Episcopal Church in Snellville, GA
A judged show for all CARS, TRUCKS AND MOTORCYCLES
to be held at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church
Proceeds benefit Place of Seven Springs Ministries, Snellville, GA
Check out photos of Sunday’s Celebration of Sally’s Ministry!
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After 15 years of serving St. Matthew’s, Sally Ulrey’s last day was July 31. We worshiped together Sunday using a liturgy that was composed in part by alumni of Sally’s youth program. Youth participatde by serving as acolytes, greeters, ushers, lectors, communion ministers and musicians. The worship music was that used during services at youth gatherings. A reception for Sally and her family followed in the Parish Hall. We will miss Sally, and wish her Godspeed in her ministry. She was a blessing to all of us here at St. Matthew’s.
Our youth with our visitors from St. Mark’s in Jacksonville, preparing to head to the Church of the Common Ground
Youth Service Retreat “Seek & Serve”
Greetings!
The weekend of October 19th through the 21st we will be celebrating a weekend of “Fun, Food and Fellowship” at Stone Mountain Park. This parish-wide event is for the entire family.
We are planning a weekend full of activities to allow for our church family to build community, have fun and grow spiritually. Activities are in the works that include parishioners of all ages and all our ministries at St. Matthew’s. Please plan to attend the activities for the weekend.
We have secured the “J” camping trail at Stone Mountain. for this event. All parishioners that want to camp will be able to do it. The park also has RV camping available (reservation info below), two hotels on-site (see registration phone numbers for these below) and for those who prefer to go in for the day, they will be able to do that as well. We will have Holy Eucharist at the park on Sunday October 21st.
Details of cost and activities schedule below. Pick up a parish registration card at church to help us plan food quantities and activities.
Peace be with you!
Your Fellowship Committee
Cost: (Early Bird Special–price increase after Sept 1)
Individual – $45
Couple -$80
Family of four – $108. Any additional person over age 5 – $20/each
Attendance Sign Ups — pick up a registration card at St. Matthew’s beginning August 12. Online registration available soon.
Many activities are planned, beginning with set up, dinner and evening service on Friday, Activities, meals and prayer on Saturday, and concluding with Holy Eucharist and breakfast on Sunday. Special activities each day–stay tuned!
**Camp in a reserved section of the park campground, bring your RV, or stay in park facilities at the Inn or Evergreen Marriott. For more information contact Oscar De Leon.
Update:
Many, many thanks to all of you who supported our 6th Reading Camp through your volunteer time, your donations and your prayers.
We had a fantastic week with 17 really personable campers. Of those, over 60 percent of them demonstrated an improvement in their reading skills.
Without all of you, none of this would have been possible.
God’s Peace,
Your Reading Camp at St. Matthew’s Team
Reading Camp at Snellville, held annually since 2013, will be up and running again this year from June 18-22. It is modeled after the Reading Camp program begun by the Episcopal Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky.
A non- religious, no-fee camp, the camp focuses on campers who are rising 3rd, 4th and 5th graders and who demonstrate a deficit in reading skills. Campers participate in morning learning centers and afternoon traditional camping experiences. Nutritious meals- breakfast, lunch and two snacks are provided.
The 2018 camp, whose theme is “Alone and Brave”, is an all day camp Monday to Friday, June 18th- 22nd. The morning focus will revolve around “The Island of the Blue Dolphins”. The afternoon programing will include a guest children’s author and book signing, gardening, crafts, soda straw rocket making, yoga, cabin reading and a program presented by the Gwinnett Co. Public Library.
Our campers come primarily from the greater metro area, including public, parochial, and home schools. Although the campers are English speakers, many languages are spoken in their homes including Korean, Chinese, Amharic, French, and Creole. Many qualify for free and reduced meal programs.
For the 2018 camp we have an adult volunteer staff of 30+ and 6 teen counselors, five of whom are former campers. We are fired up and ready to enjoy a fun week with our 20 campers!
This last Sunday’s service of Pentecost was a great celebration – of the coming of the Spirit, of the reflection of the Holy Spirit as seen in baptism of three new children into the body of Christ, and in the welcome of new families to membership at St. Matthew’s at both the 8 and 10:30am services. AND we celebrated graduation of six high school seniors!
