Grace Notes Weekly is a newsletter of Grace Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, TN,
and is used to communicate the upcoming activities of this community.
The Season of Advent
December 12, 2020
Adult Advent Class
Though Advent always offers an opportunity to reflect, the 2020 season may be less fraught with the perpetual motion we have come to expect of the season. If you'd like to take advantage of the pandemic-induced lull, join other Grace folk at 10:00 each Sunday during Advent to focus on the scripture readings with the aim of improving our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others, and with all of creation. We will use the Episcopal Church’s Way of Love Advent Calendar to help us develop a rule of life that encourages us to pursue daily activities to help us worship, go, learn, pray, bless, turn, and rest.

[continue below]
IN THIS ISSUE
Adult Advent Class Continues
Online, In-Person, and Daily Worship
Clergy Outdoor Office Hours
Seraphim Bush
Farmers' Market Winter Hours
Food Pantry
Advent/Christmas Programs
Belvoir Blood Drive (12-18)
Parish Prayer List
Community Care in Anxious Times
Advent Class (continued)
Please download a copy of the Advent Calendar HERE or paste this link into your browser: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TCynrhp0awpvJ7a8EQvPGU1XR6cHWQVW/view?usp=sharing
Please have it with you for our first meeting.

We hope to see you Sunday. You can access the meeting using the link below.
Online, In-Person and Daily Worship
Online Sunday Worship

Join us for Sunday morning worship on our Facebook page and website  at 9am and again at 10:45am. Bulletins for each week’s service will be sent along with the Grace Notes weekend issue, and will be posted on the website alongside the video for the service. If you miss the 9am or 10:45am video streams, you can always go back and watch later. You can access the bulletin for this Sunday HERE.

In-Person Sunday Worship

As the weather looks like it will take a turn for the better, we are planning to hold in-person worship this Sunday, December 13th at 3:30pm. We will meet on the yard just behind the pavilion and the community gardens. In an effort to protect the health of our neighbors, participants must sign up in advance, and we will be limiting the attendance for this service to 30 households. You will receive an email confirming successful registration, and if the service is over capacity at the time you sign up, you will receive priority for next week's service.

Each household unit is asked to keep 12-15 feet distance from your closest neighbor on the lawn. Please wear a mask, and bring your own lawn chair or blanket. If you are unable to bring your own chair, please email David Burman at dburman@saygrace.net, and we can arrange to have one available for you. 
 
Worshipers will receive communion in one kind only (bread). The priests will wear masks and gloves while we distribute communion, and all who receive communion are asked to keep their masks on while communion is being distributed, and then slip their masks off to consume the wafers once you’ve returned to your seats, returning your masks to your faces one you have eaten the bread.
 
Sign up on the homepage of our website, www.saygrace.net

Daily Worship

You are also invited to take part in the nearly-daily services of Morning Prayer and Compline that our curate, David, is offering. Available every day (except Sundays) via Zoom, Morning Prayer begins at 9:00 a.m., and Compline at 8:00 p.m.; see below for the Zoom addresses along with the passwords: 


or paste this URL into your browser:


Meeting ID: 746 8859 6599

Passcode: amprayer

To get onto Compline everyday at 8pm, click this link: 


& the password is: compline
Clergy Outdoor Office Hours
The Rev. April Berends will be in the courtyard on Tuesday, December 15th, from 9am-11:30am. The Rev. David Burman will be in the courtyard from 1pm-4pm on Friday, December 18th. As always, if you would like to meet for prayer or conversation outside of office hours, our priests would be happy to see you. Contact April (aberends@saygrace.net) or David (dburman@saygrace.net) to set up an appointment.
Seraphim Bush
What is it in the DNA of December that makes it take off like a NASA rocket as soon as the you turn the page from November?? Whatever the gene, is has sprung into action and caused December 20, the deadline for Walmart gift cards to benefit the residents of a local group home to be a mere week away. If you're planning to participate in this worthy program, please spring into action this week. Tom Carroll and Jerry Evans have said that 34 cards are needed, and we have only five at the moment.

