Readings, News & Announcements August 21-28

News and Announcements:

Sun     Aug 21               Early Quiet Service – 7:45am

                                    Celebration Service – 9:00am

                                    Sunday School; all ages – 10:00am

                                                Traditional Service – 11:00am               

Wed    Aug 24              Bible Study 4:00pm

                                    Mid Week Eucharist 5:00-6:00pm

                                    Celebration Band 6:30-7:15pm

Sun    Aug  28                Early Quiet Service – 7:45am

                                    Celebration Service – 9:00am

                                    Sunday School; all ages – 10:00am

                                                Traditional Service – 11:00am

                                             

The flowers on the altar are given to the Glory of God by Peggy Egan in loving memory of William Egan I

Finances at Christ Church
We are going to begin printing the expenses verses the income here at church as a tool to help you all with your stewardship.  The income this year is behind expenses by a fair bit even though we have been able to keep most expenses to a minimum. 
As of August 1, 2011,

our year to date expenses have been:  $104,060.77  (about $3000 below budget)
our year to date income has been:      $85,465.54    (about $21,000 below budget)

A complete budget and financial report is available on the hallway bulletin board at church.   Thank you all for your generous giving of self and funds to God's Kingdom. 

EfM ~Education for Ministry begins in September!
Christ Church has a wonderful program for adult Christian formation called Education for Ministry -- EfM for short. EfM is a program from the Episcopal Theological Seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.   You must register for the program in advance.  Classes are small -- usually between six and eight folks.   There is homework and a two and a half hour class each week.  You register for a year at  a time, but the program is a four year program.  Year one focuses on the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament).  Year two focuses on the New Testament.   Year three focuses on Church history and year four focuses on theology and planning your future life in Christ.  If you think you might be called to dig deeper into your faith journey with a tool like this, speak with Father Gary or any of a number of EfM graduates and students at EfM.  We would like to have registration by September 1.  The course costs $310 per year, and some scholarship is available. 

 

Sunflowers 
This painting was inspired by
one of the many beautiful gardens
in the Smithfield, historic district.

A group of local artists will be painting at St. Luke's Church on  Sept. 12 beginning at 8:30 AM. Anyone interested in trying "plein  air" painting (outdoor landscapes created on location) is welcome to  participate. For more information, please contact Stephanie Faleski  at 610-360-7623 or send e-mail to fineart@calico-studios.com.





Reading 9:00am

Reader:  A reading from the book of Romans [12:1-8]

Paul urges listeners to offer their whole selves, body and soul, as a thankful response to God’s gift of salvation through Jesus..

Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church

People: Open our ears to hear your Word.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

 I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in

charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

People:  Open our ears to hear your Word.

7:45 & 11:00am Readings

+The First Lesson: The Egyptian king orders that all male Hebrew children must be killed. Moses’ mother saves him by hiding him in a basket, where he is found by the king’s daughter.

A Reading from [Exodus 1:8-2:10]

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live." But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.

So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live."

Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, "This must be one of the Hebrews' children," she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Yes." So the girl went and called the child's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water."

Reader: The Word of the Lord                                                                                          

People: Thanks be to God  

Psalm 124 Page 781, BCP

If the LORD had not been on our side, *
let Israel now say;

If the LORD had not been on our side, *
when enemies rose up against us;

Then would they have swallowed us up alive *
in their fierce anger toward us; 

Then would the waters have overwhelmed us *
and the torrent gone over us;

Then would the raging waters *
have gone right over us.

Blessed be the LORD! *
he has not given us over to be a prey for their teeth.

We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowler; *
the snare is broken, and we have escaped.

Our help is in the Name of the LORD, *
the maker of heaven and earth.

+The Second Lesson: Paul urges listeners to offer their whole selves, body and soul, as a thankful response to God’s gift of salvation through Jesus.

 A Reading from Romans [12:1-8]

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Reader: The Word of the Lord

The People Respond: Thanks be to God

Prayers of the People, Form II, BCP, Page 388