St. Thomas Tidings: November 2, 2023
Today is the Feast of All Souls/All the Faithful Departed. Here is the collect for the day: O God, the Maker and Redeemer of all believers: Grant to the faithful departed the unsearchable benefits of the passion of your Son; that on the day of his appearing they may be manifested as your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thank You!: We had a wonderful visit from Bishop Taylor last Sunday. He enjoyed being with us very much, and posted a lovely blog entry on his Facebook page. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. Thank you to everyone who worked to make his visit lovely and grace-filled.
Daylight Savings Time Ends November 5: Please remember to set your clocks back one hour before you go to bed Saturday night. We want you to be on time for our All Saints Sunday services.
Men’s Breakfast November 11: All men of the parish and any friends who identify as men are welcome to come to the Men’s Breakfast on Saturday, November 11. Meet at the Denny’s at South and Bellflower at 8:00am for food and fellowship.
Diocesan Convention is November 10-11: Please keep the delegates, alternates, and workers of Diocesan Convention in prayer as we seek to discern God’s will for the Diocese of Los Angeles. Your clergy and delegation will be working hard to make sure that St. Thomas is represented well.
Day by Day: The November-January edition of Day by Day, the daily devotional booklet, has arrived and is available in the narthex. Please come pick one up if you enjoy using the booklet.
Pledge Income: Our pledge income is down significantly from our projections at the beginning of the year. We will be sending out third-quarter statements shortly for you to review and compare to your planned giving. If you are behind, please do your best to catch up by the end of the year, so that we don’t end the year with a deficit. Remember that Mother Sharon and the Bishop’s Committee are always available if you have any concerns or pastoral needs.
Our Pledge Drive Continues: Our annual pledge drive continues through November 19. You will receive a letter soon from our Stewardship Chair; your pledge card will be included with that letter. Please continue praying for St. Thomas and our missions as we all discern what we can do when we are Rooted in Abundance.
Book Drive: Each year we gather new and gently-used fantasy and science fiction books for the “Heinlein for Heroes” book drive. We are collecting books through October and will bless them at our services on November 12, when we will also honor our veterans. This is a great way to engage your friends and neighbors in our community life – many people are downsizing and might be glad of a home for some of their books.
The Holiday Fair is Almost Here!: Please come to our annual Craft Fair and Bake Sale on Saturday, November 18 from 9am-3pm (or until sold out). This is your chance to do some early holiday shopping while supporting our vendors and ministries. This year we not only have the usual baked goods and ornaments… we will be selling lunch AND we have two opportunity trees! Each tree has $300 in gift cards to local and national stores. We look forward to seeing you at the Fair.
Evensong at St. Gregory’s November 19: We are invited to join our St. Gregory’s siblings for a “Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan” Evensong at 4:00pm on Sunday, November 19. It will be a lovely service of prayer and music, including bagpipes, and everyone will have an opportunity to celebrate their heritage. A festive reception will follow.
Prayer Tree: We are revamping our community prayer tree. A small and dedicated group of people prays for those on our prayer list and are alerted when new prayer needs arise. If you would like to be part of this praying network, please contact Jane Gordon-Topper.
Sanctuary Lighting: We are very fortunate to have Long Beach Chorale and Chamber Orchestra using St. Thomas for rehearsal and performance space for the rest of 2023. In order to help with rehearsals, we have two small work lights at the front of the sanctuary, to boost the lighting at night. Since we’ve had comments that parts of the altar area are quite dark when viewed on a computer, we’re going to experiment with the lights when we livestream as well. The lights are out of the way of Altar Guild and cleaning folks, so they shouldn’t come to any harm. Thanks for your patience as we try new things, and mark your calendars for the Chorale performances in December!
Raise the Roof Reminders: We have events planned through the rest of the year, and we hope you have your calendars marked to take advantage of our concerts, BBQs, and other events. And please be thinking about what you might do as a fun event next year. If there’s something you like to do and would like to share, chances are others in our community will enjoy it too. It doesn’t have to be elaborate to be fun! If you have any questions or ideas, please speak with Shelley Arnold or Mother Sharon.
Are You Interested in Genealogy?: Questing Heirs, one of our newer community groups, invites us to visit their meetings and explore our heritage. They meet the third Sunday of every month at 2pm in Larkin Hall.
Service Reminder: All our services stay on our Facebook page so you can view them whenever it’s convenient for you. It’s always better to view a service later in the day than not at all! The link to the page for all our services is here: https://www.facebook.com/Saint-Thomas-of-Canterbury-Episcopal-Church-of-Long-Beach-CA-124554214274325
Share Our Services: Please feel free to share our Morning Prayer and Sunday services. The more people we reach, the better we do at evangelism. People are hungry for what we have to offer, and I encourage you to do your part to share our services with your friends and neighbors. Send them the link when you email them, invite them to join you on Facebook or in person… whatever way works best for you to share what we have to offer.
Episcopal News Updates: The email updates from the diocese are a great way to stay informed about what’s happening all over our six-county diocese. If you want to receive the Episcopal News, visit https://diocesela.org/episcopal-news/contact/ and enter your email address in the box provided.
In Case of Emergency: Notify your priests! With our combined ministry program comes additional coverage for pastoral emergencies. In the event of a hospital stay, illness, death in the family, or other pastoral emergency, please call Mother Sharon on her cell phone (562-833-3393) any day except Friday, her Sabbath day. Father Michael Fincher covers emergencies in both communities on Friday, just as Mother Sharon covers emergencies in both parishes on Monday, Father Michael’s Sabbath. Father Michael’s cell phone is 909-373-6478.