Spiritual Fitness.

Spiritual Readiness.

Spiritual Resilience.

In my role as a United States Coast Guard chaplain, I am responsible for the spiritual fitness, readiness and resilience of the people in my care. You could say the same about my role as a priest. Like physical fitness spiritual fitness helps people fulfill the mission they have been given. You could say the same thing about the church.

What, however, does Spiritual Fitness look like? Building on extensive research, the Uniformed Services University measures Spiritual Fitness using three criteria:

1) An individual’s personal connection to a higher power.

2) An individual’s pursuit of meaning, purpose and values.

3) An individual’s willingness to serve and sacrifice for the greater good. The goal is a person with the strength of spirit that allows mission accomplishment with honor.

Read Full Article Here

Stewardship Campaign 2023

Greetings from your Stewardship Committee!

 It’s fall, St. Luke’s has had its Start Up Sunday, and a new school year has begun. That means we look ahead to the beginning of a new annual Stewardship Campaign for St. Luke’s Cathedral for 2023. This Campaign is an essential part of maintaining St. Luke’s financial health and enables it to carry out its worship, missions and ministries.

The Campaign will get underway by mailing stewardship packages to each St. Luke’s member around the middle of October. The packages will contain a letter, pledge card and information about Stewardship at St. Luke’s 2023. It will be easier than ever to make your pledge, on paper or online.

Due to rising costs, our goal for 2023 is $490,000, about a 5% increase from our goal for 2022. We ask that after you carefully consider what St. Luke’s means to you and the wider community, you complete your pledge cards and return them to St. Luke’s on or before All Saints Day, Sunday November 6. More information will follow.

Faithfully,

Dan McDonald, Stewardship Chair

State of the Budget for Fiscal Year 2023 Big Picture Meeting

Tim Wilkins and Jamie Cough will lead a BIG PICTURE discussion on the current state of budgets for FY 2023 and beyond. The goal will be to have a candid discussion on the fiscal health of the parish.  We will then take any suggestions to explore, adding to our Budget Gap Team list which will be acted upon by the Vestry in the coming months. There is a serious fiscal shortfall coming that will take the entire congregation’s efforts to remedy.

The St. Luke's Public Policy and

Environmental Action Team

We will meet Tuesday October 11 from 6-7 PM. All are welcome. Click here to join us.  For more information, please email Sarah Braik. 

Youth Group: Service Corps

The Portland area youth group (with St. Luke’s, Trinity, State Street, Woodford’s, Immanuel Baptist and Hope Gateway churches) is up and running using a Service Corps model, with youth involved in a community service/outreach project each month. 

The next Service Corp event is scheduled for Sunday, October 23rd at 11:30 am. We will gather at Trinity Church on Forest Ave. We will then head out to carpool to Mardens to purchase winter hats, socks, and gloves to help stock the shelves at Maine Needs. We will then head to Maine Needs on Forest Ave to stock these items, pack up a few orders under the guidance of Maine Needs board member Kaleigh Anderson, and have lunch together. We will wrap up our time together by 1:30pm.

St. Luke’s is a proud sponsor of this group, and we encourage all of St. Luke’s youth and their friends to join us. Trinity needs numbers in advance. We need adults to drive and help with transporting not only youth but the supplies we will be purchasing. If St. Luke’s kids participate, we need St Luke’s adults to participate as well. Please RSVP to Dean Shambaugh 772-5434.

Brandan Robertson and Marpheen Chann

An Afternoon of Conversation at Saint Ansgar's

Join author, activist, and public theologian Rev. Brandan Robertson (a.k.a. “The TikTok Preacher”) and Maine’s own Marpheen Chann (author of Moon in Full: A Modern Day Coming of Age Story) on Saturday, October 15, as they discuss Robertson’s vision of “True Inclusion,” that invites communities to move from mere welcome to radical embrace, to become places where people of every race, gender identity, sexual orientation, political affiliation, disability, ability, and socioeconomic status are included, seen, heard, and valued as worthy.

Read More About This Event

Join us the following Sunday Morning to Hear

Rev. Robertson Preach at St. Luke's!

St. Luke's is delighted to welcome the Rev. Brandan Robertson on Oct. 16th as a Guest Preacher!

Please read more about Rev. Robertson and his visit to St. Luke's on our events page.

St. Elizabeth's Jubilee Center Winter Coat & Boot Drive

Coats! Coats! Coats! We will be collecting adult winter coats for the next four weeks to give to anyone that needs a warm coat for the winter ahead. Coats should be suitable for the coldest months, clean, and readily usable - no missing buttons or broken zippers, please! You may drop off coats during pantry hours on Tuesday mornings between 8:30 and 11 am at the Park Street entrance ... or coats can be left in the blue box next to the stairs, at the Park Street entrance to the Cathedral. If you have questions please contact Martha Parshley. 

