Newsletter: Wednesday, November 24, 2021

This Week's Announcements

Our Schedule of Services:

Here is our schedule;

more information may be found by downloading the bulletin.

Sunday November 28:

8:30 am In Person Eucharist

9:40-10:20 am Sunday School

& Adult/Youth Group Advent in the Way of Love Class(in the Parish Hall)

10:30 am In Person(also streamed virtually) Eucharist

Link For Facebook

Sunday 10:30 Bulletin

Wednesday, December 1:

12:00 pm Midday Prayer

Advent

Worship During Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany

Please Save the Date for our Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany services as we plan for the holidays together!

Advent I, Sunday, 11/28: 8:30 and 10:30 services as usual

Advent II, Sunday, 12/5: 8:30 and 10:30 services as usual

Blue Christmas Saturday 12/12: 4:00 pm, A service to remember loved ones

Advent III, Sunday, 12/12: 8:30 and 10:30 services as usual

Advent IV, Sunday, 12/19: 10:30 Combined Service of Lessons and

Carols

Christmas Eve, Friday 12/23: 3:00 A Christmas Eve Eucharistic service

led by our Praise Band, which will be

streamed online and available to view

later in the evening for anyone unable

to attend. This will include singing the

Candlelit Carol of Silent Night.

9:30 A hymn-sing of Christmas carols as

we prepare for the late night service.

10:00 A late night Christmas Eve Eucharistic

service with the organ and choir,

including the singing of the Candlelit

Carol.

Christmas Day, Saturday, 12/25 No Services Scheduled

First Sunday of Christmas, 12/26: 10:30 Combined Service

Feast of the Epiphany, 1/2/2022: 8:30 and 10:30 services, observing the Feast

of the Epiphany (from

January 6^th) by parish custom

Outreach

Follow these instructions:

Choose a tag from the tree
Write your first and last name next to the corresponding number on the sheet on the lectern
Take a copy of the directions from the lectern
All gifts/gift cards are to be returned to the church UNWRAPPED (feel free to put them by the tree) by December 5^th
Please keep your original gift tag and staple to the gifts/gift card (it’s our way to ensure we’ve got everyone taken care of that signed up!)
If you are purchasing gifts, make sure to include gift wrap/bags & tape.
If you have any other questions, feel free to email Julie at virtualofficejulie@gmail.com

Thistle Lights and Magdalene Omaha Sale December 4^th – 5^th

Magdalene Omaha is an Episcopal Church ministry that seeks to “deliver hope, healing, and economic self-empowerment for survivors of sex trafficking, prostitution, and addiction.” Part of their efforts at economic empowerment is through the Thistle Lights shop and the Voila! Magdalene Blooms shop here in town, which create and sell handmade products including teas, body washes, clothing, and more.

Please tell friends about this shopping opportunity for holiday gifts and supporting healing ministries!

Products can also be viewed or purchased at https://www.magdaleneomaha.org/shop

Hours:

December 4^th, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm

December 5^th, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm (during coffee hour)

Special Collection in November

November’s special collection benefits Downtown Episcopal Outreach (DEO) Every Wednesday, volunteers from the cathedral and nearby Episcopal churches prepare a delicious lunch that's open to the public, free of charge. It's our small way of offering good food and fellowship to our neighbors, especially those who don't always have access to food or shelter. Guests enjoy a sit down experience, a free full service meal, and good conversation.

The upcoming December Collection will be for the Canned Goods Tree. The cans are donated to COPE(Christian Outreach Program of Elkhorn) & DEO(Downtown Episcopal Outreach) The tree will be going up along with Greening of the Church this Sunday!!

Pastoral Conversations?

One of the roles of our priest, Fr Ben, is to listen, support, and encourage our community by helping us bring our faith to bear on the events of our lives. In a season of busyness and anxieties, if a conversation about faith and what’s going on would be helpful to you, please contact Fr Ben through our office (402-289-4058) to set up a conversation during office hours (M-Th 9:00 am to noon) or by appointment.

