St. John's Episcopal Church - Centreville, VA |
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Parish News - April 7, 2021 |
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Dear St. John's Parishioners and Friends:
Many, many thanks go to all the people who worked hard to make our outdoor service on Easter Day a reality! It was a beautiful day with about 68 people in attendance. It was so good to see so many St. John's parishioners as well as friends and visitors. Special thanks go to David Weir who has put together over 100 services in the past year that we have had online services. Each service takes many hours to put together and get it ready to put online. Thanks, David!
This Sunday, April 11, we will have an online service from the Diocese of Virginia. Bishop Susan Goff will be the preacher.
As we enter this Easter season, may we continue to rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Carol
(To view the Easter service on YouTube, the link is below the photos)
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From the Bishop’s Office
As the diocese is no longer publishing the quarterly Virginia Episcopalian magazine, they are encouraging everyone to subscribe to the "e-communique," which will give information about what is going on in our diocese as well as stories of various ministries. You will receive the e-communique as an email. Click on the subscribe button to sign up.
We strongly encourage you to subscribe to keep up with what is happening in our diocese.
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Cleaning the church THIS Saturday!
On Saturday, April 10, we will have a "cleaning of the church"! It has been just over a year since we have had services in the church. It now looks like we might be able to get back into the church for services, sooner rather than later, using COVID guidelines. We want to give the church a good cleaning before we gather in the church. We will start at 9:00 AM. Please bring cleaning supplies.
Sunday, April 11
This Sunday, April 11, the diocese will have a service online with Bishop Goff preaching. St. John's will not have an online service this Sunday. Here is the link to this Sunday's diocesan service:
Vacation
Carol will be on vacation the week after Easter and will be back on Sunday, April 11. In case of a pastoral emergency, please contact Susie Pike, Senior Warden (571-275-4744).
Annual Parish Meeting
Our Annual Parish Meeting that was postponed from February, will be held on Sunday, May 2. More details about the time and location will be coming later. You should have received the reports from our various committees and ministries by email earlier this month. Please plan to attend.
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Outreach: Ampersand and WFCM
Thank you to all of the diaper donors at St. Johns! The delivery took place this past Saturday. The Ampersand Pantry Project in Leesburg VA provide lunches from 11:00 to 1:00 p.m., seven days a week. Not only do they provide meals, but also pet food and diapers. This past Saturday, April 3rd, the program crossed over 90,000 meals. The good news is, they have gone from providing about 300 lunches per day to 230 lunches per day. As people get back on their feet, the demand is less. John and Val Tucker, Elise Crawford, and Andrew and Lori Wade made the delivery and worked at the Ampersand Project for about two hours. Different tasks included dividing up the supplies in Ziploc bags as well as delivering (from a distance) to the cars in line to receive goods. Given that it was Easter weekend, flowers were also donated and given to the people in need.
This project costs about $10,000 per week to run. The donors include local civic organizations, churches, an Islamic Center, corporations, and individuals. The program has just turned one year old and the diverse donor base have met the weekly need. It is an amazing grass roots project, that was timed perfectly with this pandemic.
Here, locally in Chantilly at Western Fairfax Christian Ministry (WFCU), the demand for food has not lessened. St. Johns continues to have intermittent food drives. However, until the next one, we accept food donations seven days per week in the box out front, as you enter the church.
If you need someone to pick up any supplies or would like to give funds for someone else to make the food purchases, please contact the church office @ 703-803-7500.
The Outreach Committee
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Be a Sunday service reader, from anywhere!
During this time of covid, St. John's holds a Sunday morning prayer service which is "aired" on Sunday mornings at 9 AM. The readings are
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...pre-recorded, and several parishioners have been doing a great job doing them, from different venues - no matter where they are! We welcome, need, and value your help! If you would like more information on how to do this, click here for the info page on SignUp Genius. Please sign up a week before the Sunday you would like to read, so we can get the readings to you and you can get your recording to David Weir by Thursday.
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Every Wednesday, St. John's has a Service of Evening Prayer at 6 PM. It is a peaceful way to end the day, and it's now being held virtually. Here is the link to this evening's service:
Wednesday, April 7
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The link to the Sunday service is sent out each Saturday as usual. Then join us for the coffee hour from 10:00 - 10:30 and the Adult Lectionary Class at 10:30 AM on Zoom. The links will be sent out in Saturday's email to all.
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"LIFT ME UP"
FACILITIES CAMPAIGN
A tremendous thank you to all who contributed to the Lift Me Up facilities campaign drive. Additional donations this week have made the new total: $48,000! Thanks to the generosity of the people of St. John's that will enable us to keep our building welcoming guests for many more years. Your faithfulness to the mission of St. Johns in this difficult year is an inspiration.
