Welcome Back Sunday - Rector's Rambling for September 8, 2024

     Today has been dubbed Welcome Back Sunday here at St. John’s because of our Welcome Back luncheon being served after the 10 AM Service. 

The ‘welcome back’ we are referring to is for the return of the full choir, the restarting of Sunday School, and the upcoming start of meetings for the Daughters of the King, the Adult Education class offering on Dante, and the Alpha Course!  And for some, ‘welcome back’ is also in effect for those who have been away for much of the summer traveling.

But there is something bigger for us to think about in saying ‘welcome back’ and that is for those who are coming back to the practice of the faith and attending worship services - both things being related to each other in an important way!  As a college student I walked away from the practice of the faith, and only rarely attended worship.  By God’s grace I came back to the practice of the faith by the invitation of a friend to join me at his church in Philadelphia, and began attending regularly at the invitation of a small group of warm and welcoming faithful attenders at their weekday Evening Prayer service!  The chart above, floating around social media, rings true in my experience and observation as a clergyman for 30 years. 

Invite someone to Church!  You may be the person Our Lord is using to bring them back to the practice of the faith, or into a new relationship with Him!  Let God use you for this.  Pray for people, invite them, pray for them again, and invite again.  You never know who may respond, or if your invitation is a follow up on someone else’s prayer and invitation.  If a relationship with our Lord is important to you, it is worth sharing that good news with others as well!

 

The Autumn Eagle - Rector's Rambling for September 1, 2024

I hope that everyone has had a good summer, and are refreshed and ready for the busy-ness of fall.  Work, School and of course Church programming and organizations, all revitalize from their summer hiatus.  This newsleter is chock-full of information about these events this fall, and I hope that you will dutifully mark your calendar and plan on being involved.  Since many of them occur on Sunday, you will be here for worship already (hint, hint).

September 8 is our big kick off day.  The full choir returns, Sunday School resumes, and we will have a celebration luncheon in the undercroft.  In the coming weeks The Daughters of the King and St. Catherine’s Guild also get into full swing again, and our Adult Education offerings of our course on Dante, and the Alpha Course follow shortly thereafter.  Information about all this is enclosed in this letter.

On September 8th we will also be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Huw Lewis’ appointment as Choirmaster at St. John’s!  Arriving in the United States from Wales in the United Kingdom to study for his Master’s degree at the University of Michigan Huw was snatched up by a wise Fr. Thomas Frisby to take over the responsibilities of our music program.  He succeed August Maekelberghe who served as Choirmaster from 1947 to 1974, who in turn had succeeded John Leigh Edwards from 1905 to 1947. 

In 1990 Dr. Lewis was appointed to the faculty of Hope College in Holland, Michigan, which at the time included Sunday chapel worship responsibilities.  But when Dr. Thomas Sheets departed in 2004 and we were in need of a new choirmaster, Huw agreed to make the commute for a few weeks to help us find a new choirmaster and direct the choir on an interim basis.  But it did not take long for Huw to realize his heart was still here, and we were blessed to have him return to his duties at St. John’s while still on the faculty at Hope College.

On Saturday, September 14 (God willing), in Garden City, Long Island, New York, our own Rev’d Cam Walker will be ordained a priest.  The Service is scheduled to be livestreamed and a link will be emailed.  Fr. Cam is working as the Curate at St. John’s in Lattingtown, NY.  It was 6 years ago that he first arrived at St. John’s as a law student, but then pivoted to a staff member at St. John’s and then a seminarian!