This Week's Announcements

Our Schedule of Services:

Here is our schedule:

More information may be found by downloading the bulletin.

Sunday, March 22

8:30 AM Service of Holy Eucharist

10:30 AM Service of Holy Eucharist

Link For Facebook

Camp Sunday

March 22!

March 22^nd is Camp Sunday, marking the first day of registration for Camp Canterbury from July 13^th-17^th at Calvin Crest Camp in Fremont, NE. All youth who are entering 4^th through 12^th grades are invited to join us for a faith and fun-filled week. Our theme this year is Feast with God, as we look at ways that we encounter God through the metaphor of food. For more information and to register on or after March 22, CLICK HERE.

March Special Collection? C.O.P.E

In March, our Special Outreach Collection will go to COPE, the Christian Outreach Program of Elkhorn. COPE maintains a regular pantry and steady programming for families in need in West Douglas County in particular. Members of St Augustine's help COPE with weekly bread donations from local grocers, assisting clients on Saturdays, occasional cookouts throughout the year, and more. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact the staff or our parish COPE representatives, Rhonda Vest and Hannah Early-Gerjol. To donate, you can place donations in the wicker baskets on Sundays or provide a marked donation (check or envelope) to the office.

Thank you for your support of our Youth Ministries in February. A total of $1593.00 was collected and will be used to support our youth!

Wednesday Programming Changes for the Spring!

Our volunteers and staff have adjusted Wednesday programming for the Spring to have more focused events and better stewardship of the time and talent people have been putting in. Here’s the key pieces:

We will have a Wednesday March Lent Class for all age groups
We will have special mid-week programs once/month in April, and May:
Parish Spring Grill-Out: Wednesday, April 15th
Parish Talent Show: Wednesday, May 6th
The Youth Group (6th-12th) will continue to meet weekly on Wednesdays from 6-8 pm with Kate and other adults.
Questions or Feedback? Please let our staff know! We’re reflecting on how our 2025-26 year has gone, and what we might plan for next year

Lent at St. A

CLICK HERE FOR FULL LENT DETAILS

Worship During Lent

3/29: Palm Sunday, 8:30 and 10:30 am. Our Palm Sunday worship services include gathering in the Parish Hall and processing our way towards the sanctuary, remembering Jesus's entry into Jerusalem. We hear the story of the cross at this service, and prepare for Holy Week.

4/2: Maundy Thursday, 6:30 pm. From the Latin "Mandatum" for "Commandment," this Thursday evening service begins the 3-day connected worship called the "Triduum." On Thursday, we remember the new commandment Jesus gave to be known as his followers by our love, and the creation of the Eucharist through the Last Supper. The service ends quietly, marking the time Jesus departed with his friends for the garden of Gethsemane, to pray until he was arrested.

4/3: Good Friday, Noon and 6:30 pm. On Good Friday, we will walk the Stations of the Cross at Noon; this is a brief and traditional service marking the steps of the crucifixion. At 6:30, we will hold the Good Friday service, which includes a reading of the Passion of Jesus. This continues the Triduum, and again ends in silence as we move to the third service.

4/4: Holy Saturday, 6:30 pm. The Holy Saturday service and the Great Vigil of Easter moves us through scriptures that foreshadow the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We kindle a new fire for the Paschal (Easter) Candle, chant an ancient hymn called the Exsultet, and move from darkness into light. The first proclamation of the Easter comes midway through, and we celebrate the resurrection together again.

4/5: Easter Sunday, 8:30 and 10:30 am. We celebrate the Easter mass by proclaiming that Christ is Risen! We do hold an Easter Egg Hunt In Between Services.

4/12: UTO Ingathering Sunday, 8:30 and 10:30 am. We will have a special prayer at this service for all coins collected throughout Lent, praying with the United Thank Offering for the big work these small offerings add up to.

Easter Invitations

Sunday April 5, 2026

As we get closer to Easter, please remember that it's often a time when people particularly want a chance to go to church with friends or family. Take a minute to consider whether there's anyone in your circles who might want an invitation to Easter services? Our clergy are happy to say hello or meet with people before or after Easter and tell them more about St A's or the Episcopal Church. Also, please remember to be good hosts through Lent, Holy Week, and Easter as people visit! This is a great time to make a point of saying hello and welcoming folks, whether they simply need a place to pray this year or are looking for a church home! Keep an eye out for people you don't know yet at coffee hour and other events. ProTip: the phrase "Have I met you yet?" is great if you're not sure if someone's new or whether you've already said hello!