If you want to give something more personal along with the card, all residents can use shampoo, body wash, toothpaste and deodorant. If someone wants to spend more than $25, please get additional Walmart cards in increments of $25 rather than putting a larger amount on a card. If we get more than 34 cards, we will divide them among the group homes to be a "house" card to benefit all the residents in the house.

All cards and toiletries can be dropped off at the church during "office" hours or during the food pantry hours or at any in-person Sunday services. If someone can't do those times, they can email Tom Carroll (brownlow@epbfi.com)
 or Jerry (jevans1958@epbfi.com) to set a time to meet them at church; the postal office could also be called into service! Gifts don't have to be wrapped but a gift bag would be appreciated. 
Market Moves to Winter Hours
Though the summer has gone and fall is dwindling, the Brainerd Market will not vanish for the cold season but instead will morph into a more compact version of itself, running on Saturdays in the Brainerd parking lot from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. instead of the two hours customary to the warmer months.

Because the county's mask mandate is still in force, all visitors to the market are asked to wear a mask and also to practice social distancing to help everyone stay safe.

GET FRESH local produce and get to know your farmers and makers. The farmers’ market features fresh local produce, meats, eggs, breads, local honey,  jams & jellies, live plants, arts and crafts, wonderful foods and so much more! All of the farm fresh products at the market are naturally grown, free of pesticides, GMO's and antibiotics!

Market Vendors accept CASH, DEBIT/CREDIT & EBT/SNAP for eligible items. Double SNAP Dollars available the first Saturday of the month on EBT/SNAP purchase up to $20.
Food Pantry
December 9 brought14 visitors to our door, and they left with food for 54 -- 28 adults and 26 children. And while our supplies held up nicely, the day's traffic left a few thin places on the shelves. So if you're out after groceries this week, these are the items we could most use:

* canned chili and beef stew
* canned hams
* canned pinto beans and corn
* pop tarts
* pudding

Thanks and blessings upon Linda Wideman and Gail Dooley, Richard Hyatt and Jim Harris, who took care of the day's customers and who are such steady, unflappable participants in this ministry. They are blessings to Grace and to all whom we serve!
Advent and Christmas Programs
Taizé Advent Services from Good Shepherd, Lookout Mtn.
Wednesday, December 16, and 23 at 7 PM ET from the Church of the Good Shepherd, Lookout Mountain, TN via Facebook Live. Contemplative candlelight services of Evening Prayer featuring the music of Taizé offered my members of the Good Shepherd Choir with soloists, violin and flute. A brief meditation on the scriptures of the Sundays of Advent will be offered at each service. A feast for the eyes with candles and icons and for the ears with music and word. Join on Facebook here.

Lessons and Carols from the University of the South
Started in the late 1800’s, this Advent season service is an Anglican tradition celebrated around the world. The service is a mixture of scripture reading and choral arrangements with themes of hope, celebration, and liberation. While we won’t be able to gather in person, members of the Sewanee family will have access to a digital version of the annual Festival of Lessons and Carols, adapted for the unprecedented circumstances of this year. Click here to watch the recording of the service.

Presiding Bishop Curry’s Christmas Message 2020
“Joy to the world! The Lord is come. In your hearts, in your homes, in your lives, prepare him room,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop and Primate Michael Curry said in his Christmas Message 2020.
Belvoir Neighborhood Blood Drive
Neighbors, we're holding a blood drive NEXT FRIDAY (December 18) at the Brainerd Baptist BX!! Donors will receive a FREE fleece blanket, COVID-19 antibody screening (upon donor request), and Blood Assurance will donate $10 to the Grace Neighborhood Food Pantry on behalf of each blood donation collected!! To sign up, please visit
www.bloodassurance.org/belvoir or call 423-756-0966. Appointments aren't required, but they are appreciated!!! Each blood donation saves 3 lives -- please help us ensure our area patients have what they need this season!!

Richard Hyatt
Parish Prayer List
Please remember: Donald, our President; Joseph, our president-elect; the Senate, the House of Representatives, and our Courts of Justice; together with all elected officials, and the other leaders of our country and the nations of the world.
 
We pray for Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury; Michael, our Presiding Bishop; Brian, our Bishop; for April, our priest; for David, our Curate; for George, our assisting priest; for Keith, our Seminarian; for our missionaries, and all other bishops and ministers.
 
