Weekly Newsletter November 8, 2023

St. Michael’s Weekly News – November 8, 2023

Dear People of St. Michaels,    

          Last week was a busy weekend. We had our Annual Diocesan Convention and it was east of Sacramento (Cameron Park), so a fair amount of driving. We had done much of the hard business of the Diocese last year, so this year was not quite as difficult. In fact, it was good to hear of all the good things going on in our Diocese; with a theme of ‘Together In Faith’. There are churches, like ours, striving to be good stewards of this earth; to function in a more earth friendly and ‘green’ way. There are committees working on ways to respond to disasters in our diocese; both in prevention and preparation. If we are ‘Together in Faith’, part of that is learning and responding to one another. Another part, as the book our Shared Bible Study has been reading concludes; we come together as community to be able to Go and to Tell others. To spread the good news of the Gospel to others.

          An exciting event that is now a focus of our Diocese will happen next April of 2024 (April 26-27, to be exact). It will be a celebrative weekend with our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry to be held in Sacramento. They hope to mobilize many of us from around the Diocese to come to this event; to hear him preach and to energize our excitement in the faith. Because they want us to come to this event in April from all over, our next Diocesan Convention will be a one day event Online, so we might focus our time coming together for this Fearless Faith event in April. You’ll be hearing more about it in the future.

          As we now have entered November, we will focus as a parish on stewardship and collecting pledges from all in our parish to fund 2024; the coming year. We cannot even begin to do this without acknowledging all the unexpected gifts, commitments and generosity that the whole parish has had in the last two months toward our campaign to put on a new roof on St. Veronica’s and Larsen Hall. We had a chance to get it done at the end of summer and to use this chance BEFORE collecting all the funds we needed. Thanks to good planning and many, many gifts, we got it done and nearly all paid for. That is behind us now and we can rest assured our buildings will be dry and safe during the worst part of the wind and rain that just now is starting to show up.

          So now we begin the yearly collection of pledges and ask you to consider what gifts you can give in the year ahead. Our theme for this will be “Rooted in Abundance” and it certainly reflects the gifts we have at St. Michaels; gifts of members and the great gift of our facility. We are firmly rooted in our faith and in a history that speaks to the abundant gifts of all who have come before us and all who are with us now. You will see the logo for this Stewardship Campaign in this Weekly and be expecting a letter and pledge card at the end of this week or early into next week as we begin this time to plan for next year’s ministry at St. Michaels. Thank you for all the gifts you give in abundance to our ministry together and for sharing in this community of faith.

In Christ,   

Pastor Randy Knutson

As war wages on, please note the prayer offered by our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry for the Middle East:

Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn
but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the
strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that
all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of
Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and
glory, now and forever. Amen.

Prayers for the World, Book of Common Prayer, p. 815.

St Michael & All Angels Green Team
St Michael's Green Team met recently to work on an action plan for St Michael's to be more energy efficient. The carbon footprint of our Church for the year 2022 was 17.2 metric tons CO2e. This carbon footprint was calculated by entering information about our energy and building usage in 2022 into the carbon calculator provided by the diocese. The Green Team will use this information and the information derived from the August energy audit to help develop a proposed plan for reaching carbon neutrality by 2030. We have a way to go, but remain in line with our mission statement:
Green Team Mission Statement:
As Stewards/Caretakers of God’s Creation - our shared home Earth - it is our responsibility to preserve and protect God’s gift. As part of being good stewards, St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church of Fort Bragg is committed to determine the carbon footprint of our Church buildings and grounds, develop a plan to try to reach carbon neutrality by 2030, and follow through with our plan.
The Green Team of St Michael’s is open to all who are interested in working on this very important project. If interested, contact any Green Team Member. Please join us.
Your St. Michael’s Green Team:
Heather Anderson, Rev Randy Knutson, Robin Knutson, Marcia Waters, Rick Bondor, Renee Jones
Blessings

Sack Lunch Ministry Fundraiser

We have received a generous donation of crocheted goods from our beloved member, Stella Martin. All sales will go to fund the Sack Lunch Ministry program. They are all incredibly beautiful!

We will be selling these items after church and wherever we are able to display them:

12 Christmas trees (about 16” tall), with ornaments of different themes - $20 each

24 ear/head warmer bands - $12 each or 2 for $20

4 shawls - $25-$30 depending on the size

8 afghans - $45-$50 depending on the size

You may contact Kathe Charters (707) 357-7759 (text or phone – if phone please leave message) if you would like a private showing. They will also be shown at Trinity Lutheran.

We want to extend a warm thank you to the parish family who planted a variety of beautiful succulents and narcissus bulbs in our new planters this last week.

November Birthdays: Bob Reynolds, Brian Hurley, Georgia Frey, Sarah King, Pastor Randy Knutson, John Hurley, Rosemary Jewett, Bob Crawford, Richard Nowlin, Cassiti Baroni, Cheri Benson, Sallie McConnell

November Anniversaries: Frank & Beverly Engelhardt

Online Worship Information

This Sunday we will offer in-person worship and at the same time offer the online broadcast of our service at 10:45 am in the ways posted below:

Our Sunday Service will be on St. Michael’s Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/StMikesFtBragg

https://www.facebook.com/StMikesFtBragg/videos

It will also stay there on the Facebook Pages and you can watch it later.

You can also watch it on this YouTube Channel later that day as well.

This is a NEW St. Michaels YouTube Channel and also on our website!

https://www.youtube.com/@st.michaelsepiscopalfortbragg

Website: When you can, check our new website: https://www.stmichaelfb.com/