QUOTE OF the Day
UPCOMING: VESTRY, ThanksGIVING, Bishop Visit
Nov. 24: Feast of Christ the King
This Sunday is Pentecost 24 (Last Pentecost), Proper 29, Year C.
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The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, commonly referred to as the Feast of Christ the King or Christ the King Sunday, is a relatively recent addition to the Western liturgical calendar, having been instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI for the Roman Catholic Church. In 1970 its Roman Catholic observance was moved to the final Sunday of Ordinary Time. Therefore, the earliest date on which it can occur is 20 November and the latest is 26 November. The Anglican, Lutheran, and many other Protestant churches also celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. The Feast of Christ the King has an eschatological dimension pointing to the end of time when the kingdom of Jesus will be established in all its fullness to the ends of the earth. It leads into Advent, when the Church anticipates Christ’s second coming. — wikipedia
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IMAGE: Painting of Christ in Majesty from the Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (1427).
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The lector this Sunday is Hope and the altar guild is Darlene. See the vestment colors, the altar colors, the Bible readings and the liturgical calendar by clicking HERE and selecting the date. Note that a date’s color is the vestment and altar color for the day.
Thanksgiving Service & Fall
Thanksgiving: The Thanksgiving Day Service will be on Wednesday, Nov. 27 at 6:30 p.m. The service contains these passages from John: “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
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Nov. 24, 2019: Vestry meeting, deadline for pledge cards.
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Dec. 8, 2019: Bishop visit. See more about Bishop Mark to the right, or below, depending on your browser’s screen.
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Dec. 15, 2019: Annual meeting. If you are on the vestry, please do a small (one-half page or so) report of the year.
Dec. 8, 2019: Visit by Bishop Mark
On December 8, 2019, our Diocesan Bishop, Mark Van Koevering, will make his annual visit. Bishop Mark was consecrated as Bishop of Niassa, Mozambique, part of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, in 2003, where he served until November 2015. Van Koevering was raised in the Christian Reformed Church. He studied agriculture and plant breeding at the University of Michigan, working in Thailand, China, and then as an agriculturist with DanChurchAid in Niassa, Mozambique. There, he met and married Helen, who was working with the Christian Council of Mozambique, reuniting war orphans with their families. He was the diocesan director of development when he felt called to the ministry. He trained at Trinity College, Bristol, and was ordained in Wales, working under Rowan Williams the then archbishop in Newport, when the people of Niassa elected him as their bishop. His wife Helen was ordained shortly before leaving Wales in 2003. Until April 2011, the Van Koeverings’ ministry in Niassa was supported through USPG. In April 2011, The Van Koevering Trust Fund was set up to secure funds for the furthering of the Van Koeverings’ ministry in Niassa. In November 2015, Bishop Mark moved back to the United States to become the assistant bishop at the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia. In February 2018, he became the Bishop Provisional of the Episcopal Diocese of Lexington. On Nov. 2, 2019, he became the Bishop Elect of The Diocese of Lexington. — wikipedia
IN THE NEWS: GoING INTO the WORLD
With Elections One Year Away, Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations Gets Ready
Nov. 3, 2019, marked the one-year countdown to the U.S. presidential and congressional elections, and The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations is gearing up for a year that’s expected to see even more vitriol in public discourse than the rancorous 2016 election brought. Read the full story by clicking HERE.
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PHOTO: The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations is preparing for a contentious election season. Credit: David Paulsen/Episcopal News Service.
Mississippians Teach Hondurans the Glass Art Trade as Dioceses Deepen Longtime Partnership
Trinity Episcopal Church in Hattiesburg, Miss., has been involved in teaching stained glass and other glass artwork for more than a decade, training parishioners in glass fusing and sending them to Honduras to share what they’ve learned. The program is called Teach Them to Fish, and now, John DeLancey, a missionary, is coordinating it full time from Roatán, Honduras, with the help of a $36,000 grant from The Episcopal Church’s United Thank Offering program, or UTO. Read the full story by clicking HERE.
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PHOTO: Glass art is produced at several congregations in Honduras and sold to tourists visiting the island resort community of Roatán. Credit: John DeLancey.
Episcopal Church ‘Still In’ Despite Trump Administration’s Withdrawal from Paris Climate Pact
The Trump administration announced on Nov. 4 that it would withdraw the United States from the global climate pact known as the “Paris agreement” within a year, but that won’t affect The Episcopal Church’s commitment to the agreement’s goal of stopping or slowing climate change. Read the full story HERE.
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PHOTO: Members of the House of Bishops pose for a photo on Sept. 20, 2019, the final day of their fall meeting in Minneapolis, Minn., behind a banner supporting creation care. Credit: David Paulsen/Episcopal News Service.
In the News: The Hard work of Race
Iconic ‘Paul Revere’ Church in Boston, Built in 1723, Reckons with Its Links to Slavery Yet Liberty
Old North Church is a living witness to one of the most significant chapters in American history. Immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the white spire rising above the narrow streets of Boston’s North End is where two lanterns were hung to signal the approach of British troops that started the Revolutionary War. But while Old North has been known as a symbol of the American fight for liberty and justice, its story is also intertwined with the national sin of slavery. Read the full story HERE.