We pray for the unemployed and underemployed, especially those in our congregation and community. We pray for the homeless and the hungry, and for those in special need of prayer, especially
 
Niysah, Nancy Miller, Daniel Parker, Valorie Lephart, Hayden, David Balling, Edith, Terrie, Alex, Roberta Fish, Jeanette Cureton, Wanda Kirkpatrick, Emma Andrews, Andrea, Steve Slack, Celeste Humphrey, Jim Strickland, Bethann, Angela, Dwight, 
James and Barbara Dooley, Dwight McMillan, Trevor Laymance, Ted, Deb, Doris, Emily and Daniel Brelsford, Michael Conner, Tom Wolfe,
Bo and Mary Minor Brown, Helen Williams, Nancy Mapel, Charlotte Dorris, Tyler Horton, Jeff Fugate, Rebecca Williams, J.R. Hicks, Peggy Fugate, William Simpson, Timothy Penny, Donald Jones, Cooper Jones, Sally Cauthen,
Charles Smith, Jonathan Purple, Steven Mosman, John Woodham, Libby Workman, Elaine Harrison, Jean Williams, Barbara Reed, Elizabeth Harrison, Joyce Smith, 
Jim May, Mary Ruth Clinton, and Ann Swint; 

We pray for Wil Mabry, Jake Dorris, Kevin Kelley, Tripp Mouron, Mike Mabry, Alexander Ross, Russel Webb, Logan Roberts, Jim Makepeace, Sean Benson, 
Evan Watkins and all of our Armed Forces, here and abroad;
 
We pray for Angela Gregory, who is with child.
  
We pray for this community: For our local leaders; for our schools and marketplaces; for our neighborhoods and workplaces, for protesters and for police. Help us to honor your image in one another. Give us courage to strive for justice and peace among all people, beginning here at home. 

We pray for all whose homes are in peril or uprooted because of climate change, for all displaced because of hurricanes, fires or other disasters.
 
We pray for all who are developing programs and policies to deal with the current public health threat; for those who are treating the sick, stocking shelves, transporting supplies, suffering from illness, coping with new life-patterns and finding ways to keep anxiety at bay for themselves and others. 

We pray for those who have died, especially Tiffany Sims, cousin of Jane Pickering, that your will for them may be fulfilled, and that they may share with all your saints in the full revelation of your eternal glory.
 
In the Anglican Cycle of Prayer:  Pray for  the Falkland Islands (Extraa-Provencial to Canterbury) and The Rt. Rev. Timothy Thornton, Bishop to the Forces and Bishop to the Falkland Islands.

In the Diocesan Cycle of Prayer: Pray for St. Francis, Norris, TN; and for Holy Name, St. Alban, and Messiah (Mni Sose Cluster) SD.
 
Those in need of continued prayer: 
Marcia Magers, Major McCollough, John Cox, Gayanne Silver, Garvin Colburn, Heather Nelson, Robert Clark, Marty Landis, Dexter and Helen Williams, 
Cheryl McCurry, Ethel Rutledge, Carolyn Minnich, Lanie Lundgrin, Terri Harvey, 
Sue Sears, Anne Getz, Michael Roberts, Jeannie and Andy Williams, Jaime Cooper, 
Teresa Noel, Tina Knowles, Brad and Kimberly Calhoun, Joyce and Greg Snyder, Martha Killeffer, Robert Durham, Jim Curtis, Hal and Sue, 
Michelle Maroney, Jessica Ricketts
Community Care in Anxious Times
Our Grace check-in team leaders are continuing to contact parishioners via phone, text and/ or email. Please take a moment to pick up or write back to let them know if you’re okay and/or if you need help, pastorally or physically. The leaders of these groups will be in close communication with our priests and our network of volunteers. If you are a new member of Grace and we do not have your information in the directory, please fill out the New Member form here and let us know if you would like to be added to a check-in group. If you have an urgent pastoral need, please call the parish office at (423)243-3250 and leave a message on the main line.. We will be checking these messages regularly even if we aren’t in the office.
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