November 28, 2013
Thanksgiving Day           

We will have ONE service only at 9 a.m. this coming Sunday, December 1 and the First Sunday of Advent. The first Advent candle will be processed and altar ministers and eucharistic visitors will be commissioned. The coffee hour will be hosted by the Vestry.

At about 10:20, all who are interested are invited to gather in the Parish Hall to discuss our annual distribution of outreach funds. While the Vestry will make the final decision, this open parish conversation provides advice. In 2012 we supported about 18 different organizations that serve God’s mission in the world (locally and globally) with donations ranging from $50 to $300. Priority is given to organizations and projects in which parishioners are personally involved. If you have an organization that you would like to see our church support, please come prepared to “introduce” it to us through your description and perhaps some printed materials.

Advent calendars are available for children.  Poster/calendars with the "Slow Down. Quiet. It’s Advent." theme are available for anyone wanting to enrich their Advent season.

As we look ahead to Christmas… Envelopes are now in the pews for the poinsettias and laurel roping that Christmas that will decorate our church. Contributions of any amount may be made in memory or in thanksgiving and placed in the offering plate or mailed to the church.

Boughs & Bonbons, our Christmas Fair, will be held on Saturday, December 7 from 9 to 1. Mark your calendar and invite your friends. To make this event a continued success, we need your help:
•         Bake cookies

•         Make candy

•         Bake bread or make preserves

•         Deliver posters

•         Come decorate the wreaths on Thurs. Dec. 5 at 9 a.m.

•         Set up and clean up

•         Work at the fair

Please contact co-chairs Lynne Clough (323-7046) or Patti Rau (367-8223) with questions or offers of help.  Let’s make this Boughs & Bonbons a continued success!

Blooming in the Wilderness: An Advent Quiet Day will be held at Saint Andrew’s on Saturday, December 14th from 9 to 1. Take a little time out of Advent to contemplate the joy-filled mystery that lies beneath all the busyness of the weeks before Christmas. We will gather in periods of silent prayer and invite the Spirit into our midst through a variety of creative expressions. We will be led by the Rev. Susan Ackley, who has explored the relationship between prayer and creativity in a variety of quiet days and other venues. She served as priest/artist-in-residence at Emmanuel Church in Boston last spring and was a member of the clergy team here during Heidi’s sabbatical in 2011. Please call or email the church office to register.

Thank you for your prayers and understanding last Sunday when I was called away unexpectedly to attend to my hospitalized elderly father. He has regained some strength and is now in skilled nursing care at the Rhode Island facility where he and his wife have their apartment. My sincere thanks go to Carol, our senior warden, who urged me to go and “be a daughter,” and to Lisa, Gretchen, and Ellie+ who graciously officiated for the services. And thanks to all of you who valiantly braved the chill of our unheated church! Toes and fingers may have been cold, but I gather the Spirit was warm and present. I sincerely hope that our furnace technicians have now solved the problems.

Food for thought and reflection…

This is a time to give thanks, and I give thanks for your presence in my life and the life of this parish family.  I wish you a happy and blessed Thanksgiving.

While we will not all be together for worship on Thanksgiving Day, I hope you will set some time aside both privately and at your table with others to give thanks to God for the many blessings of your life.

The Collect for Thanksgiving Day
Almighty and gracious God, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. [BCP p. 246]

And, lest Saint Andrew be overlooked in the fullness of this coming weekend…

The Collect for the Feast Day of Saint Andrew, November 30^th
Almighty God, who gave such grace to your apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: Give us, who are called by your holy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near to us into his gracious presence; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
[BCP p. 237]

Yours in Christ,
Heidi+

November 21, 2013

Services for this coming Sunday, November 24^th, the Last Sunday after Pentecost and Our Final  Ingathering Celebration, will be at 8 and 10 at which time all the pledges will be offered to God in Thanksgiving during the liturgy.

A message from your Stewardship Committee: Thanks to the many people who have responded by turning in pledges for the coming year! It is only by knowing what the church can expect to receive that the Finance Committee and Vestry are able to make budgetary decisions for 2014. If you have misplaced your pledge, additional cards are available on the piano. Completed pledge cards may be put in the offering plate on Sunday or mailed to the church office. Once you have turned yours in, be sure to open your “door” on our Grounded in Giving tree on the piano … and if you’ve forgotten your number, or if you find that yours has been opened already, just open any door, folding it back firmly, so the picture can be seen. Questions? Talk to Gretchen or Lisa (or Debra in the office).

Saint Andrew's Harvest Supper and Pie Auction TOMORROW NIGHT! Tickets will be available at the door. Plan to come and invite your friends! We are hoping that many of you will provide your delicious baked pies (pies that can be frozen for Thanksgiving feasts are especially welcome) to be auctioned following the meal, beginning at about 7:30pm.  Note: Pies should be delivered on the day of the dinner/auction by 3 p.m.

