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The Weekly Word
November 27, 2005
LOVE LETTERS: “I love the warm way in which our family has been received by the whole congregation.”
[Note: The Love Letter quotes printed here each Sunday are randomly selected from remarks written by parishioners in response to the question, “What do you like most about St. Matthew’s.” ]
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Welcome to Our Guests! We pray that your visit to St. Matthew’s will richly bless you and that you will come back again soon. Please fill out the Welcome Card located in the chair slot in front of you. Place the information portion in the offertory plate and affix the name tag so that we may identify and welcome you. And we have a special gift for you so please stop by the Welcome Table in the foyer after the service. From there, step out to the porch and enjoy a cup of coffee or a cold glass of lemonade with the church family. For information about St. Matthew’s, call Barbara or Betty at 345-8314 and visit our web site at www.StMattsAustin.org
The
Church Offers Nurturing, Experienced, Child Care for children who are infants to four years of age. Because
of the small number of children who attend the 8:00 a.m. nursery, all children ages
infant to years of age four are in the Education Building nursery beginning at
7:45 a.m. At 9:00 a.m., children below two years old are taken to the Huffman
Hall Nursery (located on the parking lot side of the hallway) and children from
two to four years are cared for in the Education Building nursery. Both
the Huffman Hall and the Education Building nurseries close at 12:15 p.m.
There is also a comfortable, soundproof room in the church balcony (sanctuary)
for adults who wish to keep their babies with them during the service.
Thanks for Wearing Your Nametag! If you need a new nametag please see Betty Mitchell at the Welcome Table in the Commons right after church. Thanks for faithfully wearing your nametag each and every Sunday.
Personal Prayer Teams are available during Communion at Prayer Stations on either side of the sanctuary. One station is located on the east side, by the windows, and the other station is on the west side in the gallery. Prayer requests and discussion are completely confidential.
Home Delivery of Holy Communion If you are unable to come to church and would like Holy Communion brought to you on Sunday, please call the church office at 345-8314.
If you attend church but are unable to walk to the altar for Holy Communion, please notify an usher and the communion elements will be brought to you where you are seated.
The Good Samaritans Ministry offers love in the form of a hot meal for you and your family if you are in the hospital, sick, or recovering from adversity. In addition, other pastoral care services are available if you will just call the church office, 345-8314 with your needs and requests. In case of emergency, St. Matthew’s clergy may be reached by calling 771-0680.
Receive weekly info and breaking parish news by subscribing to St Matt’s email. Just send a blank email to: StMattsEmail-subscribe@yahoogroups.com then respond to the confirmation email.
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*Items marked with an asterisk (*) are run for the first time today.
The December issue of The Word is now
on line.
Read it at
*TODAY – Children’s choir rehearsals will not be held today.
*TODAY – Bob Lively’s class will not meet this evening.
*TODAY November 27, December 4 and December 11, Merrill Wade will teach in Huffman Hall on our revised mission statement, “To Know Christ, Grow in Christ, and Share Christ’s Love.” The Rector will weave Scripture, theology, hymn lyrics and his own thoughts together to offer a serious reflection on our mission together.
*The Vestry will meet on Tuesday evening, November 29, at 7:00 p.m. in Room B-18. Church members are always welcome to sit in the back of the room and observe.
*Young at Heart/Senior Activity Center “First Friday” luncheon speaker series will meet on Friday, December 2 at 11:00 a.m. in Huffman Hall. The featured speaker is Dr. Michael P. Wilson, Aging Texas Well Coordinator, who will discuss “Texercise: A Statewide Fitness Campaign”. The program will be followed by a covered dish luncheon at 12:00 noon. Please bring a dish to share – casserole, meat, vegetable, salad, bread, or dessert and partake of food and fellowship.
