This Sunday we had a special offering for our young people ages 9-12 year olds.
Once a month we engage the curriculum “Building Faith: Brick by Brick”. It’s a time when our young people listen to a story from our scripture and then reflect on how it connects to their life, and then they build with LEGOs something in response. It’s all about helping our young people hear something from God’s story and figure out how it’s a part of their story.
Amazing story-teller, David Luo, drew us into the story of our ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, who listened to God, followed God, and trusted God, and accepted from God the blessing of children who would shape the future of God’s people.
It was captivating to hear the story, to understand the deeper themes of loyalty, faithfulness, and hope, which can be present to us even in the times when it doesn’t seem realistic that what God tells us can be possible.
The children were drawn to the desert, were captivated by the figures, thought the river was fascinating, and wondered about the stones which represented Abraham and Sarah’s claiming God’s presence among them.
It’s wonderful how we invite our children into learning the themes which create the larger arc of the biblical stories.
At St. Andrew’s, we are blessed with a number of people whose gifts include offering healing prayers to those in need of Christ’s healing love and grace. This group gathers twice a month for scripture study, prayer, reflection, and opportunities for deepening their relationship with God.
This past Sunday we celebrated the Feast Day of St. Luke, who was one of the gospel writers and also a physician. The theme of healing resonates throughout his stories of Jesus, who is always focused on drawing the poor, oppressed, and isolated people of the society into the center of his love.
At our worship yesterday, we anointed the hands of the healing ministers, saying, “May these hands be blessed to continue God’s healing work in the world.”
We also listened to and were inspired by a homily offered by Ms. Laurel White, one of our healing ministers, who speaks of the three cornerstones for healing: Holy Eucharist, healing prayers, and Confession of Sin. To learn more, please read her sermon which you can access on our website, under “Recent Sermons”.
You are all invited to join us for our meetings and become a part of our healing ministry.
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.
This evening we gathered for companionship along the way, for nourishment for our lives and souls, and we strung our beads, some of which we created last week out of clay, to create our own personalized Anglican Prayer Beads.
We all used olive wood beads from the Holy Land for our “Weeks beads” (the 7 between each cruciform beads). Seven is an important number in the Bible and symbolizes completion.
We also chose from a number of colors the spacer beads. It’s totally amazing how many different variations there were. No two were alike. Some used colors to represent the creation. Others picked colors which complemented their clay cruciform beads, while others chose colors which contrasted their clay cruciform beads. That’s part of the process of choosing and stringing your own beads – each string becomes your own and you see it as a way to express your identity and your particular way to interact with God.
Next week we will gather to pray the beads. Too often we come home from a bead making workshop with a beautiful set of beads and have no idea how to incorporate them into our prayer practice. We want to give everyone a chance to learn how to actually invite and allow them to make a difference in our lives.
We ended this evening with blessing our beads and sharing the Office of Compline together.
It was a wonderful and holy time together. Come and join us for our third session next Wednesday.
This past Saturday, our parish was represented at the National Acolyte Festival~ and it was so much fun! We joined many other young people at our beautiful National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
We brought our many beautiful banners along and proudly joined the procession.
We sat right up front so we could be a part of the grand service. We were honored by the message offered to us by The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson who was the presider and preacher.
His sermon was about “All I ever needed to know I learned from being an Acolyte” was about servanthood, kindness, and acceptance of all people.
We hope each year more and more of our young people can join us. It’s a fabulous experience!
To view more photos of this event, please click here.
Our parish has a long-time commitment to supporting The Episcopal Home, a personal care home located in Shippensburg which offers exceptional care for its residents. Our annual fundraiser often raises $4000.00 which is donated to The Episcopal Home for their benevolent care fund, which helps supports those residents who need additional funds for their care.
This Saturday our St. Andrew’s quilters offered many wonderful items for sale — baked goods, yard sale items, homemade quilted items, delicious vegetable soup, jewelry, and a lovely quilt which has been handmade over this past year.
We are grateful for our commitment to care for those in need, especially our nearby neighbors who live at The Episcopal Home.
To see more photos of this event, please click here.
Last Wednesday, fifteen people gathered in fellowship, ate dinner together, and then got busy in the fun work of creating our own beads for our Anglican Prayer Beads. We learned a bit about prayer beads during our dinner time and then rolled out the clay to make our own.
It was SO much fun. We chose 3-4 colors to work with, layered them by rolling them out, and then cutting them into segments, which we then rolled into beads. It was amazing the colors we chose and the results we came up with. It was as much fun to see what others created as it was for us to create.
There was a real sense of community in creating together.
This coming Wednesday we will take our homemade beads, join them with beads made from olive trees from the Holy Land, and put together our prayer beads. We’ll then bless them and make them holy for our use in finding our way toward God. Come and join us!
Here’s what your Anglican Prayer beads may look like!
Come and make your own set.
Today we celebrated the Feast Day of St. Francis, who is known for his simple life of poverty and service and his deep reverence for God’s creation and all of God’s creatures.
We welcomed many pets, which added fun and liveliness to our worship service. We blessed cats, dogs, guinea pigs, and two adorable little bunny rabbits. We are blessed by the animal companions we share life with. It was a joy to be able to offer God’s blessings upon these animals and the families created by their presence.
Our children and youth choir also delighted us as they sang “All Things Bright and Beautiful”. We are a very blessed congregation.
On our rainy Saturday morning, we gathered in the cozy and restful Parish Library and explored scripture together. One of the gifts of our time together is that we never do know where the conversation will go as we sit with and engage the scriptures. This time we looked at the scriptures from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) for the month of October.
This time we focused on the harvest imagery which is threaded through the various scripture passages from Lamentations, Jeremiah, and Joel. What was fascinating was how our conversation shifted to the period of dormancy, when God appears to be silent, but just as plants are actually in motion inside while appearing to be at rest or even dead from the outside, we discerned that God offers us silence (not an absence of God, but a quiet time with God) so that we can process what God has already revealed to us. Sometime the timing’s not right yet for us to move forward, sometimes our gifts haven’t come enough to fruition to be ready for use for the kingdom. The truth revealed to us in community and through conversation was that when God comes knocking at our door, our response can be simple (yes or no) but the impact on our life is profound and complex.
This evening I spent time with the Daughters of the King (DOK) which is an order for women who make a commitment to a life of prayer, study, and work. There is a discernment process for those why may be interested in joining this more intentional walk with Christ in this particular way in community. Mother Barbara was asked to speak to them about forming a Rule of Life.
A rule of life orders our life with God. It grows out of a conversation with God, as we listen to how God is pulling us deeper into relationship. A rule of life often involves all parts of our life: how we worship God (daily prayer, Sunday Eucharist), our commitment to study (scriptures, tradition, with the use of our reason), and Action (outreach, stewardship, and evangelism).
Just like any relationship that we want to nurture, our relationship with God requires attention, presence, commitment, intimacy, time, and a lot of listening.
If you are interested in speaking to Mother Barbara about how to craft a rule of life that deepens your relationship with God, please contact her at 717-333-5590 or by emailing her at: rector@standrewsship.org.
