This Week's Announcements | |
Our Schedule of Services:
Here is our schedule;
more information may be found by downloading the bulletin.
Thursday, March 28
6:30 PM Maundy Thursday Service
Thursday 6:30 Bulletin
Friday, March 29
12:00 PM Stations of the Cross
Friday 12:00 Bulletin
6:30 PM Good Friday Service
Friday 6:30 Bulletin
Saturday, March 30
6:30 PM Easter Vigil
Saturday 6:30 Bulletin
Sunday, March 31
8:30 AM Service of Holy Eucharist
10:30 AM Service of Holy Eucharist
(Sunday Bulletins will be on sainta.net by Sunday)
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Maundy Thursday-Washing of the Feet, The Last Supper,
and the Garden
Thursday, March 28, 6:30 PM
Each year on Maundy Thursday, we remember Jesus’s commandment to “Love one another,” through several things. One is Jesus's institution of the Eucharist by the Last Supper with his disciples and friends. Another is the removal of much of our sanctuary dressings as we remember the arrest of Jesus in the garden late in that night.
Before those, we also have an annual remembrance and rite of washing the feet of those who are comfortable, re-enacting a powerful and intimate act of service and care that Jesus undertook for his disciples. This year, Mother Ruth Tomlinson will be our preacher for Maundy Thursday, and would like to issue a special invitation for the Foot Washing in particular. Like Jesus did with his disciples, we'd like you to think about asking someone you'd like to honor if you can wash their feet as part of that night. This can be a parent or other loved one, a close friend, or any person you deeply respect and care for. We recommend you ask in advance, though you're also welcome to ask someone at the service if you can wash their feet for them. Our altar party that evening will also be available for anyone who would like to have their feet washed that evening. We will invite others to take a turn if they'd like to stand prepared to wash feet for those who come forward. If you are not able to wash feet, please feel free to sit and prayerfully pray for those who are.
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Youth Easter Egg Hunt
Easter Sunday, 9:40 AM
Please join us for an Easter Egg Hunt organized by our Youth Group. We have begun to stuff eggs, and are excited to hide them for a hunt rain or shine Easter Sunday, March 31 at 9:40 AM in between Easter Services. We can’t wait to see you there!
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Journey to the Cross
All are invited to participate in our interactive prayer walk through the Stations of the Cross, located in the Parish Hall. Appreciate the beauty of the work of artist Monica Welch as you participate in various hands-on tasks throughout the experience. These tasks can help us connect our daily lives with Jesus’ journey to the cross. A prayer book is available to guide you through the stations.
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Rocket Notes to God
The Rev Ernesto Medina, who formerly served in our diocese, has received a special grant to help people of all ages practice basic rocketry builds and launches, and has invited St Augustine's to participate!
Thursday, April 11th, 6:00-7:45 pm: Rev Ernesto will bring rocket kits and lead us in some basics of preparing them for the launch day! We can write notes to God to put in our rockets to "Let our prayers rise like incense" to God (Psalm 141:2). We'll have pizza dinner on hand to fuel us as we prepare for launch! Adults, youth, and children are welcome to participate, and build a rocket together as a family, but we ask that if you have children participating, you plan to stay with them this evening. RSVP's to Fr Ben (rector@sainta.net) are requested to help us know how many kits to prepare, though we'll plan for a few extras.
Saturday, April 13th, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Site TBD: Near Bellevue and Papillion
Come join us as we launch rockets! Rev Ernesto will be coordinating with other trained launch officers. We will gather at a sod farm near Bellevue and Papillion – specific site TBD as we get closer to the event. We will hear special rules about when and how to launch rockets, and watch our rockets and notes launch throughout the morning. Feel free to join for the fun and spectacle, whether you'd like to make one or not!
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The Special Offering for March is United Thank Offering
In March our special collection will benefit United Thank Offering(UTO). This year, you can contribute in multiple ways: weekly Lent Madness voting(support your favorite saints by dropping a coin or bill into their box every Sunday); filling up the traditional "blue boxes" (UTO Ingathering of boxes will be Sunday, April 7); and our monthly special collection! We invite you to develop (or deepen) a discipline of gratitude by donating to this important ministry of the Episcopal Church. Remember, 100% of the funds rised will be distributed through grants to ministries focusing on urgent human needs throughout the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.
