May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you!
(This e-mail looks different than usual this week as I'm sending this directly from my gmail account. I've reached my monthly maximum with my MailChimp free account; and I don't like to pay them for the next tier up when there are only 5 Wednesdays in a month a couple of times a year! I hope that I've managed to keep my gmail address book and mailing lists up-to-date, but my apologies if I haven't.)
Next week, I will be on Study Leave, so there won't be a Mid-Week Message next week - that means that I want to take a moment this week to talk about Hallowe'en. (I think that we are officially in Spooky Season by this point in October!)
Next week, we actually get a trio of holidays around the turning of the month. November 1 is All Saints' Day, a day when we celebrate all of the saints who have gone on before us - those who have stepped through the curtain that separates this life from the life that awaits all of us on the other side of death. October 31 is All Hallow's Eve, or the Eve of All Saints' Day - a time when we can begin our remembrances of the dead. November 1 is All Souls' Day which is less practiced in the Protestant Tradition. Other Christian traditions make a distinction between saints who are specially recognized for their special relationship with God, and souls which include all people of faith who have died; but in the Protestant tradition to which we belong, we consider all people of faith to be saints.
Other churches include All Saints' Day commemorations in their Sunday worship closest to November 1 - often the names of people who have died in the past year are read out loud during the service, and a bell is tolled. (I don't think that we do this here at Two Rivers, because our annual Flower Services in July serve the same function as an All Saints' Day service would have.)
In the Celtic Wheel of the Year, next week is also Samhain. The Celtic Calendar is tied closely to the movement of the sun and the seasons - the year is divided into quarters by the solstices and equinoxes, then each quarter is divided in half to create 8 festivals. Samhain (Oct. 31 / Nov. 1) marks the half-way point between the Autumnal Equinox (Sept. 21) and the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21). It is the start of the "darker half" of the year as nights lengthen; it marks the end of the harvest; it was thought to be a time when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld was blurred; and it was a time of bonfires and feasting.
Even though we don't mark All Saints Day in our church services, next week might be a time to remember the saints that have gone on before you. Maybe you will want to light a candle for them; maybe you will want to offer a prayer, giving thanks for their life; maybe you will want to simply look at a picture of them, and celebrate the memories that you carry.
Moving on to announcements for this week:
Worship on Sunday will be at 9:15 at Long Reach and 11:15 at Westfield and on Facebook Live. The scripture readings will be Job 42:1-6 and Hebrews 7:23-28. Sunday School will be offered at each church!
Cool Chicks and Ugly Doclings - as I mentioned on Sunday, the concert date had to be shifted by a single day. (Apparently this is one of the challenges when your musical group consists of medical personnel - they occasionally get called in to work!) The concert will now be on SUNDAY OCTOBER 27 at 7pm at Westfield United Church. Admission is still by free-will offering to support the work of the church. They always put on a fun concert!
Thank You - to everyone who made sandwiches for Romero House last week. Bette collected 703 sandwiches (plus someone put their extra bologna in with their sandwiches which the Romero House volunteers used to make an additional 30 sandwiches)! This was very much appreciated by both the volunteers and clients of Romero House. According to their Facebook Page, they fed 435 people on Saturday (including 22 children) and 459 people on Sunday (including 25 children) so every sandwich that we make is a help.
Sock it To Me - our next Church in the World outreach will be collecting socks for Romero House, Outflow, and Coverdale. We will be collecting them on November 3 at Summerville and Westfield, and November 10 at Long Reach. (Scanning the flyers, 2-packs of Men's Thermal Socks are on sale this week at Giant Tiger!)
Study Leave - I will be on Study Leave next week, which means no bible study on October 30, and no Mid-Week Message next week.
Pastoral Emergencies - in case you need to reach a minister next week while I am away, you can call Margaret S. at [Number Redacted] and she will connect you with the minister who is covering for me.
Westfield Remembrance Day Turkey Dinner - tickets are on sale at the Grand Bay Home Hardware for $20 each. There are 2 seatings and 2 take-out time slots. This dinner always sells out early, so make sure that you buy your ticket soon so that you don't miss out!
Workshop with the Moderator - The Rt. Rev. Dr. Carmen Lansdown, Moderator of the United Church of Canada, is going to be in Moncton on Saturday November 9 offering a free workshop for churches on Flourishing. Not only looking at flourishing churches, but looking at how our churches contribute to the flourishing of the world around us. I am hoping to attend - if anyone else would like to go, it makes sense to carpool. You can read more about the workshop in the attachment; and register by clicking here.
And I think that this is it for announcements this week.
For a closing thought this week, Monday was the provincial election here in New Brunswick (as I'm sure that most people reading this know!), one of my friends in Ottawa asked a group chat: "Are there any hymns appropriate to sing on election day?" She meant it as a joke, but I decided to take it seriously and sent her back two answers. You can hear my two answers by clicking here and here. How would you answer her question?
Blessings to you and yours, today and always!
Kate.
Rev. Kate Jones
Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
(506) 757-2201 (office)
(506) 343-1307 (mobile)
Pronouns: she/her/hers
"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?"
Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself."
(Matthew 22:36-39)
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