This Week's Announcements | |
Stewardship Ingathering
THIS Sunday, October 25
In October, we have a special Stewardship Month at St Augustine of Canterbury, celebrating the Time, Talent, and Treasure we pledge to our church as the foundation of our worship, community, programs, services, and activities.
This Sunday is the date we bring our pledge cards to worship to bless during worship, and celebrate our ingathering with a coffee hour celebration. We'll have extra pledge cards on hand, and everyone is encouraged to participate in our liturgy that day, even if they need to write "still thinking" or "turned in already."
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Children, Littles & Youth Sundays
This coming year, we’re going to specially celebrate our youngest members
once a month by inviting them to explore leadership and service roles during
worship. Young people are welcome to help us with readings, leading prayers or psalms, offering music, serving communion, and more. Our clergy team will have a special children’s sermon moment before preaching (more briefly) to the adults. Fr Ben and our Director of Ministries, Kate, will be coordinating volunteers for these services. The first set will be held on October 25, and November 29th. And our young people are always welcome to help in our worship ministries, so if these days sparks an interest, let’s talk!
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Boo Bash Youth Halloween Party Wednesday, October 28, 6:00 PM
Calling all thrill-seekers and taco lovers! Get ready for a spooktacular night of fun and fright as our Youth Group transforms the Parish Hall and Sunday School Rooms into the ultimate Halloween extravaganza!
We'll have a Costume Party and Haunted Happenings Activities: Face Painting, Crafts, Games, and more! Feast: Dive into our Taco Bar, enjoy a Popcorn Bar as well, then head outside for the Bonfire: Toast S'mores and share spooky tales by the fire Special Attraction: Enter the "Scary Story Room" if you dare!
Bring your family, bring your friends, and brace yourselves for a night of ghoulish delight! Costumes are a optional, but a must if you'd like to enter the costume contest! Bravery is optional to walk through the Haunted Hallway to the Scary Story Room. Let the hauntingly good times roll!
See you there, if you dare! ✨
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Remembering All Saints
Sunday, November 1
This year, the Feast of All Saints (November 1st) falls directly on a Sunday morning, and we will be including our annual remembrance of loved ones during worship that morning. Before service, we will have river stones and sharpies for anyone to write the name of a loved one on a stone. During our announcements and community prayers at worship, we will have a moment to bring those stones forward and place them on the altar before communion, as a sign that Holy Communion unites the living and the dead in the feast of Christ's Table. After this worship service, the stones are placed in the basin of our waterfall feature in the garden as a standing witness to our loved ones. This symbolic act and prayer is open to anyone who attends, and may be a moment to invite someone in your life to come and participate in honor or recognition of someone they're remembering, especially as we approach the holiday season
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Outreach Notes from September
Our parish Outreach Committee met on Tuesday, September 15 to review events and plan upcoming programs. We heard major updates from the COPE strategic planning process: they're spending the fall setting goals and talking about structure, with some big topics on the table. Our COPE liaisons and Outreach team will keep our church updated as we hear more from them. We reviewed plans for the COPE breakfasts, Blood Drive, Chili Cookoff, Merry Market, and set the next two Outreach meetings (see separate announcements through the Fall!). The next meeting will be held on Sunday, Sunday, November 1st, at 11:35.
Parish Outreach Meetings
Our Outreach Committee's next meeting will be a presentation the whole parish is welcome to attend to hear more. Sunday, November 1, the Outreach Committee will lead a parish meeting after the late service; everyone is welcome to attend as the Outreach team discusses plans for 2027, including setting our calendar of special offerings for the coming year. Please save the date for these if you'd like to learn more about how our parish helps with partners, giving, and special programs throughout the year!
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October Special Collection:
The Benedictine Way
& September Thanks
Our October Special Collection goes to the Benedictine Way, which operates both a monastic community and a weekly food pantry in partnership with Church of the Resurrection at 30th and Belvedere. They have been an Outreach partner for several years, and are part of our Outreach team's focus on food ministries at least once each quarter, and they will be present to lead worship on October 18th this year to offer the opportunity to experience the monastery style of prayer and worship leadership here at St Augustine's.You can learn more about their work HERE.
