St. Martin's Newsletter
   Weekly E-News   May 15, 2015

Worship Schedule
Sunday
8am and 10am
Holy Eucharist
9:45am Nursery
Tuesday-Friday
9am Morning Prayer in the Chapel
Wednesday
7am service with Holy Eucharist 
  Tomorrow...Saturday, May 16

The Knitting Ministry will meet tomorrow from 1-4pm
in the Stearns Room. 
Light refreshments will be served in the Great Hall.
 SUNDAY......Parish Brunch & Information Session
                                                                     11:30am-1pm                                                                                                                                              

St. Martin's is excited to welcome Jon Skov and Bryan Schmeling from Crossroad Financial Associates of Thrivent Financial with a brunch and informative seminar in the Great Hall.  

                                                   
Thrivent Financial is a non-profit organization whose goal it is to help Christians be wise with money and live generously. The expertise and tools provided by Jon and Bryan at this event are designed to help you reduce stress related to financial concerns and provide you with a road map to not only solidify your financial position, but that of our community as well.  

Child care will be provided. 

 

  

The Easter Season is now drawing to its close and with it, a sense of age-old tension mounts! Before naming the tension let me give you a little deep background.

 

This last Thursday, exactly 40 days after Easter, we celebrated the Ascension of our Lord. This is a major celebration of Jesus that does not transfer to the following Sunday and so unless you are in Church on the day, the Ascension passes most of us by without notice. The Ascension emerges from the way Luke the Evangelist organizes the story of salvation into separate events - Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost. Rather like in a play one actor leaves the stage to make way for the next to enter, the Ascension is Luke's way of removing the earthly Jesus from the stage to make way for the entry of the Holy Spirit. Note the symmetry, Jesus (the second member of the Trinity) ascends so that the Holy Spirit (the third member of the Trinity) can descend.  Pentecost, meaning 50 days after Easter, sometimes known as Whitsun - the Anglo-Saxon wytte meaning Holy Ghost, commemorates the experience for the first Christians of an earth shattering change. On the Sunday following Pentecost we celebrate the Most Holy Trinity. Trinity Sunday affirms that the three persons of God are not separate identities but are a relationship that constitutes a Divine Community. Trinity Sunday is also the signal at St Martin's for a rapid flow towards the exodus of summer.

 

Now, back to the mounting tension. The Gospel for this coming Sunday is taken from Jesus's conversation with his disciples at the Last Supper. These words, which in their entirety expand into several chapters in John are known as the Farewell Discourses or the Jesus' High Priestly Prayer. In Sunday's gospel the main thing that grabs my attention is Jesus' perplexing words about his followers being in the world, yet not of the world.

 

There are two collects for the Ascension. In the first the emphasis is on the presence of Christ who abides in his Church on earth. In the second the emphasis reminds us that Jesus has ascended into heaven and so we may also in heart and mind there ascend and with him continually dwell. Wow, can you see what a difference in emphasis? The difference is between Christians being fully engaged in the world and Christians absenting themselves from the world. We see this tension playing out not only in history, but very much today.

 

Which side of this tension do you tend towards? Two areas for fruitful reflection on this question might be:

  • how do you feel when politics and money are talked about in church?
  • does your Christian faith critique issues of human dignity, just economics, and the protection of the environment?

The tension for me is not how do I keep my faith free from being contaminated by the values of the world or from business as usual? It's how does my faith protect me from having to confront the values of business as usual?

 

Hope to see you in Church this Sunday and at the plan now- to give later, brunch!

 

Mark+

+Morning Prayer: Change in Schedule


Morning Prayer is cancelled next week on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
 

There will be Morning Prayer on Wednesday, May 20th. If you would like to do Morning Prayer on your own, please go to http://www.missionstclare.com/english/ which links you to an online community of Daily Office worship.
 

READINGS THIS WEEK


ACTS 1:15-17,21-26 (OT)

  1 JOHN 5:9-13 (NT)
 JOHN 17:6-19 (Gospel)
Click here for this Sunday's readings.
     THIS SUNDAY
Intergenerational Service
at 10am: Please welcome
St. Cecilia's Choir!

+
Parish Brunch & Thrivant Presentation in the Great Hall 11:30-1pm
Youth Group at 11:30am
  
Gluten Free Hosts available at the altar rail
MORNING PRAYER
    
It is my practice to endeavor to say Morning Prayer in the Chapel of the Church at 9am   on Tuesday through Friday each week I look forward to seeing you there!   Mark+

To our May volunteers John and Sue Condon, and Anne and Bob Wood for helping maintain our beautiful St. Martin's Memorial Garden.

 
Save the Date!

+

Friday, May 22 at 6pm 

Youth Movie Night with a potluck.

Please contact Jennifer Potter at [email protected] if you can attend.

Trinity Sunday on May 31 at the 10am service.

We will be recognizing our high school seniors, thanking our volunteers, and celebrating Mark's first year with us. A special coffee hour will follow.

In Your Neighborhood...

* Lifelong Learning Collaborative/community education classes
* Classes including Yoga, Piano, and Indian Cooking are here at St. Martin's!
For more info: contact Deborah Bshara here or call  the church office  at 751-2141

+FYI
 

If anyone has borrowed tables and/or chairs from the church, please return them as soon as possible. Our sexton can help you carry them in.

Applications are now available for grants from St. Martin's Outreach Committee Grant amounts generally range from $250-$1000.  The deadline is June 1st.  If you are interested in applying, please contact the church office.

Time for your Annual Spring closet clean-out!

                                  
 D
onations for Saint Martin's Thrifty Goose and The Cloak closet are always welcomed!  (And they are tax deductible).                                                                                                                 

               The CLOAK is looking for blue jeans for men/women/children.                                                         

The Thrifty Goose is in need of summer items: clothes for the family, all things for the beach, sun hats and umbrellas!                                                                                                                              

              Make your spring closet clean-out a win-win situation!!                         

For the Cloak please contact Mary Gray at [email protected]

For the Thrifty Goose please contact Karen Bracken at [email protected].

Participants in Worship
May 17, 2015
May 24, 2015
Reading Link 
8am:
Reader/EM: Alec McLure
Altar Guild: Pat Knowles
10am: 
Readers:
Emily Gray (OT)
Henry Petree (NT)
Melissa Calhoun (Prayers)
Altar Guild:
Raya Goff
Lisa Ballou Tyler
Eucharistic Ministers:
Helen Bodell (Verger)
David Whitman (H)
BG Goff
Acolytes:
Elizabeth Blake
Diana Blake
Greeter:
Amy Fuller
Ushers:
David Brookhart
Linda Brookhart
Emily Hollenbeck
Kurt Loell
Ben Loell
8am: 
Reader/EM: Dwight Phillips
Altar Guild: Karen Bracken
10am: 
Readers:
Carol Tucker (OT)
David Whitman (NT)
Susan Allen (Prayers)
Altar Guild:
Jane Langmuir
Elizabeth Welshman
Eucharistic Ministers:
Jane Langmuir (V&H)
Elizabeth Welshman
Al Anderson
Acolytes:
BG Goff
Erin Welshman
Rebecca Loell
Greeters:
Amy Fuller
Lynne Burke
Ushers:
Charlie Bodell
Sarosh Fenn
Parker Smith
Carol Tucker
Waylan Tucker 


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