Alleluia, Christ is Risen! And our doors are open for Easter
and every Sunday moving forward! On Easter we’ll be holding multiple indoor services in the sanctuary, each with a smaller than usual capacity. We’ll provide all the details about times, capacity, the number of services, safety protocols and registration on Monday. But in the meantime, celebrate the fact that we’ll actually be able to worship together in person on Easter Sunday and all the Sundays that follow.
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Link to Casual Coffee Chat Zoom
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This week's eChimes features |
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- Holy Week at St. James's
- Communion Wafers
- Flowering the cross and Easter Bunny
- Wanna go for a run?
- Help us choose the PEEPS Winners
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- Adult Formation
- Sunday online attendance
- Invite • Welcome • Connect
- Shrine Mont will be open in 2021 Season
- Ways to Connect
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Holy Week 2021 Service Schedule |
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Palm Sunday, March 28
10:00 am - Streamed service with follow-at-home resources
Maundy Thursday, April 1
7:00 pm - Streamed service with communion
Good Friday, April 2
12:00 noon - Live-streamed service
Saturday, April 3
At-home Easter Vigil
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In addition to the in-person services, worship services will be available on doers.org/live, Facebook & YouTube
(If you can’t view your desired video on doers.org/live, please go to Facebook or YouTube.)
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Holy Eucharist
10:00 am - Streamed service with communion
Multiple in-person indoor Easter services.
Details to follow on Monday.
Open House in the Sanctuary at a time in the afternoon to be determined.
Communion wafers will be available at the Michaux House throughout Holy Week for use at online Maundy Thursday and Easter services.
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Communion Wafers
Like our Christmas Eve service, this year’s Maundy Thursday and Easter Services will include a communion portion. You can pick up consecrated hosts at the Michaux House from Palm Sunday through Good Friday from 8 to 4 each day.
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Flowering of the Cross. Meet the
Easter Bunny.
On Easter Sunday you’re also invited to bring fresh flowers and greenery (maybe from your own garden)--so you can participate in the flowering of the cross.
Over the course of the day, the cross will be covered in beautiful flowers in a brilliant array of color, light, and fragrance. The empty cross will be transformed from a symbol of death, darkness, and pain into a beautiful, new, and lovely celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Together, we will transform the cross and create a celebration of new life on Easter morning. What a beautiful sight that will be!
The Easter Bunny will also be on hand. More details to come on Monday.
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Wanna go for a run?
Of course you do.
The weather’s improving, the outdoors are beckoning, and now, St. James’s has a Youth Ministry Running Club. What could be better? Created for every level--walkers, joggers, runners--we’ll meet every Sunday at 10 am in Byrd Park from April 11 through May 23. And while this is a Youth activity, feel free to invite friends and family of all ages.
We’ll meet at the 2.5 mile loop around Byrd Park (which you can shorten). Park at Dogwood Dell parking lot, next to Barker Field parking. A few safety rules: Masks on once you get out of your car. But you can remove your mask while running socially distanced.
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Help us choose the Holy PEEPS Winners
The Holy PEEPS dioramas being created by our children are completed and you can be charmed, tickled and inspired by them when you go to our Instagram (#sjec 1205) or Facebook pages.
While you’re there, vote for your favorites in the comments (it won’t be easy). And we'll announce the winners on Palm Sunday afternoon.
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Civil Discourse series extended for more in-depth discussions.
Make Me an Instrument of Peace: A Guide to Civil Discourse has sparked so much meaningful discussion that for Parts 4 & 5 we’ve decided to double each session from one week to two.
That means this Wednesday’s meeting, Part 5, Sacred Space for Debate with Marcus Halley, will be on March 31 and April 7.
Created by the Episcopal Church, this powerful online course is facilitated at St. James’s by our own Rev. Hilary Streever. The Participant’s Guide will be emailed to all who register for our Wed. Night Fellowship series.
Fellowship is 6-6:30 pm. Discussion is 6:30 - 7:30 pm
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New Sacred Ground classes return in mid-April.