In February, we raised $847.00 to benefit our Youth Fund. Thank you everyone for your generosity!
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Walking the Mourner's Path
Sundays, April 14-June 2, 3-4:30 PM
We will be offering a small group of Walking the Mourner's Path this coming Spring on Sunday afternoons. This workshop is for those who have lost a loved one and would like to honor and remember them in a faith setting. This small group will create norms together and use a workbook to guide conversations, so you will have a safe setting with the same group throughout, and don't need to worry about knowing where to start or what to say. This is a good place for processing grief and remembering a loved one with trusted others. Mother Ruth Tomlinson, Mother Lisa Aguilar, Deacon Rebecca Smith, and Don Hoes will be our facilitators for this session. The group is open to friends of the parish as well if you know someone who would benefit. For more information, please contact Mother Lisa or one of the other facilitators.
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We will have a watch party on Thursday, April 18 at 6:30 PM for anyone who is not able to make it to view the Documentary Sunday. We are welcoming our Youth Group to view if their parents would like them to. This documentary is rated PG-13. Childcare will be available Sunday for children too young to view the Documentary.
We would like to get a head count for lunch on Sunday. Please use the sign up sheet on the bulletin board in the Narthex to let us know if you'll be joining us.
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Episcopal 101 for Children (grades 1-5) Wednesday's, beginning
April 17, 6:20-7:00 PM
During our Wednesday evening programming, all children grades 1-5 are invited to participate in Episcopal 101. We will gather for four weeks, beginning April 17th from 6:20-7:00 PM to learn about the mystery of baptism as an outward sign of our Christian faith. If your child is a in Boys Scouts of America or Girls Scouts, this class will fulfill the requirements to earn the Religious Emblem: God & Me.
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Visit With A Veteran
Recognizing the importance of community and growing up enjoying the stories of his two veteran grandfathers, 82-year-old Donald Sattem, who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and 99-year-old Lester Rygg who served in the Navy during WWII, Elkhorn South High School Junior Peter Rygg has launched a project to add two Veterans benches to St. Augustine’s Hitchcock Memorial Garden and Prayer Walk as a place where veterans and non-veterans can gather to share time and stories with one another and the youth of our community.
The purchase, installation and the reception for the two benches are estimated at $5,000.00. A local non-profit 50 Mile March, which raises funds for organizations dedicated to helping veterans, will match bench donations up to $2,500.00. Donations can be made directly to St. Augustine or online at the Visit with a Veteran Facebook or Instagram pages. Mark check Memo Line – Visit with Veteran.
A dedication ceremony for the Veteran benches will be held on Sunday, 10th November 2024 after the 10:30 service.
All St. Augustine Veterans are asked to contact Jim Keepers so you can be invited to the bench dedication. Please list rank and branch of service.
Please contact Jim or Peter if you have any questions.
Let’s support Peter’s project 100 percent.
Submitted by Peter Rygg & Jim Keepers
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Let Us Serve You
During COVID, the Daughters of the King kicked off a service for individuals who may need an extra hand. This service continues to be available if you need a ride, groceries, a meal or anything else. If you need something, contact Barb Hall at 907-759-4692 or email her and she will locate someone to assist you.
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Men's Bible Study
Friday's 8:00 AM
Join us at St. Augustine or via our Zoom Link every Friday at 8 am for men’s bible study. Please call or text Jack Ott (402) 469-1801 to get set up to receive the weekly Zoom link. Call or text Jack Ott, Bill Smith, Dave Holmquist. David Randall or Richard Krueger with questions or to receive additional information.
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Newcomers Sunday!
Sunday, April 14 After Worship!
On Sunday, April 14th, we'll have a special celebration at coffee hour for visitors, newcomers, guests, and new members! Our "enhanced coffee hour" will have tasty treats, and we'll have a brief program from the church staff about some of the ways to be involved (for newcomers and longtime members alike!). We'll also be announcing some of our upcoming activities for the rest of the spring and the summer, so stay tuned and we hope to see you on the 14th!
