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The SAINT MATTHEW’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH of St. Matthew’s January / February 2004 Parish Mission Statement Our mission is to be a caring, inclusive community, centered in the Eucharist and grounded in the Gospel, so that we can reach out as Christ’s hands to the world. FROM THE RECTOR Dear People of two parts. On Friday night, What’s St. Matthew’s, January 23rd, we continue our custom of a Friday night dinner. Happening? Happy New Year! This is a time for fellowship and fun, I pray that 2004 as well as a chance to meet the A Few Words FromThe will indeed be a Vestry nominees, say goodbye to the Assistant Rector................... 2 happy year for all retiring Vestry members, recognize of us. But whatever the staff, and honor a member of Bits ‘n Pieces ..................... 3-4 this year brings, let St. Matthew’s with the “Unsung Vestry Comments................. 5 us all pray to seek and serve Christ in Hero” award. We’ve always prided each other and in all whom we meet, ourselves on our desserts - and this Volunteer Opportunities ..... 6 to see God’s hand at work in the year we have a special “bake-off” as world about us, and to know and do Social Concerns .................... 6 part of the festivities (see page 3). God’s will. On Sunday, January 25th, the Capital Campaign ............... 7 “business” part of the meeting will The purpose of this mid-January be held in the church following the Vestry Nominees ............. 8-10 newsletter is to give you information 10:00 service: voting, presentation about theAnnual Dinner andAnnual Senior Highlights ................ 11 of the budget, and reports from the Meeting. Pictures and biographies of Rector and Senior Warden.This year Church School News ......... 12 the 10 adult nominees, and 1 youth is particularly important: we have a nominee, for Vestry follow. Please Youth Page........................... 13 very exciting announcement to try to get to know them, and make! Prayer List .......................... 14 prayerfully consider your vote for the leadership of our parish. I am We hopeALLof you will be there Parish Families ................... 15 grateful to all of those who have for both parts; this is our meeting, agreed to run: every single one is a our parish,our life together. INSERTS: committed, competent and caring member of this parish. Annual Parish Dinner Yours in Christ, Adult Ed OurAnnual Dinner andAnnual + Internet Calendar Meeting are, as the titles suggest, in Lucinda A very special thanks to Barbara Ellis and the choir, who worked so hard and so well to produce glorious Christmas music! 1 A FEW WORDS FROM . The Assistant Rector The FourA’s of Epiphany lives, especially in this season of Epiphany. We have witnessed the birth of On December 26, Christ in the manger, and while many in our the three kings have community were followed a yonder star to partaking of some worship and marvel at the needed and well- new born King. But, deserved rest and now, two thousand and relaxation after four years later, we must the commotion of look for our own star and Christmas, our own manifestation of several young God’s glory. But God people from this continues to astonish us parish, my wife, every day and, to and I gathered in paraphrase Habakkuk, the St. Matthew’s “work is being done in our parking lot for a days that you would not powerful journey. believe if you were told.” We piled into a van and traveled In her final homily on from Louisville to New Year’s Eve, Kanuga, an Episcopal Camp and Conference Center Margaret Gunther, well-known spiritual writer and outside Hendersonville, North Carolina, for the 28th chaplain for Winterlight 28 said, “I would like to add a Winterlight Conference. fourth “a” to our theme for the week: attentive. Be attentive to God’s work in the world.” During this Winterlight is a gathering of approximately three season, when the world can be cold and dreary, take hundred high school students for a week of Ms. Gunther’s advice and be attentive. If one is fellowship, music, games, outdoor activities, worship, attentive, one never knows what might be around the and reflection. The theme for this Winterlight was corner that could astonish, astound, or amaze. “Be Astonished! Be Astounded! Be Amazed!” (from Habakkuk 1:5), and we considered, through song, dance, discussion, videos, and skits, how God astonishes, astounds, and amazes us in so many ways every day. One the most memorable presentations of For gifts received ... the week was the construction of an enormous tunnel made of PVC pipe and plastic sheeting. Inside the Dear St. Matthew’s Family, tunnel, the young people placed representations made