| This Week at St. Luke’s |
| Public Health Indicators: here Event risk assessment: here. Free COVID test from Durham County here. Click here and scroll down for Online Worship Bulletin Saturday 7:30-1:00 El Buen Food Distribution 10am Croasdaile Morning Prayer Sunday 9:30 In-Person Masked Indoor Worship signup here 9:30 Livestream worship on Facebook 11am Zoom Coffee Hour here Tuesday 7pm Bible Study on Zoom Wednesday 11:30 Prayer and Share on Zoom 7pm Hymn Sing Friday 1:00 Connections and Support Group by Zoom Saturday 7:30-10:30 Garden & Grounds Work Day |
| New This Week |
| RECTOR FAREWELL On Wednesday it was announced that Rector Helen and the Vestry came to a mutual decision that her last Sunday as rector of St. Luke’s will be September 15th. There will be an in-person reception for her after church on Sunday, September 12th in Johnson Hall, and a Zoom Coffee Hour in her honor at 11:30 that day. She will also be in the breezeway from 5-6pm on Wednesday, September 15th for those who would prefer to drive through to say their goodbyes. Helen would cherish notes and remembrances. Please mail notes and cards to: Rev Helen Svoboda-Barber, c/o St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 1737 Hillandale Rd, Durham NC 27705. Bishop Sam Rodman and Canon Catherine Massey will meet with the Vestry on September 7th. At this meeting, they will make plans for supporting St. Luke’s during this time of transition. ONLINE WELL-WISHES Members and friends of St. Luke’s are encouraged to go here to offer Rector Helen written well-wishes or upload photos or video remembrances. Please contact Kelley Lawton if you have questions or need help. INTERN DAN’S LAST SUNDAY Intern Dan LaVenture has been a big help to St. Luke’s in his two months with us. This will be his last Sunday at St. Luke’s. We wish him well as he transitions to interning at a neighboring parish, and with his continued discernment. ONLINE WORSHIP NOW AT 9:30 Our live stream worship last week was a success! Thanks goes to Kaye Saunders who researched and got the needed equipment, and to Intern Dan LaVenture and Wendy Cook who ran the camera during worship. Moving forward, we will plan to worship together, both in person and live streaming on Facebook, at 9:30. It will be available to watch later on both Facebook and YouTube. FLING POSTPONED After much consideration for the health of our St. Luke’s volunteers and the Durham community at large, the Spring Fling (Fall Fling) committee is postponing the Fall Fling until Spring 2022. Due to the fact that the Fling is held primarily indoors and the numbers of COVID positivity in Durham is continuing to climb, we will now put all our volunteer energy into supporting the Pumpkin Patch (held entirely outside with plenty of distancing!). Don’t forget to sign up here and we will see you at the Spring Fling in 2022. Spring Fling Co-Chairs, Joan Hodges and Lisa D’Amico SATURDAY FOOD DISTRIBUTION There will be a food distribution at El Buen Pastor this coming Saturday September 4th from 730 AM – 1 PM. You are welcome to have family (children 16 years and older) and friends participate for any part of the morning. There will be lots of indoor/outdoor work to be done with our friends from El Buen Pastor, St. Titus, and the East Durham community. Bring your mask, light work gloves, and a folding knife for cutting cardboard. There is water and restrooms available on site. This activity follows the Diocese of North Carolina guidelines for COVID safety. HANDBELL CHOIR FORMING Do you like to ring handbells? We are starting a handbell choir at St. Luke’s in September and still need a couple more ringers. We will be rehearsing weekly on Wednesday evenings and playing on some Sunday mornings. If you read music, are familiar with handbells, and would like to join us, contact Kaye Saunders. HYMN SING Join us Wed, Sept 8 for our final Hymn Sing of this season. Sign up here. We have loved gathering on many Wednesday evenings over the past few months to sing together and share in fellowship and fun. Thanks to those who participated. We look forward to the time when all of us will be able to sing together safely as a congregation on Sunday mornings once again. PRIDE EUCHARIST & PARADE Join local Episcopalians for an outdoor, masked Pride Eucharist at 10am on Sat Sept 25th at St. Joseph’s (1902 W Main). Please bring your own chair. If you’re LGBTQIA+ and would like to help with the service or planning, please contact Kirk Royal. If you would like to march with the Episcopal group, we will line up behind an Episcopal banner at 11am on Duke East Campus (parade begins at noon). Parish banners are encouraged! CONTACT UPDATES Up-to date contact information can be found online at ACS, or the ChurchLife App for your phone or tablet. Contact Kathy if you have any problems logging onto ACS. You can also ask Kathy to send you a paper directory if needed. |
| Announcements |
