Emmanuel Voice – February 2024
A totally random Newsletter of Emmanuel parish events, news and articles published several times per year. Subscribe to the Blog. You can unsubscribe at any time. We are not able to see who is a subscriber and who is not. Your choice is confidential. 😊
Lent 2024 is Almost Here!
The season of Lent begins this week with Ash Wednesday, February 14th. How appropriate to celebrate God’s Love and human Love on the same day! As it should be. Always. For God IS Love. This year, we get this opportunity as people of faith, to celebrate Valentine’s Day remembering the quintessential Lover of our souls – our God. God sent his son out of his enormous love. We love because he first loved us!
Ash Wednesday Services are at 7 pm. All are welcome.
Keeping a Holy Lent
What does it mean to “keep a holy lent?” What makes lent “holy” is to set it apart. When we treat it like any other day of the year, we could be missing out on an opportunity to draw closer to God, open up to God, reflect on our relationship with God, or deepen our commitment to that relationship. Of all the many ways of looking at this special or sacred time, the important thing is to think of it as a help to our spiritual well-being or growth rather than an obligation. As Jesus said, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In the same way, lent is a tool for us to use, not a burden set by God. It is a man-made structure within the church year to aid our relationship to God and no doubt blessed by God for our good.
We may want to make the most of this season of Lent, but life is full of distractions and temptations! — which is why “Watch and Pray” is necessary. Below are a few hints or “hacks” to help us keep that Holy Lent.
Have a Plan
TIME
A simple plan with a little structure is the best insurance for sticking to a regular time to be with God and expand our knowledge of him and open our hearts to him. Whether we pick mornings or evenings or Wednesdays, we need a time – a time to call our time with God.
GUIDE
Next, it helps to know what we are going to do with that time, and look forward to it. Have a guide of some kind. It could be the daily readings, a daily devotional, reading through the Stations of the Cross, journaling, participating in a Bible study, etc. Our Emmanuel website has many resources and suggestions to guide us.
COMMUNITY
What could be the most important aspect of sticking with whatever you choose, is doing it with others or checking in with others – positive accountability encouragement, support, sharing, learning from each other, finding inspiration, make it meaningful or even fun!
Lenten Resources
One resource that many have found helpful is Living Compass. While there are study guides for important topics, there are also, yearly devotionals for Lent and Advent. These devotionals are all on their website available for free in PDF format for download or dropped into your email box daily for Lent. In addition, printed copies can be ordered from the website.
BUT, printed copies have already been ordered for this year and are available for free in the back of the church. This year’s theme is Practicing Forgiveness with all your Heart, Soul, Strength and Mind. Each Compass series starts from the premise that the way we love God is to engage fully – with our heart, soul, strength and mind, and to PRACTICE. Simple but profound. Join us.
Secondly there are a multitude of other resources ON THIS WEBSITE to help guide us through Lent that have been collected over the years. If you know of other great resources that you would like to see added to this collection, please email the church.
Lastly, there are studies and lectures at several parishes around the Diocese. Sign up here to receive the Diocesan Newsletter, Grace Happens for details.
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Virtual Devotions with Bishop Ketlan
You are invited to spend time with the Bishop and members of the laity from around the diocese on ZOOM.
Nurturing our Faith is an opportunity for fellowship, prayer, and spiritual reflection through story sharing. This gathering for laity is the first of three such Zoom gatherings. All three will have the same format and any lay person can come to any one of them.
The additional dates are Thursday, April 18, at 9:30 a.m. and Thursday, May 30, at 12 p.m.
Please register for this online event.
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Bishop’s Visit
Bishop Ketlan’s annual visit to Emmanuel is Sunday, February 25th at the 10:30 service. We look forward to spending time with our lovely Bishop.
Following the service is a reception in the lounge with Finger Foods and beverages. For ideas, click on 50 Best Finger Foods!
If you are so inclined, please bring an appetizer or other bite sized contribution. Thank you.
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Prayer Request for Don 👁️
Father Don requested prayer for his eye. His lens (think cataract surgery) is slipping and irritating his cornea. He may have to have surgery. Soon. He loves his Ophthalmologist at least. So do remember Don in your prayers.
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Sanctuary Lighting
In case you have not noticed, the lighting in the church has been vastly improved! Josh McIntyre of McIntyre Electric went to heroic efforts to revamp our obstinate lighting needs. This was no easy project just to replace lightbulbs! But Josh and several teams stuck with it and we can now see to read in the pews and admire our beautiful Gibson Girl, AKA Angel altar. Give thanks to God for this Christian man who gave us a very good price, saying, “all the money is God’s anyway.” Amen, brother. We thank God for you, Josh!
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Jazz @ Emmanuel
The Jazz Service on February 11th was “I Am Because We Are or Because You Are.”
The theme was very well represented by the meaningful readings. The music selections tied in extra closely to the theme also. For more on the theme and info for next month, see our web post here.
But here are a few highlights from the vespers.
Emmanuel Episcopal Church