From the Rector – Stewardship 2017
Generosity changes lives. Whether we are on the giving or receiving end of generosity, when we experience it, we come close to God, and God comes close to us. This month we will be using this image as life as a journey to generosity to help us each prepare for making a financial pledge toward the mission and ministry of St. James’ for the coming year.
This Sunday stewardship materials will be available to pick up, along with your 3rd quarter giving statement. Please spend some time reading the letter and looking over the financial recap from last year. And then pray. Pray about times when you’ve experienced generosity from others and when you’ve been generous.
We will hear from members of our community offering their own reflections on generosity on Sundays throughout the month. And each Sunday there will be a yellow bulletin insert for you to take home with prompts for prayer and contemplation.
Looking ahead, we will have a Parish Fall Feast potluck on Sunday, October 29 after the 10:30 service. It will be a time to give thanks and generously spend time with one another in fellowship. We will have our pledge ingathering on All Saints Sunday, November 5. Bring your pledge card to place in the offering plate and add a brick to our stewardship poster as a sign of joining others here at St. James’ on the Journey to Generosity.
Yours in God’s peace,
Kristin+
Thrift Shop
Hello to all our Thrifty Friends. Saint James Thrift Shop is doing well with all the donations from this wonderful community.
In one month we had twenty-five volunteers that donated over 282 hours to the shop. Volunteers are always appreciated and needed. So if you would like to help come on in and fill out a volunteer form.
The Thrift Shop itself donated to 14 donations sites: Tales of Hope, Mt. Airy Net, and A is for Africa to name a few. We also collected for the Harvey Relief Fund and took two truckloads of donations to the Difference Makers Church in Damascus. The semi-truck made it safely to Texas.
We now have Halloween decorations and costumes for sale at the Thrift Shop. Our Housewares room is exploding and is almost always on sale. We have switched from Spring/Summer to Fall/Winter, so come on in and find a winter jacket and wrap up with our hats, gloves, sweaters and scarves. It’s going to get cold and the kids will be inside, so come check out the craft area and our assortment of board games. We have lots of things for the kids to do. If you are having movie and popcorn night, come check out our extensive variety of DVDs.
We will be having our annual Holiday Bazaar on November 18th. We are in need of volunteers on the 17th of November to help set up and on the 18th to be Santa’s Helpers. The housewares room is set up with all of our Christmas Bazaar items (most brand new) so your children, with help from our staff, can choose gifts for family, friends, teachers and everyone else on their list. All gifts will be wrapped and ready to take home and put under the tree. Come join the fun!
I would like to extend an invitation to come to the shop and meet our wonderful employees: Becki, Andrew, Sergio and Heather and of course me Sandy J.
Hope to see you ALL soon!
Coffee Hour
The Coffee Hour Ministry is off to a great start this fall. We are pleased to welcome 2 new volunteers, Cheryl Windsor and Charlotte Oswald. We are very grateful for all of the hard work our volunteers put into making our Coffee Hours a success. A very special thank you goes out to Lou Pfefferkorn and Pfefferkorn’s Coffee for donating the coffee we serve.
Last Christmas, we started a new tradition at the Christmas Eve Services. We asked everyone to bring a plate of cookies to share. I am pleased to say that it was a great success. We had enough cookies to last through Christmas and New Year’s. We hope to continue this new tradition again this year.
If anyone is interested in volunteering to host a coffee hour, please contact Carla Kaufman. Again, a big thank you to all who make our coffee hours a great success.
Carla Kaufman
Weekly Announcements
Come Honor our Local Police Officers—Feast of St. Michael
On October 1st at the 10:30 am service we will honor our local law enforcement with prayers and a blessing in celebration of St. Michael, Patron Saint of Police Officers. Please be sure to invite your family and friends who serve our communities; so we can show our thankfulness for their dedication.
St. James’ 11th Annual Basket Raffle & Silent Auction
Will take place on Saturday, October 7th – mark your calendars! In the meantime, there is much to do to prepare and make this fundraiser a success.
Won’t you sign up to give an hour of your time? We need help on days before, during and after the raffle, so please have a look. We can’t do it without YOU!!
- Click the link
- Review the options listed and choose the sport(s) you like.
- Sign up! It’s easy – you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on SignUp. com.
- To sign up manually contact Betsy Davis at jbeezd@aol.com
Our wonderful “Basket Brigade” has created 60 beautiful filled baskets to be raffled off at the Mt. Airy Fall Fest on October 7th. Sunday, September 24th, and the following Sunday, October 1st, the baskets will be on display in the sanctuary for the congregation to view and purchase advance raffle tickets following each church service.
Thank you so much to those who have already donated items as well as their time and talents!!
Blessing of the Animals — Feast of St. Francis
October 8, 2:00 pm in the Memorial Garden. In celebration of the Feast of St. Francis, we invite you to bring your pet to be blessed, to remember those pets who have died, and to celebrate the gift God has given us in all his creatures, especially those who are our companions. For the safety and comfort of all attending, animals should be leashed or contained in a safe carrier.
Where are our St. James’ Young Adults?
The Outreach Committee plans to put up a bulletin board with this information although addresses will be kept in the office for privacy. We know some are college students, some have joined the military, some have jobs and others may be traveling. Wherever they are we’d like to hear about all of them. Since they graduated from high school our young people have gone in many directions. We’d like to find out where they are and how they’re doing. Parents please contact Laura in the office or Lucy Winston, 301 607-9185, to let us know.
Care Packages for our Young Adults
The Outreach Committee would love to have the names and addresses of all our young men and women that are attending college whether they are away from home or commuting locally. We plan to send them “care packages” in mid-October and again in late February. We are collecting boxes of hot chocolate, razors, shower scrubbies, fruit snacks, pencils, cookies, pop tarts, instant coffees, tea, small bottles of hand sanitizer, lotion, chips and microwave popcorn. Please place them in the box under the table in the Narthex. Thank you so much! Please call the office at 301.829.0325 or email office@stjamesmtairy.org with names and addresses.
Prayer Rotation
Please join the Daughters of the King in praying for each parishioner in rotation during 2017 by taking this notice home and by posting it where it will remind you to pray on a daily basis for the needs and blessings of:
| Robert and Carol Buckley Brian and Lauren Bukszar Henry Jim and Patty Bullington |
A member of the Daughters of the King will be contacting you this week for special prayer requests.
