Give Mary Anne your card number.

Mary Anne O’Rourke is coordinating a new and amazingly easy fundraising effort. If we register our Dominick’s “Fresh Cards” with the store, Dominick’s will return a percentage of our purchases directly to the church. Simple as that. You can contact Mary Anne at mor1313@yahoo.com

Parish baseball game outing August 24.

On Friday, August 24, Karen Martin, is organizing another baseball outing to see the Flyers – and fireworks – that same evening. Game time is 6:45 p.m. and tickets are $10. See Karen for tickets, or contact her at kwillmar55@sbcglobal.net

Time to begin discernment on our parish name.

Many will remember that at our annual parish meeting, we made a decision to change the name of our parish and we selected three names that had wide appeal – Good Shepherd, One Bread, One Body, and St. Mary Magdalene. Now is time to begin discerning which of these we might settle upon. We will hold a quarterly parish meeting on August 26 for the purpose of seeing if we have agreed on a name. To get there, however, we need everyone’s participation in a corporate discernment process. Each week, over a three-week period, I will ask every member of the parish to engage in a personal spiritual exercise. What I hope you will do is take 25-40 minutes from your schedule and go to a quiet place.

• Spend 5-10 minutes quieting yourself and asking God to be with you in your prayer.
• When you feel ready, spend the next 10-15 minutes quietly letting all the reasons for selecting the first name come into your mind. As you end this time, write down the reasons that name should be the one we choose.
• Then spend another 10-15 minutes letting all the reasons for not selecting that name come to mind. Again, write them down.
• On the following Sunday, we will gather briefly as a community simply to share the results of our discernment out loud and to record them on a flip chart. There will be no discussion, just sharing and recording.
• We’ll then repeat the process the following week for the next name.

So here is the schedule:

• The week before Sunday, July 15 – Good Shepherd
• The week before Sunday, July 22 – One Bread, One Body
• The week before Sunday, July 29 – St. Mary Magdalene

This is a discernment process, not a political one, and so it is really important that you suspend your preference for a name and simply let the spirit speak to you each week about the pro’s and cons of a particular name. Let go of your ego and desire, and see what happens. After July 29, we’ll post all the results on flip charts to ponder for a month before we meet on August 26. During that month, I encourage each of you to review those results and spent some time in personal prayer each week. When we meet, we may well find that the Spirit has led us to a decision.

Starting on time, practicing music, and more.

On many of our summer Sundays, we will be practicing music before the liturgy. Think of this as spiritual formation to assist us in participating fully in our worship. In order for this to work well, here is what the leaders of worship promise you:

1. At exactly 10 a.m., we will begin music practice, and it will last no more than five minutes.
2. No later than 10:07, Mary will begin a short prelude. This is intended to help us center ourselves and prepare for worship.
3. The prelude will be followed directly by the opening hymn.

And here is what we ask from you:

1. Please try to be here and ready to go at 10.
2. Out of consideration for parishioners who use the prelude and time before the liturgy to center themselves and prepare for worship, please hold conversations in the gathering space, not the worship space.

I know it is hard for a variety of reasons for some of us always to be on time. All I ask is that we as a community try our best to do so, and that everyone knows I would much rather have you get here a few minutes late than feel guilty and not get here at all.

All hands on deck for our July rummage sale.

On July 20 and 21, we will hold our annual Rummage Sale fundraiser. We intend to make this year’s sale a huge success. However, this is only possible if we all become involved. Our goal is to have every member take ownership and lend a hand (or two) to some aspect of the sale. Some of us will need to help with advertising; some of us will need to collect plastic bags and hangers to use at the sale; some of us will need to pick up items from those unable to deliver them; some of us will need to help sort and price items; some of us will need to set up tables and arrange items the day of the sale; some of us will need to be present during the sale not only to help sell, but equally as important to get the word out about our mission and shared ministry; some of us will need to take down tables and prepare leftover items for pick-up by another charity. Please be thinking about what your contribution will be. Remember, this is yet another opportunity for us to move even more deeply into communion with each other. Thank you in advance! (by Douglas van Houten, for the Rummage Sale group)

Bishop’s Committee report.

Because of the Independence Day holiday, there was not bishop’s committee meeting this week.

Summer book club.

