The Weekly View - September 10, 2021
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In This Issue
- Weekly Message from Rev. Joanne Whitt
- Weekly Facebook Video
- Announcements & Upcoming Events
- Outreach Opportunities
message from rev. whitt
Dear St. Luke family,
This coming Sunday is Homecoming Sunday, a festive celebration of the beginning of fall and a new church program year. We’re welcoming the choir back to the sanctuary and we’re starting a new sequence of traditional worship music alternating Sundays with alternative music. We’re looking ahead to a stewardship campaign, a gala fundraiser dinner, the election of new deacons, an officers’ retreat, and exciting progress reports from the pastor nominating committee. We’ll observe Reformation Sunday and All Saints’ Sunday, remembering those resting in God’s care beyond this earthly life. We’ll celebrate God’s generosity with Thanksgiving, and once again we’ll look forward to God’s coming in the season of Advent. We’ll celebrate Christmas Eve in the sanctuary, offering our service of candlelight and carols to our friends and neighbors as we have for many years.
When we planned Homecoming a couple of months ago, we were assuming the restrictions of the pandemic would be behind us and we’d be back in the sanctuary after Labor Day without masks. But then the Delta variant intervened. Nevertheless, with so much to celebrate, we’re proceeding with Homecoming with our masks in place. We’ll hear festive music from the choir and from Erich Miller on steel drums. We’ll celebrate the amazing burrito ministry of church member Michael Baranowski, Kitchen Manager for the Marin Street Chaplaincy. We’ll celebrate September birthdays and anniversaries, and together we’ll lift up a prayer reminding our school kids that God is with them, even at school.
Our Scripture passage from Mark’s gospel this Sunday invites us to think about where the focus of our congregational life and activity is found. Of course we seek spiritual nourishment for the faithful, but a congregation’s mission cannot end there, within our own church. Like Jesus himself, his disciples are continually called to a larger vision of mission — one that aims to embrace the outsider, the stranger, even the enemy. After all, we do know, we really do, just how deeply God loves the whole world – and that is exactly what the whole world needs to hear.
Because it’s the second Sunday of the month, we’ll worship only in the sanctuary, with no Zoom or online worship this week. Our sanctuary is big enough for a good crowd to worship socially distant, and we’ll keep the doors open for increased ventilation. We’ll all wear masks, including worship leaders except when we are speaking. We’ll pass the peace observing people’s need for safe distance.
Please join us at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday in the sanctuary for our festive Homecoming Service. Don’t forget to “like” St. Luke on Facebook, where you can keep up with announcements and see our weekly midweek video.
Grace and peace,
Joanne Whitt
Interim Pastor