Hello,

I hope you are doing well on this beautiful day. It’s raining here in Sault Ste Marie but it is a much needed rain indeed.

Happenings Now and Soon:

Stuff-a-Stocking is ongoing throughout August. If you could hang a stocking (or place a festive container) in your fellowship space on Sundays to collect donations for Christmas gifts for struggling families in our area, that would be much appreciated. Small gifts add up to make a big impact. I realize that each congregation has other ministries throughout Advent – and this is not meant to take the place of those ministries – but, if you can spare a few dollars now that’d be great. Every dollar collected will be used by the ecumenical ministry team, known as “Algoma Angels”, to buy Christmas gifts. Algoma Angels will be gathering soon to put this Christmas gift ministry in motion for this year. 

Bread of Life Challenge:  If your congregation is interested, we are challenged to collect various bread toppings throughout August as we hear about Jesus being the bread of life. The topping for this coming Sunday is jam. You can take your weekly collection to whichever food bank/pantry you want to. It can be taken to a different place each week or to the same place at the end of the month. However you want to work it. 

Social With a Purpose: This annual fundraiser by the Alzheimer Society begins in September. Perhaps your congregation can help out by holding a “coffee/tea drinking – goodie eating” event to collect money for their cause.  I’ll be sending out a separate email about this to local incumbents and organizing the information packages so please stay tuned. 

Backpacks: I do hate to bring this up but school will be starting before you know it. If your congregation buys and fills backpacks for children and youth in the area, please take pictures of your collections and email them to me so that I can post them. This is us doing the work of God through the work of the church and it’s important to share this good news. 

Lay Readers’ Conference:  Importantly, this is not just for Lay Readers. Anyone interested is welcome to attend. Here is the link and registration information: https://www.dioceseofalgoma.com/2024/07/29/layreaders-conference-october-4-6-2024/

A Liturgical Note For You:

In Western society, people have the idea that in order to “participate” in worship, you must have a role and/or you must be speaking. We put a lot of emphasis on talking, in general, in Western society. This thinking creates a problem in our liturgies when we convince ourselves that everyone needs to be saying nearly everything along with the presider so that they are “participating”. We don’t want people to get bored, do we? Well…

Perhaps you’ve noticed the rubrics (red print) in the BAS that guide us in our orthodoxy (i.e “right worship”). There are parts of our liturgies that we say together every single time we gather. The Confession, the Lord’s Prayer, and the closing Doxology are all examples of this. However, the prayers that are new each week (the Collect of the Day, the Prayer over the Gifts, the Prayer after Communion) are not said together. The Presider prays these on behalf of all the people gathered. There is a very good reason for this. This quotation from C. S. Lewis (from his Letters to Malcolm) helps us understand:

“As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.”

The prayers we say together, like the Lord’s Prayer, are the dance steps that we know. We can immerse ourselves in the prayer because we are so very familiar with the words. This is not so with the prayers that change week by week. We say the words with heavily divided focus – trying to correctly pronounce and understand while at the same time staying aligned with all of the other voices around us who are also reading the words for the first time. The Presider is expected to have read through the prayers ahead of time so that the prayer is indeed prayed rather than simply read. 

For Your Devotions:

Monday, July 29th is the commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, died 1833. William was a wealthy young politician who did not begin his advocacy for moral reformation in England until he experienced a personal transformation as a Christian. He came to the realization that being a Christian actually meant living differently and so he became more than a “name only” Christian and actively lived his Christian faith. Among other activities, William began a 40 year campaign for emancipation of all slaves in the entire British Empire. This didn’t go over well with rich landowners who relied on slave labour…to read more, check out page 226:    https://www.anglican.ca/wp-content/uploads/ForAlltheSaints.pdf

Saturday, August 3rd is the Holy Day of St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr (if you didn’t already observe the day in December), martyred in 36 CE. Stephen’s ministry was to the Greek-speaking Jews, some of whom opposed his proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah and arranged for him to be put on trial, claiming that he was blaspheming against Moses and Abraham. In a trial reminiscent of that of Jesus, Stephen was found guilty and was stoned to death in about 34 AD. For more information go to p.228 here: For All the Saints PDF

In the joy of Christ,

Susan