A message from the Food Pantry: The Food Pantry is always grateful for your contributions of food, but at this time of year, as preparations are being made for the Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets, please know that cash contributions are especially helpful, since Food Pantry purchasers are able to buy items at much reduced prices, so your contribution dollars go further! Thank you.

St. Andrew’s Boughs & Bonbons Holiday Fair is only two weeks away!

Saturday, December 7th – 9 AM – 1PM

We need your help with this last fundraising event of the year.

We would like to put cookies in tins this year. If you have any holiday tins that you could donate, it would be appreciated. They should be big enough to hold about a dozen cookies.  We also need volunteers to help….

 

·         Make bows: Monday, Nov 25^th at 6:30 pm
·         Decorate wreaths: Thursday, Dec. 5^th at 9am
·         Bake cookies
·         Make candy
·         Bake bread or make preserves or relishes
·         Deliver posters
·         Set up and clean up
·         Work at the fair

 

Please contact co-chairs Lynne Clough (323-7046) or Patti Rau (367-8223) with questions or offers of help.  Let’s make this Boughs & Bonbons a continued success!

 

Blessings, Heidi+

November 14, 2013

Altar flowers were given in loving memory of Fred Jones and William Rooks

 Services for this coming Sunday, November 17^th, the Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, will be at 8 and 10, the Rev. Randy Dales preaching and presiding. Randy is the retired rector of All Saints’ Church, Wolfeboro and currently serves as diocesan chaplain to retired clergy. Following the 10:00 service, you are invited to gather with our parish representatives to Diocesan Convention and Randy for a discussion of our recent Diocesan Convention. Come and hear more about the issues that were discussed and the decisions that were made.

Heidi and Duane will be in California on retreat for a week with their son at his monastery. If you are in need of pastoral care or have important questions, please call the office (323-8515) and leave a message, or contact senior warden Carol Tubman (615-8230).

A message from your Stewardship Committee: Thanks to the many people who have responded by turning in pledges for the coming year! It is only by knowing what the church can expect to receive that the Finance Committee and Vestry are able to make budgetary decisions for 2014. If you have misplaced your pledge, additional cards are available on the piano. Completed pledge cards may be put in the offering plate on Sunday or mailed to the church office. Once you have turned yours in, be sure to open your “door” on our Grounded in Giving tree on the piano … and if you’ve forgotten your number, or if you find that yours has been opened already, just open any door, folding it back firmly, so the picture can be seen. Questions? Talk to Gretchen or Lisa (or Debra in the office).

Our final Ingathering Celebration will be on Sunday, November 24^th, at which time all the pledges will be offered to God in Thanksgiving during the liturgy.

 

 

Plan to join us for a Saint Andrew's Harvest Supper and Pie Auction, to be held on Friday evening, November 22nd. Tickets will be available at the door. Plan to come and invite your friends! We are hoping that many of you will provide your delicious baked pies (pies that can be frozen for Thanksgiving feasts are especially welcome) to be auctioned following the meal, beginning at about 7:30pm.  Note: Pies should be delivered on the day of the dinner/auction by 3 p.m.

 

A message from the Food Pantry: The Food Pantry is always grateful for your contributions of food, but at this time of year, as preparations are being made for the Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets, please know that cash contributions are especially helpful, since Food Pantry purchasers are able to buy items at much reduced prices, so your contribution dollars go further! Thank you.

Thank you to Sammie for organizing the inspiring visit last Sunday from her friend and colleague Tamara Kittleson-Aldred of Eleanore’s Project. The audio of Tamara’s sermon will be available next week. Meanwhile, enjoy the pictures as a number of us had a chance to explore wheelchair use … land to realize the enormous skill required!!!

Yikes!  St. Andrew’s Boughs & Bonbons Holiday Fair is a only month away. Saturday, December 7th – 9 AM – 1PM

We need your help with this last fundraising event of the year.

We would like to put cookies in tins this year. If you have any holiday tins that you could donate, it would be appreciated. They should be big enough to hold about a dozen cookies.  We also need volunteers to help….

·         Make bows: Monday, Nov 25^th at 6:30 pm
·         Decorate wreaths: Thursday, Dec. 5^th at 9am
·         Bake cookies
·         Make candy
·         Bake bread or make jams, conserves, dessert sauces, etc.
·         Deliver posters
·         Set up and clean up
·         Work at the fair

Please contact co-chairs Lynne Clough (323-7046) or Patti Rau (367-8223) with questions or offers of help.  Let’s make this Boughs & Bonbons a continued success!

Food for thought: A reflection on giving thanks
from The Very Rev. Sam Candler, Cathedral of St. Phillip, Atlanta, Georgia…

…Maybe this is what it’s like to be close to the Kingdom of God, where all is made new: When I realize how much I do not need, I am that much freer to acknowledge the simple wonders God has for me right now – the simple gifts like love, and family, friends, the church, and community.

Maybe this is what real thanksgiving feels like: Thanksgiving is freedom from the unnecessary clutter of our lives – freedom from what we do not need, so that we can see anew the simple gifts God has for each of us.