Sacred Ground is a groundbreaking film-and-reading-based series focused on race and grounded in faith. Part of what makes it so rewarding and, frankly, life-changing are the small group meetings where members walk through America’s history while weaving in threads of their own family story, economic class, and political and regional history.
Please watch this video and hear directly from St. James’sers who have taken the course explain how powerful it was for them.
Register for Sacred Ground here.
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Sunday Service online attendance
has been incredible.
You’re sitting at home participating in a Sunday service, you look at the top corner of the screen and it says that 30 people are watching. So you figure that hardly anyone is engaged with our Sunday worship now that we’re not meeting in person. Well, we have some surprising--and inspiring--news.
More people are participating remotely in our Sunday Services than were attending in person before the pandemic. And some weeks, it’s not even close.
That’s right. More of us are hearing the sermons, letting the music soothe and elate us, being informed by the announcements, and joining the prayers today than when we were meeting in the sanctuary. While in person attendance averaged about 425, these days we have 470 or so participants on many weeks, other weeks it’s closer to 650. The difference is that today we’re watching what we want, when we want. That’s why the numbers at the “live” services can seem so low.
In any case, we’re thrilled so many of you are reaching out to the church on Sundays--or whenever it is you’re watching. And we look forward to celebrating Holy Week with many of you.
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You can still experience the Faure Requiem on our YouTube page.
For those of you who didn’t see the Faure Requiem last Sunday, you can still experience its power on our YouTube page.
Presented by the St. James’s Choir and Orchestra, this stirring service marked the one year anniversary of the lockdown.
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Invite • Welcome • Connect
wants to connect with you.
Invite • Welcome • Connect is a transforming ministry that is coming to St. James’s. It will inform and enliven everything we do moving forward--from the way we welcome new parishioners into our church to the way each of us connects to each other and our meaningful personal ministries. This isn’t a program, it’s a mindset--a point of view that’s woven into everything we do.
We’ll be launching focus groups about IWC on April 18th in our House Churches. If you’re not in a House Church but wish to help St. James’s become more intentional in our practices of evangelism, hospitality, and connectedness rooted in the gospel directive to “To and make disciples of all nations”, contact Blake Singer.
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Shrine Mont will be open for
2021 season!
There are seventeen programs from Yoga to Writing to Summer Camp for Grown Ups. All are featured on their webpage and ready for you to register.
The Shrine Mont Camps will return in July with five different sessions for youth ages eight to seventeen. There will also be four family camp weekends in July and August. Registration is open.
We learned a lot about how to keep you and our staff safe and we will continue those practices in 2021 as long as we need to. Many of our church retreats are scaling back their numbers for the spring, which gives you the opportunity to bring your family up for some much needed time away.
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Help Us Get to 1000
For us to do even more, we need 1000 YouTube subscribers. Just go to YouTube.com, search for St. James’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, then click on the red Subscribe button. |
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Here are the ways to stay connected with everything happening at St. James’s.
Share your Email
Your email is our most direct link to you. Make sure we have the best email for you. Or, if you haven’t shared your email, now’s a great time to do it.
Here’s the link. It will take less than 10 seconds.
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Follow us on Facebook and Instagram
When you follow us on Facebook and Instagram, you see pics and news you won’t see elsewhere. Remember, we’re SJEC1205 on Instagram and St. James’s Episcopal Church on Facebook. Facebook & #sjec1205
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Make sure to check out the new updates on our App. On the App, You will find tools like giving, streaming, and the bulletins. It is highly recommended to use the app as an alternative to paper bulletins. |
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Shop on Amazon Smile. Help St. James’s.
Don’t forget to use Amazon Smile as a simple and painless way to give to St. James's. Just designate St. James’s Episcopal Church Richmond, VA as your designated charity on Amazon Smile and a percentage of your purchase support our church.
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St. James’s Episcopal Church | DOERS.ORG | (804) 355-1779
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