| | Weekly Dispatch, December 9th, 2020 |
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| |  | | St. John's Schedule | | A Message from Fr. Bryan | I have several important pieces of information to share with you this morning, so please read until the end.
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- First, we will meet on Zoom once again this Sunday, but we will celebrate the Holy Eucharist just as we did last Spring. I have consecrated bread available, and you will be able to pick that bread up at the church on Saturday Morning from 10 a.m. to Noon, which is the same timeframe for dropping off gifts for our Salvation Army Project.
- That said, thank you to everyone involved in our project with the Salvation Army. The two families that we've adopted will be very richly blessed this season, since our church has gone over and above what was asked of us. I'd like to make this an annual tradition for our church and hope we can expand our efforts in coming years.
- Please notice that we are planning an online Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols for Christmas Eve. We will have readers for each of the nine lessons and the appropriate hymns to accompany each reading. Also, Maggie Archibald is planning an online children's nativity reading, which will take place just before our service of Lessons and Carols. Families, you can expect Maggie to reach out soon with more information. The service will begin at 6:30 p.m., so please do plan to join us.
- We will also have a brief Christ-Mass on christmas morning at 11:00 a.m. on Zoom. The service should take 30-40 minutes and will give us all an oppotrunity to give thanks for the miracle of God becoming flesh for our salvation. I'll provide information about distributing consecrated bread in a future dispatch.
Having said all of that, I continue to be grateful for this church and for the fact that you have all stuck with us through this very unusual year. Much more than in the Spring, our Mission Council decision to remain online has been difficult for me, but I do believe it is the right thing at this time, since a decision to pursue the good of others is always God's will for us. As Christian moral teaching affirms consistently, "It is not possible to properly love a person and act so as to unnecessarily jeopardize their health." I'm reminded of the words from 1 John 4:20, which states boldly that,
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| | | If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. |
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Many of you will know that this teaching from 1 John had a great influence on our decision to name the church, St. John's. We wanted to state clearly from the start that everything we do corporately should form us to love God more completely and to express this love materially in our relatoinships with each other and our neighbors. Some may quibble that the isolation of this quarantine is not loving, and I certainly agree. That is why I am continually in touch with people most isolated during this time, just as we all should be.
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As I mentioned last week, please feel free to contact me at frbryan@stjohnscanton.org or via mobile at 330-685-5510.
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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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| "Waiting as a Holy People," Fr. Bryan |  | A message from the series "Sermons from Lectionary Texts." Fr. Bryan continued to preach on Zoom this week, explaining the penitential and patient posture the church takes as it waits for Christ as a holy people during the season of Advent at St. John's Anglican Church in North Canton, Ohio.
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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 morning, noon, and evening prayer. The site is hosted by our friend, Fr. Michael Jarrett. |
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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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