Holy and Ever Loving Father we ask your blessings over our Living Stones Capital Campaign. May we be ever faithful to your will, loving and compassionate towards each other, and discerning in our endeavors. We ask that you abide with us as we prayerfully consider the potential of our contributions, the promise of the campaign, and our role as faithful stewards of this place. May God the Father encourage us, May Jesus the Great Healer remove fears and obstacles from our midst, and May the Holy Spirit unite us in purpose. Amen.

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Save The Date: Yard and Plant Sale

We will be having a Yard and Plant sale on May 21st. Please save your junque and plant cuttings. More details will be coming in the following weeks. If you are interested in being a part of the Yard Sale Team, please speak to the Wardens - Chris Mills, and Frank Ouellette.

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Food, Glorious Food!

Hunger is an issue that affects many close to home, as well as far away. All Saints' has a long tradition of supporting many food-based ministries. In addition to collecting food weekly for the local food pantry, our church is involved in several different feeding programs.

All Saints' and Trinity Lutheran join forces to help serve food at Chelmsford's Table of Plenty on the months where there are five Tuesdays. Table of Plenty runs out of the Unitarian church, which is the white church in the center with the clock tower. Our next time to serve is March 29. Volunteers are there from 4:30 to 6:30, and help to set up tables, serve beverages, and then serve the meal to the 50 - 75 guests who come every week. Once the meal is over, the team then assists with clean up.

We could use a few more volunteers for this team, so please contact Maggie Marshall if you are able to help. We will once again be serving two meals for the B-Safe program in July. We share the week with St. Dunstan's, Dover, and I will have those dates soon, but it will be early July. We prepare the food at All Saints', bring it in, set up, serve, and clean up. In addition to cooks, we will also be soliciting donations to help purchase the food and paper goods for the 140 children and staff we will feed twice!

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Retreat Opportunity

Each year Massachusetts Episcopal Cursillo ("ker-SEE-oh") offers a three-day retreat weekend that focuses on our relationship with Christ. Cursillo consists of a series of talks, intermixed with music, discussion, and reflection. Fifteen parishioners have attended this retreat in years past, including Reverend Bill, and we all strongly encourage you to consider attending.

The dates this year are April 29 - May 1. I will be serving as Music Minister at the retreat, so it would be great to be joined by other All Sainters. If you like the music we sing during our annual outdoor service, you will love the Cursillo weekend.

More is available at http://www.masscursillo.org/index-1.html. If you are interested in attending or just have questions, please feel free to contact me.

Matt Hickcox, matt@odic.com, 978-340-7677.

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2016 Global Mission Summit

The diocese is holding a Global Mission Summit on Saturday, April 9th from 9am to 5pm. The meeting will be at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Weston, MA.

Edie Parekh and I are already registered and we can add others to our group for a $15 charge each. We'd love to have other interested All Sainters join us. Please contact Dave Kuzara at 617-515-6708 or djkuzara@mail.com if you want to join us, since we'll need to add you to our group. (Don't register on your own.)

For more info see:

http://www.diomass.org/diocesan-news/global-mission-summit-celebrate-gifts-and-lessons-mission or http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=s4blzzbab&oeidk=a07ec2n8vj32bca37ae

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Prayer as First Resort

will be on Tuesday, April 12th 7:30-8:45 pm in the Blue and Cranberry Rooms. If you would like to learn more about Prayer as First Resort, please contact Deb Dutton (debdutton@hotmail.com) or Lynne Grillo (lynne@odic.com)..

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Why I'm Giving

Dear brothers and sisters of All Saints. I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself to you all as the Communication Chair of the Living Stones Capital Campaign. Basically, that means it's my job to keep all of you updated on what's happening in the campaign!

As we move into Holy Week, culminating of course in the celebration of the Resurrection, I wanted to share with you all a bit of what All Saints' means to me, and why I've chosen to support the Capital Campaign.

For those of you who come to the 10 am service, you may know me as the woman who sits in the front with a bunch of blond kids (yes, that was my son who carefully knotted his palm fronds into his hair on Sunday), all of whom tend to read through the second half of the service. One of the reasons I choose to let them do this is because I believe that they are, at this point, getting their primary lessons about the love of God and the work of Jesus from their Sunday school experiences, and from their experiences within the All Saints' community.

One of the needs that the Living Stones Campaign will address is the renovation of the Lower Level Church School, including the restroom and leaks in the classrooms. I am choosing to support the campaign so that the amazing teachers of our Sunday School programs will have safe, non-leaky, warm and welcoming spaces in which to help teach our children about the miracle of love.

I'd love to hear from you about why you've chosen to give, if you'd be comfortable sharing your story with me and the church. Please feel free to reach out to me at lissie@gmail.com or find me at coffee hour.

Lissie Bates-Haus

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Friends in Christ,
Below is a statement from the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church that has been meeting on retreat with Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. Our bishops, Alan and Gayle heartily endorse this statement as do I.

Grace and Peace, Bill

Holy Week 2016

A Word to the Church from the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church

"We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others."

On Good Friday the ruling political forces of the day tortured and executed an innocent man. They sacrificed the weak and the blameless to protect their own status and power. On the third day Jesus was raised from the dead, revealing not only their injustice but also unmasking the lie that might makes right.

In a country still living under the shadow of the lynching tree, we are troubled by the violent forces being released by this season's political rhetoric. Americans are turning against their neighbors, particularly those on the margins of society. They seek to secure their own safety and security at the expense of others. There is legitimate reason to fear where this rhetoric and the actions arising from it might take us.

In this moment, we resemble God's children wandering in the wilderness. We, like they, are struggling to find our way. They turned from following God and worshiped a golden calf constructed from their own wealth. The current rhetoric is leading us to construct a modern false idol out of power and privilege. We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we must respect the dignity of every human being and we must seek the common good above all else.

We call for prayer for our country that a spirit of reconciliation will prevail and we will not betray our true selves.

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Goal of e-bulletin: "to communicate what is going on at All Saints' Church Chelmsford"