The Good News of St. John’s

November is a busy month at St. John’s so please make note of these upcoming events!

October 30: Outreach Committee Meeting
The St. John’s Outreach Committee meets several times a year to discuss ways for us to support area organizations and how we can be engaged in loving our neighbors. All are welcome to Outreach Committee Meetings so come and participate in our common life by reaching out beyond our parish walls.

November 6: All Saints Day Celebration
All Saints Feast Day is Nov 1 but we always celebrate it on the first Sunday of November as a major feast day on our calendar. We begin by honoring those souls who have died and continue by celebrating the lives of all the saints by renewing our baptismal vows. Because it’s the First Sunday of the month, this will be an All Ages Worship.

November 11-12: Diocesan Convention
Rev. Michelle and our parish delegate, Paula Wisneski, will travel to Tarrytown on November 11-12 to meet with all the other congregational delegates from the Episcopal Diocese of New York. Every year the larger diocese meets to discuss, discern, learn, and then vote on important aspects of our common life together. Please offer your prayers for their work this year and stay tuned for future newsletters for more information about how to view these proceedings online.

November 15: Q&A with the Bishop Candidates
The Diocese of New York is electing a new bishop this year on December 3. Come and meet the candidates in person at a Q&A Session in Newburgh at St. George’s Episcopal Church beginning at 7:00 pm. Pay attention to your email for more details from Rev. Michelle.

November 20: St. John’s Harvest Sale and Godly Play
We give thanks for the members of our St. John’s Harvest Team – Jeannette Baggot, Sara Hutton, Kathy Burdick, Barbara Johnston, and Ana Hernandez. They have cooked up some amazing things that will be available for sale after worship on Sunday, Nov. 20 in the parish hall. All proceeds go to the operating fund of St. John’s. And don’t forget! Godly Play will be offered during worship for our younger members.

November 21-23: Angel Food East Thanksgiving Meal Prep and Delivery
The clients of Angel Food East are homebound due to ongoing illness of some kind. We want to make sure they have a good Thanksgiving meal so during this week, turkey and all the fixins will be prepared, packed, and delivered for our clients. Come and help! Stay tuned to your email to learn more about days/times when more help is needed.

November 27: Advent I Guest Preacher and Advent Spirituality
On the First Sunday of Advent, we welcome guest preacher and Deacon Dr. Meg Stapleton Smith as we celebrate the beginning of our new church year on Advent I.
St. John’s Forum – Then, stay after worship for a special St. John’s Forum where we will make Advent Wreaths and discuss Advent spiritual practices.

All Souls and All Saints

As we come to the end of October, most of our culture is caught up in Halloween – and for good reason! It’s fun to be someone else for a day – not to mention the parties and the pumpkin carving and the trick-or-treating and the decorations. As you might guess, this celebration has its roots in other traditions from other times and other places.

The holiday we now know as Halloween has its origins a Celtic festival called Samhain. People in the British Isles would light bonfires and wear costumes as a way of keeping evil spirits and ghosts at bay. Then, when Pope Gregory IV designated November 1 as All Saints Day, the celebration of Samhain in the British Isles shifted so that the night before All Saints came to be known as All Hallows Eve, restricting their bonfires and costumes to this “eve.” It’s sometimes known as All Saints Eve, following the Christian tradition of celebrating the holiday with a vigil the night before (which, of course, arose from the Jewish calendar in which the day starts at sundown).

In short, in Western Christianity, All Saints is a commemoration of all Christians, past and present. We lift up the names of those who have gone before as a way of naming honoring our ancestors. It began as a day of obligation in Europe, which means that “all the faithful” were required to attend worship, as they are on other days of obligation like Christmas and Easter. Today it is celebrated in various ways, depending on local tradition.

This is easily confused with All Souls Day, celebrated on November 2, which is a commemoration of all the faithful departed. On this day, people participate in quiet vigils and prayer services, and visit cemeteries.

Both All Saints and All Souls are, of course, tied to the celebration of Halloween because all of these commemoration and celebrations are ways of honoring the dead during the time of year when, in the Northern Hemisphere, we are also watching all the green life turn to brown. It is a season of remembrance and a season of letting go – practices that are very important for us as humans.

At St. John’s, we ask for the names of those who have died so that they can be added to our All Saints Sunday bulletin. And, as we begin our celebration on November 6, we will name these people, light candles in their names, and recognize and give thanks for their lives as a part of our lives.