Opportunities to Get Involved

Rector’s Book Club Begins January 2022!

This coming year, Fr Ben is beginning a monthly book club to meet once a month on Sunday evenings! He will be choosing books that focus on how we live out our faith with fun and provocative topics that get us into great conversations together. Each meeting will be a chance to share insights, respond to questions, and meet more people at church, and we’re setting it for the Sunday evening time to make sure this book club is available to people from all generations!

Please save the dates, and we’ll hope to see you there. We’ll have snacks available, and people will be welcome to brown-bag a dinner (as we get interest, we might look at dinner options!).

If you’re interested in child care during the Rector’s Book Club, please let Kate or Fr Ben know, and we will see if we can arrange it.

October Vestry Notes

Vestry Notes are included in our announcements the week following Vestry meetings. (Full minutes are always available on-request from Fr Ben or our Vestry Clerk, currently Hondo Gallegos)

Vestry Notes for November:

The Vestry met on November 21^st

Reports were received and approved
Proceeds from the Brewsky’s Open golf tournament fundraiser were designated to the Building Fund in anticipation of a potential project to match the Narthex to our new construction
We committed to our Diocesan Faith Asking for 2022
We reviewed remaining construction details
We reviewed upcoming events
We reviewed our masking policies

Mask Policy Update:

On November 21^st, our Vestry reviewed our mask policy. While we have been particularly careful this Fall while waiting for new vaccine opportunities, we noted that a number of families are maintaining abundant caution by continuing to attend worship online, many of the youth attending are unmasked at coffee hour, and for many families, school attendance remains a much more significant unmasked time. Given these factors – and more especially, the arrival of vaccines for children aged 5-12 – we will be returning to the standard that vaccinated persons may choose not to wear a mask during worship, beginning on Christmas Eve, 2021. The timing of this is intended to provide a window for children 5-12 to receive their vaccines and have some time to build immunity. Masks and social distancing certainly continue to provide extra protection for self and others, and will continue to be welcome practices during worship.

We continue to expect that anyone who is experiencing potential COVID symptoms or has an exposure that might cause a need to quarantine will use the online worship option, and we will be reviewing masking rules for Sunday School and Nursery as spaces where children under 5 still need extra protection. If there are questions or more input on this, please feel free to connect with Fr Ben via the parish office at 402-289-4058 or his e-mail at rector@sainta.net.

Parish Office Nominations

Each year, we accept nominations for several parish offices. This year, Fr Ben has asked the outgoing class of Vestry members (Anja Armitage , Lynette Kautz , and Bill Smith ) to serve as our Nominations Committee to receive names. Nominations may also be sent to Fr Ben – this committee will review any nomination with the nominee and create a slate or schedule of candidates for the parish Annual Meeting in January (date TBD).

The following parish offices will be elected at our parish Annual Meeting:

Vestry, 3 seats, class of 2025: The Vestry is the parish board, and is a 3-year term elected by our Annual Meeting. Vestry members must be Confirmed (or had a confirmation Received) in the Episcopal Church, or be willing to do so this coming Spring. The Vestry meets monthly and reviews our church projects, policies, and finances, and collaborates with Fr Ben for major goals and initiatives. It is important that our Vestry reflect people from different kinds of families and groups throughout our parish to help us listen well to the call God places on our church community as we carry out our mission to “be a growing, faithful, inclusive, and caring community committed to the ministry and teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Vestry, 1 seat, class of 2022: Bill Kimme will need to step down from Vestry after this year, and our Annual Meeting can act to fill this seat as well (otherwise, it will be nominated by the rector and confirmed by the Vestry as part of their usual work). This represents an interim-year seat, which can be renewed for a standard 3-year term through the following year’s voting process. This is a good way for someone to learn more about how our vestry works or to serve for a brief term.