*New colors for Advent. The beautiful new Advent Hangings and Vestments are a gift to St. Matthew’s by Frank and Kathleen Niendorff to the glory of God. They were designed and constructed by Becky Patterson, the very talented and gifted artist who designed all of our other liturgical hangings, banners, and stained glass windows. Advent scriptures provided the inspiration for the symbolism Becky used. The mood of Advent is distinguished from Lent by being more a mood of expectation and hope than repentance, although repentance remains a part of it. Most of the readings deal with anticipating the return of our Lord. While we remember his first coming, we are really preparing for the second coming—as an adult, not a baby. Let us prepare our hearts spiritually for the celebration of the birth of Christ as we look forward to his future reign. In addition to the new hangings and vestments, the LEMs will wear new color-coordinated lanyards sewn by Peggy Ryder.
*Wednesday, November 30, 6:00 p.m. Holy Eucharist in the Sanctuary celebrating St. Andrew’s Day. The Rector and the Brotherhood of St. Andrew invite you to this service which should last around 35 minutes.
*November is United Thank Offering (UTO) Month! You may turn in your UTO offerings at any time during the month of November. Please remember to indicate “UTO” on the memo line of your check as you give generously to this worthwhile cause.
Coed Golf is Legal on Friday December 2nd – Mark Your Calendar!
Now that fall temperatures may be approaching in early December the Men & Women of St. Matthew’s will return to the links for a First Friday Golf outing. This month we are going to Bluebonnet Hill Golf Course, 9100 Decker Lane, just south of Hwy 290 E. Bluebonnet Hill offers full practice facilities, putting green, sand and chipping area, driving range, and golf shop. Known as "the home of the four-hour round," Bluebonnet Hill is a wide-open course of rolling hills with highly respected Bermuda grass greens and fairways. If you would like to play with us please contact Dave Bowman at the church office, 345-8314, ext 213, or send an email to David@StMattsAsutin.org.
*Moms and Tots will not meet for the remainder of the
year. We will
resume meetings in January. More information to come as it gets
closer. For more information contact Marilyn Wright 401-8382 or
mjwright@austin.rr.com
You Make The Permanent Endowment Grow. Your donations to the Permanent Endowment are the key to its growth. As it grows, the earnings that make it possible to expand St. Matthew's special ministries in service to others increase in proportion. You have given in order to honor or pay tribute to or in memory of special people or events in your life or the life of someone else. You have made provision in your will or estate plans for a bequest to the Permanent Endowment and are on the rolls of the Legacy Society. Truly, your gifts, of whatever type, are a blessing to all.
The St. Matthew’s Women’s Spiritual Retreat, led by renowned retreat leader
Jeanie Miley, is Feb. 3 – 5, 2006 at Camp Allen. Registration forms are
available at the sign up table in the Commons, the church office, and on www.stmattsaustin.org
Please contact Diane Sparks at 345-7757 or diane_sparks@sbcglobal.net
or Debbie Marshall at 926-5424 or dmarshall@sacheminc.com
if you have questions.
Maybe you can help . . . and other news. The St. Matthew's Endowment Committee (formerly the Special Gifts Committee) would like to find out who in the congregation has experience in grant-writing. There are many charitable foundations that provide funding for programs like the St. Matthew's Permanent Endowment, and the Endowment Committee would like assistance in the art of applying for and obtaining grants from those foundations. If you can help or know of someone who can, please contact a member of the Committee: Mark Monroe, Larry Simons, Mike Affleck, Jack Eccles, Tony Hatheway or Bert Hooper. And remember, a rewarding way to pay tribute to someone is to honor that person with a gift to the Permanent Endowment. Also, Marjorie and Bert Hooper have become members of the Legacy Society by providing a bequest to the Permanent Endowment. Everyone who does the same and notifies Business Manager Dave Bowman is eligible to be a member.
