The Good Book Club is coming!

St. Andrew's will join Episcopalians around the world to read the Gospel according to Luke during Lent and the Book of Acts during Eastertide in 2018. We will start reading Luke on Sunday, February 11 and read a section of Luke’s Gospel every day through the season of Lent. The entire season of Easter will be devoted to daily readings from the Book of Acts. We hope you’ll join us on this journey! 

How does it work?
We'll follow this list of daily readings which divides Luke and Acts into 50 days each. Each day, participants will read a few verses of Luke or Acts. If you are a regular reader of Forward Day by Day, you can easily follow along because Luke and Acts will guide the reflections during Lent-Easter 2018. 

Join Us on Sunday Mornings
Beginning Sunday, Feb. 11, and continuing throughout Lent, our Sunday Adult Forum (9:15 a.m. in the parish hall) will be a discussion of each week's Good Book Club readings. You don't want to miss it! More details coming soon! 

Follow the Good Book Club on Facebook and Instagram
We'll be posting the daily readings on our Facebook and Instagram, along with resources and conversation from the wider church. If you don't follow us, now is a great time to start!

Learn more about The Good Book Club, watch a video from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, and access helpful resources on our website here. 

Being & Becoming: Goals for our future

As we begin 2018 together, I have an invitation for you, an invitation that has to do with the future of St. Andrew’s Church.  At our Annual Parish Meeting in December, I shared three goals for St. Andrew’s that have been forming in my mind and heart over the past year.  The three goals grew out of my ongoing conversations with vestry and other parish leaders; my observations of our life and ministry here at St. Andrew’s; and the continuing education workshops and reading I’ve undertaken since my arrival. The goals (described in more detail below) are: 1) being Church; 2) offering intentional, authentic relationships; and 3) re-engaging in our neighborhood. 

I invite you to join me in the coming months as together we pray about, reflect on, and work toward these three goals. Beginning at 7 p.m. on Tuesday evening, February 6, I will be holding a once-a-month Being and Becoming gathering in the Parish Hall for all interested parishioners to come together for conversation, planning, and action as we discern how best to move forward on each goal. Dan Waddill has graciously agreed to help lead this effort.  Additional reading and resources can be found on our website here.

I hope you will join us, either in person or in spirit (and definitely in prayer!), as we move forward into our future, where God is already present and waiting for us.

Every blessing,
Anne+

Goal 1:  Being Church
Being Church includes all of the things we usually do as a parish: offering worship, pastoral care, Christian formation, and fellowship; and engaging in mission and outreach. What’s new and, I think, critical is the challenge to be Church to two different groups:

1. Those currently in our pews: many longtime members, many older folks, those comfortable and familiar with our patterns of worship, life, and ministry.
2. Those who (mostly) are not in our pews: young adults, families with small children, those who didn’t grow up in the church, those for whom our ways of doing things feel foreign or unhelpful.

Being church to these two groups simultaneously will require flexibility, creativity, careful listening, loving respect, and a willingness to experiment (and, necessarily, fail periodically).

Goal 2:  Offering intentional, authentic relationships with God and others, even across the usual divides
As Christians, our primary relationship is with God through Jesus Christ, in whom we are all part of one Body and by whom we are called to love and serve those inside and outside that Body. God loved and loves us while we are still sinners; we are to offer that same grace to others.
Intentional relationships don’t simply happen; they are created and nurtured when we reach out in love to those who differ from us in age, socio-economic status, race, political belief, or any other category that normally separates us. Authentic relationships acknowledge human brokenness and foibles as well as human achievements and accomplishments; they are made possible as we dare to live and speak with integrity and vulnerability and to offer and receive forgiveness. Authentic relationships, including our relationship with God, have room for doubt and uncertainty, change and growth.

Goal 3:  Re-engaging in our neighborhood
We are so blessed to be in the midst of Hilton Village with its vibrant community life and abundance of families with children—but in general those families with children are not part of St. Andrew’s, although many of them participate in VBS and/or come to us on Halloween. The history of St. Andrew’s Church contains many stories of active engagement in the neighborhood:  door to door visits in the early years to invite people to church; starting a kindergarten to serve the community; creating a library for the community. What would more active engagement in our community look like now?  What needs could we meet?

St. Andrew's School to meet a greater need in the community

Beginning in 2018-2019 St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, an accredited member of the Virginia Association of Independent Schools and an outreach of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, has expanded its mission to meet a greater need in the community.  St. Andrew’s Episcopal School continues to serve children from PreK3 to grade 5 in an inclusive nurturing Christian environment. Recognizing that families’ and children’s needs have changed over time, St. Andrew’s School is excited to offer three new initiatives. 

