We are delighted you are worshiping with us from the safety and comfort of your home. Please settle into our worship and allow your heart to be strengthened, your soul restored, and your body refreshed by this worship service of prayer, scripture reading, glorious music, and a homily.
To download the bulletin so you can read along and sing the hymns, please click below.
To listen to only the homily, please click below. We are blessed to have Canon Chris Streeter to be leading worship with us.
We were blessed by the presence of The Rev. Canon Chris Streeter this past Sunday. Chris serves on the bishop’s staff as our Canon for Mission Formation and innovation and is leading the Diocesan initiative of Shaped by Faith. It was a joy to have Chris as our Celebrant and Preacher as he led us in an exploration of “love as the great Christian disrupter” of our lives. Chris was able to visit with our members during coffee hour and then to meet with the vestry as he shared more information on Shaped by Faith and how we may engage with this initiative as we move forward as a parish. For more information on Shaped by Faith, please click here. https://diocesecpa.org/shapedbyfaith/
Our Bishop’s visit. We are blessed today with our bishop’s presence among us. Although she is often here for other events or meetings, today is her official bishop visit with us which happens every two years. Our bishop is our shepherd and chief pastor so her visit with us is an opportunity for us to get to know each other better, to experience worship together, and for us to share our passions around God’s mission here in Shippensburg, and to learn more about the diocese. We invite you all to a reception immediately following the 10 a.m. service. After our fellowship time, Bishop Scanlan will meet with Mother Barbara and your vestry members.
Confirmation of our Young People. We were blessed by our bishop as she gave our young people two choices for confirmation this year: 1) confirmation during her official episcopate visit (once every 2 years) and 2) a service in the fall where our young people will assume integral liturgical roles and the service will be an intimate celebration of their affirmation of their adult faith. The second option allowed for continued formation of our young people as they had not yet completed their more formal confirmation preparation. That service will be on November 5th and we invite the congregation to be a part of this special time.
We celebrate with all our young people and acknowledge and affirm their walk in faith. Today, our young people who will be prayed over and blessed in preparation for their continued confirmation preparation are: Jonathan Luo, Julia Rhodes, Alexander Smeltz, and James Williams. Our young people who will be confirmed today are: Sarah Brooks and Neiley O’Donnell. We give praise and thanksgiving to God for their presence here among us and their faithful example of growing into the love of Christ.
Confirmation of our adults. We are incredibly blessed that both Donna Harpster and Juanita Mills are being confirmed in the Episcopal Church and becoming official members of our parish. We are delighted to welcome them into our part of the Body of Christ and rejoice of their presence and commitment to faithful living.
It seemed appropriate that the gospel text for the day of the Bishop’s visit was on Jesus’ mountaintop experience which transfigured him and transformed the disciples in their understanding of Jesus’ identity and their shared mission. That’s what happened yesterday when Bishop Audrey Scanlan led us in worship, confirmed those ready to commit anew to their faith, blessed a parish member and resident of The Episcopal Home who wanted to reaffirm her faith, engaged in the sharing of stories and experiences of the sacred, and met with our vestry. It was a mountaintop experience for us all! We left, coming down from the mountain, changed and clearer of who we have become as a parish and what God has placed on our hearts to do. We all offered the depth and breath and best of ourselves to God and each other — and the Holy Spirit gathered us all together to bring God’s glory into our world.
We are so grateful for our bishop’s pastoral guidance and leadership and her ability to enter fully into our life as a parish and to enhance it.
We offer our congratulations and blessings upon the people who were confirmed or who reaffirmed their faith yesterday:
One of the very meaningful parts of our bishop’s visit was the time she spent with our younger members. We gathered in a circle and shared an object that is special to us and why and then shared where we each find God at St. Andrew’s. After each person’s sharing, we entered into a time of silence, then chanting, which seemed to draw us ever closer to each other and with God. What was remarkable and stunning to me was that all of our young people seemed to speak so naturally about finding God at St. Andrew’s. It was as though this is the most natural thing in the world. For many of us, it is. But for some, those two things, spirituality and the institutional church, don’t always come together. I feel blessed that we at St. Andrew’s are forming our young people to expect to discover God in what they do here at church and in the people gathered. One of the most touching responses for me was when one of our young people mentioned that when they stand up in front of the congregation to sing, they are aware of God looking back at them through the people in the pews.