Easter Flowers

During Lent as we anticipate the coming of Easter, consider remembering and celebrating loved ones through a gift of flowers. Envelopes are available on the welcome table. Please include your name, the name(s) of the person(s) in whose honor the flowers are being given and whether they are given in celebration, memory, or thanksgiving. Please return envelopes no later than Palm Sunday, March 29, so that names can be included in our Easter bulletins.

Wednesday Evening/Thursday Noon Program: Lent in Jerusalem

March 25th/26: Teachings on Good Friday and the Tomb. As Pilate and Herod put Jesus on trial, his Passion puts everyone around him on trial in turn. What is at stake for the disciples, for Peter, for Nicodemus, for the crowds, for Mary, for Herod, and for Christ himself, as the world offers God a cross in response to an Incarnate Son? We will look ahead to the traditions of the tomb as our Lent nears the coming of Holy Week and Easter.

Lent Madness

Since 2010, Lent Madness has offered a fun way to pray and learn through Lent. Each day, two saints or holy people are paired against one another, with "celebrity bloggers" from throughout The Episcopal Church writing reflections about their life and example. People from throughout the church can vote (you included!) on the website, with the popular winner of each day advancing towards the "Golden Halo" award ... don't think too hard about potential idolatry; this is for fun! We'll have a bracket up at church to track things week by week as we learn more about the saints of God! CLICK HERE for more information.

Practicing Gratitude in Lent with UTO

The United Thank Offering is a longtime ministry of the Episcopal Church, using "little blue boxes" made of cardboard to collect coins at home. The invitation is simple: as you feel grateful for something, put a coin in the box as an act of thanks and prayer. We will have boxes available throughout Lent, and invite people to keep them near a stash of coins at home to pray.

On Sunday, April 12th, we'll have Ingathering prayers at both Sunday services, give thanks for our collected boxes, and send them on to UTO. These funds go to support ministries throughout the world — up to one per diocese — with grants small and great. Locally, Magdalene Omaha started up with support from a UTO grant of over $30,000 several years ago ... little offerings from our thanks add up to big projects! Our diocesan coordinator is St A's member Barb Hall, so please reach out to her with more questions or to help with the coffee hour celebration on 4/12!

Outreach Drive for COPE!

Outreach is holding a Personal Care/Cleaning Product Drive through the month of April! COPE(Christian Outreach Program of Elkhorn) is still working through the food donated around Christmas time but are in need of other home staples.

Personal Care: Menstruation products, deodorant, shaving cream, razors, lotion, tooth paste & tooth brushes, shampoo/conditioner, body wash, bar soap, wet wipes

Cleaning Products: all purpose cleaner (counter spray), laundry soap,

dishwasher soap, clorox wipes, bathroom cleaner, toilet bowl

cleaner, toilet paper, paper towels, kleenex, & trash bags

Helpful tip: shop the dollar store, look for the combination products like Hair & Body Wash, they will be the best buy for your money.

If you have the means to pick up these items, please leave them in the large white box near the bulletins any time between now and the last Sunday in April. Thank you!

Breakfast at COPE

Our Outreach Committee is planning a breakfast at COPE(Christian Outreach Program of Elkhorn) on Saturday, April 18 from 10 AM-2PM. We will be bringing breakfast burritos. We could use your help!

Bring cooked sausage, bacon, potatoes, beans, cheese or salsa packets to use in/with the burritos
Join Us Friday, April 17 at 4:30 PM to Assemble burritos
Join Us Saturday, April 18 at COPE to serve burrito's
Donate monetarily for supplies

Thanks for your help! Contact Kate if you can assist with breakfast.

Walking the Mourner's Path

April 12-June 7, 1-2:30 PM

We will be offering the small group called Walking the Mourner's Path on Sunday afternoons during Easter season (April 12^th to June 7^th, skipping Memorial Day Weekend). This workshop is for those who have lost a loved one and would like to honor and remember them in a faith setting. This small group will create norms together and use a workbook to guide conversations to help provide a safe setting with the same group. This is a good place for processing grief and remembering a loved one with trusted others. Deacon Rebecca Smith, Mother Lisa Aguilar and Barb Hall will be our facilitators for this session. The group is open to friends of the parish, as well, if you know someone who would benefit. For more information, please contact Mother Lisa or one of the other facilitators.

April Grill-out!

Wednesday April 15 at 6:00 PM

Keep an eye on your calendar after Easter — we will be firing up the grill for burgers and hot dogs with picnic sides. We won't have steady Wednesday evening events through April, but we're hoping this evening is a chance for some fun and games for families and folks of all ages in the middle of the month. We'll be encouraging people who might visit at Easter services to come for some friendly fellowship and a chance to meet people at church, so this is a great chance to bring a friend to meet your church, or simply show up for a relaxed evening together — be prepared to welcome new folks!

