Dear friends

Blessings for Holy Week.  Please join us for the Thursday, Friday and Sunday Holy Week and Easter services as outlined in the sidebar.  As I said on Sunday, the three services are really one service in three acts.   Please do join us for all three. I'd also encourage you to bring children, grandchildren and guests. Both the meal Thursday evening and the walk on Friday include lots of moving about and no long sermons and are well suited for a multi-generational congregation.   I will also say that if for any reason participating in the walk portion of the Good Friday Service (we begin at St. Laurence and walk to Lakeview United) does not work you are of course welcome to drive from one to the other or simply take part in the service at only one of the two churches.

At the annual meeting on March 1st 

I 'charged' the parish with looking outward for ways to love and serve the world.   Following the meeting we began a series of 'Conversations' to begin to discern a social justice issue that we might focus on as a parish.  First we established some criteria for what sort of issue we would be looking for.  The main criteria that emerged were: (a) it be an issue or project that could engage the whole parish and (b) it have some 'hands on' element.   

Within those two criteria the broad issue that keeps recurring is food.  Both food aid (Food Bank etc.) as well as food security (sustainable and equitable food production and distribution).    Over the next while we will continue to flesh out the whole issue of food and food security. If you were in church on Palm Sunday we had three brainstorming sheets for people to write on.  One asked people to list all the ways St. Laurence is currently involved and/or connected with this issue (we volunteer and give money to the Food Bank, we make sandwiches for the Drop-In Centre, PWRDF has all sorts of projects on food security going on). The second sheet asked people to name existing efforts in this area that we are not necessarily connected with (Good Food Box, The Regional Food Security Strategy of the Calgary Regional Partnership etc. ).  The third sheet asked for comments on where in this big issue of food and food security people would like to focus on. Please have a look at and add to these sheets (posted in the hall) over the next few weeks.  Once we have gathered the feedback the next step will be to further educate ourselves about food and food security.    

With every blessing for Holy Week.

Anna