Thanks also for the giving in September to Episcopal Relief and Development: we raised $1,254 for their work throughout the world.
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October Vestry Notes
The Vestry (the parish board) met on October 18th for their regular meeting. They approved minutes and monthly financial reports, and reviewed updates on outreach ministries, building projects, and our stewardship campaign. Significantly, the vestry has elected Mark Christenson as Junior Warden. The Junior Warden has a traditional role of keeping aware of the parish's building needs and vendors. Mark works in Lincoln, so his leadership will be in more of a management and communication style than a handyman style as he holds the position. The vestry also took formal action to approve an updated letter of agreement and compensation package for Kate Kielion as our Director of Ministries. This reflects both the skills Kate has built up, the expansion of her responsibilities over time, and the chance to use staff transition across several positions this fall (administrator, associate priest) to review which position titles most appropriately handle certain tasks. Congratulations to Kate on this acknowledgement of her work and tenure here on our church staff! The next Vestry meeting will be held on Sunday, November 15 at noon; vestry meetings are always open to any members of our church community who wish to attend, and if there's a topic that needs vestry review, please let Fr Ben or a vestry member know prior to the meeting so it can be incorporated in the agenda.
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Elaine Randal book Club
Tuesday, October 27 at 11:30 AM
The Book for October 27 meeting is Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World, and copies may be checked out from a library Book Bag that has been placed on the coat rack across from the kitchen in our parish hall.
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Forming Some CLAY
Sunday, November 8 at 11:45 AM
We have formed a team to support our parish Children, Littles, And Youth … spelling out CLAY as we think about how our church life helps form their faith and character as they grow up here at St A’s. Kate will be holding the second team meeting, Sunday, November 8. We’re hoping to have meetings about once a quarter to talk about plans for our young people ranging from age 0 to 18, and how St A’s is meeting their faith and formation needs. We’re hoping several people will feel called to help lead this along with our staff, but also expect to keep these meetings open to parents (and youth!) with regular scheduling and invitations on Sunday mornings. Please join us to hear more about plans for Nursery, Sunday School, Youth Group, acolyting, Vacation Bible School, worship, and service opportunities.
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Recognizing Veterans
At worship on Sunday, November 8th, we'll have a prayer for veterans for their service, commitment, and sacrifice, with an opportunity to come forward for a blessing, in the style of our prayers for birthdays and anniversaries. If there's a veteran in your life for whom it would be meaningful to be recognized at church for that prayer, please feel free to invite them or name them during the blessing.~Photo by Jim Keepers
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"Feast of All Chilis" Cookoff and Scenes from A Christmas Carol Sunday, November 15 from 5-7 PM
We'll once again celebrate our Feast of All Chilis this coming November! You can sign up to bring a chili and compete by e-mailing Kate.
Over the past few years, we've been entertained by a whodunnit floor show with enthusiastic players drawn from our parish's hidden thespian reserves ... this year, with our director on a brief medical leave, we're going to do pop-up readings of scenes from A Christmas Carol! Fr Ben will be selecting our scenes (so feel free to e-mail him if you have a favorite to include) and we'll invite people to stand up and choose parts scene by scene ... if you have a hidden talent for the stage but no time to rehearse, this is a great chance to share it! We'll create our own floor show as we sample chilis and vote for a winner. Bring-Your-Own-Props are welcome!
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Leaf Raking Party
Sunday November 22
On Sunday, November 22nd, please plan to wear workclothes to church and help us rake the leaves in our garden after worship at either service! Garden Steward Jim Keepers is inviting "many hands to make light work" as we take care of our beautiful setting and prepare the gardens for the winter. We'll have the leaf bags and some tools available, but if you have your own rake or gloves that will be a help! There will be plenty of jobs for all ages to take care of our church home together on this last Sunday before Advent, and a chance for a warm cup of coffee or cocoa after our outdoor chores! ~Photo by Jim Keepers
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Calling All Crafters! Merry Market
Vendor Booths are Available to Book!
