The Church of St

The Church of St. Andrew the Apostle

The Messenger

November 2017

Inside this issue:

Thank You, 4

Scholarship, Vet’s

Secret Santa, Outreach

Thank You, TGIF 5

For those of you who missed Rob’s wonderful Stewardship homily, this is worth repeating:

I was honored again to be asked to lead the Stewardship effort this year and speak to you today. I am so proud to be a member of St. Andrews. You are all a second family to Lisa and me, and I can't imagine what my life would be without this wonderful little church. I'm pretty sure you feel the same way.

Last year I touched upon my life's journey and what brought me to St Andrews, and I asked all of you to reflect on your journeys as well. We all have our stories, and each filled with memories of joys and hardships, excitement and disappointment, of light heartedness to deep feelings. All of this is personal and unique to each one of us. I asked you several important questions for each of you to reflect on: Why am I parishioner at St Andrews? What led me here? How important to my life has St. Andrews become? What am I doing to support our wonderful little church and our family? I hope by now you all of you know why you are parishioners at St. Andrews, and how much our loving community means to each one of us.

Looking out at you all, I know we all have our stories that tell how we came here to this special place, full of love and faith. Lisa and I are so blessed to be part of the family here. I have to say that I was overwhelmed by the love and compassion you all showed me last year after I shared with you my personal story, my journey to St Andrews. But I was not surprised, because we are truly a wonderful family here, and families embrace you, whether life is going well, or whether we are facing challenges. Our family is always here for us!

It is with this sentiment that I would like to revisit one important chapter in my life that I shared with you last year, and with your permission, I would like to highlight this one chapter as something maybe we all can relate to.

While Lisa and I had been married by Fr. Bill here and St. Andrews on May 2, 1998, and we loved our church family, we had fallen away. And we had been away from St. Andrews for almost 10 years, caught up in life, raising children in a divorced environment, traveling the world on business, doing my best in my career I could to provide for my family, then taking care of aging and dying parents, and then for me beating all the odds in recovering from a rare infection and near death experience, and from a battle with a rare cancer. A lot had happened in that 10 years. As I mentioned after

Continued…..

Rector’s Message (continued)

my illness, and being in remission, my life was beginning to get back on track. And while my body will never be the same from the damage it incurred during my time of sickness, my mind and soul were ready to move on and move forward. All was good...except...l was still feeling incomplete. God Bless my father for making me realize that with all the faith I had, and all the blessings I had received, it could not replace the belonging to a house of faith, and fulfilling my commitment to God and Jesus to keep the Sabbath holy. And he was right, it finally came to me ... what I was missing was this little church ... it was all of you ... it was feeling connected to God the way I feel when I am in this place of worship. I needed to come home.

I shared with you the memory of that first Sunday I attended Service. An early December, 10:30 Service. I sat a few rows from the back of the church. I was excited, but nervous having been away for almost 10 years. As the service went on, a sense of calm came over me, as if I was just picking up where I left off, and then....then Father Bill spotted me... right in the middle of one of his emotional sermons. He stopped dead in his tracks, looked at me his eyes opened wide, and a smile so big came to him ... I knew I was home.

I am sure I am not alone in feeling this way, but this is home. Lisa and I feel blessed to be able to serve here, with all of you. This is such a special place.

We all have a story to tell of the journey that has brought us to St Andrews, and the decision to be a part of this wonderful little church was a personal one for each of us. I believe that we are all better people because of the renewal of faith and love we get every week from Fr. Bill, Fr. John, and from each other. There are few places that you can go and feel the love, acceptance, and nurturing we get here at St. Andrews. Personally, coming to St Andrews charges my Christian batteries every Sunday and sends me off feeling better for coming and ready to take on the week. I am sure you feel the same way. 1 just ask you to remember this when it comes time to consider your pledge for 2018.

I know that this topic is very sensitive to each of us. We all feel the need to give, and we all contribute in many ways to our community. Yet, without your generous support of the stewardship here at St Andrews, we simply can't do the things we need to do. As we read in today's Psalm "Ascribe to the Lord the honor due His name, bring offerings and come into his courts. This is what our stewardship does.

St. Andrews is our spiritual home, and I am proud to be a member of it. And as a member of this family, as with any family, we should all feel a responsibility to contribute to its health and well-being. Like any home, part of responsibility involves financial support, and for St. Andrews, without our combined financial support, it would not be able to operate the way we do today. St. Andrews relies almost exclusively on our pledge income to make up its annual budget.

Rector’s Message (continued)

2018 will be challenging for St. Andrews as sadly we see 3 long standing, and generous contributors leave our family. This will have an impact on our 2017 budget, and our 2018 budget as well if we do nothing. But, knowing the good people of St Andrews, we will rise to meet the challenges we face. Last year I challenged everyone to increase their pledge by 10%. While this may have seemed a big request, a good number of you responded to the challenge. I was happily surprised to hear from many of you that making the decision was easy and that the increase not only had little impact to the family budget, but spiritually you felt uplifted and happy to contribute just a little more a week. So with the challenges we are facing, I want to again this year make an appeal to everyone. Please consider increasing your pledge. 3%, 5%, 10% whatever can work for you. I'd like to share this example to give perspective; someone pledging $50 a week in 2017 would be pledging $55 a week in 2018. By just foregoing a stop at a specialty coffee shop once a week, you could help meet this challenge. I would hope St. Andrews is worth missing out on one coffee per week. Any additional contributions you can make are equally important and appreciated. Please know it takes roughly ($40/week/family) to keep St Andrews running.

