St. John's Episcopal Church - Centreville, VA |
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Parish News - September 1, 2021 |
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Dear St. John's Parishioners and Friends:
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry released a video yesterday about the crisis in Afghanistan. As we mourn the loss of those who have died, both US service members and Afghan civilians, in the push to get out of Afghanistan, he gives us hope and steps we can take to help the Afghan refugees. You can watch the video by clicking on this link:
To contribute financially to provide for housing, medical and financial support, and expanded community sponsorship to serve our Afghan allies, visit bit.ly/supportafghanallies to make a secure donation online, or text “EMMALLIES” to 41444.
To help locally, please see the article below from our Outreach Committee, who is asking people to donate shoes, socks and luggage for the Afghan refugees.
We also continue to remember those who have been affected by the destruction of the hurricanes in Haiti and the Gulf Coast. If you would like to assist them in their recovery efforts, you can do so through a contribution to Episcopal Relief & Development
May we pray without ceasing for our brothers and sisters who are suffering and who are in harm's way.
The Rev. Carol Hancock
Rector
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Many thanks go to those who helped remove our bell last Thursday - Monti Zimmerman, Dave Parker, Andrew Wade, David Daniel Weir, and Larry Pike. The bell was returned to the Navy Yard in Washington where it will be assessed and stored for 2-3 years. It might be put on display in the Navy Museum that is scheduled to open in 2023. |
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PARISH NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS |
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Vegetable Sale - Thanks to all who brought in vegetables from their home gardens last Sunday to sell after church. We made $91 on the sale and people had a wide variety of vegetables to choose from. Next year, the Garden Committee hopes to start a small garden at St. John's to provide vegetables to those in need.
Bring a Friend to Church Sunday - On Sunday, September 12, we will have "Bring a Friend to Church Sunday". Ask a friend or a family member or a neighbor to come to church with you. Offer to pick them up and bring them to church. Studies have shown that it is the personal invitation that brings newcomers to church. It's hard for the unchurched to walk into a church by themselves when they don't know the service or the traditions of the church. So invite someone and bring them with you on September 12!
Vacation - Carol will be on vacation from September 13 - 25, spending one week in New England visiting her brother and sisters, and one week at the beach. The Rev. Anne Ritchie will be the preacher and celebrant on Sunday, September 19. The Rev. Deacon Steve Busch will preach the following week on September 26.
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St. John’s Second Annual Wood splitting Event:
Saturday Morning , October 2, 2021, 8:00 a.m. until....
The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) continues to wreak havoc on the trees on Mt. Gilead Green (the 1.3 acre field) behind the church. These Ash trees have been infested by the EAB for quite some time. There are currently five or six trees that are scheduled to come down during the month of September. The good news from the last time is the Mt. Gilead Green has never looked better, as well as the drainage has been corrected.
The trees will be down before we arrive to cut them up, move the stumps to the splitter, and then neatly stack on pallets. From the pallets, the firewood will be bundled and sold in front of the church.
Please bring:
· Safety first: gloves, ear protection, & goggles
· Rakes
· Wheelbarrows and Dollys/handtrucks
· Extension Cords/Electric Chainsaws
· Gas/Gas Chainsaws
We will have bagels/donuts in the morning and lunch will be provided too. Water and Gatorade will be available all day. This is a fellowship/working event and everyone is invited and encouraged to attend. We are expecting many members of our parish as well as many volunteers outside of our community that are willing to participate in this project. The last time we did this project in February of 2020 (pre-pandemic), it proved to be a fun event and eventually became a little fundraiser as all of the wood was sold over this past winter.
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Bishop Porter's class for the laity - Begins late August/early September
Weekly one-hour sessions via Zoom
In Bishop Porter's fall online class for laity, he'll explore "remembering our Christian calling even as we confront the difficulties we face." To structure the conversation, the group will use a book by Ron Rolheiser, Wrestling With God: Finding Hope And Meaning In Our Struggles To Be Human. Day and time of sessions are to be determined. If you wish to participate, please contact Anita Lisk. See full class description.
We are searching for a new non-profit group to use the parish hall during the week. If you know of any group looking for space, please tell them to contact David Thompson at St. John's (703-803-7500). We need to spread the word as widely and as quickly as possible. There are flyers on the back table in the church if you know of someone to send it to or a public bulletin board to post it. We have put an ad on Craigs List. If you know other websites where we could advertise (preferably for free), please let Carol know.
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Online Service Videos
As we return to in-person worship, it will be important for us to continue our ministry of having our services online for those who cannot or choose not to come to church. Our videos are also sent out by parishioners to friends and family in other states. We need several people to take turns recording the service on Sunday mornings. Instructions will be given. Please join us if you can help with this ministry. We need several people so it doesn't fall on the shoulders of one person every week. Please let Carol know.
You may be on YouTube. As we are now recording our services in the church and posting them on YouTube, you might be recorded in the service, particularly when you are going up to communion or returning to your seat. If this is a problem for anyone, please let Carol know.
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Outreach Committee: Immediate Needs for Afghan Refugees
Eight members of The St. John’s Outreach Committee met on Sunday, August 29, 2021. We engaged a local nonprofit: www.brigadeofmercy.org. We have learned that there are many immediate needs as thousands of Afghan refugees arrive here locally. Many refugees are arriving without shoes and without bags for the many donated clothes that they have been given. This may or may not be a temporary stop as this is a fluid situation.
