Announcements for the week of February 27

2012 Lenten Appeal from the Diocese

Dear Friends,
As we have pledged to walk along with our Indigenous brothers and sisters in Christ to address the legacy of cultural loss and abuse, it is appropriate that we continue to seek a road of healing and wholeness. I invite you, during this Lent, to join with me in supporting the (Council of the North) Suicide Prevention Program. Donations can be made through the Synod Office marked for “SPP”. Whether you choose to host an ongoing collection, a one-time offering contribution, or a special fundraising event, I hope this will be discussed in your parish so that we may offer both our financial and our prayer support to this important project.
I thank you for your consideration of this request, and I join with you in offering my prayers for all those for whom hope and light seem far away.
In Christ, the Rt. Rev. Jane Alexander, Bishop of Edmonton

Announcements

 Come to the church on Marck 17^th and celebrate ST. PATRICK’S DAY. We will decorate in green. We will have a potluck and maybe even sing! Join us from 6-8pm. All Welcome.

Volunteers need for COFFEE HOUR. What we really need would be people willing to clean up after the fellowship time after the 11am service.  If you can help out from time to time please talk to Fr. Steve or Kathleen Hancock.

MOM AND TOTS: For any mothers who have small children @ home and who would like a chance to get out and visit with other mothers while your children play, Shawna Cain has started a drop in mom and tots group here at the church on Tuesday mornings from 9am-11:30am. There is a $2 drop in fee to cover insurance and other incidentals.

CRAFTS GROUP: drop in on Tuesday afternoons from 1pm to 3pm at the church for a chance to work on crafts, have some tea and have a chance to visit. All welcome.

In the Diocese:

The Diocese of Edmonton social justice conference “We Believe, We Can: end homelessness” will be held April 13-14^th at Prayerworks Hall, 11725-93 St., Edmonton

St Michael's Minute Week of February 5

Announcements

The theme for MESSY CHURCH this month is Valentine’s Day. Children and their family are welcome to come and explore what God’s love looks like through worship, crafts and dinner together. This Saturday from 4:30pm to 6:30pm. All Welcome. Please sign up or tell Fr. Steve if you are coming.

Our MEN’S BREAKFAST is this Saturday morning at 9:30am. All of the men are invited for fellowship and a delicious breakfast!

PARISH LIFE meeting on Monday evening.  All are welcome to come and plan social events for the parish.

Our SHROVE TUESDAY annual pancake dinner is coming up on Tuesday, February 21, 2012. We will be open from 5:30pm until 7pm. Drop by for pancakes, sausages and a chance to visit. There is a small charge for dinner.

Lent is coming up soon. We always begin the season with a moving service called ASH WEDNESDAY. Join us for worship and self-reflection on Wednesday, February 22 at 7pm.

MOM AND TOTS: For any mothers who have small children @ home and who would like a chance to get out and visit with other mothers while your children play, Shawna Cain has started a drop in mom and tots group here at the church on Tuesday mornings from 9am-11:30am. There is a $2 drop in fee to cover insurance and other incidentals.

CRAFTS GROUP: drop in on Tuesday afternoons from 1pm to 3pm at the church for a chance to work on crafts, have some tea and have a chance to visit. All welcome.

OFFICE HOURS on Wednesday Evenings: If you would like to talk to Fr. Steve he will be in the office from 6-8 either about the church or about your prayer life, or even just to visit. Please sign up on the sign up sheet for a space.

Upcoming Events:

Feb 19 Vestry Meeting

Feb 21 Shrove Tuesday Pancake Dinner

Feb 22 Ash Wednesday Service

St. Michael's Minute

Annual General Meeting: Our AGM will take place on the last Sunday of January. We will have a combined service of Holy Communion at 10am, followed by a pot luck lunch and our meeting. The theme will be Re-Laying the Foundations. Please note that all reports are due on January the 15^th.

Messy Church: On Saturday, January 14^th we will have our monthly family service with dinner, worship and crafts. All families with children are invited. This month we will be looking at the day that Jesus was lost! Come and find out what happened. 4:30pm-6:30pm

Games Night: Join us on Friday the 13^th for a fun evening of crib or various board games, fun and fellowship. All are welcome. We will meet here at the church at 7pm.

