Weekly Worship Service
Sunday, September 19, 2021
NEW: An 8:00am service this Sunday! See “The Return of a Morning Prayer Service” below for more information.
Worship In-Person & Live Streamed with social time to follow for those worshipping in person.—10:00am
This Sunday The Rev. Carol Arney will be our Preacher and Celebrant, so we’ll have Eucharist.
- First Message: James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
- Gospel: Mark 9:30-37
For the Live Stream worship service on September 19, 2021 Click HERE
For the Service Bulletin – Click HERE
For the 2021 Fall Songbook – Click HERE
What’s in this Weekly?
Worship Team
September is Rally Month at St. Mary’s!
St. Mary’s COVID contingency planning
ECMN News
Stewardship at St. Mary’s
Sunday Morning Lay Ministry
Children and Youth
Pastoral visit to St. Mary’s by Bishop Loya
Pastoral Care
Communications
Upcoming Events at Saint Mary’s
Worship Team
There will be a second worship service this Sunday, September 19th at 8:00am via Zoom! This will be hosted and led by those who attended the 7:45am service pre-COVID! This will be completely led by an Officiant (lay person), no clergy involvement. Instead of a sermon, they will discuss the readings for the day and create their own sermon! they will use the adapted Morning Prayer service that will be used at 10am Morning Prayer services. After this service they will decide whether to do another 8:00am service or two in October. All are welcome to join them!
To join the September 19th Morning Prayer service via Zoom, Click HERE
If asked for a passcode, enter 171895
If asked for a meeting ID, enter 878 4182 3048
- To listen to the sermon given by The Rev. Susan Moss on September 12, Click HERE.
- What do your Gramma’s antique sherry glass and the shot glass you bought while on vacation have in common???? Your first reaction might be “Lordie, Lordie, I can’t imagine they have anything in common!” But wait just a minute! The Worship Team is looking at ways we might bring wine back into our Eucharist…and the common denominator could be those mis-matched glasses mentioned above! Each person who would like to receive wine along with the bread would bring a small glass of some kind with them to church. When it’s time for communion, that glass would accompany the person and a small amount of wine would be poured from the “pouring chalice” (a chalice with a small pouring lip) into each person’s glass. So, what do you think of this idea? How important is it to you to have both bread and wine? The Worship Team is seeking feedback on this idea…both positive and negative. We look forward to hearing from you! Click on the feedback link below.
- “Bags for Kids”: Thanks to Kitty McFarland we now have sanitized “Bags for Kids” to have while they’re in church and then to take home with them…single use only! Kitty put items in a Ziploc bag…some with markers and paper, others with crayons and an activity booklet. Thank you, Kitty, for keeping our children in mind!
Feedback is welcome!
Expect changes as we try things, see how they work and make improvements! Your feedback is more important than ever before to help us know what’s working well and what isn’t. Please send your thoughts, ideas, suggestions to the Worship Team.
Click HERE to give feedback. Thanks!
September is Rally Month at St. Mary’s! (updated for 9/17/21)
St. Mary’s COVID contingency planning
ECMN guidelines for in-person worship include a threshold in COVID case numbers. If exceeded in the county where we worship, the recommendation is to switch to either outdoor or virtual worship. If you have been watching the news at all recently, you know that the Delta variant has pushed up case numbers to levels similar to what we saw this spring. We have yet to exceed the threshold set by ECMN, but people should pay attention to this email each weekend in case we need to pivot away from in-person services. In the case where we need to make a change, details will be shared in the Friday weekly about the format for that Sunday’s service. Yet another reason to read the Weekly each week!
ECMN News
Similar to the Saint Mary’s Weekly, ECMN emails out a weekly newsletter. If you do not already receive ECMN News, you can click on “Receive Updates” at the bottom of the ECMN website to subscribe – https://episcopalmn.org/.
A couple of items of note from this week’s newsletter:
Dwelling in Scripture
Following on the Bishop’s invitation above, please see here for the scriptures we are invited to dwell in together, as well as instructions for how to engage Dwelling in the Word and Gospel-Based Discipleship.
Celebratory Evensong on Sunday, September 19 at 5:00pm
That service will be live streamed here.
Stewardship at St. Mary’s
Our season of Stewardship will soon be upon us.
Are you interested in helping St. Mary’s grow? Are you wondering where our money comes from? If you answered YES to these questions, our community is asking each of you to consider whether participation with the Stewardship committee could be your ministry at St. Mary’s.
We are looking for more people (we’d love to have a committee of 6 – 8 people!) to participate in the Stewardship committee and help us move into the next phase of stewardship at St. Mary’s.
