The Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King

“Like humility, generosity comes from seeing that everything we have and everything we accomplish comes from God's grace and God's love for us.”

Desmond Tutu

Our 2023 Stewardship Campaign, We Are One Body, concludes this Sunday. Over the past few weeks, we have had the opportunity prayerfully to consider how we give back to God in thanksgiving for the abundance that God has given us. Thank you to those that have already made their pledge for the coming year!

We have an ambitious and necessary goal of $640,000 in pledges for 2023. For 2022 we have 120 households pledging a total of $500,000; our current campaign progress to date reflects 70 pledges for a total of $363,089, which is 57% of our pledge goal.

While our stewardship campaign is in response to God’s generous love, with gratitude and thanks for the joys and abundance God provides, we must also be mindful of our financial life together as a parish and our ability to be fiscally responsible.

NOW is the time to enter into deeper discipleship by participating in our fiscal life together. Pledging is a spiritual practice – every bit as important as prayer and worship. As St. Paul reminds us, we each with our individual gifts work together for the common good. In order for The Falls Church to fully live into its mission, we must ALL participate in the life of the body together.

How are you giving back to God for all that He has given you?

Please join me, the Stewardship and Outreach Committees, and the Vestry this Sunday, November 20 for our Celebration of Giving. We will make an offering to God and serve our neighbors in need through food packing for the Arlington Food Assistance Center. The time, talent, and resources that ALL OF US provide are vital to the strength of this parish as we serve each other, our community, and our world.

You can pledge online through Realm (Watch the video below to learn how to make your pledge on Realm) or return your pledge card in the offering plate this Sunday or by mail. If you didn’t receive a pledge packet either at church or in the mail, and would like one, we will have some available at church on Sunday.

Thank you again for being a part of this amazing place and for making a financial commitment for the coming year to ensure The Falls Church can continue building the Kingdom of God in our community and beyond.

Veronica Kannan

Stewardship Committee Chair

Save the date for our Advent Women's Retreat; Holy Invitations led by Liz Ward, Saturday December 10, 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. at The Falls Church. Sign up here via Realm. Guest are welcome so invite your friends and neighbors to join us. Please email Ellie with any questions, scholarships are available for those who are unable to pay the registration fee, please contact Ellie for more details.

During this Advent Retreat Day we will ponder the holy invitations of the Annunciation and the Visitation using scripture, art, music, and poetry. These words and images can help us discover how Christ wants to be born in each of us during this sacred season of hopeful waiting. These holy invitations can include growing in love, truth, hope, forgiveness, and inner peace as well as in more concrete, visible ways. Our times of prayerful reflection and optional sharing can help us notice our response to God’s mysterious, unexpected invitations lovingly woven in the scripture of daily life.

This afternoon will include meditations, times of prayerful reflection, and times of optional sharing. Hopefully, like Mary and Elizabeth, we can draw on the loving support of other women as we ponder our current holy invitations and move into new life with God.

About our guest leader

Liz Ward is an Episcopalian; a widow, and grateful mother and grandmother. She has served as a spiritual guide at Virginia Theological Seminary for more than 30 years and has been leading retreats and contemplative prayer groups for almost that long. She served as Director of the Shalem Spiritual Guidance Program for 12 years and has taught in many Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation long and short-term programs. She has served as an elected member of the Commission on Ministry for the Diocese of Virginia for more than 10 years, was Chair of the Diocesan Discernment Committee, and continues to co-lead Diocesan Discernment Retreats. She loves pilgrimages and has has co-led pilgrimages to England and Paris using poetry and the arts to increase awareness of the presence of God in daily life. Her background also includes graduate school degrees, teaching English, and serving as the Director of a Center for Women and Families.

The Live Nativity is back and bigger than ever before! We are so excited to invite EVERYONE to join us for our Live Nativity and Light event.

We'd love you to share this graphic, which you can download here as an image file, as well as the 'About the Live Nativity' text below, on your social media, in your neighborhood groups and with your friends, family and neighbors and encourage them to join us for this fun and free event. We also have a Facebook event which you can share and invite people to.

We will have lots of requests for volunteers to do a multitude of different things in the coming weeks, but for now the best and easiest thing you can do is spread the word about this exciting event and be sure to invite people.

About the Live Nativity

This outdoor walk through event will feature live animals, including a camel, a donkey, sheep, and a cow, along with parishioners in costume as characters from the Nativity story. Come and walk The Falls Church campus, which will be lit and decorated for Christmas with even more lights than ever before and explore the Christmas story. We’ll have hot chocolate and carol singers too! The Live Nativity is designed for all ages and open to the community. Invite your friends and neighbors to join you!

There will be no parking available in The Falls Church parking lot due to the space being used for the Live Nativity.

A letter from the Visioning Warden, Geoff Kannan.

Geoff shares with us the story of the visioning process, from listening sessions through to a five year strategic plan which will be rolled out on Sunday January 8. It is a story of how the Holy Spirit guided the discernment of The Strategic Task Force, as they sought to turn the voices of the parish into a Strategic Plan, a story that tells who and what The Falls Church wants to be, with an eye to a long and Christ-filled future.

Read the letter here.

All parishioners of the diocese are invited to the Ordination and Consecration of the next Bishop of Virginia. Please join your diocesan family in this joyous celebration!

All attendees are required to register online, there will also be a livestream, details of which are to come closer to the date. If you would like to attend please click here for more information and for details on how to RSVP.

Sunday, Nov 20 there will be Nursery and Children's Chapel but no Formation Classes. All ages are invited join in our Celebration of Giving Food Packing for AFAC during Formation hour.

The Live Nativity needs your help! Sign-up to play a part below!

From our Friends and Neighbors

An invitation from our friends at Grace Episcopal Church in The Plains. More info can be found here on the Facebook event page.

Please use the Prayer List in your prayers for each other and the world. 



Praying for each other and the needs of the world is a powerful way to love our neighbors as ourselves! THIS WEEK’S PRAYER LIST