Lisa Heller and Andrew Wade
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SUNDAY WORSHIP & EDUCATION |
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The Adult Lectionary Forum
Now being held virtually via Zoom. All are invited to join in, following the virtual Sunday service. The links to the Forum and the service are sent out in a separate email on Saturdays.
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We can prepare our hearts & minds by reading ahead
for the Sunday Service lesson
The Second Sunday of Easter
April 11, 2021
The First Reading:
Acts 4:32-35
As the early Church proclaims the resurrection of Christ, poor and rich Christians unite in common life and care for each other.
The Psalm:133, page 787, BCP
The Second Reading:
1 John 1:1–2:2
Walking in God’s light means turning from our sins and finding forgiveness through Jesus.
The Gospel:
John 20:19-31
In a joyous reunion with his disciples, Jesus imparts the Holy Spirit. He later grants Thomas the evidence this disciple required to believe in the Lord’s resurrection.
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Online Contributions
to St. John's
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St. John's now offers three buttons for online donations via Tithe.ly. You may use the buttons below to go directly to Tithe.ly, or you may download the Tithe.ly app on your phone or tablet.
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The Pledge payment button may be used only to make your pledge payment (after signing up to be a pledger, which may be done at any time in the year. See Carol or Vestry)
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The Facility Campaign button may be used only for any contribution for the facility's buildings and grounds, or special facility campaigns.
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The Donation button may be used for any other type of donation to St. John's. To designate a special purpose (i.e. Organ Fund, Ministry Partner payments, etc.) please send a note to [email protected].
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Sermons from the Bishop's Online Chapel
Each week, one of our bishops or a member of the diocesan staff prepares and posts a sermon based on the Sunday's readings that can be used for online services. Here is the sermon posted for this past Sunday.
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A Meditation for the First Week of Easter
“Practice Resurrection”
Did you put the Easter baskets up? Have you already moved into the next thing? Has your attention moved to taxes? Remember that Easter is not a day but a season. It’s the Great Fifty Days when the Risen Lord shows up all over the place. He's on the road to Emmaus; he’s on the beach with the disciples; he’s in the Upper Room. Indeed, he is in your daily life today.
There is something about us that can’t quite open all the way up to resurrection, perhaps because it breaks all our notions of a stable universe. Christ being raised from the dead violates all our assumptions. Dead is dead. As a result, there have been countless ways of explaining away the miracle of resurrection. Here are a few:
· Jesus’ followers stole his body out of the tomb.
· Jesus wasn’t completely dead on the cross.
· Jesus was given a drug that made him seem dead.
· Jesus had a twin brother who pops up after the crucifixion and claims to be Jesus. (This one gets a prize for originality.)
· His followers just had visions or simply remembered him.
· In the Upper Room he hypnotized the disciples to believe they saw him after he was dead.
Perhaps the motive for these explanations is that the resurrection turns the world right side up. Resurrection defies all our laws. It is a fundamental reorientation. It’s a different way of seeing not just life after death, but this life in which we live. God is truly God and, therefore, anything is possible. There is another life beyond death. The gifts the Risen Christ gives us are peace, forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit, and those gifts create a new world. Christ is risen; we are risen.
In the Great Fifty Days of Easter, we are invited to rediscover another way of seeing; another way of being; another way of relating. The old laws are transcended and it’s a new world. In Luke’s gospel, one of the Risen Christ’s last deeds is to “open their minds.”
In his poem, The Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, the poet Wendell Berry writes: “So, friends, every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world.…. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.”
Christ is risen. We are risen. In this Eastertide, let us proclaim the Good News by word and deed. We have been given a new way of seeing and a new way of being. The old ways of mapping the world are dissolved. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. To practice resurrection is to let go of our labels of others and of ourselves. Like the disciples we are sent out to proclaim this news that we all can start over and see ourselves and others with new eyes. Our old ways of defining and separating and labelling the world have vanished. It’s a new creation.
What if we let go of our labels and categorization of others and saw them as souls seeking to find their way? What if we reached out to the very persons we least want to be with? What if at the end of every political declaration we add the words, “but I could be wrong”? Remember that at the cross, Jesus forms a new family. He says to his mother that the disciple John is now her son and to John that Mary is now is mother. Because at the cross everyone there belongs to the scar clan, and, therefore, has let go of the divisive ways of defining the world. We want to be made new and when we are, the gratitude for God’s grace dissolves our old ways of labeling the world.
“So, friends, every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. …. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.”
Bishop Porter Taylor
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Hallelujah
You might find it inviting to say “Hallelujah” throughout the day as you take in life, and as you take on life. Notice the panoply of spring buds on the trees, look at the brave little flowers peeping up from the cold earth, listen to the birds singing their solos; savor the fragrances and aromas of creation; revere what God has created in human life – all of us so different from one another, and yet so much the same.
-Br. Curtis Almquist
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and the office number is 703-803-7500.
May our ministry together spread God's love to all whom we encounter.
- Carol
The Rev. Carol Hancock, Rector
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