Hello –
As promised, here’s the second of the two emails. Like the last one, this consists of a list of things that you can expect coming up at St. Paul’s.
What I hope to convey is that after the first of the year we’ll be shifting our attention a bit from all the practical matters that have necessarily captured our attention back to our core work of following Jesus together in Prayer, Worship and Service.
• Starting Sunday, January 4th after the 10am service I’ll be offering an introductory class to Christian practices such as Bible reading, praying and serving the poor. I’ll also be available to answer all your questions about St. Paul’s, the Episcopal Church and the Christian faith. The class goes until Lent.
• Lent begins February 18th and once again we’ll be offering the PrayWorshipServe Lenten Challnege. 20+1+5. Pray 20 minutes a day, worship an hour a week and offer 5 hours throughout Lent in service of the poor. Check out the website at PrayWorshipServe.com.
• We currently have 7 Outreach projects which involve three or more people from St. Paul’s. This week we’ll be sharing with everyone a survey to get your impressions, ideas and knowledge of this central work of our Christian community. We intend to give a full report at our Annual Meeting, which is Sunday, February 1st after the 10am service.
• Both of our weekday classes have new starts after the first of the year. Tuesdays at 12:30pm we will be reading the Gospel of John. Wednesdays at 10am we will be working our way through a short handbook of faith by St. Augustine called the Enchiridion. It’s a commentary on the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles Creed that gives a foundational outline of the beliefs of our tradition.
• Both the 8am and 10am services will be different for Epiphany, the season before Lent. In place of the liturgy of the Word, that is the first half of the Eucharist service, we will be saying Morning Prayer. I hope this does three things for you. First, I hope you get to know and love this beautiful part of our tradition. Second, I hope you like it well enough to check out our two weekday Morning Prayer services on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:30am. Finally, if you do choose to take the Lenten Challenge, it might give you a beautiful thing to do with your 20 minutes of daily prayer.
Don’t worry, you’ll be hearing all of this again many times. Following Jesus together by nurturing these practices of prayer, worship and service is the heart of who we are and what we do.
Blessings,
Christopher
p: (415) 456-4842