| 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 Holy Week web page St. Luke’s website has a page with the schedule and descriptions for all Holy Week and Easter services at https://stlukesdurham.org/schedule-of-services-for-holy-week/ Saturday 10 Morning Prayer at Croasdaile 1 pm St. Luke’s Walks Palm Sunday 9:30 In-person Worship signup here The Rev. Dr. Rhonda M. Lee, Preacher/Celebrant 9:30 Godly Play – Johnson Hall 10:30 Youth Group 10:30 Rehearsal for Stations of the Cross Monday 6:30 Finance Cte – Zoom Wednesday 8:45 Staff meeting – Zoom 11:30 Prayer and Share on Zoom 6 Bell Rehearsal 7:30 Choir Rehearsal Maundy Thursday 7 pm Maundy Thursday Service 7 pm Bible Study on Zoom Good Friday Noon – Good Friday Liturgy 1:00 Connections and Support Group by Zoom 6 pm Stations of the Cross Saturday 9:30 Girl Scouts – Johnson Hall |
| New This Week |
| Palm Sunday is Laura Thornton’s final day on the staff of St. Luke’s. For almost three years, Laura has served faithfully as our minister with children and youth. Since her term overlapped with the Covid pandemic, Laura had to be extremely flexible and creative in ministering with St. Luke’s young people and their families, and she more than rose to the occasion. Laura is leaving now to answer a long-discerned call to open a retreat center. Laura, St. Luke’s is grateful for your time with us and we pray every blessing on you and your family in this new chapter of your life. Please come back to see us! Deadline for the May newsletter is April 24. If you can get your articles in ahead of time, all the better. Starting Maundy Thursday, the consecrated wine will be available to all. Reception of the Blood of Christ will be by intinction. Only the priest (or lay eucharistic minister) will lightly intinct the wafer for you, and then drop the wafer into your hand. Communicants will not intinct their own wafers. If you want to receive the wine, please approach the priest with your hands cupped in front of you, as most of us typically already do. If you do not want to receive the wine, please approach with your hands together as if in prayer, and then open them to receive the dry wafer. Please remember that the consecrated bread (or wine) alone does constitute full Communion, and you may receive the wine, or not, as you feel led. We believe this practice of distributing the wine, from a silver chalice and without the priest’s fingers touching the wine, is as safe as we can make it. As has been the custom in the Episcopal church for a century, our Good Friday offering will go to the Anglican church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. Since 1922, the Good Friday offering has supported churches, medical services, and schools in areas where conflict has exacerbated human needs. In this centenary year Presiding Bishop Curry has renewed the call for all Episcopal churches to participate. Any loose money in the offering plate at St. Luke’s will be passed along to The Episcopal Church’s Good Friday Offering. If you would like to write a check for this initiative, please note “Good Friday Offering” on the memo line and leave the check in the plate or mail it to St. Luke’s. If you prefer to donate to The Episcopal Church, you can do so online at www.iam.ec/goodfridayoffeirng . Thank you. Please see the invitation below from Muslim neighbors to break their Ramadan fast with them. Interim Rector Rhonda Lee participated in this several years ago and found the experience to be both informative and beautiful. Please email Rhonda if you would like to go, and she will reply to the hosts on behalf of St. Luke’s. Randy Griffin is willing to carpool. “The Divan Center, established by the Turkish American Community in the Research Triangle Area, invites members of your congregation to share our table to break bread together with our community members in the month of Ramadan. It is our tradition to break our fast with our friends and neighbors during this sacred month. We plan to start our event at 7:00 pm with a welcome speech and a brief presentation on our traditions and practices at the Month of Ramadan. We will start our dinner at around 7:45 pm with the sunset after our evening prayer. At that time, our guests can get to know each other while enjoying some delicious Turkish food. We can accommodate 7 guests from your group. Ramadan Friendship Dinner, Date: Friday, April 22 @ 7:00 pm, Venue: Bond Park Community Center, 150 Metro Park Dr, Cary, NC 27513” (Participation is free of charge)” |
| Announcements |