(First Annual?) Parish Potluck and Talent Show! Wednesday, May 6

On Wednesday, May 6th, we’re launching a parish talent show! Can you sing, dance, juggle, or cast out spirits? We want to see (most of those)! We’ll have a microphone and set up a “stage” to the east of our parish hall. Is your talent cooking instead? Good news! It’s a potluck dinner, so you can show off your gift as well! Save the date and start rehearsing!

COPE Annual Golf Tourney Thursday, May 7

The COPE (Christian Outreach Program of Elkhorn) annual golf tourney will take place on May 7th at Tuburon Golf Course. We are looking for donations for door prizes/raffle items. If you have something that would work as a door prize, such as golf items, bottles of spirits, gift cards, etc., contact Rhonda Vest or Hannah Early Gerjol and we will make sure they are delivered to the tourney. This year we are adding spots for additional foursomes and will be using all three courses. More information coming soon so get your teams ready! There will be early bird discounted registration and sponsorships available for golf holes.

Vestry Notes –February

The Vestry (the parish board) met on Sunday, February 15th and had a first meeting with a number of new members. Elected at the Annual Meeting, Louie Lemke, Chris Claassen, Mike Ferzely, and Paul Ahrens were all in attendance. The Vestry elected officers for the year: Maggie Wellman as our treasurer and Rhonda Vest as our clerk. In addition, we elected Hannah Early to serve as our Senior Warden this year. A majority of this meeting was spent in orientation to our usual processes and financial reports, as well as calendaring for upcoming meetings. The Vestry also outlined an interviewing and hiring process for a new parish administrator, anticipated to be hired in April.

Outreach Notes –March

Our Outreach Committee works with ministries of mercy (direct relief) and justice (awareness of how needs accumulate) and meets monthly. Our February meeting was held on Sunday, March 8, and reviewed how the Blood Drive went, plans to host breakfast with COPE (Christian Outreach Program of Elkhorn), Saturday, April 18, and gathering a team for events leading up to Pride in July. If you're interested in joining the planning team for the COPE breakfast by assembling burritos Friday or serving on Saturday, or would like to join the team to plan Pride events, please contact Kate. The next meeting date will be Sunday, May 3 at 11:45 AM. All are welcome to join the group or attend and participate any team or event!

Save the Date for Mary Poppins

June 7 at 2:00 PM

Save the Date: Join a group to see Mary Poppins at the Omaha Community Playhouse on

Sunday, June 7, 2 p.m.

More details to follow in April.

Questions can be directed to Sandra Squires

Elaine Randall Book Club

Lone Women By Victor LaValle

Tuesday, March 24 at 11:30 AM

If you would like to borrow a book, they are in the blue library book bag above the Parish Hall Coat Rack, please be sure to sign your book out.

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It's locked at all times. Because when the trunk is opened, people around her start to disappear... The year is 1914, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, and forced her to flee her hometown of Redondo, California, in a hellfire rush, ready to make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will be one of the "lone women" taking advantage of the government's offer of free land for those who can cultivate it-except that Adelaide isn't alone. And the secret she's tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing keeping her alive.

Sunday, March 22

8:30 AM -Service of Holy Eucharist
10:20 AM -Sunday School
10:30 AM -Service of Holy Eucharist

Wednesday, March 25

6:00 PM -Dinner and Lenten Bible Study

Thursday, March 26

12:00 PM -Bible Study

March 29- Palm Sunday

April 2-Maundy Thursday Service

April 3- Stations of the Cross

April 3-Good Friday Service

April 4-Holy Saturday Service

April 5-Easter Sunday

April 15-All Parish Grill Out

April 22-Youth Group Volunteer at COPE

CLICK HERE TO VIEW ONLINE PARISH CALENDAR

Reflection

Thursday, March 12th, 2026

A Modern War

Friends, I want to offer some words as we hold vigil as a nation for the impacts of the war that our country has entered into with Iran. I offer no particular political endorsement, although some of the lessons I’ll describe here take note of the political world, albeit from the foundation of our Christian faith (which is what I ought to remind you to center yourself on).

First, there is no reasonable Christian theology that seeks out warfare as our answer. God loves each person and is heartbroken whenever violence destroys any of us. Any nation that seeks to be godly ought to make itself, as Jesus taught his disciples, the servant of all. There is, for Christians, no victory to be found in violence. Jesus himself told Peter to put away his sword in the garden of Gethsemane; he did not seek out vengeance or even a justified self-defense (perhaps the only one that ever can be fully justified from a sinless human being in history) when violence came for him. The example of our lord should startle, humble, and convict us.