St. John’s has been asked to help with just three immediate needs over the next few weeks:
New Shoes: Adult Men’s and Women’s Size 7 -12. Tennis/Jogger types. (Ex. $9.99 Wal-Mart) Men/Women’s Socks
Gently used luggage and/or duffle bags
Please leave in the office at the church. If you need someone to pick up any supplies or would like to give funds for someone else to make the purchases, please contact the church office @ 703-803-7500. If you have any other questions, please contact Andrew Wade: andrewdwade@gmail.com / c: 703-477-8980
This may change, but the current plan is to run a three week effort on Sept. 1st, 8th, and 15th.
The Outreach Committee
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Western Fairfax Christian Ministries has put out their list of the foods that they need the most. You can bring your non-perishable items to the church on Sunday mornings, or drop them off in the box outside the door by the breezeway during the week and they will be delivered to WFCM.
· Canned garbanzo beans (low salt preferred)
· Canned kidney beans, red beans, and black beans (low salt preferred)
· Canned pasta
· Pasta Sauce (low salt preferred)
· Canned Tuna and Canned Chicken
· Flavored pasta/rice
· Mashed Potatoes
· Oatmeal (Quaker Oats Healthy Old Fashioned Oatmeal)
· Canned vegetables (corn, carrots, spinach, beets) (low salt preferred)
· Canned Pineapple (no sugar added preferred)
· Tomato Paste (low salt preferred)
· Toiletries: Toilet paper, shampoo, conditioner, feminine pads, deodorant, baby wipes, shaving cream, mouth wash (NOTE: we are not currently in need of diapers due to our partnership with Greater DC Diaper Bank. Please only donate larger size pull ups or wipes if you want to donate items for babies.)
Outreach Opportunity to Help Our “Neighbors”
The Western Fairfax Shepherd Center is still accepting volunteer drivers to support clients who need help getting to appointments, shopping trips (for food), and to deliver food from WFCM to clients. Please contact the Shepherd Center at 703-246-5920 or email scwfc.office@gmail.com and copy Deacon Steve at stjohnscvdeacon1@gmail.com.
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Sign Up: Sunday service reader or usher We welcome, need, and value your help! The lector will read the 2 lessons and the psalm. The usher will hand out bulletins and bring the elements and offering to the altar. If you would like to do either of these, CLICK HERE.
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Sign Up: Altar Flowers
Please indicate how you wish your flower donation to appear in the Sunday bulletin.(Wedding anniversary, in memory of someone - something special you want to remember by providing flowers.) CLICK HERE
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Service of Evening Prayer - Virtually
Every Wednesday, St. John's has a Service of Evening Prayer. 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, September 1
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THE ADULT LECTIONARY FORUM - IN PERSON & ON ZOOM
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Last Sunday's recorded service: The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 29, 2021
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SUNDAY WORSHIP & EDUCATION |
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THE ADULT LECTIONARY FORUM - HELD EACH SUNDAY
All are invited to join in, following the Sunday service, in the library. Or use the link to the Lectionary Forum via Zoom, in case you cannot attend in person, found above.
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We can prepare our hearts & minds by reading ahead
for the Sunday Service lesson
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 5, 2021
The First Reading: Isaiah 35:4-7a
The Psalm: 146, p. 803, BCP
The Second Reading: James 2:1-17
The Gospel: Mark 7:24-37
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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 sjeccentreville@aol.com.
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A Meditation for the Fifteenth Week of Pentecost
Our True Calling
“And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.”
-- William Stafford from “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
By now, we as Americans know that indeed, “we could fool each other” and, yes, we risk “the parade of our mutual life [getting]…lost in the dark.”
It’s so easy to focus on our differences and to forget all that we have in common. It’s so easy to discount those with whom we disagree as misguided or too ignorant to hold our personal view. As Anne Lamott writes, “Isn’t it convenient that God loves the same people we do?”
However, let us remember that Jesus was not concerned with where you came from but with your heart and who your heart is leading you to become. Indeed, he was consistently getting into trouble because he crossed boundaries—like the Sabbath, like table manners, like Samaritans, like men and women on the margins.
Jesus was calling his followers—like you and me—to go deeper and to see our fellow human beings with a new vision: a vision that looks to their hearts and not their surface conditions. The theologian Ron Rolheiser
wrote, “But what our world really needs is for some women and men to step forward and help carry and purify this tension [in our world] to help take it away by transforming it inside themselves.” (Wrestling With God). If we do not proclaim the Good News by word and example, then it’s likely that “the parade of our mutual life [will] get lost in the dark.” It doesn’t mean pasting over our differences; it doesn’t mean pretending we
all agree. It means we live out our baptismal promise to “respect the dignity of every human being” (BCP, 305).
It means we listen to one another and look for whatever truth we can hear. It means we refuse to label one another as if our politics define us. It means after we make a firm statement of our truth to another person, we
say to ourselves “but I could be wrong.”
It means we realize that our deep calling is communion. It means that we realize that when we promise in our Post Communion Prayer: “to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord,” we are not merely
promising to proclaim our faith. We are also promising to witness the presence of Christ in our neighbors and in the people with whom we disagree.
This is our time as the Church. Let us be up to our calling. The darkness around us is deep, but the light of Christ is deeper.
Bishop Porter Taylor
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Call
We are the ones God chooses and sends into places of suffering, to do God’s work of healing, liberating and restoring – and our weakness is no excuse. When we protest the call, citing our own inadequacies, God says to us what he said to Moses, “I will be with you!” We need not be afraid. It is always God’s work, not ours.
-Br. David Vryhof
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My email address is stjohnscvpriest@gmail.com,
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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