*Laity Lodge, Phyllis Tickle, April 21-23, 2006
It’s time to start planning for St. Matthew’s annual Laity Lodge adult retreat on the week end of April 21-23, 2006. Phyllis Tickle, an accomplished retreat leader, author of several books and contributing editor in religion to Publishers Weekly, will be the speaker. We expect that interest in attending this retreat will be high; therefore, if you need to arrange care for children in order to attend then the earlier you plan the better. Perhaps that would be a good time to visit grandparents or maybe a favorite aunt and uncle. Questions??? Call Jim Myers 608-6836
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TRADITION AT ST. MATTHEW’S:
THE SUNDAY EVENING SERVICE
Each Sunday evening there will be a service in the Sanctuary at 5:15 p.m.
Some days it will be Contemplative Eucharist, some days it will be Youth Led Worship. It may be Compline, it may be Taize music or a Healing service. Whatever the service, it offers you an additional opportunity for Sunday worship at St. Matthew’s. And to fit into your family schedule, we will do our best to complete the service in 45 minutes. Please join us!
TODAY: Contemplative Eucharist in the Sanctuary with Fr. Jim Williams
Next Week, December 4: Contemplative Eucharist in the Sanctuary
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Outreach In Action
Angel Tree Christmas, is an outreach project developed by Prison Fellowship Ministries. Angel Tree works by connecting parents in prison with their children through the delivery of Christmas Gifts. Church members can buy two modest gifts for a child and give them in the name of the parent. Most of the children, who range in age from infant to sixteen years, are needy. Gift requests have included, jeans, coats, shoes and pajamas. An age-appropriate gospel booklet is included as a gift from our church. Last year, St. Matt’s gave seventy five children a gift of love and hope!
To volunteer call Janet Williams at 244-6908.
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*The Outreach Council has
given
$375.00 to Lane Murray Kairos Team. This is a new team that serves a
women’s unit in Gatesville. Margaret Carpenter and Shirley Meyer are team
members. Our sincere thanks for help in funding this team.
Can you imagine what it’s like to teach Sunday School with soggy, damaged materials? Thanks to a contribution from our St. Matthew’s Outreach Commission, churches affected by recent coastal storms can apply for grants from the National Association of the Good Shepherd to repair and rebuild their children’s programs. How did this come about? Our Children’s Council became aware of the need and was invited to present it to the Outreach Commission. Commission members caught the vision and stepped in with a generous $300 gift to the National Association’s Hurricane Relief Fund. Many children and adults whose Sunday School curriculum is based on Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, as ours is, will benefit, thanks to this outreach.
Drivers wanted: IHN-Katrina has over 350 sets of new furniture to be delivered by Dec. 9th. For the bargain price of $200, St. Matthew's Outreach Council has sponsored 3 trucks (14ft Enterprise-type) for a day of delivery. Each truck comes with 2 semi-professional helpers to load/unload courtesy of Goodwill/WorkSource/St. Vincent de Paul. All we need are drivers over the age of 21. So if you are comfortable driving a large vehicle, are available 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on a weekday before Dec. 9 and would like to help please call Karen Millet 453-6570, or Amy Novak 795-8089
*A note from Sarah Malik who was coordinating warm
clothing/blanket donations from local churches to be sent to Pakistan to help
those at risk for hypothermia after the earthquake ......The donations from St. Matthew's were amazing!! Our
first shipment of 4.5 tons arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday (it even made
national news there), and our second shipment (about double that) was just sent.
Thank you so much for all of your help! It was so wonderful to see all of the
hand knitted shawls, caps, and scarves. They are going to keep many people warm
this winter!
The Alternative Gift Market got off to a roaring start last Sunday, with over $2,000 in receipts, and many children "adopted" for the Angel Tree. Thanks to Suzanne McCurley who is chairing it, all those who volunteered to staff the market tables and "stalls", and to Louise Waddill, Diane Sparks and other Daughters of the King who prepared that delicious soup! Shopping for the Market will continue through Advent with a table in the Commons. Contributions of any amount are welcome and you may take as many gift cards as you need.