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Breast Cancer Support Group
Second Sunday's at 9:45 AM
The Breast cancer support group will meet on the second Sunday each month at 9:45 in the care room.
If you have any questions contact Barb or Lynette.
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COPE Board of Directors
Introducing our representatives to the COPE board of directors. Rhonda Vest and David Wright. Rhonda has been involved with Cope for a number of years, and David is our new alternate to the board, you can contact them with any questions. We want you to know that you do not have to be a member of the board to be involved. Jim Keepers is helping us organize garden plots for Ukrainian refugees, and we have our dough boys who deliver bread and milk weekly. If you have organizational skills, finance skills, want to be involved with the back pack program or Christmas party/family adoption, volunteering at the golf tourney, May breakfast at the Elkhorn Eagles Club, marketing skills, donation gathering, or just general volunteering, we can find a spot for you. Stop by and get a tour of the facility and see how this all works.
In January we served 217 families (785 individuals) with food pantries, household goods, and clothing.
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Personal Care/Toiletry Drive for COPE
Our Youth Group is collecting Personal Care Products for COPE(Christian Outreach Program of Elkhorn)
At youth group this week, they decorated a bin and some signs, and are ready to collect!
They are looking for:
- soap
- shampoo & conditioner
- razors
- menstrual products
- adult diapers
- toothbrushes & toothpaste
- nail files & clippers
- combs & brushes, etc.
Please bring your products and place them in or around the bin, just inside the red doors. Thank you!!
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Church Family Dinners Continue into the New Year!
We have enjoyed spending dinner time with you all, and are excited to continue our new Wednesday Dinner tradition in after Easter! Next Wednesday we will have chicken enchilada casseroles and tacos.
We are always looking for more dinner planners, cookers & helpers. If this is something you think you would enjoy for one Wednesday, a year, month, or week please let us know!
If you would enjoy helping with the entire or partial meal on a Wednesday, please let Kate know. We do also have a sign up genius to pick any date to help with dinner. CLICK HERE to access that. This is a community gathering, any and all help is welcome!
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Children's Storytime at Wednesday Night Dinner
Children 5th grade and younger are invited to participate in songs, stories and God’s love! We will meet from about 6:20-6:40 PM after the Wednesday Night Dinner in one of the Sunday School rooms. If you enjoy songs and stories and are interested in working with our children during this time, please email Mtr. Lisa.
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Blood Drive
Saturday, May 4
Amy Churchill, who most of you know as a beloved member of our parish living with metastatic breast cancer, is hosting a blood drive at St Augustine in Elkhorn (285 S 208th St, Elkhorn, NE 68022) Saturday, May 4. Appointments are made between 9 am and 3 pm
Amy shared this on her Facebook page before a previous drive, and we thought we would share it with you:
As many of you know, I am back on the chemo that requires me to get regular blood and platelet infusions. So far after two treatments I have needed 5 units of blood and 5 units of platelets. I will need many more. There is an extreme shortage right now. This Saturday I am hosting a blood drive at my church, St. Augustine Episcopal Church. Do you have it in you to donate? If not, could you please share this so we can get as many people signed up as possible? I truly appreciate it! And you never know, I might get some of your blood!!!
I urge you to help and sign up. If you can’t donate blood, please Forward this email to any friends and family that may be able to help.
Appointments are scheduled in 15 minute increments(Whole Blood) and on the hour (Power Red). For eligibility requirements and to see the difference between the two donations, CLICK HERE. To schedule your donation time, CLICK HERE St. Augustine Episcopal Church should be at the top, click "see times". If you have any questions, please contact Amy Churchill
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Culture Club Event
Mark your calendar for Hello Dolly! Which will be at The Omaha Playhouse the afternoon of Sunday, June 9. Group rate for these tickets will be $32, collected in early May. Please let Sandra know if you would like to join!