| It’s time to restart our StL Walks. Our next hike will be on Saturday, April 9, at 1:00 p.m. Weather makeup day is the 23rd . We will be hiking in the Seven Mile Creek Natural Area. The trail is only about two miles long. Karen says it’s “a wonderful, easy, wide, well-maintained trail.” Here’s the site description – http://www.orangecountync.gov/Facilities/Facility/Details/Seven-Mile-Creek-Nature-Preserve-20 . It’s three miles south of Occoneechee Mountain and part of the Orange County system. If you wish to join us, please let us know by April 6th . Of course, if you just happen to be free the afternoon of the 9th, please join us. We hope to see you on the 9th . Congregational meetings coming up! This spring and fall, as part of her work as our interim rector, Rhonda will be facilitating two sets of congregational meetings focusing specifically on transition. Each meeting will last about an hour and a half. Each parishioner is asked to attend one meeting in the spring, and one in the fall. The spring meetings will take place on: Sunday 15 May right after church, in the nave Monday 23 May, 7 p.m., on Zoom Tuesday 24 May, 7 p.m., on Zoom Sunday 5 June right after church, in the nave. At the spring meetings, you will have the opportunity to share feelings, needs, and questions about transition at St. Luke’s. This sharing will take place in small groups and in the plenary. Everyone will be invited to speak; no one will be required to. Please plan to attend one of these meetings! Your voice matters in taking stock of who St. Luke’s is and who we want to be, as we prepare to develop a parish profile and to call a new rector next year. Vestry Minutes Availability The vestry meets the third Monday of each month. Minutes of the meetings are taken and hard copies for viewing are kept in the Kramer Room library. Because of COVID protocols and staff mostly working remotely, the church is normally kept locked. If you would like a copy of the minutes, please call or email Kathy (Parish Administrator) and request an electronic copy be sent to your email. Or, if no computer access, you may also request a hard copy be mailed to you. Thanks to all who have contributed to restocking our food pantry. What a bounty! Please continue your generosity! The need is great and we want to be able to say ‘yes’ when we get calls about food. Thanks again. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at jansweetchpa@gmail.com. Jan Freeman Attention all PayPal payers! We have a new QR payment code for St Luke’s! For now please use this link https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=XEKW3QU38GWNC until we update our website. Thank you for your patience as we update our social media platforms and for your attention regarding this matter. The clergy and vestry have resolved that masks will be optional in worship for fully vaccinated participants. Masks will continue to be required when singing at this time. Diocesan policy requires that unvaccinated persons wear a mask at all times. In making this decision, we have taken into account the facts that Durham has lifted its mask mandate, and our bishops have left masking requirements up to local discernment (while requiring masking for unvaccinated persons). One section of distanced, pod seating is available with no kneelers. Fully vaccinated persons may still choose to mask during worship, even when not singing. When considering whether or not to mask, please take into account your own risk factors and the possible vulnerability of your neighbors. And please be kind to each other always, as we move into a phase where some of us will be masked and some of us unmasked. Please remember: No gathering can be completely safe. Unvaccinated people remain more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, and to severe disease, hospitalization, and death. Singing and removal of masks can increase transmission. We will continue Sign-Up Genius registration, for now, to facilitate contact tracing if needed. We will continue to refrain from passing of the peace for now. We will continue to offer only the host at communion for now. The offering plate will remain at the entrance, not passed, for now. We will continue virtual worship offerings (as we started before Covid.) Fall Fling scheduled!! Mark your calendars and hold on to your donations for the Fall Fling (huge yard sale) October 15th! Drop off scheduled for Oct 9-14 to Johnson Hall. The committee can use your help in planning for a safe, long-awaited, community sale! Please contact Joan Hodges, Lisa D’Amico, or Beth Bonner. All proceeds go to Outreach. CONTACT UPDATESUp-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. |
| Full Article – Rector Search Update 1 April 2022 Timing and Expectations As mentioned previously, there are many steps to the search process. We are in the very early stages and the vestry looks to form a Search Committee to walk through all the steps with us by late summer or early fall. St. Luke’s, as with any church in transition, needs time to understand what being in transition means and looks like and to evaluate and discern our path forward. Our interim rector will be holding church wide and small group meetings for folks to begin that understanding and discernment. Please plan on attending. We need all of your voices. If you have any suggestions of who might best serve on the Search Committee, please send me or June Santa (Junior Warden) an email. We are hoping for candidates from a broad spectrum of ages, interests and experience. Please note that the search committee will be composed of about 6-9 people, including some vestry members, so, although suggestions for members are welcome, not everyone who is mentioned will be asked to serve. We will continue to update you as we go through this process in the newsletters and on the website section,” Rector Search”. Please feel free to speak with anyone on vestry about the search process at any time. Please join with me in praying for God to guide us throughout this process. Faithfully, Lisa D’Amico Sr. Warden, St. Luke’s vestry |
stlukesdurham.org 