As so many things are changing in our church (and all churches), we would like to adopt some new models and are looking for people with energy and ideas. We would like to move toward a model of stewardship that is a year-round endeavor and with balanced focuses on time, talent, and treasure. In these past few years, we have shown how much of our church life we can manage and move forward with strong laity; we want to recognize and encourage this as we look to our future.
Our first team meeting will be Sept. 30th at 7:00pm via Zoom. We will discuss this year’s stewardship campaign, the different ways we give to St. Mary’s, and what activities and events will be scheduled to keep stewardship in our minds throughout the year. One resource we recognized through the ECMN diocese that we will study as a possible starting point is Project Resource (https://project-resource.org/annual-giving).
If you are interested in joining the team, please contact Cindy James (james.c.a@comcast.net) or Jim Wheeler (james.jw.wheeler@gmail.com) for the link to Zoom meeting.
In faith,
Cindy James
Jim Wheeler
Enzo DeLuca (pledge clerk)
Rex Holzemer (treasurer)
Lay Ministry: Gearing up for Fall
Yes, fall is right around the corner and St. Mary’s needs YOU!! When we started in-person worship services, many of you signed up to help with Sunday morning lay ministries… Ushers, Greeters, Lay Leaders/Officiants and Vergers. Thanks to all of you who were able to do that!
Now that summer is nearing an end and we’ll soon be settling into our fall/winter routines, it’s our hope that more of you will be able to help with these lay ministries. The goal is to have enough people assisting with these ministries so that no one will be asked to take on responsibilities more often than once each month. You can get more information or sign up now by contacting mauramccro@gmail.com.
Update from Mia on Children’s and Youth for Fall
Pastoral visit to St. Mary’s by Bishop Loya
Bishop Loya is planning a visit to St. Mary’s from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. on October 13. His purpose for this visit is to hear questions and concerns from our congregation surrounding the Title IV process of our former rector, Rev. LeeAnne Watkins. More details about this event will be available soon, but for now we ask people interested in attending to save the date. Expect more information in a future email from St. Mary’s.
Pastoral Care
I am both happy and sad to announce that Rev. Cindi Brickson has a new job that will require her to step down from her role as Pastoral Care Minister. I am so appreciative that she stepped up to take on this role at St. Mary’s with gusto, going above and beyond individual pastoral care to found recurring care groups for LGBTQ+ people and elders, a quarterly healing circle, and curating the St. Mary’s prayer chain, to name a few. All of these efforts happened during a time when face to face interaction was very limited, and people needed virtual venues to connect and help heal one another from all of the trauma that is so present right now.
As we await the results of our search process that we hope will call our new rector this fall, St. Mary’s pastoral care programs will be more limited. Rev. Susan Moss will cover pastoral care emergencies, Eily Marlow has offered to continue to coordinate the LGBTQ+ and elder care groups, and Cindi plans to continue to lead the prayer chain and Tuesday evening Compline gatherings. The members of the pastoral care team look forward to working with a new rector to develop a robust pastoral care program at St. Mary’s once they are in place.
If you have any questions about this transition time for pastoral care, please reach out to Susan or me. Congratulations on your new job with ECMN, Cindi, and thank you for your service to St. Mary’s in this role!
Brian Nerbonne, Warden
Website Maintenance
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be doing some behind-the-scenes maintenance on the St. Mary’s website. It may have some periods of downtime, when you aren’t able to access it. If that happens, please rest assured that it will be up and running again within 24 hours. With questions, please email communications@
Upcoming Events at Saint Mary’s
Opportunities for Worship, Education, Choir, & Meet Ups
for the week of 9/17 – 9/23
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Morning Prayer Worship via Zoom
8:00am
Link
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Worship In-Person and Live Stream
10:00am
Link
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Listening Session (information above)
11:30am (In-person)
7:00pm (via Zoom)
Monday, September 20, 2021
LGBTQ+ Gathering
6:30pm
Contact Eily Marlow for details and link Click HERE
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Finance Committee Meeting
6:30pm
Contact Finance for details and link Click HERE
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Compline
8:30pm
Contact Rev. Cindi for details and link Click HERE
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Youth Group
6:30pm
Contact Mia for more information. Click HERE
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Saint Mary’s Dinner Group
Contact Julie Thomas for more information. Click HERE.
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Thursday Evening Contemplative Service
Led by Erika Scheurer and Anna Clark
7:00pm
Link
Visit the Saint Mary’s Calendars page for more information on what is happening.