Soup and Theology: This month’s meeting will be on the last Wednesday, January 25^th. We will be looking at a topic that people often have lots of questions about: the End. What do Christians mean by death, judgement, heaven and hell? There is always good conversation and plenty of food. The cost for dinner is $3. 6pm-7:30pm @ the church.

Mom and Tots: For any mothers who have small children @ home and who would like a chance to get out and visit with other mothers while your children play, Shawna Cain has started a drop in mom and tots group here at the church on Tuesday mornings from 9am-11:30am. There is a $2 drop in fee to cover insurance and other incidentals.

Crafts group: drop in on Tuesday afternoons from 1pm to 3pm at the church for a chance to work on crafts, have some tea and have a chance to visit. All welcome.

Upcoming Events:

Jan 21 @ 5:30pm Dining out at Swiss Chalet

Jan 28 @ 6pm: Youth Group

Jan 29 AGM

Christmas Services

Join us for Christmas Eve Services. We have two services. The first is at 7pm which is our family service and the second is at 11pm which is our traditional service.

We also have a 10am service on Christmas morning.

We hope to see you there! Merry Christmas and may the blessing of Jesus be with you on this his birthday.

Welcome to Advent!

We lit the first candle in our Advent wreath yesterday.  Here's a fast-paced 2-minute intro to this very special season :)

From the diocese:

Modelling Compassion, Courage and Reconciliation: Last week, the Diocese of Edmonton was privileged to host Fr. Michael Lapsley, an Anglican priest and restorative justice advocate from South Africa. While facilitating a workshop at King’s University College on Saturday, Lapsley described his role in the movement to end apartheid, which led to his exile by the South African Government in 1976. He spent 16 years as a chaplain for the African National Congress (ANC) in Lesotho and Zimbabwe.

In 1990, upon returning from Canada where he toured the country to help Canadians understand apartheid, Lapsley received a parcel deceivingly labeled as religious magazines. The package exploded, destroying his hands, blinding him in one eye, and damaging his hearing. The sinister act rendered Lapsley “as helpless as a baby for months”. “There were times I thought it might be better to be dead,” he says. “But God was present with me”. Prayers, love and support from people around the world – especially Canadians – lifted his spirits and incredibly, one year after the letter bomb attack, he was able to return to Canada to say thank-you for the “avalanche” of support.

Thus began Fr. Lapsley’s journey from victimhood to survivor. Eventually he would come to view himself as “more of a priest with no hands, than I was with two hands”. This courageous and compassionate man now runs the Institute for the Healing of Memories in Cape Town, where he seeks to accompany others on their journeys to healing and wholeness. He leads Healing of Memories workshops, which provide participants with a safe and scared space to share their stories and begin the journey to healing.

“When something terrible happens to us, it either causes us to diminish or to grow, but never are we the same,” he says.

Fr. Lapsley began his workshop in Edmonton by acknowledging the First Nations people that first walked this sacred land and the pain they carry from generation to generation. In fact, many of the people attending the workshop were local representatives of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, established in 2008 to tell the history of Indian Residential Schools and guide a process of reconciliation. Sadly, Lapsley pointed out that South Africans actually modelled their system of apartheid after the Canadian Indian Reserve System. “As people of faith, indigenous people and Canadians, we have gifts to give one another, and I hope we can learn from the mistakes that were made,” he said. “Healing is about integrating into ourselves the full reality of what has happened and to be at peace,” he says. “The scars are still there, but they are not bleeding.”

Read more about Fr. Lapsley’s visit to the diocese in the January issue of The Messenger. For information about the Institute for Healing of Memories, visit: www.healing-memories.org.

Who knew you could see Saturn from Nazareth

For future reference, if you want to know where the fun is, it is at Messy Church! Last weekend we visited the home town of Jesus. We had fun looking at what life was like in rural Israel in the time of Jesus. For instance, did you know that families would build large dwelling for a large extended family? They had two levels; the family slept all together on the top level and in the bottom one would be the storage and it is where the animals would come in for the night during winter. Jesus would have fallen asleep to the grunts and rustling of is animals. We also ate flatbread and other middleeastern food and had a great time trying to recreate the village of Nazareth where Jesus grew up. What it lacks in historical detail it makes up for in imagination. Each of the children had a "plot" on which they could draw roads or plants. We tried out our carpentry skills by hammering togetehr the houses and painting them, and them modeling animals and other things. Here are some of the plots. Take a look!