Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the Name of the Lord.
We are now in our Capital Campaign Countdown.
Of course, you may have forgotten exactly how the overall campaign is going to work, or you may have joined our community in the last year or so and not be all that familiar with the project. That's why we've attached to the email version of this newsletter an updated copy of the Building Campaign Frequently Asked Questions--so we can all either refresh our memories or learn for the first time about this exciting and important effort.
Then, on Saturday, August 31, we will begin one of the important components of the campaign, our three year pledge drive. We will kick off that effort on August 31, because that's the feast day of the holy woman who is the patroness of our campaign, St Eanswythe of Folkestone. Starting the evening of Friday, August 30, we will offer an All Night Vigil for St Eanswythe, and, during the vigil, we will have the saint's new reliquary on display. All of us will be invited to stop by during the vigil, reverence the reliquary, and place in the offering baskets a donation card which will record how much we intend to give to the campaign from September of this year through December of 2027.
To help us make the most of our Capital Campaign Countdown, over the next eight weeks, we will have all sorts of announcements and resources in The Happy Priest, and we will be running a series of articles written by various folks in our parish. The first article is by one of our priests, Father Andrew Wilson; look for it later on in this newsletter.
Our Calendar
Fasting Days
Wednesday, July 10, and Friday, July 12
Daily Services
We will offer Daily Vespers each day this week at 5pm; Orthros will return soon; thanks to everyone for their patience. Fr. Andrew, Seth Hart, and Matthew Groh and many other folks continue to broadcast daily readings from spiritual books online. They are now reading “The Ethics of Beauty”. The schedule is as follows: M-F at 12pm.
Also, our online team will now be reading the Daily Synaxarion on Discord. Just look for this channel: #synaxarion
Tuesday, July 9
Orthodoxy 101 7pm; you can also access the group on Discord
Even Chanter Team Rehearsal 7pm
Thursday, July 11
The Bible Study, New Testament Edition 7pm; you can access this group on Discord
Odd Chanter Team Rehearsal 7pm
Saturday, July 13
St Thomas School 4pm
Youth 4pm
Great Vespers 6pm
Sunday, July 14
Sunday of Holy Fathers
Orthros 8am
Divine Liturgy 10am
Fellowship Hour Noon
Tuesday, July 16
Festal Choir Rehearsal 7pm
Orthodoxy 101 7pm; you can also access the group on Discord
Wednesday, July 17
Parish Council Meeting 7pm
Thursday, July 18
Liturgy Choir Rehearsal 7pm
The Bible Study, Old Testament Edition 7pm; you can access this group on Discord
St Thomas School
On Saturday, July 13, Michael R. will be leading the discussion of chapter eight of Volume V entitled, “Monastic Tonsure”. Online access is available on Discord; like to participate online, you still need to sign-up ahead of time. Just send an email to remote.meetings@theforerunner.org by Thursday, July 11, to reserve your spot.
Burial Society Reminder
The St. Joanna Myrrhbearers would like to remind us that the memorial garden, located just off the front walkway to the church, is available for memorializing a variety of our family members. All the information for that is on their page of the church website, but a quick summary is attached to the email version of the newsletter. Please contact Mike B. or Becky T. if you have any questions.
Coming Up
On Sunday, July 21, we will have our Annual Blessing of Automobiles. That’s the Sunday closest to St Elias’ Day, and since St Elias ascended into heaven in a fiery chariot, we’re going to bless all of our cars and trucks on that Sunday. When we get our homes and apartments blessed, we always make sure they are picked up and cleaned up, and we should do the same thing for our vehicles. At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy on the 21, we will process through the parking lots and bless each of the cars and trucks parked there, so let’s make sure that they are all sparkling and clean.