So, I ask that you either email me directly at michelle.stjohnskingston@gmail.com OR use the form on the bulletin board in the vestibule to make sure the names of those you would like to have spoken are in our bulletin on November 6.

And I hope you will come to celebrate with us on November 6. We will have a story and activities for all ages at worship that morning.

In God’s love and mine,
Rev. Michelle

Announcements for the Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost
October 30, 2022

As many of you know, Rev Michelle has been working on the Committee to Elect a Bishop this past year. Our current Diocesan Bishop, Andy Dietsche, is retiring. Last year, he called for the election of a Bishop Co-adjutor, someone who will walk alongside him in his final year. Then, in 2024, he will retire and we will have a new Diocesan Bishop.

The Committee to Elect a Bishop (CEB) has been working since December of last year to get to a point where, at the end of September, they were able to announce the slate of candidates who are willing to stand for election to be our Bishop Co-adjutor on December 3.

Please take the time to “meet” these incredibly talented candidates by following the link below. On this link you will be able to see a few photos, a video in which they introduce themselves to you, their responses to essay questions, their resumes, and links to other resources they have provided so far. Click here to learn more about the candidates.

Before the election on December 3, the candidates will visit the diocese for a week – November 14-19. They will spend a day in each area of the diocese so they can talk to the lay people and clergy as well as visit some important ministries. At the end of each day, the candidates will engage in a Q&A session, to which, all are invited. Please take a look at the schedule below and note that the Q&A session for the Hudson Valley is at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Newburgh on Tuesday, November 15 at 7:00 pm.

Monday, Nov 14: St. Mary’s, Castleton (Staten Island)
Tuesday, Nov 15: St. Geroge’s, Newburgh (Hudson Valley)
Wednesday, Nov 16: St. Andrew’s, Harlem (Manhattan)
Thursday, Nov 17: Trinity/St. Paul, New Rochelle (Westchester/Rockland)
Friday, Nov 18: St. Margaret’s, Longwood (The Bronx)

The CEB hopes to have these sessions available via Zoom so that more people can participate. and Rev. Michelle will keep us all updated about both a trip to Newburgh on Nov 15 and access to these sessions via Zoom, if it’s available.

Here are the candidates! And you can learn more about them by following this link.

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SCHEDULE ANNOUNCEMENT!

We will have Godly Play on the 4th Sunday this month – October 23 – as this is when Leah can be available to teach this month. We are sorry for the change this month and remain committed to ensuring the schedule for Godly Play is consistent. If you are interested in helping with this ministry to help us maintain a regular schedule, please reach out to Leah Siuta or Rev. Michelle.

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Continuing Education

You may have noticed that I haven’t been in Kingston lately. Ana and I took a quick trip to Ocean Grove, NJ the first week of October to have vacation together and, aside from getting the tail end of the hurricane (constant rain for 2 days), it was a delightful trip.

As a priest in the Episcopal Church, I am expected to do regular continuing education. And, this week, I have been training with a program called the College for Congregational Development. This program was developed around 10 years ago in the Diocese of Olympia and several dioceses have imported the program because it’s so effective including California, Northern California, Michigan, Spokane, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Maryland.

As brief overview, this program trains congregational leaders (both lay and clergy) on how to facilitate and develop plans of action. As an example: If a congregation wanted to develop a ministry around the issue of the care of creation, they could utilize one of the tools we were given to develop a plan, so the members of that ministry know the focus and goals of their ministry. That’s a simple example, of course, because the possibilities for using these tools are literally endless.

So often congregations face difficult decisions and leadership can easily get bogged down in trying to determine the best way forward. So, when Victor Conrado, our Canon for Congregational Development and Formation in the Diocese of New York, offered me a scholarship to attend this program in Chicago this past week, I jumped at the chance because we are facing some important decisions about the future of St. John’s.

I’m so glad I went because this is really the best continuing education I have ever done – and I’ve been a priest for 12 years now! I learned so much and was given information and tools that I can easily and quickly use to help the leadership of St. John’s plan for our congregational present and future. I am hopeful that we will be able to import this program in our diocese so that more people in our congregation and our diocese can be empowered by this program.

In God’s love and mine,
Rev. Michelle

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Announcements for the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost
October 16, 2022