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Vestry Notes – February
Our February Vestry meeting was a chance to welcome our new members, Barb DiGiovanni and Hannah Early. We re-elected Maggie Wellman as our treasurer for the year and elected Jean Lahti to serve as clerk for the February meeting. Bishop Barker greeted us and was very encouraging of our growing and active parish. The Vestry spent time reviewing our financial statements in detail and discussed our communications with the City of Omaha about a small sinkhole that has appeared in the public right of way northwest of our space. We are planning for a vestry retreat in March to discuss our major goals and projects for the year.
Good Budget News!
We are delighted to announce that St Augustine's received several Legacy Society gifts over the past several months, totaling nearly $300,000. Gifts to our Legacy Society can be made as part of estate planning, or can be given directly through whatever means are best available to the donors. In general, this giving supports the Legacy Fund here; however, our Legacy Society policies allow for the Legacy Society Directors and the members of our Vestry to direct legacy giving to our capital improvements as well. On the recommendation of our treasurer and Finance Committee, our Legacy Society and Vestry have voted to distribute the gifts as follows:
- a $235,000 payment will be made to reduce our principal with the Diocese of Nebraska; this is a major contribution against our initial total loan of $400,000, and will reduce our annual giving burden substantially.
- the balance of $62,123.63 will be deposited into our Legacy Fund, bringing our total over $100,000 for the first time since the establishment of this fund several years ago. This is a fund invested with many other Episcopal Church entities, which earns us interest and dividends, and will continue growing to support our parish ministries in perpetuity.
Although gifts are kept anonymous, we give thanks to those who have made these commitments and contributions to help maintain a firm financial foundation!
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Thursday, March 28
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6:30 PM -Maundy Thursday Service
Friday, March 29
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8:00 AM -Men's Bible Study
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12:00 PM -Stations of the Cross
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6:30 PM -Good Friday Service
Saturday, March 30
Sunday, March 31
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8:30 AM -Service of Holy Eucharist
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9:20 AM -Easter Egg Hunt
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10:30 AM -Service of Holy Eucharist
Wednesday, April 3
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6:30 PM -Church Family Dinner or Youth Group
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April 14 Newcomer Coffee Hour
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April 21 Thistle Screening with Guest Speaker
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May 4 Blood Drive
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Thursday, March 28, 2024
Holy Week 2024
Over my life, I’ve had just about every kind of feeling through Holy Week. It has taught me the story of this startlingly-unfinal chapter of Jesus’s life among us. It has shown me a mirror of my own humanity – and the humanity of our whole human world – in stark and somber relief. It has brought me to awe at the actions and choices of God incarnate among us. It has drawn together my experience of the Lent I’ve kept before it and the arrival of Easter on the horizon.
This week has many traditions within it. The beginning of the week with Palm Sunday is a liturgically surreal worship service: we begin with Hosannas and we end with the cross. (The church’s pragmatism around this is that not everyone can/does attend Good Friday’s service, so the Passion of Jesus is read on Palm Sunday as well, such that those who are only able to be present on Sundays don’t move from the entrance into Jerusalem one week to the resurrection the following week, without ever observing the Passion of Jesus in the middle). As I’ve learned more about Palm Sunday in seminary and after, I’ve become powerfully convicted that the entrance into Jerusalem is also Jesus’s line in the sand with many earthly powers: he’s been warned not to come (Luke 13:31-35); he’s entered the city on a donkey – the act of a peaceful king rather than a warrior (who would ride a horse); and he's mirroring and mocking the Roman procession that entered into Jerusalem from the main gate on the opposite side of the city – a full imperial reminder before the Jewish festivals that Rome was in charge, and not their Lord. Jesus’s entry was not simply a joyful parade for those who followed him; it was a public act with public consequences. We see those consequences by week’s end.
The Episcopal Church and others sometimes keep traditions early in Holy Week. In some dioceses, clergy gather for a Chrism Mass – a special service of worship during which a bishop consecrates holy oil to be used for baptisms. This rite must be celebrated by a bishop, which goes back to the ancient tradition that the Apostles – and then their successors the bishops – would be the ones to welcome new Christians. Today, again by pragmatism, priests and deacons also baptize … but the oil we use has always been blessed by a bishop, and Christians are given the opportunity to be Confirmed in their faith by a bishop later in their life of faith. A Chrism Mass is often held in Holy Week because of the ancient tradition that new converts would be welcomed at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday at the end of the week.
