1895 Laurel, Saint Paul MN 55104

Saint Mary's Episcopal Church

1895 Laurel Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55104

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Saint Mary’s Weekly – September 24, 2021

September 23, 2021 by communications


Weekly Worship Service
Sunday, September 26, 2021

Worship In-Person and via Zoom with Social Time and Talent Show (Information below) to follow.—10:00am

This Sunday The Rev. Carol Arney will be our Preacher and Celebrant, so we’ll have Eucharist.

  • First Message: James 5:13-20
  • Gospel: Mark 9:38-50

We’re going to try a new format for those attending virtually this week. Please join via Zoom in the link below and the Zoom Host will share the Live Stream. This will allow all of those attending virtually to interact during the service.

For the Zoom worship service on September 26, 2021 Click HERE
If asked for a passcode, enter 277625
If asked for a meeting ID, enter 818 4016 4967
 
To join by cell phone only (voice only, no video),
call: 312-626-6799
Enter Meeting ID 818 4016 4967
If asked for a passcode, use 277625
 
For the Service Bulletin – Click HERE
For the 2021 Fall Songbook – Click HERE
 
For the Zoom link to the Talent Show following the worship service Click HERE

What’s in this Weekly?

Worship Team

  • What’s New?
    • Want wine???

September is Rally Month at St. Mary’s!

  • St. Mary’s Talent Show!

Gratitude to Cindi Brickson

  • For her contributions to St. Mary’s

St. Mary’s COVID contingency planning

  • Guidelines from ECMN

St. Mary’s Finance Committee

  • Update on our finances

Stewardship at St. Mary’s

  • Join the Stewardship Committee

Sunday Morning Lay Ministry

  • Gearing up for Fall

Children and Youth

  • Youth Group, Tweeners, Sunday School, and More!

Pastoral visit to St. Mary’s by Bishop Loya

  • Mark your calendars for October 13th, 6:30pm-8:30pm

Communications

  • Website Maintenance

Upcoming Events at Saint Mary’s


Worship Team

What’s New?
  • To listen to the sermon given by The Rev. Carol Arney on September 19, 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.
  • St. Mary’s will continue to have 8am worship services via zoom in October. These will be adapted Morning Prayer using the same liturgy as the 10am adapted Morning Prayer services. The 8am services will be lay led (no clergy), won’t have music and will use Gospel Based Discipleship discussions in place of a homily. Links to these services will be in the Weekly Email.

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!

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September is Rally Month at St. Mary’s! (updated for 9/24/21)

Talent Show:
Our Parish talent show will be happening this coming Sunday on September 26, 2021. The show is a HYBRID….that means there are two different ways you can choose to attend. It will be in-person on the big screen in the Sanctuary at church and also streamed via Zoom.
 
If you are planning on attending in-person church, just stick around right afterwards to see the Talent Show. The acts have been recorded and will be shown on a big screen in the sanctuary. Or, if you have attended church via Zoom, just click on the link below to switch over to the talent show! We are looking forward to hosting you either way and have some amazing talents to share!
 
Topic: Talent Show for Saint Mary’s
Time: Sep 26, 2021 11:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)
 
Join Zoom Meeting
 
Meeting ID: 841 6139 3391
Passcode: church
 

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Gratitude to Cindi Brickson for her contributions to St. Mary’s

If you can, please join us at church on Sunday, Sept. 26 when we will have a chance to say thank you to Cindi for all of her work at St. Mary’s over the past year-plus. Cindi served as our pastoral care minister during that time, a critical role during COVID when she founded online opportunities for people to connect with one another. Cindi also led our regathering committee, helping to craft our plan for returning to in-person worship. If that weren’t enough, she also located and worked with a contractor to install our fancy new camera system that has been a significant upgrade for virtual worship. Professionally Cindi has moved on to a new role within the diocese that did not leave time for her to continue on staff at St. Mary’s, but she and her family continue to be members of our congregation. Huge thanks to you, Cindi!

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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!

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St. Mary’s Finance Committee

Total annual income (pledges and non-pledge income) thru August 31, 2021, is approximately $20,700 above budget and total expenses are approximately $17,000 under budget. Income is significantly above budget primarily due to several large pledge donations in August from households that paid off their annual pledges in full. It is expected that pledges will balance out over the next few months and end the year closer to budget.