Annual Council Representative: Each year, the Annual Council of the Diocese of Nebraska meets in October (typically during bye-week for the Huskers!) to gather in worship and counsel and plan for the year ahead. This includes hearing from Bishop Barker, reviewing a draft budget, learning about ministry programs and goals, and may include legislative resolutions. The Annual Council in 2022 will be held in Kearney from Thursday evening to Saturday morning on a week in October.

Legacy Society Director: Our parish Legacy Society is a way to receive structured gifts, especially from estates, and has policies that govern how those gifts may be invested and used so that they continue to support our church and its ministries, especially in Outreach, Formation, and a small portion of budget. Each year we elect one member to a 3-year term, and this group meets four times each year, chaired by the senior member, to review the status of these investments and create any parish education about legacy planning.

Construction Wrap Up

For repairs or construction issues (like a lightbulb not working or a missed piece of material), please contact Fr Ben Junior Warden Grant Suhr, or one of the staff through the office. We have a 1-year warranty on most of the construction, and our contractor really wants to leave things right for us as they fully leave our space. Although we can theoretically ask for these fixes anytime within our warranty, we’d like to make a strong push now to see what needs tightening up! (We will also plan to have a focused walkthrough towards the end of our warranty time to review how construction has held up and where we might ask warranty repairs to be made.)

For finishing touches, please contact Fr Ben or Rhonda Vest, who is chairing a small group to determine things like where we need a clock or whether we might place houseplants. We will also be looking over some of the legacy elements from the original St Augustine’s sanctuary and determining where some of these might be placed. Our goal is to collect all of these suggestions so they can be made with an overall awareness of space needs! If you would like to help with this planning, please let them know as well.

End of Year Giving

2022 is just around the corner!!

Have you thought about completing your 2021 pledge, prepaying your 2022 pledge or just making that additional contribution to St. Augustine’s for tax purposes? All money must be deposited by December 31, 2021, in order for you to be able to deduct your charitable contribution on your 2021 tax return.

Considering holidays and office closures, we have some options for you and deadlines to consider.

If you want to use our PayPal system, you need to have it in no later than December 24, as it takes 2-3 business days to reach our account after we initiate transfer.

If you are paying by check, please make sure it is to the office by December 30.

If you want to take advantage of our brokerage account through Charles Schwab, plan early!!! With the transfer from your account to our account and then taking into consideration the sale time and not to mention getting the check written to St. Augustine’s and getting it deposited by December 31 – well do we need to say more?? Please contact treasurer, Maggie Wellman, for the needed information to access our account.

If you need to know your pledge balance for 2021, please contact Jay as she has all the updated information. Thank you for working with us to meet our deadlines and to make the end of the year a smooth transition into 2022!!

Elaine Randall Book Club

November Book Club

In November, the Elaine Randall Book Club will be reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. We will meet to discuss on Tuesday, November 30.

In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.

For more information, contact Sandra Squires

Volunteers

Friday, November 26

8:00 AM -Men's Bible Study, for Zoom, CLICK HERE
Meeting ID: 725 959 1126

Sunday, November 28

8:30 AM -Eucharist in person

9:40 AM -Sunday School
9:40 AM -Adult/Youth Group Advent Class

10:30 AM -Eucharist in person & via Facebook Live CLICK HERE

11:30 AM -Greening of the Church

Monday, November 22

6:15 PM -The Order of the Daughters of the King Prayer and Bible Study

Tuesday, November 23

6:30 PM -EFM (Contact Jack for Zoom Link)

Wednesday, November 24

12:00 PM -Midday Prayer

6:00 PM -NO Youth Group

Dec. 4 & 5 Thistle Lights & Thistle Blooms Sale in the Parish Hall
Dec. 12 Sunday School Youth Recording Epiphany Project
Dec. 19 Lessons and Carols
Dec. 24 Christmas Eve services
Jan. 2 Epiphany Services
Jan. 23 Sunday School Parent Meeting

PARISH CALENDAR

Rector's Reflection

Thursday, 11/25/21

Thanksgiving

If you’ve ever heard me begin an off-the-cuff prayer, it’s probably started this way: “Good and gracious God, thank you for the gift of today.”