We also know that throughout history, Christians have participated in warfare. There are serious and nuanced discussions of how this must be held, and I’m not particularly expert in them. However, my own sense of how they can be best summarized is this: there are moments in which warfare seems to present the least tragic possibility for the human family. I believe that this was so when the United States finally entered the war to stop Nazi Germany from its abuses of the citizens of its own nation and those of others. I’m less confident at all about the moral character of the decision to drop atomic weapons on Japanese cities to bring forth so powerful a spectre of destruction and terror that this theater of the war might be ended with further deaths only on the Japanese side.

It also bears saying that there is true courage and sacrifice in those who stand up to defend their communities through the force of arms. Jesus might have told Peter to put his sword away, but I take Peter’s impulse to protect the vulnerable and innocent to have been an earnest one. It falls to us to elect leaders who will honor the decision and sacrifice of those who step forward to serve in this way by entering into warfare with sober and serious deliberation, and an awareness that it is always a decision that carries a broken and tragic element, whose cost will be born by innocent and guilty alike on every side of the conflict.

And we know that these conflicts are personal. There are stories in our parish of family and friends who have been present in a great many of the conflicts of our country, including Venezuela in these past months and Iran – and the middle East generally – right now. Many of you have given over prayer requests to me and one another for those whose safety you fear for right now. And we as Nebraskans have seen casualties return to our communities already in this most recent conflict.

These are frank and terrible honesties. They are one way of describing a Christian foundation for how we must hold and understand the realities of war. There shall be no warfare in God’s kingdom, but in our world of sin, our role as Christians must be to seek to eliminate war’s violences and war’s causes wherever we can find them. And we must remember the tragedies and travesties of war, for that awareness is a piece of what must empower the work we take up of building up a different kind of world, in which we do not need to hate or fear or fight one another.

Let me offer here words that I’ve quoted often, about the role of a Christian. They’re from the Most Reverend Rowan Williams, a former Archbishop of Canterbury in England – a role that embodies a symbolic leadership for Anglican churches (including our own) across the world. In a Lenten study book called Christ on Trial, Williams wrote:

“In the late nineties, Britain and other countries took up arms against tyrannical regimes elsewhere in the world. These military adventures may or may not have been justified or helpful, but the underlying problem for the Christian is how to be truthful about them. Yes, there is a cost in civilian deaths. Yes, such and such a policy, at home or abroad, will cost resources that will not therefore be available for other things. Yes, politics is frequently about choosing where the cost will come, not about finding a cost-free option. The Christian is certainly called on to take up the unpopular position of being the person who asks about specific costs, about the tragic element in public decisions – not to turn the screws of guilt, but to remind us that facing cost is the only adult way of understanding the full nature of freedom. The Christian may also be the person who has the still more unpopular task of saying that this particular cost is unacceptable in terms of social or international wellbeing or public integrity.” (115)

This is perhaps my most-quoted passage from all of the theology I’ve read over the years. It is a frank and earnest articulation of Christian responsibility to the truth and to the human family. It Is broad minded about the realities of our complicated world, yet calls us to foundational principles that are simple, though they can call us into some of the most challenging moments in our faith. And, as Williams says, military action against tyrannical regimes may be justified, and may be helpful, though proper Christian humility calls on us to admit and interrogate whether it might also be neither, in every instance.

As this war proceeds, this calling will remain upon us: to truthfully face the full costs of the choices our nation participates in, both on our behalf and in our name. We will pray, regularly and steadily, for all those in harm’s way, and for a resolution in which the Prince of Peace and his followers may honestly rejoice. We will offer care and comfort for one another in our anxieties for our beloved ones and in our heartbreak for what happens to strangers. And we must take seriously the opportunity that we have in a democratic republic to contact our representatives and make our hopes and fears known as we count costs in the name of Christ who we follow. Silence is insufficient in a moment that calls for lament on behalf of the vulnerable.

I know many of you join me in holding vigil from the foundation of our faith right now. May God help this war to cease.

St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church

285 S 208th Street

Elkhorn, NE 68022

402-289-4058

Church Communication and Announcements

Those of you who need to share information with the parish, please be sure to send it to parish@sainta.net as well as ministries@sainta.net Jay and Kate will need to have this information by Wednesday at 10:00 am to be included in that week's communication for bulletin and newsletter. We appreciate your support.