St. John's Caring & Sharing Church News July & August Edition We are trying a different look... ...for our summer newsletter. We hope this will save time and paper, postage, copier time and effort, as well as make the information quicker to find and easier to understand. If we have your e-mail address, we will be sending this to you electronically. If not, we will continue to send it through the postal service. If you get this in the mail and you DO have an email address, let the church office know. If you get this electronically and would rather receive a mailed copy, let us know that also. Don't forget to check here at www.stjohnsofworcester.org for the latest calendar and other up to date information. Things to know for the Summer: * Services will be held as usual at 8:00 am and 10:00 am. There will be congregational singing but the choir will be in the pews too. * There will be a Children's Program during the 10:00 am service each week. * The First Sunday breakfast and blood pressure clinic will continue to be held at 9:00 am Have a safe, relaxing summer of re-creation. Take time to slow down, breath deeply, spend part of each day doing absolutely nothing... and listen for the voice of God in the bird song, the sound of the waves, the laughter of children running through the sprinkler.. in fact, run through it with them! And remember that God flat-out adores you! Parish Nurse Here's wishing you all a safe summer. Sun and heat can cause burns and dehydration. Don't forget to use lots of sun screen and drink 6 glasses of water every day. Blood pressure clinic will be held in July and August if Erin doesn't go into labor that morning. As always, if you know of someone who is sick or in need of a visit please call me at home or cell anytime and I am at church on Tuesdays. - Deb In Memoriam: Our prayers and condolences to the friends and families of three members of St. John's who have recently passed into resurrection life. Helen Haywood Waterfield - June 14, 2008 Sally (Rennicks) Flaherty - June 18, 2008 Bessie "Betty" Louise (McLaughlin) Cronk - June 18, 2008 (Betty's step-son Robert also passed on June 20, 2008) JULY INFO July 7th to 11th - VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. For ages 5 - 12. This year's VBS is again facilitated by a team of young adults from the Diocese and is based on the Chronicles of Narnia, featuring Aslan the lion. Cost $50 per child. Registration forms are available at church. Parents are asked to send a lunch and snacks with their children. Registration deadline is Sunday June 29, 2008. ALSO: One adult is needed each day to open the church at 8:30 am, be available at least by phone during the day if there are any problems, and then come back at 3 pm to lock up. An adult sign up sheet is in the church hall. July 13th - HEALING SERVICES at both 8:00 am and 10:00 am. Remember that in order to participate in the healing prayers, you may come to the prayer desks, or signal an usher to have one of the healing team come to you in the pews, or ask for individual prayers following the service. The Healing Team will meet on July 15th. July 13th - MISSION SEND OFF BBQ, 11:30 am. Stay after church on July 13th for a BBQ and a time for well wishes to Courtney & Amanda as they prepare to travel to Ireland on their mission trip. They are still accepting donations toward the cost of the trip. July 14th - VESTRY & LEADERSHIP MEETING 7:00 PM July 18th/19th - FOOD PANTRY set-up Friday night at 6:00 pm and distribution on Saturday at 10:00 am. Why don't you consider helping! If you cannot get to the store to buy food to contribute, you can still help by buying a grocery store card on Sunday mornings following each service and donating it to the Pantry and thus helping the Hope For Housing program to address homelessness in Worcester as well as help our own pantry clients... A nice double win for everyone. July 26th - TORNADO'S GAME 7:00 pm Episcopal Night at the Tornado's. See Gina Andros or use the sign up sheet in Alexander Hall, by the July 13th deadline, if you want to attend. Let's get a good crowd to go have some fun. Tickets are $8. AUGUST INFO Aug. 3rd - PARISH BREAKFAST AND BLOOD PRESSURE CLINIC 9:00 am Aug. 10th - HEALING SERVICES at 8:00 am and & 10:00 am Aug. 11th - VESTRY & LEADERSHIP MEETING 7:00 pm Aug. 15th/16th - FOOD PANTRY set up and distribution Aug. 23rd - ST. JOHN'S REUNION. Stay tuned for more details. Gina Andros, Elaine Andros, David Jalbert, Kelsey Sanders, and Mike Sanders are planning an exciting time and hoping that MANY former St. John's members will come back to have a grand visit. We are getting ready to celebrate the 125th ANNIVERSARY OF ST. JOHN'S, and this will make a great kick-off to that celebration. It would be wonderful to see lots of our old (and new) friends for a night of fun reminiscing. Dust off those memories, dig out your old pictures. From a Parishioner I want to thank the entire church school, the staff working with Barbara Sanders, all the young people who worked hard on dramatizations throughout the year, and the parents who have seen to it that these young folks got to church on Sundays. You have all made my worship more meaningful and it gives me a warm heart to know that the love of God through His Son Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit are being spread to us all through you young folks. Your recent program about Abraham was just great. Barbara Sanders has expressed to the vestry the need to look for someone to work with our young people as they become teenagers in the coming years, so they will have a continuing program that will grow with them. There are concerns about the fact that "kids" grow up and leave church and sometimes don.t come back until they have their own kids. Some ideas of how to keep them here are being thought through, and I would ask everyone in the church to pray about this, and you may be asked for your thoughts. It is my personal opinion that we will not grow as a parish if we don’t nourish our children. I want us to pray for an expanding church school and active youth ministry. I think we need to have the seeds of a program in place when these youngsters are ready for it and not wait. So the need as I see it is for thoughts on what such a program should look like, what it would take to staff it and how to pay for it. We know that right now there is no money to hire a youth minister, but let’s not let the hard work of Barbara and the rest of her staff (sorry for not naming you all) be the end of Christian Education for these young people at St John’s. I think that would be a slap in the face to them and would cheat our young people who will become the adults of this parish in a few years. Yours in Christ, Bev Heath