
Happy New Year! Our first Sunday of 2019 is Epiphany, a great way to start the New Year. May this year bring you to a closer, deeper, more joyful relationship with God and with your neighbor. Please take a look at the announcements below.
- Epiphany/Blessing of Chalk (in Worship)
- Soup & Sandwich Lunch/Fruitcake Bake-off (in Events)
- Community Dinner for Vets & Friends (in Helping Hands)
- National Church Read of Romans (in Christian Formation)
EVENTS
SUNDAY: Epiphany Soup and Sandwich Lunch & Fruitcake Bake-off at 11:15 in the Parish Hall. Come share a relaxed meal with your fellow parishioners, pull a Christmas party “cracker,” and join in voting on the Christmas fruitcake bake-off – either as a baker or as a judge! The cost of the lunch is $5 per person; $20 maximum per household. Kids under age 3 are free. This is a fun way to close out the holiday season and start the New Year!
WORSHIP
Epiphany – this Sunday, January 6, is the Feast of the Epiphany, the celebration of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentile world, represented by the Magi's arrival to worship the Christ Child in Bethlehem. Our 10 am service will be a Family Service appropriate for all ages.At both services we will bless and distribute chalk for you to take home (along with prayer instructions) so you can bless your homes for the coming year.
STEWARDSHIP
Pledge Envelopes – if you requested envelopes for your pledge of donations, they are available on the table in the Narthex with your name on them. Please pick them up. And if you have not yet made a pledge of financial support for 2019, it’s not too late! Pledge cards are available in the Narthex or in the Parish Office. Thanks.
ShopRite Cards– everyone needs groceries! You may purchase ShopRite cards on Sundays during Coffee House or at the parish office. You pay face value and 5% goes to All Saints’ ministries. Please speak to Barbara Barbeau.
CHRISTIAN FORMATION
Bible Study meets on Wednesdays at 10:15 am in the Rath House. We are reading and discussing the Gospel of Mark – this week, Chapter 8. If you have been “cautiously curious” about Bible reading and would like to try it out, please know that you are invited. You don’t have to have any prior knowledge or experience. It’s a good way to start the New Year! Questions? Speak to Mother Vicki.
Sunday School Classes for children PreK through middle school will begin again on Jan. 13th. They meet in classrooms downstairs in the Church, starting at 10 am. The children then join their families in worship at the Peace.
Episcopal Church-wide Good Book Club reading of Romans - during the season after Epiphany people across the church are being invited to read Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome. There are daily passages (excluding Sundays) of Paul’s most mature thinking. The Good Book Club website has good background materials and discussion/reflection questions: http://www.goodbookclub.org/ . The readings in Forward Day by Day will also follow this schedule of reading Romans. To make it easy for you to participate, the text for each day will be e-mailed to you. Try to take some time each day to not only read the passage (a dozen verses at the most) but ponder and pray and “dwell” with the text, noticing what bubbles up for you, and how the Holy Spirit might be speaking to you.
HELPING HANDS
Community Dinner for Vets and Friends: Jan. 19, 5:30 pm – we’ll be hosting a next dinner in the Lower Room of the Parish House for Vets from the V.A. in Lyons, those living in our communities, and their friends and families. If you can cook, set up, serve, clean up, or visit with our guets, please sign up on the sheet in the Narthex. Speak to Kerrie Stepko with questions.
Family Promise – Jan. 28 is our next date for hosting homeless families with Family Promise at Trinity House in Stirling. We need volunteers to cook, serve the meal, act as hosts to the shelter guests, and spend the night. Sign up on the sheet in the Narthex to help out. Want to know more? Speak to Afsaneh Thursfield or Kathy Pfeil.
PARISH CALENDAR
1/8 Finance Committee Rath House 7:30 pm
1/9 Bible Study Church 10:00 am
1/10 Communion & Healing Prayer Church 7:00 am
Junior Choir Choir Room 5:15 pm
Adult Choir Choir Room 7:30 pm
For a full schedule of our buildings check the website calendar www.allsaintsmillington.org.
CHRISTIAN PRACTICES
"Epiphany" by Malcolm Guite
It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.
Blessings, Vicki+