9 am Eucharist and 11am Morning prayer on a day that started out rainy and ended up a clear day. We had 10 at 9am and an even 40 at 11am. We welcomed Jim and BJ Anderson back from Texas during the winter but were disturbed to hear about his experience with hail in the winter.

Morning Prayer featured a sermon by Jackie Collins on her experiences with Young Life in King George. Young Life is an interdenominatal group of students who discuss religious issues as they affect young students.  

In particular she belongs to the campaigners subgroup that features more Bible reading and discussion.

Using two chairs she described the role of sin and then reconciliation with God.

She then went into then challenge of dealing with Tyler's near death experience while keeping her faith. Young Life obviously helped deal with the ordeal. 

The Gospel deal with sherpherding and obviously the adult leaders of the organization provide an example of that with the youth.

The children's choir also performed "Jesus showed us God’s Love" at the offertory. The words were printed in the bulletin . They were accompanied by Catherine Hicks and Becky Fisher. Nancy Long is also involved in their training.  The children's choir meet three Wed a month for song, fellowship and other activities. 

Catherine also recognized Tierra Carter for her donation of a Bald Cyprus tree and Nancy Wick for some Lenten Roses. The tree show above was planted near the river and the roses in back of the sacristy
 

The joint ECW/Evening ECW luncheon was held at Lynn's Tavern after church. 14 attended. They resolved to share meeing minutes with each other to improve communications between them. Marian above is welcoming to the luncheon

The scripture readings revolved around Jesus as shepherd and recognizing the role of a shepherd in the other readings.

People in Jesus time knew sheep. Even they made their living as a carpenter or fisher, they knew or watched the shepherds all of the time, moving the sheep and goats from the pens to the fields. They drank the milk of those animals, turned that milk into cheese, and eventually ate the animals. Those animals provided not just daily nourishment, they were essential for important religious rituals.  

The scripture this week is part of the task written in the Gospel of John to understand who Jesus was.  Over and over again people were trying to understand who Jesus was and where he came from. "Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? . . . Who do you claim to be?" (John 8:53) Then, after being driven out of the temple, Jesus passed a blind man begging. As a sign of who he was, Jesus explained that the man's blindness was not caused by his sin or the sin of his parents. Rather, "he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him" (John 9:3).

The good shepherd decides who is in the sheepfold, we do not. "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold." (John 10:16) The Pharisees and the disciples alike thought that they knew who the chosen ones of God were. But this shepherd is telling them, and telling us, that there will be "one flock, one shepherd" and it is God, in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, not we, who bring together that flock Jesus' lengthy exploration of what it means to be and who is the good shepherd is a response to a group of Pharisees. 

What does it mean to be a sheep of Jesus' flock?  As the sermon states "This good shepherd provides for our needs, revives us, guides us, accompanies us through the shadowy places in our lives, disciplines us, comforts us, sets a table for us, and anoints us with his goodness and his mercy."  

It means that we enter through his gate. Jesus is the way to salvation. We know his voice and follow him. He cares for us, keeping us safe. And when we wander away, which we know we do all too often, he comes searching for us. It's an up close, personal relationship.

The sermon proposed another "I AM" for Jesus.  "I AM the bridge. Jesus is like that for us-- a bridge between this life and the next.  The voice of Jesus never changes—Jesus calls us now, and someday, each one of us will hear that familiar and loving voice calling us across the bridge that carries us over the valley of the shadow of death into new life.  Jesus laid down his own life to become the bridge under our feet—as we sang last week"

"Jesus is also the bridge that connects each one of us with the other.  When we listen to his voice, we hear his voice telling us to love one another...  And so, even though we cannot see the destination across the bridge that those we love travel as they cross over the valley of the shadow of death, we know that they are still in the one flock in which we abide.  They have entered into the communion of saints, and they aren’t far away at all. "

The sermon is here. The readings are published as well as the bulletin for 9am and 11am.

We celebrated both Christ the King Sunday and Thanksgiving (with a Thanksgiving tree!) on a mild November day. It took two services to do it. 50 people attended the 11:00am service and 33 were at the Service of Praise and Thanksgiving at 1:30pm with Memorial Baptist.  This was the last Sunday in Year A concentrating on the Gospel of Matthew before we move to Mark next week. The bulletin is here.  A photo gallery of this Sunday can be found here.

The readings portray God and Christ as shepherds, rulers and arbiter of justice. The Matthew parable was the culmination of the end of time stories in Chapter 25 over the last 2 weeks which included stories about the bridesmaids and talents.