Have a good week. You will be in my thoughts and prayers as I sit by my tent in the avocado grove. 

Blessings, Heidi+

November 7, 2013

 

Services for this coming Sunday, the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost,will be at 8 and 10 AM. Readings for this Sunday: Job 19:23-27a, Psalm 17:1-9, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17, Luke 20:27-38.

At the ten o’clock service we will have a special guest. Tamara Kittleson-Aldred will join us, offering the homily, working with our children, as well engaging us in special activities after the service.  Tamara is the director of Eleanore’s Project. She is an occupational therapist, and the mother of the late Eleanore, for whom Eleanore’s Project is named. This project is the wheelchair ministry that Sammie and Carol have participated in over the last seven years. 

Proper adaptive equipment for mobility, sign language and alternative communication systems, along with family education and a supportive community provide the focus for the mission of Eleanore’s Project. Tamara has graciously agreed to offer us a window into this creative and powerful ministry that partners with Peruvians, so that together (in the words of our Baptismal Covenant) they seek and serve Christ in all persons, strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every human being. And since this will be our November family-friendly service, the children will have an opportunity for special wheel chair learning.

The Sandwich Federated Church is planning a Giving Meal in Support of the Community Food Center, Sandwich-Tamworth food pantry. It is scheduled for November 13th at around 5 to 7 pm. The main course will be both chili with meat and meatless chili, at the diners preference.

Ladies Lunch Bunch: Wednesday, Nov. 13^th Mountain View Station Restaurant at noon.

We hope you will join us for a Saint Andrew's Harvest Supper and Pie Auction, to be held on Friday evening, November 22nd. Tickets will be available at the door. Plan to come and invite your friends.! We are hoping that many of you will provide your delicious baked pies (pies that can be frozen for Thanksgiving feasts are especially welcome) to be auctioned following the meal, beginning at about 7:30pm. 

We also need help delivering flyers. Please pick them up in the Parish Hall.
Note: Pies should be delivered on the day of the dinner/auction by 3 p.m.

We have handrails!!! Thanks to Tom Huckman our handrails are now complete, providing safe, supportive access to our facility! Thank you, Tom, for your amazing generosity of service.

 St. Andrew's was well represented at our Diocesan Convention last weekend. Also present, though not for this picture, were Lee Custer and Ellie McLaughlin. Congratulations to Cathie Lewis who was elected to serve as an alternate deputy to General Convention in Slat Lake City in 2015. The bishop’s Convention address is available on line at http://www.nhepiscopal.org. There are also paper copies available on the info table in the Parish Hall.

Pledge Season continues… Remember to join in the fun of opening  “your door” on our Grounded in Giving tree on the piano in the church when you have made your pledge card of support for the coming year. And remember…no pledge is too modest if it is the right pledge for you. Similarly, no pledge is too large if it right for you. Your pledge is one way of claiming Saint Andrew’s as your church home.

Yikes!  St. Andrew’s Boughs & Bonbons Holiday Fair is a only month away.

Saturday, December 7th – 9 AM – 1PM

We need your help with this last fundraising event of the year.
We would like to put cookies in tins this year. If you have any holiday tins that you could donate, it would be appreciated. They should be big enough to hold about a dozen cookies.  We also need volunteers to help….
·        Make bows
·        Decorate wreaths: 
·        Bake cookies
·        Make candy
·        Bake bread or make preserves or relishes
·        Deliver posters
·        Set up and clean up
·        Work at the fair

Please contact co-chairs Lynne Clough (323-7046) or Patti Rau (367-8223) with questions or offers of help.  Let’s make this Boughs & Bonbons a continued success!

 

Food for thought on giving, pledging, and stewardship from John Westerhoff…

[At a fundamental level,] stewardship is not a program or a campaign or a season. It is not about raising money for the church budget (although that money is necessary). Stewardship is a way of life – a way of life that grows naturally from our Christian faith and spiritual life. Once we have all grown in our relationship with God and therefore in faith, hope, and love, we will never again have to worry about church finances or have pledge drives. The economics of God will make sense, and stewardship will become a natural dimension of our Christian life of faith, [but we’re not there yet.] …

….If we are to live in an ever deepening and loving relationship with God, we need to live out of the depth of life, identifying with all who suffer. This sense of compassion underlies grateful and generous hearts. If we are to be aware of the presence and action of God in our lives and history, we need to be alone and silent. This consciousness of God nurtures grateful and generous hearts. And if we are, with God’s help, to know and to do God’s will, we need to pay attention to the deep restlessness in our interior lives. This ability will lead us to have grateful and generous hearts.

“God of grace and God of glory,” a well-known hymn by Harry Emerson Fosdick, (595 in our Hymnal) written during the Great Depression, puts it this way:
Shame our wanton, selfish gladness,
rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal.
lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal.

May we be blessed as we walk this walk together.

See you in church,
Heidi+

Randy Ouellette, guest trumpeter

for All Saints' Sunday

 

Good food and good conversation all around at the All Saints' Day Stewardship Breakfast