St. John’s Events This Week!
We hope you will come out and for these community-building events at St. John’s. Service work, Christian learning, celebration, and reflection opportunities for people of all ages.
Click here for a full list of upcoming St. John’s Events
Sunday, Oct 2: Celebrating St. Francis
We start the month of October off with All Ages Worship on Oct 2 at 10am – A specially designed worship service to help engage all parishioners, especially younger ones, through story and other activities during our 10:00 am worship. All parishioners are asked to bring your pet mementos, photos, and stuffed animals to church where we will ask God’s blessing on our beloved animals. Sorry, no live-pet blessings this year!
Sunday, Oct 2: Parish-wide Workshop – The Impact of Gun Violence on Churches
The increase of gun violence in our culture often results in a political discussion about gun rights. But how does this very real phenomenon impact our willingness to attend public activities and functions, like Christian worship? As people who follow Jesus, one who tells us to welcome the stranger in our midst, it is incredibly important for us to spend time discussing the specter of gun violence in our culture and the emotional toll it takes on us as churchgoers. Rev. Michelle and Sara Hutton will lead this special parish-wide workshop after worship on October 2.
Click here to learn more about upcoming St. John’s Events so you can plan your time this fall.
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All Ages Worship (AAW) – What is it and Why?
Soon after I came to St. John’s, we decided to take a look at our Mission Statement so that we could approach our common life with a clear understanding of how we want to direct our resources. We came away with 5 active ways to do this. 1) Sharing our physical space and resources; 2) Being stewards of the arts; 3) Advocating for social justice; 4) Participating in inclusive and intergenerational worship; and 5) Affirming everyone has a place at God’s Table.
I’d like to spend a little time discussing this 4th direction today. As we move into a new phase of the pandemic with the ability to return to a fuller sense of who we are as a worshipping community, we are reincorporating some very important aspects of our common life. Two of them are Godly Play and All Ages Worship. And I’m so excited for both of these to return!
Godly Play is an amazing program that helps our younger people engage with the stories of scripture and of our Christian tradition in ways that they can take them more deeply into who they are becoming. It’s magical to watch kids participate in a lesson and continue to talk about it for days afterwards. And I’m incredibly grateful for the ministry of Leah Siuta who loves to help younger people learn about God through Godly Play. If you’re interested in helping with this ministry, by the way, talk to either Leah or myself.
All Ages Worship (AAW) is another way to help our younger people engage but it’s more than that. It’s a way for all our people – young, old, middle years, and teens – to be together in worship. In this worship experience, we take our typical worship and use different forms to help us all hear things a little differently than we normally do. We may say a different confession or a different creed or a different set of prayers. We may have liturgical props to use during a part of the worship service. And we always have a story instead of a sermon.
While it may be more familiar to us to have children in Sunday School while adults attend the full worship, I think it’s really important for all of us to know who we are as a worshipping community together. Children are not ancillary to the worshipping community. In fact, they are integral to who we are and, therefore, we are not a full worshipping community without their presence. Hopefully, AAW is a way for children to discover that worship is a joy-filled experience, where all can find ways to engage and all are fully welcome at God’s Table. And, as an adult, I also believe that we all learn more about the words and forms of our liturgy by hearing them or saying them a different way. You see, All Ages Worship is for all of us.
Going forward, we will have AAW on the first Sunday of the month unless we announce otherwise. I hope you’ll come and bring the whole family as we all celebrate God’s Love together.
In God’s love and mine,
Rev. Michelle
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Announcements for the Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
October 2, 2022
Page Turners Book Club At their recent meeting the book club decided to move their meetings to the first Thursday of the month at 2 p.m., in the parish hall. For the October 8th meeting, the book selection is, ‘A Slow Fire Burning’, by Paula Hawkins. Upcoming books are: Nov 3-‘The Sweetness of Water’, by Nathan Harris; Dec 1-‘Horse’, by Geraldine Brooks.
Safe Church Training: Many ministries in the church require this training. Please speak directly with Rev. Michelle today to register for in-person workshops on Saturday, Oct 22 at St. John’s.
St. John’s Harvest: Feeding people is our jam!
Join us in the kitchen to clean, chop, stir, and make cool stuff on the last Saturday of the month from 10-5. No experience necessary. Hands of all ages welcome. Show up for shifts of 2, 4, or 6 hours, and let’s have fun while we raise money for St. John’s! Clear your calendar and come to help on Saturday, Oct. 22. Sale dates: Nov 20 and Dec 11
St. John’s Forum – Nov 13: The Story of Historic Kingston, with Stephen Blauweiss. Join us after worship for a presentation by local author and producer Stephen Blauweiss whose passion for telling the story of Kingston led him to publish his most recent book, The Story of Historic Kingston. Stephen will be selling books at this event too!
Stewardship Campaign: October 23 – November 13
Recommitment, Renewal, and Reconciliation. These are the words on our Stewardship banner at the back of the Sanctuary. For the past year, we have been using these themes to look at our lives in the Gospel. Now, this coming year, we will be Continuing the Journey of Recommitment, Renewal, and Reconciliation by revisiting our Mission Statement and the Stewardship of our Mission. During these 4 weeks, we will listen to people talk about the Mission of St. John’s and their reasons for pledging to support it. If you’re new to St. John’s or would like information about pledging, pick up a Stewardship flyer along with your bulletin.
Social Hour Hosting: You are invited to sign up on the bulletin board in the Vestibule to be a social hour host! Talk with our Hospitality Coordinator, Barbara Johnston for more information.
Calling all bakers! Our Communion Bread recipe is easy and quick. You bake one batch, deliver the bread to the church, and we keep it in the freezer until we use it. Sign up to bake for a month (or two) this year. The sign-up sheet is on the Vestibule bulletin board and so is the recipe.
Have an announcement for the bulletin?
Please send by Wednesday at noon to stjohnskingston@aol.com
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