Pledge cards will be in the back of the church on the table. I hope you will fill out with prayer and thoughtful consideration. In order for us to have the information necessary to formulate the 2018 budget, we are asking parishioners to please return your pledge cars by November 19th. You can return the pledge card in the collection plate, email it back to the church office, or hand it to me on a Sunday

Thank you for listening to my story and my appeal. I hope in some way that the spirit of this sermon has connected with you. Truly, we are all blessed for being a part of St Andrews, for knowing one another, and for being a member of this loving and nurturing family. God Bless you and thank you for supporting our wonderful little church.

Rob Rosati

Stewardship Chairperson

Thank You From Fr. John and Faye

To think of the people of St. Andrew’s is to be reminded of the beatitudes as in “blessed are the gentle and blessed are the pure in heart”…these speak of the good people of our parish who have been so incredibly kind and thoughtful and caring during these past several months to Faye and to me. And so we want to take this opportunity to say a very humble “thank-you” for your warmth and kindness in reaching out to us in so many ways. There have been hugs and kisses and offers of transportation (of which many have been taken) plus a number of delicious dinners and desserts as well as visits and an incredible volume of cards. Need we say more?

All of these wonderful deeds underscore the loving community that we have come to know in this very special and sacred place. It is impossible to think of how we would have coped with the dramatic turn of events in our lives this past Spring had it not been for the outpouring of love and concern from our spiritual community. You have helped make it possible for us to find our way “in a new world”. Our gratitude and appreciation run deep. Thank you for being the parish and community that you are.

Scholarship

Attention all high school seniors: St. Andrew's Memorial Scholarship is ready for all interested seniors to apply online . The URL is https://goggl/forms/ldFGvVOeayvCl4Xw1 Paper copies are also available upon request.

If you have any questions regarding the scholarship application please contact, Terry Wilson at

Vet’s Secret Santa

St Andrew's will once again participate in the Vet's Secret Santaprogram to benefit our veteran's at the Rocky Hill Veteran's Hospital. Cards will be placed on the back table with the vet'\s requests. Please do not feel obligated to purchase everything on the card. PLEASE read the name ( Rudolph 2 B, Vixen 2 B, etc) CAREFULLY and sign out the card on the proper line on the sheet provided. Every year people sign on the wrong line and we have mix ups! Gifts will need to be returned a couple weeks prior to Christmas to allow for exchanges if needed and wrapping. Volunteers to wrap and to decorate at the hospital are always encouraged. You can call Judy Barnes, head volunteer, at 860/655-6049 or call Joy Franklin to see if a group is going up.

Outreach

Outreach Committee will be collecting warm winter clothing, including socks, to distribute at our Lunch in the Park ministry, Men's clothing is especially needed. Coats, winter hats, gloves, sweatshirts, sweaters, socks , sweatpants, jeans, long sleeve shirts , gently used or new would be greatly appreciated. Place in the bins or near the bins in back of church. The next Lunch in the Park will be Nov. 18. Clothing will be collected through the end of November.

This year’s silent auction was a HUGE success! We actually did better than last year and raised over $5400.

I would like to thank everyone who donated item/s, purchased items and the following people for helping me with picking up items, setting up the auction, making calls to winners of bids, and cashing people out – Special thanks to; Tracy, Joan, (who came back from South Carolina to help out) Karen, Trevor, Eric, Cathy Hinsch, Mary Laing, Bev, Carol, Jill, Bill Franklin, Deb Forrest, Frank, and for those I forgot to mention (blame that on “old age!) Also, thank you to our dear Rector, Fr. Bill for his faith in me!

There were two people that were indispensable to me. Without the daily phone calls, emails and text messages I could never had pulled this off so productively. A BIG THANK YOU to our beloved Pam who truly is a treasure to St. Andrews in so many ways, and to our dependable and always willing to help out wherever needed Jr. Warden, Mike Devanney. You both went above and beyond allowing me to count on you and lean on you for anything I needed, which in turn made my job so much easier.

It truly was a team effort and it was my pleasure to help raise needed money for our “sweet little church.”

Blessings and Love,

Natalie Wing

TGIF
TGIF will meet on November 17 ONLY if someone steps up to lead the group because Mary L. will not be available.
Watch the bulletins for announcements!
ANNOUNCING THE
2107
ST. ANDREW’S TALENT SHOW & POT LUCK
The Church of St. Andrew
The Apostle

331 Orchard Street

Rocky Hill, CT 06067 October Birthdays: Kathy Anderson, Mary Manwaring, Ethel Anderson,

Phone: 860-529-7622 Tyler St. Jacques, Natalie Wing, Erin Slavin, Matt Franklin, Landon

Email: Goodrich, Sarah Mitchell, Matthew Mitchell, Emily Laing

Pat Kuh

The Church of St.

Andrew the Apostle

331 Orchard Street

Rocky Hill, CT

06067