The bishop spent time getting to know the vestry members and exploring what the term missional means. This word takes the more familiar concept of outreach and expands and extends it to speak of experiences where all those involved are changed and transformed. There is a mutuality of growth that happens when we move from doing something FOR someone to doing something WITH someone in such a way we are all changed and our lives are enhanced.
I know the bishop’s visit is one day which is etched in my heart, now and through all eternity. This is what church is all about. Many blessings, Mother Barbara
We were blessed this morning to celebrate with The Rev. Deacon Wanda Kloza as we as the church celebrate her 5th Anniversary of her ordination. Wanda was raised us by our parish as a deacon and has served our parish and the diocese faithfully these past five years. Wanda continues to inspire, challenge, and empower us to serve God by serving our neighbors, and to do it in community.
Shortly after I arrived here at St. Andrew’s, I was asked to represent the parish and offer our support to Wanda’s ordination as a deacon. As we sat before the Standing Committee, Wanda was asked, “Why do you need to be ordained to do what God has called you to do?” A typical answer could be, “Well, if I have a collar around my neck, then people will recognize that I am doing God’s work, or they’ll feel comfortable talking with me about their problems,” since often the response involves the value of being recognized as someone representing the church. That’s important, but Wanda, however, gave the most extraordinary answer to this question, and one which will always reside in my heart. Wanda said, “I will have bound my heart to God in a brand new way.” Wanda understands that ordination sets us aside to represent the church in our world ~ and Wanda understands it is a deep and solid spiritual commitment to bind our heart to the God whose heart fills the world with love. Wanda is a deeply faithful person who understands how to surrender completely to the God she loves.
While Wanda was at St. Andrew’s, she was instrumental in the development of SPO (Shippensburg Produce Outreach) and has continued her ministry of feeding the hungry as a Diocesan deacon, spearheading the Diocesan ministry of “Feed My Sheep”. Wanda continues to be involved with our parish, worshiping with us when she is able, and with involvement in our Youth Mini-Mission Events.
I’m sure you feel the same way I do, life is always better when Wanda is around! There’s a spark of energy, an openness to the Spirit, and a drawing together of community which she so naturally brings with her.
Congratulations, Deacon Wanda! We love you!!
Blessings,
Mother Barbara
At the Diocesan Convention, Mother Barbara was elected to the Standing Committee, and then re-elected as the President of the Standing Committee at a meeting following the Diocesan Convention.
The Standing Committee is often seen as “the vestry” of the Diocese, and whose main roles are to “stand with” the bishop while the bishop is in office and “stand in” for the bishop when there is a vacancy in the office.
This past year, the Standing Committee spent time understanding the Canons & Constitution of the Diocese which outline the roles and responsibilities of this group, working with the Commission of Ministry to reconstruct a ministry discernment process which meets the needs of the emerging church, collaborating with the finance committee regarding parish loans for capital campaigns, assisted in the engagement of interviews for the Bishop’s First Year in Review, and listened to and embraced the concept of missional church.
We look forward to continuing this ministry together as a group dedicated to moving the diocese into the next step in their vision of how to join God in God’s work in our communities.
Know Your Story. Live it Boldly.
This was the theme of this year’s Diocesan Convention. We were called in multiple ways to connect our story (our life) to God’s story and God’s story (scriptures) to our story. We were also challenged to see it all as a part of the Jesus Movement, as Presiding Bishop Curry speaks of so often, giving it the tag line of us becoming loving, liberating, and life-giving.
Through innovative worship, prayer, conversation, dialogue, video testimonials, and song, we found a way which forged a path toward finding our common story.
Deacon Wanda shared her amazing story of her refugee father and the impact that had on her life, which ultimately led to her introduction to the Anglican Church, while living in London. To listen to her story, click here.
The business section of the convention approved two resolutions, one endorsing our support of the initiative of “Feed My Sheep” which calls the parishes to continue to embrace feeding programs as well as advocacy programs to fight the causes of poverty and one which commits our diocese to life-long formation of all people.
It was a time of inspiration, joy, and coming together as the people of God, here in the Diocese of Central PA.
