Thursday,
April 19, 2012

Services for this coming Sunday, April 22nd and the Third Sunday of Easter, will be at 8 and 10 AM, with coffee hours following both services. This is also Earth Day and (appropriately) Spring Work Day Sunday!

You are invited to come to church in your work clothes, bringing lawn rakes, work gloves, and garden tools and stay for an hour or so after the service. Since at the moment we do not have a sexton to do outside work, we need to get the lawn well raked before the mowing season begins. The back daffodil beds need serious weeding, and there are numerous scruffy, post-winter accumulations that need attention. So COME ONE! COME ALL!

The official “Work Day” will take place after the later service, but there are additional tasks that need to be tackled during the week, like using the blower to clear the sand from the parking lot. There will be a posted list.

Next Sunday, April 29th and the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is Good Shepherd Sunday, so bring your sheep – china, stuffed, carved, painted! We will display them along the window ledges and think about Jesus as our Good Shepherd. After the 10 o’clock service our Children’s Group and their adults and other interested friends will make a pilgrimage to the Hird’s farm in Sandwich for a picnic and to visit their live sheep and learn a little about sheep and shepherding.

Get your tickets this Sunday – or call the office and reserve! The Italian Mystery Dinner on Friday, April 27th at 6 is heating up! Our actors are rehearsing. Our chefs are cooking! And tickets are going fast! Please arrive promptly at 6:00 because the mystery is interspersed between the courses.

Do you ever feel as though your money is not in your control??? If so, please consider signing up for a unique, award-winning series called More than Money Matters. This series is being offered at no cost on four Mondays beginning April 23rd at the Freedom Public Library. Identify and set your goals, let your giving, saving, and spending align with your values, learn basic money management tools to help you budget, reduce debt, and find money to save. Registration info is in the Parish Hall. It is offered by Thrivant Financial for Lutherans, (but Episcopalians are welcome)!

The Bishop Search Process continues! We have our three nominees (Penny, Rob, and Bill) and we have been praying for them. They will be coming to town – actually to Holderness School – for a “Meet & Greet” opportunity on Wednesday, May 2nd. You are invited to this Question and Answer, get-acquainted event. If you would like to car-pool, please sign up on the lists on the parish bulletin Board.

The Electing Convention will be held on Saturday, May 19th at St. Paul’s Church in Concord. EVERYONE attending MUST preregister through Debra in our office by May 1st. There will be a limited number of seats for non-voting guests in the church AND a much large number of places available in the undercroft where sound will be piped in. So, if you would like to be part of the excitement, you too MUST register with Debra in our office. ONLY preregistered people will be permitted on site that day.

See below! There really is some work to be done to tidy things up for the season!














Food for thought as we approach Earth Day from Presiding bishop Katharine Jeffers Schori (from her book Gospel in the Global village: Seeking God's dream of Shalom)...

Reconciliation is God's mission; reconciling the world to God in Christ is the way Episcopalians put it. Reconciliation means restoring God's intention for the world. It's needed in the relationships between human beings and their creator, between and among human beings, and -- in ways that we are becoming increasingly aware of -- between human beings and the rest of creation.

See you in church, prepared to honor the earth by readying it for the coming season!
Blessings,
Heidi+