• Please review the featured article at right for new and important details regarding the upcoming Annual Council!  
• Camp registration for the 2013 summer season at Shrine Mont is now open! Sign-up your camper and reserve a spot today. We're also looking for a few good men and women to fill director positions for Explorers' Camp, Family Camp, Music & Drama Camp and St. Andrew's Camp. Learn more. 
• The Office of Mission and Outreach is now taking nominations for the Happy Pullman Award and the Bishop's Outreach Award through Friday!  
• Applications for diocesan Mustard Seed Grants are now available online. Churches, regions and college chaplaincies are eligible for this competitive grant which works to strengthen ministries in the areas of youth and college, local outreach, world mission and congregational development. A one-page letter of inquiry is due February 15, 2013 to the Office of Mission & Outreach. Please contact Mary Anne Bryant (mabryant@thediocese.net) if you have any questions.

• Come and listen to speakers share about their mission and outreach ministries at the annual Mission Lunch at Annual Council, Friday, February 25 at 12:30, Regency B. The cost of the lunch is $20 per attendant (actual cost of lunch: $39.45; $20 subsidized by the Office of Mission and Outreach). Please RSVP to Ashley Cameron (acameron@thediocese.net)

• United Thank Offering grant applications are now being accepted. Learn more. 

• New on the blog this week: Effective Church Content Strategies and Resources from the Episcopal Church Center for Older Adult Ministry.  

• The Rev. Lucia Lloyd and the Rev. Kate Chipps will travel to South Carolina in February to visit with a group of continuing Episcopal churches in that diocese who are going through a period of transition and difficulty. The group is in need of some basic church supplies. If you would like to donate any of the following, please bring your contributions to the Council office at the Hyatt Regency in Reston on Friday, January 25 or Saturday, January 26: hymnals, prayer books, purificators, a pall, burses and veils, stoles, candle sticks, altar hangings, linens. 

On Saturday, February 16, members of the Diocese will join together at St. George's, Fredericksburg in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. This event will include a litany of repentance, led by our own Bishop Johnston, and a Celebration of Hope led by the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori.  

• Read Bishop Jefferts Schori's Letter 

• Download the Prayers 

This event for all members of the Diocese is free and open to the public. The service will start at 10 a.m. at St. George's in downtown Fredericksburg.  

• The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity starts on January 22. Resurrection Lutheran Church in Arlington will hold an observance service at 7:30 p.m. on the 22nd. Learn more.  
• The Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation will host a Nurturing Day for Clergy on January 28. Learn more.