July 24, 2016 (full size gallery)
The church’s work in a number of areas was displayed all in the past week –
1. Christian Ed and Fellowship with Vacation Bible School. Here is "only the best." We had 13 children.
2. Outreach to the Community – Village Harvest. A record amount of produce distributed!
3. Outreach to the Community and celebrating our own history – Altarpiece scaffolding removed – central portion, pinnacles and now framework complete.
4. Work with the children in Acolyte training.
Cookie also wrote an article for the Caroline Progress about last Sunday’s farewell to Callie
Today we had 32 on possibly the warmest Sunday of the year. Crepes Myrtle remain beautiful around Port Royal. Few people were out due to the heat. The pier was practically empty.
After 3 months we got the altar back today with the removal of the scaffolding.
Two of the children collaborated on hymn of praise, "This is the Day" which they learned in Vacation Bible School. We had some enthusiastic reactions to the song!
Catherine, Roger and Nancy collaborated on the prelude, "Give Me Jesus". Tammy brought Fred and Crystal to church and we welcomed them as well as many of the ladies who apparently got the "memo" this week to wear blue. Blue was the color of the day with the revealing of the Altarpiece work to date which features blue.
We celebrated Eunice’s 6th decade birthday and Jennifer’s 24th wedding anniversary. The bulletin is here.
This week we do a second Village Harvest luncheon.where we invite the participants in our food distribution to a lunch in our new kitchen with some of our parishioners. We hope to get to know them better and continue the dialogue began two weeks ago. The first one went well. Please let Catherine know if you can attend on Wed., July 27 at 1:30pm. We had a good turnout at the last Village Harvest. We need to know how those who benefit see it going forward.
Today’s readings encourage us to relate to God with boldness and persistence. The gospel today, Luke 11:1-13, is a collection of Jesus’ sayings about prayer. So the first reading is the story of Abraham’s intercession with God on behalf of some innocent potential victims who live in Sodom. The psalmist gives thanks for God’s strong hand in a time of trouble. Paul warns the Colossians not to exchange the lordship of Christ for human teachings. Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray and illustrates the right attitudes with a story. The readings also present the many faces of God – as challenger, restorer, enemy, parent, and transformer.
The scriptures of our faith fully reveal the true character of God. The passage from Genesis is one of the most sublime revelations of the nature of God in the Bible. The extraordinary dialogue between Abraham and God teaches us two vital lessons: first, that God hears the prayers of those whose hearts are in tune with God’s; secondly, that God’s readiness to pardon is an integral factor in God’s justice.
The sermon concentrated on the passage from Luke.
"So when the disciples ask Jesus how to pray, he gives them the words that we know as the Lord’s Prayer and then follows the prayer with some advice on being persistent in prayer." And then he says to them, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
"Luke tells us that the ultimate answer to prayer, the ultimate gift that God will give us if we ask, seek, and knock, is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the good thing, the thing that will be “added unto us” as today’s paraphrased sequence hymn puts it.
"What happens when we ask and God gives us the Holy Spirit? Through the ages this gift has manifested itself in people in many different and particular ways—but overall, the following things about receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit are true for each and every one of us. When God gives us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit grows in our lives. The Spirit produces love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in us.
"By being a group of people in which love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control shape who we are as individuals and also our St Peter’s community, we help our children experience these good things, so that someday they will hopefully ask God for the Holy Spirit for themselves, and seek the Holy Spirit with all their hearts"
"Outside these walls, the gifts of the Holy Spirit seem to be in short supply. .. And at the end of the day, we can end up exhausted when these fruits haven’t been readily available to refresh us. So we have to remember to ask, remember to search, remember to knock. We have to remember to do these things every day, so that the Holy Spirit stays strong and fresh and springing up within us..But most of all, give us the audacity to ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit, to seek it with our hearts, minds and souls, to go to the ends of the earth for it, and to knock on the gates of heaven until you, God, fling those gates wide and your kingdom becomes a reality here on earth."