activities, individuals are trained to become responsible neighbors who join together to provide God’s best for each other. Participants grow through biblical and health education, medical navigation, improved agricultural practices, and involvement in cultivating banana trees (over 2800!), servicing four fish farms and a fish hatchery, caring for small and large animals, and constructing homes for widows and orphans.

All ladies of St. Philip’s are a part of this organization that is responsible for important fellowship events, including the fall dinner, spring luncheon, the greening of the church, the Tea Room, and more!

If you have a little bit or a lot of time to give, we welcome your participation! Meetings are once a month, usually on the first Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. in the Parish Hall. Email or call Chrissie Batten, ECW president, to inquire: chrissiebatten@gmail.com or (843) 364-3227.

Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

Parish House, Room 109

Ages 4k-3rd grade

St. Philip’s has purchased several automatic external defibrillator (AED) devices; the video-driven class will go over their use and basic CPR technique. If you are interested in serving our church by being able to apply these life-saving skills, please contact Doug at (423) 827-6596 or ringdoug@gmail.com. 

If you would like remote viewing details and are not already on the Rector's Bible Study email list, please join by filling out the form at the link below. You will also receive updates such as schedule changes and weather-related cancellations.

Many of you know that you can listen to sermons and many classes and other offerings on our website, but did you know that you can also listen through your favorite podcast app?

Click the button below to visit stphilipschurchsc.org/sermons-classes for the complete list, and subscribe to your favorites! You can also help our podcasts reach those beyond our congregation by rating and reviewing.

Our new guard cat is clearly a go-getter, because after less than two weeks on the job, he's already taken on duties beyond the cemetery. Just yesterday, he discovered an unmarked box truck parked in the loading zone shortly after the office opened, and since sexton Ben Singleton was home sick and sexton-in-training Cecilia Walchesky was at school, he decided to clear it himself by giving it a very thorough sniffing.

After letting the admin team know that the truck belonged to the vending machine service team, he headed back across the street to keep watch over the cemetery. We are grateful for his service to the church, and even though he still hasn't been very forthcoming with his name or other personal details, we did notice that he came to work yesterday dressed to the nines in a handsome purple collar––he most likely had gotten gussied up a bit to join us for staff meeting but got held up by other responsibilities.

If you follow St. Philip's on social media, you already knew about our guard cat's ambitious nature. But if this is news to you, why don't you take a minute to click the buttons below and follow us right now so that you, too, can be among the first to hear stories like this?

Call Juanita Orvin or Frenchie Richards, who will connect you with a prayer minister who will pray for your concerns over the phone.

juanitaorvin@gmail.com or (843) 884-4018

frichards7@aol.com or (843) 345-8797

Call Suzanne McCord, head of the prayer chain, and she will pass your request on to members of the chain.

suzanne1959@gmail.com or (843) 224-1630

Oct. 3 ~ Hymn Sing (5:00 p.m. in the church)

Oct. 6 ~ Monthly men’s lunch (12 noon in the Parish Hall)

Oct. 9 ~ Men’s Summit (virtual)

Oct. 10 ~ Choral Evensong (5:00 p.m. in the church)

Oct. 12 ~ Theology on Tap (off-campus, 7:00 p.m., Henry’s)

Oct. 13 ~ Generations Ministry (Grandparents) Kick-Off 

Oct. 23 ~ Workday at Camp St. Christopher

Oct. 26 ~ ECW Fall Dinner (6:00 p.m. in the Parish Hall)

We pray for the sick: Elizabeth Bowles, Sarah Clarkson, Charles Cornwell, Gerry Dickinson, Sally Fayard, Elizabeth Flowers, Mary Forbes, Dave Gund, Mary Anne Hanckel, Susan Hemminger, Maude Hornsby, John Jerger, Claudia Kolster, Joe Livesay, Connor Lowndes, Sarah Marshall, Brumby McLeod, Beverly Melvin, Mike Mullins, Juanita Orvin, Olivia Palmer, Isla Pearce, Fran Pritchett, Valerie Rouillard, Bill Sammons, Fran Sanders, Jay Schrimpf, Elizabeth Scott, Larry Scoville, Lynne Scoville, Anne Shaver, Leroy and Ruthie Simmons, Jason Stryker, Rose Tisdale, Hope Walters, Liz Williams, Lindsey Wing.

We pray for our expectant parents: Kimbrell and Bruce Blackwood, Justin and Molly Hare.

We pray for protection for Becca Baird, Chris and Julia Beasley, Graham Blunt, Henry Clayton, Ben Colyer, David Daughtridge, Hayes Fair, Tripp Hathaway, Morgan and Mason Herring, Andrew Kane, Horry Kerrison, Charles Kirkman, Frazier Kulze, John Mason, Zach McFadden, Philip Middleton III, Jackson Miller, Edward Pritchard, and David Scott serving in our Armed Forces

We pray for our home missions: Star Gospel Mission, Tricounty Family Ministries, Lowcountry Pregnancy Center, and St. John's Chapel.

We pray for our world missions: For Suzy McCall and LAMB, for the medical missions to Honduras, for ministry to victims of genocide and AIDS in Rwanda, for Water Mission and the Global Water Center, for The Persecuted Church, and for St. Jean Baptiste, our sister church, and the schools in Haiti.