I would like to thank all of those who worked to make the Sunday so special: the altar guild, the flower guild, the great decorations, the choir, the children’s participation, Tammy Pearson’s altar flowers – there are so many more people I could list – it just goes to prove our motto – it REALLY is the people! Thank you! Mother Liz+
ECW (Episcopal Church Women) is BACK! All women of the church are automatically members, and are invited to attend a Salad Social and Organizational Meeting on Sunday, June 10th at 12:15. Please bring any kind of salad to share with your fellow sisters. Drop your salad off before church and we will keep it in the refrigerator until it’s time to serve. We will hold a short organizational meeting to ask for volunteers to be on our board and we are looking for a treasurer and a scribe. Please call Rebecca Bowen 404-808-6408 or Nancy Drury 678-779-3482 with any questions.
St. Matthew’s partnered with Snellville Police Department as part of the One Congregation One Precinct (1C1P) initiative started by Movement Forward. The program is designed to foster better communication and cooperation between law enforcement and local congregations. Part of the program is showing appreciation for the Snellville Police Department, but during Police Appreciation week (May 13-19), we decided we would honor two of our very own parishioners who are police officers! Dennis Doane is an officer with the Gwinnett County Police Department and John Hansen is an officer with Dekalb County Police Department. On Sunday, May 13, Mother Liz presented both of them with a police car box filled with a gift card, candy, St. Michael medal, and donuts!
On the same day Mother Liz blessed the thin blue line prayer blankets made by the Knit, Crochet and Pray ministry to be given to police officers who are injured or are sick.
St. Matthew’s showered the Snellville department with love throughout the week with Chick-fil-A biscuits on Tuesday morning, home cooked dinners on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights, donations of donuts, chips, candy and police car treat boxes filled with all kinds of goodies! We were even able to donate treat bags to the Lilburn Police department on Wednesday because of your generosity.
While Police Appreciation week may be over you can still make our Snellville Police department feel the St Matthew’s love by making a homemade birthday treat for an officer’s birthday. If you would like more information about this wonderful outreach ministry, please contact Becky Olbon at beckyolbon@yahoo.com or by calling 770-923-9186. We so appreciate all our police do to keep our communities safe. God’s blessing on all who serve this or other communities.
The Fellowship Committee would like to thank everyone for bringing food to share for the Summer Kick-Off Potluck last week. Everything was delicious! Congratulations to Kay MacAllen and Susan Larson for best summer outfit, and to Mona Livermont for her Cowboy Baked Beans. Debbie Lott won best casserole, and Gabe Papadatos won the children’s Candy Jar Guessing Game. Thank You also to all the people who helped with set-up and clean-up! We were all finished by 2:00, quite a feat for feeding 126 hungry parishioners! Save the Date for July 1st for our God Bless America Family Picnic right after church at 9:30. True Picnic food will be on the menu.
Another great VBS has come to a close. This year’s theme was Rolling River Rampage, and we decorated the church with loaned camping gear, blue plastic, cardboard, and Christmas lights! We had around 49 adult and youth volunteers and about 67 campers.
Gosh, where to begin with the thanks? A special thanks to Sally Ulrey for wrangling the youth and opening and closing VBS each day. Thank you to all the center leads for devising meaningful activities and coming in each day ready to roll: Oscar De Leon and Amanda Lvermont in Snacks, Karen Whitehead and Persis Bristol in Music, Mother Liz in Story Time, Ciara Morris in Crafts, and Nate Olbon and Josh Hurst in Recreation. You all are the motor that keeps VBS running.
A huge shout out to Morgan Fletcher and Terri Hurst for helping keep me on track and taking over such tasks as needed, especially getting the dreaded name tags printed correctly! Thanks to Charmaine Warmington in the office for her patience as we took over the church, the copier, and her attention all week long.
Thanks also to Abby Whatley for making the Special Needs VBS such a huge success. We had three campers who participated in all the activities and had great fun!
Thank you as well to Steve McFarland for getting us set up with a sweet sound system and teaching the youth how to operate it. And last but certainly not least – a huge and hearty thank you to ALL the adult and youth volunteers! You helped in centers and shuffled the kids down the halls, rowing invisible boats as you went. You are the magic makers of VBS, and it’s you who the kids will remember most. Bless you all and thank you for giving your time and talent to the St. Matt’s VBS 2018.
~Kira Coats
Many thanks to all who attended the 9 to 99 Sunday School, where parishioners ages 9 and up participated, learning ways to express their faith. Special thanks to all who facilitated a workshop: Sylvia Campbell for Communion Bread, Nancy Piechowiak and the Knit, Crochet & ray group for “Crochet and Pray”, Beth DiGiovanni and Janis Williams for Altar Flower Arranging, Sally Ulrey for Praying in Color, and Diane Eberhart for Easter Stories! Everyone had a great time, and it was a chance to get to know each other across generations!
