We are so happy to reopen our Godly Play classroom! Children in pre-K through 5th grade (parents and older siblings, too) are welcome to join the circle. We began last week with “The Story of Creation” and continue this coming Sunday, October 30, with “The Flood and the Ark.”
The window for applications for the position of rector of St. Michael’s closed on Saturday, October 8, with nine applicants. Members of the Search Committee have met to review the applications, and they’ve selected four candidates for interviews.
Youth Group has returned with new energy for the 2022-23 school year! Youth group will meet every other Sunday, with third Sundays spent with the NE Youth Collective, a newly formed collaboration of progressive churches in NE Portland who “are committed to the love of God for young people, through community, service and spiritual growth.” Meetings with the Youth Collective will rotate locations.
Last week, Julia introduced Team LIFE’s 2022 stewardship education plan, with its theme, Rooted in Our Neighborhood, Branching Out in Love. This week we focus on L, for labor. One definition of stewardship is “everything we do with everything we have” – in other words, everything we do with our time, our gifts and our resources, including our work. Psalm 119 refers to the seven times a day that faithful Jews offered praise to God, and those in monastic communities often speak of their work as prayer, intentionally weaving work and spirituality.
What a year! You’ve seen so much in the last twelve months… the beginnings of tentative steps forward in the wake of the pandemic, the hard transition of two dear priests out of our parish, an interim period of reflection and new-knowing as we move toward our new rector, through a long listening season. It’s been a time of big change, big griefs and big hope. In January,
The forum on Sunday, October 16, will feature a guest speaker from the Bybee Lakes Hope Center. The CEO and founder of the organization, Alan Evans, will be live-streamed for this presentation.
The Search Committee has received six applications as of today. At this time, the deadline to submit applications is this Saturday, October All of the information submitted by the candidates will be carefully reviewed, including the videos of sermons that are included in the application package. After that, Zoom interviews will be scheduled.
This Sunday, we will be observing our Patronal Festival of St Michael & All Angels, and Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has sent us a video greeting on the occasion of the centennial of that event. See it Sunday!
It’s been a wonderful summer of worshipping together at the combined Sunday service; but we’re pleased to announce that as of next Sunday, September 25, we celebrate our patronal feast day and also a return to our program-year schedule of four Sunday services: 7:30, 9:00 and 11:00 am in English, and 1:00 pm in Spanish.
While away on vacation last week, I was blessed to ride some of the best rollercoasters in the world, at Cedar Point in Northern Ohio near my hometown. My husband and I are theme park megafans, and I can honestly say there is almost nowhere I find more joy than at the top of that first big hill, about to slide 200 feet toward the ground at a hundred miles an hour. But before the big thrill, after they strapped us into our seats, the click-click-click of going upwards toward the top always makes me ask myself, ‘Lord, what have I done? This is a terrible idea!’
Sunday Services
7:30 – Rite I Traditional language with no music.
9:00 – Rite II Holy Eucharist with choir
11:00 – Inclusive language with choir
1:00 pm – Misa en Español
© 2023 St. Michael & All Angels