One week until our first book discussion –Sunday, July 15,

1. Sunday, July 15,4:30-7:30 p.m. — The Ten Commandments: Laws of the Heart by Joan Chittister. The well known retreat leader, speaker, and liberal nun looks at what the 10 commandments mean for us as we seek to live in the image and likeness of God.
2. Sunday, August 26,4:30-7:30 p.m. – Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, by Sara Miles. One day Miles, a longtime atheist, walked into church, took communion, and began crying. Now a member of St. Gregory of Nyssa, an Episcopal church in San Francisco, her spiritual memoir tells the story of a young woman whose spiritual journey is quite remarkable.

Ginny Gibbs has helpfully arranged for us to order our books at Amazon by going to our web site at onebreadonebody.org. Click on more news and events, which will take you to the blog and then look around until you find and click the Amazon link. Best of all, we even get a cut on what is ordered through us.

What’s your story?

One of my projects in the coming months is to help us as a congregation tell our story more effectively. We do this in many ways and one way is through some great stories on our web site from members who share what led them to the parish. But we need more. Lots more. Would you consider adding yours? I would be happy to help you write or edit it, or if you don’t want to write it yourself, I will interview you and write it for you. Thanks!

Summer choir schedule.

Choir rehearsals will be at 9 each Sunday.

Food pantry items particularly needed include…

Help replenish the food pantry by bringing one or more non-perishable items each Sunday and placing them on or beneath the table just inside the worship space. Items that we particularly need for the pantry are canned fruit, tuna, canned pasta such as Spaghetti O’s and ravioli.

Ministry teams.

These have begun to meet. The next meetings are:

Nurturing – Wednesday, July 11 at 7 p.m.
Inviting – Sunday, July 15 at 11 a.m. (after church)
Generosity – TBA
Welcoming – TBA

Note to committees: let me know your schedule at 1bread1body@sbcglobal.net We hope you will be able to help with one of these teams, or in one of the other areas of church life — Worship, Mission, Administration, Building and Grounds, Adult Formation, and Children’s Formation. Thanks.

Some of the tasks the four teams may be involved in are:

Welcoming & Celebrating

• Oversee Yummy Hour
• Greet visitors
• Collect information from them
• Assist them during the liturgy
• Follow up
• Develop welcome packet/strategy
• Work on other community building activities

Nurturing

• Visit the homebound and hospitalized
• With vicar, participate in regular visiting of all members
• Work to develop healing ministry
• Missing member ministry – check in with members who are absent
• Develop referrals sources in areas such as employment, mental health, legal, and financial

Generosity

• Annual campaign
• Develop year round ways to encourage us to use our time, talent, and treasures to build the kingdom of God
• Fundraise
• Seek grants

Inviting

• Direct mail efforts
• Advertising
• Promotional materials
• Liaison to community orgs
• Connect with Chamber of Commerce
• Connect with realtors
• Work on community events
• Web presence

One bread, one body.

In addition to the Wednesday holiday, I also took off most of Tuesday, which I then spent helping cart what seemed like two tons of mulch from our front yard to our back yard. It was strangely comforting to find myself at 55, cardiac history and all, still quite up to the task. But it also was a bit uncomfortable, as I later told Carla. The almost two-day break was unusual for me, as I have been so “on” for these past five years – busy with church, family, practice, and the added demands of my now concluded analytic training. The discomfort was that I almost didn’t know what to do with myself, having free time. It was a good thing I had all that mulch to move, or I would have really been a mess. But it did make me think how much of a workaholic I have been — and in many ways still am – and made me think of many of you who struggle with various addictions, too. I hope the summer will bring you an opportunity for rest and de-stressing and that we all can become a bit more healthy and relaxed. Lots of love,– Steve

Schedule of events for the coming week:

Please spend some time this week discerning
why we should and
why we should not
choose “Good Shepherd” as our name

(see announcement above for details)

Sunday the 8^th

Worship at 10

AA meets at 7:30 p.m.

Monday the 9^th

AA meets at noon

AA meets at 7 p.m.

Tuesday the 10^th

AA meets at noon

AA meets at 7 p.m.

Wednesday the 11^th

Bishop’s committee meets at 11 a.m.

AA meets at noon

Thursday the 12^th

AA meets at noon

GA meets at 7 p.m.

Friday the 13^th

AA meets at noon

Saturday the 14^th

AA meets at 1 p.m.

AA meets at 8:30 p.m.

Sunday the 15^th

Worship at 10

Brief parish meeting at 11 to report results of discernment process

Book Club at 4:30