| | Weekly Dispatch, February 17th, 2021 |
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| |  | | St. John's Schedule- Evening Prayer - Wednesdays at 6:30 pm via Zoom
- Holy Eucharist - Sundays at 10:30 at Church and via Zoom
- Ash Wednesday - (Tonight) Wednesday, 2/17 at 7 pm
- 1st Sunday of Lent - Sunday, February 21st at 10 am
| | A Message from Fr. Bryan | Thank you to everyone who has signed up to provide a meal for the Boquists. Every spot is filled except for Saturday, February 27th. Suzanne will be out of town on that day, so if you think you can provide a meal, there is still time to sign-up at this link.
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Today is Ash Wednesday and thus, the beginning of Lent. As I have in the past, I highly recommend the Lent Project of Biola University. You can subscribe to a daily email that will include readings, art, and poetry in keeping with the season. You can click here to access the site and subscribe if you would like to receive the emails. The season of Lent lasts for just forty days, excluding Sundays. In this season, we remember Israel's struggles in the desert after their exodus from Egypt, and we remember that Christ overcame temptation as they could not. This is the time of year when we identify with Christ and find our place in the biblical story of his battle with temptation. I've always loved Bonhoeffer's recommendation that we enter that story by...
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| | | allowing [ourselves] to be found, where God has acted once and for all for the salvation of men. We become a part of what once took place for our salvation. Forgetting and losing ourselves, we, too, pass through the Red Sea, through the desert, across the Jordan into the promised Land. With Israel, we fall into doubt and unbelief and through punishment and repentance experience God’s help and faithfulness. All this is not mere reverie but holy, godly reality. We are torn out of our own existence and set down in the midst of the holy history of God on earth. – Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 53 |
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I encourage you to spend time in God's Word and to practice spiritual disciplines during this season. Traditionally, Christians have placed special emphasis on prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. In other words, Christians have focused on deepening their relationship with God, caring for those in need, and submitting their own desires to God as a sacrifice. Lent is a wonderful reminder that we are human and therefore utterly dependent on God. We are made from dust, and we will return to the dust soon enough. Yet, even as creatures of the dust, our lives will be imperishable if we place our hope in the eternal creator and Lord of all.
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Having said all of that, I look forward to seeing many of you tonight as we celebrate Ash Wednesday and the beginning of a Holy Lent.
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If you would like to support St. John's during this time, you can give online by clicking the button below. You may also send a check to the following address:
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PO BOX 36591, CANTON OH 44735
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| Apply to the CSLI Fellows Program |  | The Application Period is Now Open for the 2021-2022 Year One Fellows Class! Many of you know that I serve as the Director of the C.S. Lewis Institute of Northeast Ohio. You may also know that the heart of our work is a year-long Fellows Program focused on "developing wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ who will articulate, defend, share, and live …
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| The Shape of Christian Witness by Fr. Bryan |  | A message from the series "Sermons from Lectionary Texts." Fr. Bryan preached this Sunday on Christian witness, and how the Leper of Mark 1 can teach us something about how the salvation of Christ shapes our witness and our lives as Christian disciples.
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| The Daily Office| Interested in a simple way to pray the daily office from the Book of Common Prayer? Follow this link for text and audio versions of the morning, noon, and evening prayer services taken directly from the 2019 ACNA BCP. |
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Contact Us| If you have questions about the content contained in this email or want to learn more about St. John's Anglican Church or, please let us know. You can fill out a form at this link, and you will receive a response from Fr. Bryan. |
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