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PHOTO: Old North Church is Boston’s oldest standing church, and it still houses an active Episcopal congregation. Credit: Egan Millard/Episcopal News Service.
Absalom Jones Center to Launch Social Justice Project Named for Bishop Barbara Harris
The Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing, an initiative of the Diocese of Atlanta that has served the past two years as a resource supporting The Episcopal Church’s racial reconciliation work, is about to expand its scope, and it will do so in the name of one of the church’s most heralded bishops. On Nov. 16, 2019, the Episcopal educational center launched the Bishop Barbara C. Harris Justice Project to strengthen the church’s efforts to address environmental injustice, health inequities, mass incarceration, the death penalty, inhumane immigration policies and other social justice issues. Read the full story by clicking HERE.
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PHOTO: Retired Bishop Suffragan Barbara Harris of the Diocese of Massachusetts. Credit: Matthew Cavanaugh/Diocese of Massachusetts.
Pilgrimage Connects Racism to America’s Core, Focusing Executive Council’s Work for Change
The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, a small, mostly African American congregation in Montgomery, Alabama’s Centennial Hill neighborhood, has just eight rows of pews. All of them were filled on Oct. 21, 2019, when members of The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council were joined by parishioners there, all eager to hear from their guest of honor, Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson, a prominent death row and public interest attorney, is arguably the reason Executive Council chose Montgomery for its fall meeting. Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative opened the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice last year in Alabama’s capital city to tell the full story of America’s 400-year history of racial violence and terrorism. Read the full story by clicking HERE.
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PHOTO: Presiding Bishop Michael Curry on Oct. 19, 2019, looks up at one of the columns hanging at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery. The steel columns memorialize the victims of lynching from 1877 to 1950, with each column representing an American county where at least one of the attacks occurred. Credit: David Paulsen/Episcopal News Service.
In the NEws: CulturE INCLUSiON In ACTION
Worshippers Separated by Culture, Language Find Common Ground at Alabama Church
Shirley Fifield, 88, has attended services at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Montgomery, Alabama, since 1973. A widow whose family roots are in Wisconsin, she attends the Sunday morning Eucharist at All Saints’, and she speaks only English. Gabriel Rosales, 25, and his wife, Rosalba Barrera, 19, are fluent in three languages, including Spanish and an indigenous Mexican language known as Mixtec. They began attending the Sunday afternoon Spanish-language service at All Saints’ about six months ago and since then have had two of their children baptized there. Now, the disparate lingual groups are finding common ground and opportunities to share their faith with each other. Read the full story HERE.
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PHOTO: Gabriel Rosales stands to read one of the scriptural lessons during the Spanish-language service Oct. 20 at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Credit: David Paulsen/Episcopal News Service.
North Dakota Diocese to Welcome Pilgrimages at Standing Rock Interpretive Center and Lodge
A new lodge at an Episcopal youth camp on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation will double as a Native American interpretive center, highlighting local history and culture for visitors drawn to the region by an interest in indigenous rights advocacy there. The Episcopal Church was a prominent supporter of tribal demonstrators who in 2016 tried to block construction of part of an oil pipeline that they feared could threaten Standing Rock’s drinking water. Since then, the Diocese of North Dakota has welcomed various outside groups interested in learning about the fight for indigenous and ecological justice at its St. Gabriel’s Camp in Solen, N.D. Read the full story by clicking HERE.
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PHOTO: Youth camp participants pose for a group photo in July in front of the new Star Lodge at St. Gabriel’s Camp in Solen, N.D. Credit: John Floberg.
Faith Leaders Protest Immigration Enforcement Policies Outside Building Named for Minnesota Bishop
On Oct. 29, 2019, the faithful of Minnesota bundled up against the first frozen morning of the season to hold vigil, to protest, and to make their voices heard. Their demand: Evict ICE — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — from the federal building named for Minnesota’s first bishop, or remove the bishop’s name from the building. “What is happening to immigrants in the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building is in direct opposition to the values, theology and policy of The Episcopal Church,” the Rev. Devon Anderson, rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in Excelsior, said during a press conference held outside the building. “To us, it is an intolerable irony to have the name of the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, an icon of human rights and compassion, on the front of this building in which so much injustice and cruelty occurs on a daily basis.” Read the full story by clicking HERE.
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PHOTO: An ecumenical group of worshippers celebrate the Eucharist Oct. 29, 20109, during a demonstration outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Minn. Photo: Lauren Smythe.
What does “Episcopal” mean?
The Episcopal Church is “Protestant, yet Catholic.” Episcopal means “of bishops.” The Episcopal Church traces its bishops (its ministers and clergy) and its origins back to the Apostles (the early followers of Jesus) via holy orders, which are a direct line of succession back to the time of Jesus.
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