I can’t recall exactly when that settled in for me as my “go-to.” But I do remember praying as a child and feeling like making the sign of the cross was like picking up a phone and hearing a dial tone (you have to understand, it was a different time …). In the finest tradition of “Hello, this is Ben; is so-and-so there,” beginning a prayer has always felt like beginning a conversation with God, not by reaching out to someone far off in some other house, but by stopping my own awareness, which drifts and rambles far off throughout Creation, and calling it back to attention about who it is that is always with me.

Back in seminary, I’m pretty sure I began my prayers with “Almighty God.” There’s a whole catalogue of names, descriptions, and “titles of direct address” (or some such thing) that you can use when you pray. But at some point, Almighty God just seemed a bit too distant to me. It’s powerful language for sacramental prayers. It’s a way of remembering that the one who blesses and restores us is greater than the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that trouble us in this world. It’s absolutely part of who God is.

But at some point I realized that when I pray, I’m also praying to someone to whom I am overwhelmingly grateful.

I’m grateful to God for my life, and my stewardship of it. For Creation, and my chance to live in the daily awe of this world and God’s people in it, who I can meet and know and learn from. I’m grateful that the Gospel is something I learned early enough in my life that it could stand as an alternative to a lot of temptations I might have been suckered into along the way, especially to dismiss and mock neighbors I never would have met or learned to love, if I hadn’t been a Christian. I’m grateful that God’s saving work in my life keeps me focused on the reconciliation of all people, and the restoration of our world, and gives me hope for both small and mighty moments of grace in our community and our world.

When I pray to God, to whom I’m so grateful, I’ve found myself – for years now – taking up instead the words, “Good and gracious God, thank you for the gift of today.” And when I begin there, I can trust that I have at least some part of the right posture to be in before the Holy One who continues to bless and guide me.

Our national holiday of Thanksgiving is a beautifully human affair. It’s a time when our usual tables are made larger, and often have a guest or two even beyond what we expected. It’s a moment when we take up abundance with gusto and intention, making sure – as Charles Dickens once wrote – “that everybody had enough.”

Even the dry jokes we make of it – about the “crazy uncle” you have to put up with – are, in their own way, a quiet sign that for all the pain and chaos of our disagreements now, some piece of us understands in our depths that ultimately God will gather everyone at a common table, the great Feast that we catch a glimpse of at the altar of Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Table of Christ.

And remembering the history of Thanksgiving – the table that members of the Wampanoag tribe set before starving Plymouth settlers, half of whom had already died in their first winter in the unfamiliar land of this other people – can be a somber reminder of a different way of caring across our differences, and other histories we might have had together, if things had only been a bit different. Here, too, is a place that Christians might ask for the grace of God – and here, perhaps, we need Almighty God – to let our generations be generations of reconcilers, committed to the kind of care for the stranger that once rescued starving pilgrims.

For all that the history might be fraught, the practice of giving thanks should be a deeply faithful one. It is a chance to take stock of blessings in our lives, and also to commit ourselves to the real and lifelong Christian discipline of making ourselves a blessing to others, and to do it, as we’re able, in the company of both those we love most deeply and the newest stranger at our table.

And I will happily lift a plate of pie in toast to that.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Fr Ben +

St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

285 S 208th Street

Elkhorn, NE 68022

402-289-4058

Church Communication and Announcements

Those of you who need to share information with the parish, please be sure to send it to parish@sainta.net as well as ministries@sainta.net Jay and Kate will need to have this information by Wednesday at 10:00 am to be included in that week's communication for bulletin and newsletter. We appreciate your support.