If you'd like to sell your crafts at our Merry Market this year, Sunday, December 6 from 9:30 AM-4:00 PM, it's time to reserve your spot! CLICK HERE to request a booth.
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Santa's Elf Help Needed!
If you want to use some of your time and talent there is an opportunity for you. Rhonda is looking for help organizing the COPE adopt a family event. Gift tags should be coming out in early November. Late November She is looking for help checking in gifts, making sure all are received and accounted for and delivering the gifts to Bethany Church the first week in December. Contact Rhonda if this is something you could help with.
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Sunday, October 25
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8:30 AM -Service of Holy Eucharist-Ingathering Celebration
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10:20 AM -NO Sunday School, Kids in Church
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10:30 AM -Service of Holy Eucharist-Ingathering Celebration
Wednesday, October 28
Thursday, October 29
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November 1 -All Saints Day
November 8 -Clay Meeting 11:45 AM
November 15 -Chili Cook-Off
November 22 -Advent Craft Sunday
November 29 -Youth Sunday @ 10:30 Service
December 2 -St. Nick's Feast with visit from St. Nick
December 6 -Merry Market
December 13 -Coffee Hour in Celebration of Mother Lisa
December 20 -Lessons & Carols Combined 9 AM worship
December 24 -Christmas Eve Services at 3 & 11 PM
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Thursday, October 8, 2026
Faithful Stewardship
It was interesting to find that the midweek study class on the Rule of Benedict brought up a chapter on “the vice of personal ownership” the very week we were talking about our parish finances in our stewardship campaign. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
The comment is from Rule 33: https://ccel.org/ccel/benedict/rule/rule.xxxv.html. This “chapter” (which is 167 words long, total) cites Acts 4:32 (the verse describing the apostles as “having nothing of their own and sharing everything”) as a foundation. It lists a few things that shouldn’t be owned: “neither a book, nor a writing tablet, nor a pen,” even. Those things existed at the community … they were simply meant to be shared whenever someone needed one.
But the Rule goes beyond that in its understanding; in something of a buried lede, Benedict writes that these things shouldn’t be owned, “since monks are allowed to have neither their bodies nor their wills in their own power.”
If it surprises our commodity-drenched modern world to hear that we shouldn’t own a pen, it absolutely scandalizes us to imagine that our wills and bodies aren’t meant to be in our own power. There’s a profound theological root to our knee-jerk reactions here: two of the greatest gifts of God are creation itself – including the creation WE are, in our very bodies – and our God-given free will.
Each of these deserves some real attention. Where our bodies are concerned, let’s be clear in the first place, this kind of un-ownership isn’t meant to convey that someone else should have charge of us. This is not a theological endorsement of a person becoming enslaved, assaulted, or abused; those things are all the province of sin, and they do deep harm. When theology talks about not owning our own bodies, that’s never meant to mean that they belong to someone else’s use, and there’s been some deep harm done by that idea, which has been shored up by terrible theology in past and present places.
The same can be said of our will. The kind of surrender described by the radical challenges of the Gospel or the theological tradition is not meant to say that we give our will over to be ruled by someone else’s vices or sins. Free will is a gift from God, and the power we have to determine our choices is a form of stewardship. Like any other stewardship, our choices have the capacity to honor this blessing by making it a blessing, and our choices have the capacity to do great harm when we act out of vices or sins, and our choices have the capacity to navigate the complex circumstances of our lives, seeking to do the best we can with what we know and how we’re supported, season by season.
I’ll add, too, that one of the theology topics I find people have the most trouble with is the idea that our “free will” is bound by sin, and we need God to break its hold on us so that we can live freely. People often view this as “God stops us from all the fun stuff so we can sit and pray and sing hymns with harps all the time – isn’t that LESS choice?” This one takes some sitting with. To use an analogy that’s a bit relevant in my house as we approach Halloween, the freedom of sin is to eat all your candy at once. You’re “free” to do it, and tempted to, and it feels great in the moment, but it’s doing harm to you and it’s terrible stewardship of your body, and then someone has to clean up the mess and tend to you when you’re sick. The freedom of the healthy mind is to know how to celebrate sugar in moderation, and even share it with others (this is called “the parent tax”) so they can be part of the feast. If you’re too gripped by temptation, you don’t see this celebration in community; you just gorge yourself and make yourself sick, and there’s not enough candy for everyone. But the possibility for joyful community emerges when you can resist temptation and delight in the joy of taking care of everyone.