Our next Safety and Security Rehearsal will be for an active shooter event. It will be held on Sunday, July 28, and what we will do is pretty much exactly what we do during our Severe Weather Rehearsal: we will all get down on the floor for 15 seconds, and then we will exit the building in the ways that we normally do and proceed to the rally signs on either end of the property. The only thing that will be different about this rehearsal is that, at the beginning, one of the ushers will say, the word “Gun” in a loud voice, three times. However, we will announce the rehearsal and talk about it briefly before it happens, so it will not be a surprise. This sort of rehearsal may seem more dramatic than the other rehearsals we have throughout the year, but, statistically, we are much more likely to encounter a severe weather event or a medical emergency than an active shooter. Nevertheless, we want to be as prepared as possible for all eventualities, so if you have any questions, please check with our parish council chair or with one of our priests.
Church School Registration
It is time for church school registration for the 2024-25 school year!! As a reminder, children need to be at least 3 years of age by September 1, 2024 and potty trained to register for Level 1, 6 years of age to register for Level 2, and 9 years of age to register for Level 3. SOYO (youth) is for ages 13-18. If you have any questions about CGS (Levels 1-3), feel free to reach out to Sandi A. If you have any questions about SOYO, you can reach out to Father Aidan or Father Andrew. The new CGS calendar will be posted to our parish website shortly but please note that we have an exciting new change!! CGS will now be offered at its regular time (8:15 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Sunday morning) for the first three Sundays of each month. We are so pleased to be able to offer a third Sunday of church school to our children and look forward to spending more time with them. The link for all church school registration can be found in the email version of the newsletter.
Our Moment of Grace and Courtesy
When people need to return items that they have borrowed from someone else, they often bring those items with them to the divine services. However, if the person that you need to give the item to isn't at the service, please be sure and take the item home with you and try to make the connection another time; do not leave the item at the parish in the hopes that the person will eventually stumble across it. Here at St John's we try to assist and support folks in lots and lots of different ways, but we simply cannot be the drop off point for dishes, clothes, books, shoes, produce, shower gifts, toys, baby equipment, birthday presents, tools, movies, home school curricula--you get the idea.
Capital Campaign Countdown Column
Whatever is obtained as a result of long and persistent prayer will remain.
-St John Climacus
We are now just eight weeks away from our three year pledge campaign that will begin on the Feast of St Eanswythe, August 31. If you would like to learn more about the project, please read through the FAQ that is attached to the email edition of this newsletter, but, to help us prepare for this historic effort, this week’s Countdown Column comes to us from Father Andrew Wilson.
In the Holy Scriptures, when you build something for the Lord, He shows up.
In the Old Testament, when the Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses ascends Mt. Sinai, he is given detailed instructions concerning how to build the earthly tabernacle so that it reflected the heavenly tabernacle. Leviticus 9 tells us that when construction was finished and the tabernacle was dedicated, “the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people…and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed [their] offering” (Leviticus 9:23-24). When Solomon finished the Temple in Jerusalem – a permanent type of the tabernacle in the wilderness – the Lord appeared to him and said, “I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time” (1 Kings/3 Kingdoms 9:3).
In the New Testament, when the Most Holy Theotokos completed her time of preparation in the Temple, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her to announce that she would become dwelling place of the incarnate Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity (Luke 1:26-38). When the disciples had been formed into apostles by the teaching of Christ Jesus, the crucible of His passion, and the glory of his resurrection, they were filled with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). Finally, when St. Peter describes the Christian life, he says that each of us are “like living stones being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5); a house that is also filled with the Holy Spirit at the personal Pentecost of our baptism and chrismation.
Rarely do we get a better chance to experience this basic pattern that undergirds reality than when we set out on a building program for our parish. At the outset the whole thing might seem well night impossible. We know how much all of this is going to cost. We know that we are going to face obstacles we haven’t even thought of yet. We know that we’re in for a roller coaster of emotions. But none of that is any different from what Moses, Solomon, the Theotokos, or the Apostles faced. And we have the advantage of learning from them that all we really need to do is to persevere – take it one step at a time, one moment at a time. Because we know that, if we do, the result will be something greater than we can even imagine. The Lord will show up as He always does, and, as a result, none of us will ever be the same.
an unprofitable servant,
andrew
an unworthy priest
aidan