of colorful construction paper and yarn of their gifts Thank you to all who contributed to the and talents. After the gifts were taped to the walls of gift for each of us this Christmas. Your the tunnel, the participants were encouraged to walk thoughtfulness, continued support and through and marvel at the kaleidoscope of talents that they were given by God and had to offer the church generosity is greatly appreciated by us all. and the world. As the group from St. Matthew’s traveled back to Kentucky on January 1, all said that Thank you! they had a wonderful time and hoped to attend future events for young people at Kanuga. Lucinda, Helen, Ben, David, Barbara, Aaron, Ann, Mardi, I think the Winterlight theme of being astonished, Debbi, John, Lynn, Betty and Ruth astounded, and amazed can be applied to all of our 2 PARISH NEWS Bits n’ Pieces Annual Parish Dinner and Bake-off! Friday, January 23, 6:30 p.m. We are doing something special with your desserts this Friday evening. We are asking you to make and/or bake your very best dessert. Two people from Culinary Creations, our caterers for theAnnual Parish Dinner, will serve as judges and will taste all of the desserts that are entered. (Any store-bought desserts will be eliminated.) To enter your dessert you must have your name written clearly on the bottom of your dish. 1st and 2nd place winners will be awarded ribbons and gift certificates. Desserts for the Annual Dinner: Please sign up on the bulletin board if you are bringing a dessert to the Annual Dinner - even if you don’t want to enter the bake-off contest. (Don’t Forget! if you do want to enter your dessert please write your name clearly on the bottom of your dish.) Something Art Group Join us for some fun with painting, new! drawing or other art form. We meet every Thursday at 9:30 a.m. for about If you sit in the part of the church 2 hours. Beginners, intermediate or across from where the choir sits at advanced artists are welcome. There’s no 10:00 a.m., or attend the 5:00 service teacher; we just help each other. you will notice something new in the pew racks. The 5:00 service will be using a new hymnal: With One Voice, We’re looking for more members of St. Matthew’s to join, published by Augsburg Press and the Lutheran Church. It especially men, but all are welcome! is filled with many wonderful new hymns as well as old favorites. Take a minute to look through the wonderful texts of some of these new hymns. I hope it will be a nice addition to our 5:00 service. — Barbara Ellis Birthday Celebrations Still looking of our for the perfect Homebound New Year’s for January Resolution? and February January 12 Theo Mashburn Join the choir! February 15 Ann Fuller February 27 Joyce Aprile Now is the perfect time! The choir works very hard but enjoys a wonderful sense of community and fellowship. If you like to sing — you should be in the choir. Talk to Barbara Ellis after a Sunday service if you need some gentle arm twisting, or come to rehearsal this Wednesday at 7:45 p.m. 3 PARISH NEWS and certainly was not going to spend money to read. So Clergy finally, to respond to so many of you who have read it, I borrowed it from a friend, only to find it a delight and, as Book Pick many told me, “a page-turner.” Much of what the writer by Helen Jones puts forth about the Feminine in religious history, about God and the Shekinah, and Mary Magdalene I am familiar with (and very familiar with backwards writing which I have These United States: Original Essays done with buddies since high school), but much of what by Leading American Writers on Their Brown tells us, about pentacles and the art history State Within the Union, edited by John Leonard surrounding the Mona Lisa, for instance, I knew only parts With all the efforts of the new year toward discerning the of. If one takes this subject seriously, however, we ponder mind of America, both for political purposes and for the writer’s suggestion that we have left the Age of Pisces purposes of finding meaning in our future and of which encompasses our age and that of Jesus, for the determining our own visions of it, I thought it might be Aquarian age: helpful to read about this country of ours, state by state. “In terms of prophecy,” Teabing said, “we are currently in Where is the “average” American? What are the “grass an epoch of enormous change. The millennium has roots?” Even with the homogenization of our countryside, passed, and with it has ended the two-thousand-year-long there are regional idiosyncrasies and freshness of thought astrological Age of Pisces—the fish, which is also the sign to which we are not privy through our sometimes parrotlike of Jesus.

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