Church News & Events

We are compiling a new church directory, and we need your assistance. Please review the draft directories in the Narthex and make any necessary adjustments. Additionally, if you would like your directory photograph updated or if you have not had one taken yet, Steve Mouton will be available to take them for the next few Sundays, before and after services.

Please reach out to Rachel Reeves with any questions.

This week is an ember week. What does that mean? It usually means that each Church sets aside the days of Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week as a time of fasting and prayer for those who will be ordained to holy orders (deacon, priest, bishop) on the upcoming Sunday. In the book of Acts we learn that the apostles fasted and prayed prior to laying hands on anyone. The ember days are also an occasion, as we pray that Christ would “send forth laborers into his harvest”, to fast and pray for our bishop, the election of a new bishop, and for our clergy at Church of Our Saviour. We should also pray that Christ would raise up new clergy in our midst. This is how Christ supplies leaders for his flock, namely, by calling them to serve their local parish. So, I encourage you to take some time on Friday (Saturday is St. Matthew’s day, so the ember day is not observed this Saturday) to fast and pray that more men would receive and heed the call to holy service (see the three prayers for the ministry on BCP pp. 38-39). The world desperately needs Christ. St. Paul’s exhortation still addresses us today: How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Indeed, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

-Fr. Eric+

We are planning to start a couple of cell groups or ‘fellowship groups’ in October. As mentioned before, these groups will enable us to stay together, to live the Faith together throughout the week, and to invite newcomers to a more casual setting where they can get to know us. We will cap these first two groups at 6 families per group in order to keep them small enough to meet in homes. Once the first two groups are up and running and new leaders are trained, we’ll begin to start new groups. We’ll have our “under construction” signs up, so to speak, for the next few months, but I’m confident things will come together in God’s timing and we’ll find ourselves tremendously blessed by this opportunity to gather and grow together. 

-Fr. Eric+

It is a new year and we have plenty of new faces at our parish, which means a new church directory is needed! You can find a current directory in the Narthex – please check it and note any necessary changes on it. If you were not included last year, please add your information or email it to: [email protected] Additionally, Steve Mouton will be taking photos for those who need one or wish to have their prior one updated.

Coffee Hour Volunteers Needed!

We have an immediate need for an additional host for Coffee Hour Team 5 (the 5^th Sunday of the month – whenever there is a 5^th Sunday).  Please contact Karen Rafferty at [email protected] to let us know if you’d like to join the team!  The link to sign up to bring refreshments for the 8:00 services will be located in the weekly eNews letter.  We appreciate all the volunteers who make our coffee hours possible as this is a vital way for the church to build and strengthen the bonds of community.

“The household is a little Church.” When St. John Chrystostom said this, he was referring to the household in the late 4th century A.D., but he was also commenting on what he saw in Holy Scripture. Abraham loved Sarah as his own body and she in turn loved him as her head. Their orderly love for God and one another gave order and peace to the more than three hundred souls who made up their household (Gen. 14:14). Abraham’s was a big household, indeed it would be a large church if it were in our diocese! The relationship between the domestic and the ecclesial (or church) life was perhaps easier to see when families lived together in multi-generational homes along with their servants and farmhands, traveling together as a little society to church every Sunday and holy day. 

When Edmund Gibson, the bishop of London (d. 1748), wrote his Family Prayers (now in the back of our 1928 Prayer Book), he envisioned the “master” or “mistress” of the house leading prayer for the numerous relatives, friends and servants living on the property. Nowadays, in the post-industrial and post-Christian world, households are more like little islands, occupied by two or three people for short periods of time each day, often isolated in their own rooms. Many families too are no longer oriented “geographically” as a domestic society should be around “The Board”, that is the dinner table, as Fr. Robert Capon once lamented. Does the life of the home still point to the parish? Chrysostom says a Christian domestic community produces people who are “fit to oversee the Church”, because the mutual love of husband and wife points to the love shared between Christ and his bride, manifested in the local parish church.

One of the reasons why many churches establish Cell Groups (often called Small Groups) is that they have the potential to unite our domestic and ecclesial life. A Cell Group is a gathering of a “little Church” for the express purpose of building up the parish church by carrying out the parish’s mission to live the Christian life together. At Church of Our Saviour, our mission statement speaks of “rejoicing in” and “proclaiming the love of God in Jesus Christ,” as well as “living the traditional Christian Faith” and “passing on the same undiluted and saving faith to our children and community.” Our Sunday gatherings do not accomplish this mission alone. In order to fulfill our mission (Christ’s mission), we need to be actively meeting, praying, and communing with one another throughout the week. 

As we begin to plant Cell Groups in the various geographic regions around our parish, we hope that you will come to find these meetings indispensable support groups for our shared journey in faith and Christian charity. Groups will be composed of all ages, meeting around the table for dinner, Evening Prayer, and group discussions about Holy Scripture, as well as making plans to serve our communities in works of mercy and charity. We have a wonderfully blessed community at Church of Our Saviour! Let’s work together to point our homes and communities to the parish by opening the door to our neighbors, thus multiplying the opportunities for other people to join our parish as we reach the unchurched and disaffiliated, and watch as Christ’s blessing of love and peace rebounds again to our parish and our homes, reflecting the reciprocal movement of love between Christ and his Bride. 

The Rev. Dr. Eric Parker+