Perhaps that analogy helps (no analogy being perfect). But to return to the radical challenge of the Rule, let’s spend a minute on what it’s like to say we don’t own our possessions, let alone our bodies or our wills. And again: the first key awareness I want to have here is that this is not to say that they are to be controlled by someone else for our harm.
Instead of some other owner, though, what we’re called into is a sense that goes beyond “owning nothing” and into the “sharing everything” of Acts 4. Our surrender of our willpower isn’t to some dictator ruler or toxic partner … our surrender is to the community as a whole. It is to God, and in God, it is also a surrender to our neighbor. Jesus, who taught us that the one who seeks to follow him must become servant of all, gave us this example of a life given away to everyone around him.
In October at church every year, we focus a particular kind of stewardship attention on how we want to manage “time, talent, and treasure” at our church home in the coming year. This, however, is really the tip of the stewardship iceberg, because the reality is that we are all constantly spending – and sometimes pledging to spend – our time, and our talent, and our treasure.
There are things that keep us from spending it how we wish we would. Sometimes that’s simply the chaos of trying to solve things day by day or need by need or idea by idea – we can find ourselves pulled in a hundred directions without much effort, these days. I’m reminded that in some translations of Genesis 1, God’s creation of the universe is a methodical ordering of the vast chaos of “the deep” over which the Spirit and the Word fluttered and hovered, “in the beginning.” To join God in being a steward is to have a goal and purpose that helps us organize the pouring forth of our time and our talents – again, that paradoxical kind of freedom that is a liberation from the distractions of many things.
Other times, we’re tempted by things we’d call real vices, with less of a neutral sense than that of the chaos of the deep. Vices are things that – in Martin Luther’s classic formulation around sin – “bind our will” and drive us away from God. This feels like freedom (that’s one of sin’s tricks), but in fact removes the choices we long to make in the depths of our hearts, as loving people made for love. Vices tell us to hoard for ourselves and ignore the need of a neighbor – the medieval European mythologies of dragons on hoards of gold were a contrast with good kings, who would put a gold ring on the finger of a needy supplicant and share wealth so the people would flourish. Tolkien’s red dragon Smaug in “The Hobbit” is a more modern example, and the temptation of the victorious dwarven party that re-takes the mountain to keep the gold for themselves instead of sharing it with the desolated nation around them that has been ravaged by the death-throes of the dragon shows that the temptation lingers after the death of the beast.
Our invitation to stewardship, then, is actually a lifelong one. It’s a real and steady opportunity here at church, yes, but it’s also about how we pour ourselves out for any part of the human family that’s in need. It’s about shifting our understanding of what we “have” from a sense of personal possession to a sense of a gift that belongs to God’s people.
And in that, we also have the key to understanding what it means not to own our wills or our bodies: they, too, are gifts that belong to God and God’s people. We are a part of that human family – blessed and called Very Good by our Creator. And we are a part of how God blesses that human family.
Living more and more into that awareness helps us unlock the paths of deepest freedom, in which we’re actually fulfilling our deep purpose. The dragon-hoarding temptations that lock us into a fear of not-enough isolate and divide us, and drive us away from God and neighbor. But the love of God is liberating, and we find it when we practice loving one another as well.
I know we’re in a season of particular reflection about making a particular pledge for a particular year. But we do that together as part of our larger journey of following Jesus in making a pledge of ourselves to God and our neighbor. In that journey we often find that taking one step of offering some time, or talent, or treasure that we have right now teaches us the freedom of being part of God’s human family, and in that, we learn something deep about ourselves.
Blessings for your own reflections,
Ben †
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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.
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