There are also services of Tenebrae worship, often celebrated on the Wednesday of Holy Week. Tenebrae (which comes from the Latin word for “darkness”) came out of monastic traditions of observing prayer times each day called the “hours” as part of their life of prayer. Tenebrae was a special dedication of some of those prayers to the Passion of Jesus during Holy Week, and modern versions often involve some set of prayers and chants in a more monastic model, almost always accompanied by the extinguishing of candles – a sign both of the darkness of the day ending around us, and the way in which the events of Holy Week blocked us from seeing Jesus for a time before the great revelation of Easter.
Finally, the Triduum (“three days”) itself takes place on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Although taking place on three separate days, this is really a single service in several parts, telling the story of Jesus’s Last Supper, prayers in Gethsemane, arrest, trial, and crucifixion. Thursday takes its name from “mandatum” – Jesus gives us the new commandment that we love one another: we sometimes remember that this is crucially connected to his institution of the Eucharist at the same gathering. Good Friday takes its name from the deep theological irony that God’s victory of love and forgiveness was revealed to us in its starkest relief by the fact that it could not be ended by the violence and fury that was unleashed upon the innocent Jesus. And Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil (sometimes celebrated as separate services through the whole night until Easter dawn) became the day we’d prepare for the news proclaimed on that morning.
There is power in the rhythm of these traditions, and I invite you to an observance of them through the end of this week with us here at church. We don’t celebrate each of these traditions, but we will have our Triduum services – including a special evening Good Friday service this year with seven different clergy offering a brief reflection each on the Seven Last Words of Jesus. We’ll also have an opportunity to walk the Stations of the Cross at noon on Good Friday, followed by organ meditations by Sally Hodges, which is a gift she’s made a tradition of to our parish.
I’ll offer one final comment about how I’ve experienced Holy Week over the years. It’s a complicated thought.
There’s a real piece of my own journey of faith that has found my attention shifting AWAY from Holy Week. While this is the stark and startling moment in history when forgiveness endured to be pronounced even from a cross of imperial violence … I keep finding that the heart I have for my God and my neighbor has this powerful spiritual wanderlust to LEAVE Holy Week.
I have come to believe that this is actually the resurrection life of Jesus at work within me. It feels like my hope, my faith, have themselves become unbound from the friends’ betrayals, the false trial, the too-humanly-sinful practices of violent execution by the Roman state. I can find the immortality of God there. I can find the unending nature of Jesus’s grace and forgiveness there.
But the life of the Gospel I find instead in the Incarnation. More and more, I feel that salvation lies simply in God’s choice to be with us. God may well have seen the trial and the cross coming … but I don’t think God needed to sacrifice Jesus in order to create mercy for us. Rather, as I do my best to walk in the path I’ve seen laid out by Jesus, I find more and more that the mercy has been eternal. There has never been a moment in which the Father has not loved us.
Holy Week, then, has been for me a week about humanity’s worst outpourings of fear and mistaken sin. It’s important and powerful for me to walk through it … but in a major share, that importance is in remembering what happens when we let our fears and sins overwhelm us, and turn us against our neighbors.
But the abundant and flourishing life that God wants for us isn’t found by creeping around at the edges of the violence of the Roman empire; instead it’s found in the new commandment to love one another as we have been loved, to take up the work Jesus called for and modeled of healing and feeding and standing with the poor and the imprisoned. The world we can have with God and neighbor is found in the one who came to be among us as both.
I look forward to walking through this week with you all, that it might show us all the more how we are to spend every week, as followers of Jesus.
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St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church
285 S 208th Street
Elkhorn, NE 68022
402-289-4058
Church Communication and Announcements
Those of you who need to share information with the parish, please be sure to send it to parish@sainta.net as well as ministries@sainta.net Jay and Kate will need to have this information by Wednesday at 10:00 am to be included in that week's communication for bulletin and newsletter. We appreciate your support.
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