This time we are at judgment day where Christ separates the Sheep (righteous) from the Goats (unrighteous). The sheep get to the kingdom because of their faith which led to works that helped "the least". They served Jesus even though they were not conscious of doing so. They had already separated themselves with their works.  Such as was the case with the sermon on Cynthia Newcott. "Until 2006, when the last of her four children graduated from high school and she became ill with ovarian cancer, Mrs. Newcott opened her home to as many as 50 guests every Tuesday night. " She did this for 15 years reaching out to young people of every age group. 

The new youth choir was featured in a play directed by Nancy Long, "Turkey, Potatoes and Peas", a tale about thanking God for the Thanksgiving feast as well as many other things. As we sang in the Offertory -"All Hail the Power of Jesus" name. 

We also celebrated the "least" by taking up the Samaritan Purse shoeboxes.18 boxes were donated for use in the world. Thanks to Nancy Long for spearheading this project.

Members from Memorial Baptist joined at noon for lunch featuring venison, goose, various vegetable casseroles, breads and cake, including Brad's pound cake. Thanks to a group of volunteers under Cookie Davis. The youth had a good time playing on the hill leading down to the river. 

At 1:30pm the Service of Praise and Thanksgiving began. Marilyn provided a wonderful harp opening, subdued and beautiful. We sang many traditional hymns separated by readings from Deuteronomy and Corinthians. Barbara Raphael, Pastor Mike's wife sang "Amazing Grace" and our own Town Crier Mike Newman read Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789.

Certainly a highlight for the service was completing a joint thanksgiving tree. Everyone wrote down things they were thankful for on yellow paper and they were attached to the Board. Both ministers read them which included thanks for family, friends, nature and the work of God and Jesus. 

All in all a wonderful day to celebrate the end of the Church year in Matthew and the beginning of our Thanksgiving celebration this week

This Sunday began of a focus on stewardship for the next three Sundays- talent, time and treasure. Today, organist Brad Volland shared his experiences of talent and how church music was a natural fit. He began in music at age 5 and earned an organ degree from VCU. He was a pastry chef for 10 years and has spent much of his time in his working life as a paralegal away from music. He was been with us a year and has enjoyed getting back to church music with the choir and especially working with the 1850 organ. He expressed a love for the congregation and their support of him after he had his accident earlier in this year.

The sermon stressed the gifts we can make since we are part of the gifts since we are made in the image of God - "The things that belong to God are each and every one of us and all of creation..."Because we are made in God’s image, God deeply desires that each and every one of us will offer ourselves to be used for God’s work and for God’s glory in this world so that God can be more visible and known in the world."  

Catherine handed out of a dollar to everyone and reviewed how the dollar bill on the reverse shows the eye of God watching over us and how we use our gifts.   "Where do I want to be found doing God’s work?" What if our image was on the dollar bill. It would be like one or more of us would be in the world and would make God more visible. She challenged us to deposit the dollar in the place or use the money elsewhere. As always "render to Caesar what is Caeser's and and unto God the things that are God’s." The sermon is here and the readings here. The bulletin is published.

Both services today remembered 9/11 on its tenth anniversary. The Prayers of the People  at 11am  featured Bishop Shannon’s “Litany for the Tenth Anniversary of September 11, 2001, a part of the bulletin and the evening service used "The Litany of Remembrance" was written by The Reverend Thomas Weitzel, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. There is a slideshow on the evening service and the day at St. Peter's. We had 41 at the 11am service and 44 at the 7:30pm on a day with brilliant sunshine.

Christian education and the sermon came to grips with the concept of mercy and forgiveness from Matthew 18.  As expressed in the sermon “forgiveness is a process, a long drawn out process if the hurt is deep enough.  In the end, reaching a state of forgiveness  in which I can let go and be free of the hurt I’ve suffered is finally an act of grace and mercy from God.”  It is a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge and frees us from destructive feelings. It is not condoning, forgetting, giving in or reconciliation.

Forgiveness can lead to reconciliation but may not. Many of these concepts were taken from  Father Frank Desiderio, a member of the Paulist religious order in the Catholic church, in a series of talks on forgiveness called "Letting Go:  Five Steps to Forgiveness"

The evening service theme was from the Book of Lamentations:  
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

For the evening service, the church was bathed in candles provided by several members of the congregation including BJ, Terri, Elizabeth and  Marilyn.   Nancy and Brad teamed up for "Our Father Who Art in Heaven." We would like to thank St. Asaph's which provided an outstanding choir in support and for Rev. Bambi Willis' homily on 9/11. 

The outside featured luminaries lighting the way as the congregation departed in silence.