| SERVANT LEADERSHIP COURSE The Johnson Service Corps invites you to join an 8-week course on Servant Leadership to explore both an inward journey of personal transformation and an outward journey of sacred service, lead by Susan Gladin. Meetings will be Fridays from 10am-noon from Sept 10-Oct 29 and a $50 suggested donations helps offset expenses. For more information, or to register contact Christina Balderson. St. LUKE’S HISTORY Did you know that the written history of St. Luke’s has been digitized by Duke? If you’d like to learn more about our first several decades, find out more here. (This link is also available on our website.) GO PLAY SAVE COUPON BOOKS St Luker’s the GoPlaySave coupon books have arrived! Coupons can be redeemed with participating merchants throughout the greater triangle area. Coupons are valid now until November 30, 2022. Cost $30.00 per book:. Cash, checks or credit cards Sales after Church on Sundays, or contact me and we can arrange a meeting date/time at St Luke’s under the breezeway. Contact: Beth Bonner PUMPKIN PATCH SIGNUP LIVE! The online Pumpkin Patch sign-up sheet is now available here. Click any empty blue space and enter your name for that date/time. Time frames are for one hour each ie. (1pm-2pm). You are encouraged to sign up for multiple hours, multiple days! There will be a paper sign-up sheet available after church each Sunday OR call or email Beth and she will enter your information. Beth Bonner Thanks! GARDEN/GROUNDS WORKDAYS FOR 2021 All workdays begin at 7:30 and last until 10:00 or as long as you can stay. Bring a hat, gloves, water and tools. Contact the workday leader for more information. Sept. 11th Steve Dedrick Nov. 6th Hope Galunas |
| Full Articles MINISTRY WITH ST. JOSEPH’S Greetings from St. Joseph’s, St. Joseph’s breakfast ministry for our unhoused and hungry neighbors is a long standing tradition. In the past we fixed a hot breakfast Monday-Friday and invited our neighbors, volunteers, and congregants to gather in our parish hall around the table for food, conversation, and the building of relationships, resulting in the building of trust. When the pandemic struck, our first concern was this breakfast ministry, knowing our neighbors would likely be the last in line for food, masks, and overall care. We provided information on testing and vaccination sites and helped our neighbors get vaccinated. A decision was made that we would transition our breakfast to “drop by” and we handed out sausage and egg biscuits, coffee and grits if we had them. We also handed out lunch bags. Everyone was masked and spaced and we complied with all state, local, and Diocesan guidelines. Now, despite the resurgence of the Delta variant pandemic, we are beginning to take steps toward being able to gather in community. Still safely. Beginning on August 16th, we began to serve breakfast casseroles, grits, and coffee, together with a snack bag. Breakfast is served from a table in our courtyard from 8-9 a.m. and chairs are placed in a circle in our driveway (socially distanced) so that our neighbors, volunteers, and congregants can agan gather in conversation, while breaking bread together. It is something to behold. Our neighbors are so happy and the numbers have already tripled. I’d like to extend an invitation to our brothers and sisters of St. Luke’s to join in this ministry. There are a couple of ways in which to do this, and we’re open to talk about more: ~First, a casserole ministry, where parishioners would bake casseroles monthly. ~Second, ask parishioners to become active participants in this ministry by volunteering. There are a variety of volunteer opportunities. Or both! Please let me know your thoughts, together with any questions you may have. We welcome St. Luke’s to the table! Grace and peace, Monnie+ The Rev. Dn. Monnie Riggin Deacon, St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, Durham Diocesan Deacon for Anti-racism and Reconciliation LEAP THIS FALL The weather notwithstanding, LEAP is ready for fall 2021! We have secured grant funding that is enabling us to add a classroom at our Nuestra Escuelita preschool. We will have almost fifty children at that site and another thirty or so at our DCI/LEAP Academy site. We will be teaching outdoors, wearing masks and going full steam ahead with our learning! Our school-aged students will meet with their tutors either in-person or remotely. Our tutors are supported by an experienced reading teacher and follow an on-line curriculum that provides them with materials that are appropriately challenging for their students. No Spanish is required! How can you support LEAP? You have options! You could become a tutor. https://tinyurl.com/tedd2szs You could donate funds to support one of our students who cannot pay even our subsidized tuition. https://www.durhamleap.org/news You could link your Harris Teeter VIC card with Nuestra Escuelita, LEAP and trigger a donation to LEAP each time to buy their store brand products – at no cost to you! https://www.harristeeter.com/together-in-education |
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