St. Andrew’s Episcopal School will implement a variable tuition model that will allow families to better afford an independent education for their children. Tuition will range from 50% to 100% of actual cost.  Additional incentives will also be implemented to allow for better affordability: multiple child discounts; alumni tuition credit; and incentives for Episcopalians, military families, Huntington-Ingalls Industry employees, and full-time faculty and staff of local colleges and universities. 

St. Andrew’s will also introduce the Orton-Gillingham instructional approach to serve individuals with dyslexia.  Those students will spend part of each school day working one-on-one or in small groups with an Orton-Gillingham Associate. Orton-Gillingham’s multi-sensory approach is focused on the learning needs of individual students to help them become successful readers and writers. After-school tutoring using the Orton-Gillingham approach will also be offered to individuals in the community who have difficulty with reading, spelling and writing. 

The third initiative is an Innovation Lab, which will be designed and equipped to facilitate larger scale, project-based learning for elementary students. Engaging students in laboratory innovation at this early age encourages collaboration, critical thinking, brainstorming, learning to invent, and inventing to learn. The innovation lab will be available to home-school cohorts, community groups and businesses. 

St. Andrew’s Episcopal School is committed to serving a greater need in our community. Providing better affordability, a targeted approach proven to help dyslexic individuals, and an innovative learning lab specifically designed for elementary school students will enhance the reach of St. Andrew’s already excellent education.

For more information, contact Janna Outlaw, Head of School at 757-596-6261.

Christmas is coming!

Dear friends,

Our Advent waiting is almost over; the joyous season of Christmas is just around the corner.  The Advent wreath adds a new flame each week, helping us mark the passing time.  We wait, as we always do, for our annual remembrance of the coming of God into our midst as a tiny, fragile baby; and for the second coming of Christ, at a time we can neither know nor predict. 

And as we wait, in hope and expectation, we practice our faith—not only through our worship but also through our actions.  In honor of the newborn babe in Bethlehem whose only shelter was a stable, we reach out to those in our world who live in poverty and lack resources.  We volunteer at PORT, gather food for Turkey Sandwich Day, collect socks for homeless veterans, give clothes to refugees.  We do these things together because we are church, the living body of Christ in this world.

I am so grateful to be in this part of God’s church with each of you, and I am greatly looking forward to celebrating our first Christmas together.  Please come for worship as we move together from Advent to Christmas, transitioning from expectant waiting to joyful celebration and gratitude.

Sunday, December 24^th will be a busy day here at St. Andrew’s. 

• We will mark the Fourth Sunday of Advent—the last few moments of our waiting!—with Holy Eucharist Rite II at 10 AM. 
• Our 4:30 PM Family Christmas Eve Service will include a child-oriented, interactive telling of the Christmas Story; child-friendly prayers; Holy Eucharist; and beloved carols. 
• At 10:40 PM we will have a concert of Christmas music followed at 11:00 PM with a Festival Eucharist Rite II.

On Christmas Day, there will be a service of Holy Eucharist at 10 AM.  On Sunday, December 31, we will celebrate the First Sunday of Christmas with a traditional service of Lessons and Carols at 10 AM.

Friends, as Advent rolls over once again into Christmas, may your waiting give way to joy.  May you meet again, in new ways, the “God incarnate, man divine” who arrived in our midst 2000 years ago with such vulnerability. And together, may we serve him faithfully—especially as we encounter him in the faces and lives of the most vulnerable in our own midst today.

Blessings to you in this holy season, and always.

Faithfully,

Anne+

Hang in there; it's still Advent!

Around us, there are many signs of Christmas. Christmas carols are being played on the radio, Christmas lights and decorations are adorning many front yards, and Santa Claus has made more than one appearance at a mall near you. 

In our culture, it is already Christmas.  But in the Church, it is still the season of Advent.  Advent is a time of waiting for the coming of the Christ Child at Christmas, and also a time of expectation for the return of Jesus to the world as he promised.  We are to take this period to examine our hearts and renew our spirits, making way for Christ to enter into our lives and transform us.  This season of preparation is designed to make us more Christ-like, and to connect us more deeply to our Creator.

It is a challenge to keep Advent while others seem to be celebrating Christmas.  But hang in there!  This period of waiting is well worth it, and when Christmas actually comes, it will be even more joyful!

Happy rest of Advent!

Lorna+