Saint James Church
Dear Friends,
As always I take this opportunity during our weekly email blast to invite you to stay in touch with our prayerful and worshipping community online:
If you’re missing Sunday sermons, you can listen to our podcast. A new episode is released weekly (usually on Sunday mornings!) and can be heard via the front page of our website.
Mike is live-streaming Compline (Night Prayer) Monday to Friday at 8pm on our Saint James Facebook page.
Occasional videos and Bible readings are released via our Facebook page and youtube channel.
Remember to join Bishop Susan each Sunday morning at 10am for a Service of the Word, joining with our whole Diocesan Family.
During this time, where illness looms so large in our world, I invite you to take time to read to artciles prepared by our own Parish Deacon, Rev. Deacon Ann Vander Berg:
Preparing for the possibility of hospitalization during a pandemic:
Tips if a family member is hospitalized:
Newsletter:
A Special edition of our ‘Happenings’ Parish Newsletter is attached to this email and can be accessed also via the front page of our website. We are very grateful to Rev. Canon Peter Davison for producing this to keep us connected at this time.
Earth Sunday:
This past Sunday, 19th April was EARTH SUNDAY. If we had been in our building we had plans to bless animals in the morning and keep an Earth Vigil in the evening. We may not be able to do that this year, but we can still take a moment to do a few things:
To spend a period of time without power, giving the earth a sabbath from our usage.
Plan a regular meatless meal; choose one day of the week and keep it meatless.
Spend time in prayer, meditating on God’s creation, you might choose to read Psalm 8 as an example.
Write a prayer for God’s creation and share it on our Facebook page.
Find a photo you have taken of God’s creation and share it online.
A Little Bit of History:
One of the things you soon realize when you join Saint James or any church community is that there are thousands of stories and anecdotes about our shared space…. I’ve asked David Ricketts to share some of his during our time of distancing….
By Lay Canon David Ricketts
St. James has had over the last number of years 3 boiler systems. In that concrete box that is the boiler room once upon a time had one big very inefficient boiler named “Bertha” . One January in the early Sandiland years Bertha decided to quit. Bertha had to be cut up into pieces to get her out of the boiler room. It was very cold that January. She was replaced by 2 package boilers much smaller and more efficient . These lasted about 15 years until Jean Archbell came when these quit as well . The two boilers were replaced by 2 new boilers of the condensing kind. We no longer had to use the chimney as we now use plastic pipes to exhaust the gasses . That is what you see coming out of boiler room now. When we cut up the Sandiland boilers we asked the contractor to save the copper piping inside the boilers to be recycled at the scrap metal dealer. We realized some $600 from our taking the metal to the scrap dealer ourselves.
Giving:
Please remember that while our gathering has stopped, the bills haven’t stopped coming. The corporation is doing all it can to manage our depleted finances at this time. Please keep your givings regular. Consider switching to PAP (you can mail in the PAP form) or making a donation via credit card- a link is on the front page of our website. Thank you for all your generousity.
Prayers:
Please pray especially at this time for:
Rev. Steve Halford, whose mother died last week.
Rev. Deacon Ann Vander Berg in her ministry as chaplain to Juravinski Hospital
The Kujar family, who we are sponsoring as refugees, as their safe arrival in Canada is delayed by the pandemic shut down.
Bishop Susan as she continues to lead our Diocese through difficult times and the challenges ahead.