Partner church leaders please note: Our adult winter coat and boot drive is in full swing! We'd like to increase our supply of coats in the next 3 weeks in order to start distribution on October 11th. Our greatest need is for men & women's Large and Extra-large coats and boots of all sizes.

Similar to last year, we hope to offer coats multiple times over the cold winter months and boots at least twice. All will be dependent on our supplies.

Extra help will be needed on an on-going basis to sort, size and hang coats as they come in. Please be in touch if this is a project for you!

A Christian Life of Faith:

Signs and Thresholds Along the Way

So much of what we do at St. Luke’s is designed to help others. What about nurturing and exploring our own spiritual lives? What about our questions and struggles of faith, our relationship (or not) with God? 

Dean Shambaugh is leading a Sunday morning class called “A Christian Life of Faith: Signs and Thresholds Along the Way.” 

Gather with us at 9 am in the chapter room, all are welcome.

The Healing Team

The Healing Team offers prayers of healing on a weekly basis beginning at the 10am worship services. 

Any questions, please contact Judd Hume 

Reintroduction of the Common Communion Cup

Within the next few weeks, barring another coronavirus outbreak, St. Luke’s Cathedral plans to begin offering the common cup again at Communion. We ask that you follow a few guidelines if you wish to drink from the cup: We understand that not everyone is comfortable sharing the cup; please feel free to refuse. You may walk away from the communion rail after receiving the host or cross your arms across your chest if you do not want to share the cup at this time. 

1)You may not “dip” (intinct) your host as this practice is actually more likely than drinking from the cup to spread germs to other parishioners. For this reason, our clergy and Eucharistic ministers will be instructed to refuse to allow anyone to intinct.

2)If you are not feeling well or if you are recovering from an illness that may be contagious to others please do not drink from the common communion cup. 

3) If the CDC declares Cumberland County to be in the yellow or red Covid transmission zones, we will suspend the use of the cup until we return to the green zone.

Questions? Contact the Rev. Dr. Suzanne Roberts.

Dr. Hentus Van Rooyen Organ Recital

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church is pleased to invite the public to an organ recital to be performed by the church’s new Director of Music Ministries and Organist, Dr. Hentus van Rooyen. This recital will be on Friday, October 7, 2022, at 7:00 p.m., and is presented as a continued celebration of the church’s new pipe organ installed and built by the Ortloff Organ Company.

Dr. Hentus van Rooyen, a native of South Africa, comes to Maine from Lindsborg, Kansas, where he served as Assistant Professor of Music, Sacred Music Coordinator and College Organist at Bethany College in Lindsborg KS. He also served as the Director of Music and Organist at Christ Episcopal Cathedral in Salina, KS. He holds the degrees Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music from the University of North Texas, and a Bachelor of Music, and a Diploma in Church Music from the University of Pretoria, and the Teacher’s and Performer’s Licentiates from the University of South Africa.

Dr. van Rooyen will present a program designed to showcase the organ’s musical and tonal

capabilities along with its extremely melodic tone. The program will include works by Bach,

Mendelssohn, Merkel, Wammes, Prizeman, and South African composer Henk Temmingh.

St. Alban’s would like to encourage all to attend. Therefore, tickets are pay what-you-can. While $20 is suggested as the preferred option, $5, $10, $15 tickets are also offered. If you feel moved to make a donation other than the provided options and still receive tickets, please select the 'donation' option.

Tickets are available at www.stalbansmaine.org/musicandconcerts.

Dr. Catherine Meeks to Speak on Nov. 3rd

Mark your calendars for Thursday, Nov 3 for an online day with Dr. Catherine Meeks and the Diocese of Maine. The morning zoom session from 10-12 will be open to all the people of the diocese. The afternoon session will be for diocesan clergy. Dr. Meeks will come to Maine in person next spring to lead the annual clergy retreat.  

Catherine Meeks is Executive Director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing. Prior to the center's opening she chaired its precursor, Beloved Community: Commission for Dismantling Racism for the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. A sought-after teacher and workshop leader, Catherine brings four decades of experience to the work of transforming the dismantling racism work in Atlanta. The core of her work has been with people who have been marginalized because of economic status, race, gender or physical ability as they pursue liberation, justice and access to resources that can help lead them to health, wellness and a more abundant life. This work grows out of her understanding of her call to the vocation of teacher as well as her realization that all of humanity is one family which God desires to unite.