The projected 2021 budget is a deficit budget, with a projected year-end deficit of ($23,232). However, if we continue to manage expenses as has been the case over the first eight months, and pledges meet budget, we may be able to reduce the projected year-end deficit significantly. Thanks to each of you for your continued financial support of St. Mary’s!

If you have any questions regarding the St. Mary’s budget, please feel free to contact Rex Holzemer, Treasurer, at 651-308-4895 or rexaholzemer@gmail.com. Please see a summary income vs. expenses chart for exact budget figures for January 1, 2021 thru August 31, 2021, at the following link – Click HERE.

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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 the Zoom meeting. 

In faith,

Cindy James
Jim Wheeler
Enzo DeLuca (pledge clerk)
Rex Holzemer (treasurer)

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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.

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St. Mary’s Children’s and Youth for Fall

Youth Group:
Our Youth Group kicked off on Wednesday, September 22, 2021 from 6:30pm to 8:00pm led by Kat Lewis, our new Youth Leader. We are excited that the youth will be back in person again this year! Just a reminder that Youth Group is for young people who are 7th through 12th grade.
 
Tweeners:
Our Tweeners started up on Thursday September 23, 2021 from 7:00pm-7:45pm. Please note that Tweens will be on THURSDAY and not on WEDNESDAY due to the availability of the tweens that expressed interest! The meeting will be virtual. Please contact Mia for the link!
 
Sunday School Updates
 
Basic Info:
We have a Virtual Lego Camp that will be starting up that will be 7 sessions long. Each session will be 45 minutes long and led by Max and Theo Reemtsma (with a little help from Mia and Jennie). Each class will have a short check in, some demonstration and teaching for 10-15 minutes and then some work time.
 
Outcome:
Each kid will animate a different story from the Bible using stop motion. We plan to focus on Advent stories.
 
Needs for Class:
We suggest kids have on hand a few Lego figures, small vehicles, and a general assortment of Lego pieces. It’s ok if they don’t have Legos as they can use clay, pipe cleaners, action figures, animals, etc. – Lego figures are just pretty easy to physically articulate and get good shots of without relying on paid-app-version tricks that can remove hands from the frame, etc.
It is strongly recommended that students have 2 devices for this class– one for zoom and one for the stop motion app.
 
Age Range:
Kids need to be really comfortable reading, or have an adult with them who can help them. This should be kid-led but the whole family can be involved in building, animating, lighting and “special effects” or voiceovers.
 
The dates for this class will be on Sundays in the afternoon (we were thinking 1pm):
 
October 17
October 24
November 7
November 14
November 21
December 5
December 12
 
Register here
 
In Person Halloween Party for Children– Come in Costume
October 31
Ghosts of the Bible
Led by Julie Phillips and helpers
More details to come
 
Register here

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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 any current and former members of St. Mary’s interested in attending to save the date. Expect more information in a future email from St. Mary’s.

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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@saintmarysepiscopal.org

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Upcoming Events at Saint Mary’s
Opportunities for Worship, Education, Choir, & Meet Ups
for the week of 9/24 – 9/30

Sunday, September 26, 2021
Worship In-Person and via Zoom
10:00am
Link

Sunday, September 26, 2021
St. Mary’s Talent Show
11:00am
Link

Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Vestry Meeting
7:00pm
Contact Warden Brian Nerbonne for details and link Click HERE

Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Compline
8:30pm
Contact Rev. Cindi for details and link Click HERE

Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Youth Group
6:30pm
Contact Mia for more information. Click HERE

Thursday, September 30, 2021
Tweeners
7:00pm
Contact Mia for more information. Click HERE

Thursday, September 30, 2021
Saint Mary’s Dinner Group
Contact Julie Thomas for more information. Click HERE.

Thursday, September 30, 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.

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Filed Under: Children and Youth, Finance, News, Vestry, Weekly News and Announcements

covid 19 update

This page may not reflect St. Mary’s current programming, as we continue to emerge from the pandemic. As of June 2021, for example, we have both in-person and Zoom options for attending our Sunday 10:00 a.m. worship service.

Find the current status of all St. Mary’s programming and community activities on THIS PAGE. Join us!

Our decisions about how to conduct activities at St. Mary’s are guided by our belief that it is our duty to care for one another as children of God, as well as by guidance from the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota.

 

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