St. Matthews Episcopal Church

Episcopal Church in Snellville, GA

All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness *
to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. Ps.25:9

Shrove Tuesday Pancakes Photos

St. Matt’s tradition for Shrove Tuesday each year has been for the Youth to serve a yummy pancake supper to the parish in the parish hall, complete with pancakes and all the trimmings, bacon and sausage, and a huge serving of fun and fellowship. This would be followed by the Burning of the Palms to prepare ashes for Ash Wednesday the following day. But of course since the 2020 Covid pandemic lingers into the beginning of 2021, this event could not occur this year. That didn’t mean that pancakes were off the menu, though.

Instead, families prepared pancake or waffles (or latkes!) at home, and posted the results on Facebook. Here are some of the great photos we received.  Many thanks to all who made this a “together-separately” Shrove Tuesday to remember!

 



Share this on your social network:

We Say Goodbye To Mother Liz+

Sunday, January 31, St. Matthews parishioners masked up and faced down a chilly, drizzly winter day to bid adieu to our beloved Mother Liz Hendrick. The online service included the Concluding of a Pastoral Relationship ceremony, led by the Rev. Canon John Bolton, representing the Diocese of Atlanta. Mother Liz returned her keys to the Senior and Junior Wardens, and the Parish Register to the Altar Guild Director.

Mother Liz was presented a framed photo of her standing beside the Little Free Library erected in her honor. On behalf of Mother Liz, her family presented a new altar book to the church, and Maureen Rutherford, her close friend, presented a bench to be placed in the courtyard.

After the online service, carloads of families and individuals began arriving to receive drive-through communion. Then, they lined up again–bearing books for the Little Free Library and gifts and cards for Mother Liz—to say goodbye and see her off into a happy retirement with our prayers and blessings.

The Snellville Police Department was front and center, driving through with lights flashing in honor of Mother Liz. Officer Rankin presented her with a Retired Snellville Police Chaplain’s badge.

The Little Free Library will be well-stocked. More than 100 books were donated, from children’s books to fiction to non-fiction. The Library will be open to the community as well as parishioners. We hope you will come and browse the offerings, and bring a book to share with others.

Mother Liz’s final sermon ended with this: “My time with you is over, but God still has work for you to do.” She promised to pray for us, and asked for our prayers in return.

We’ll miss you, Mother Liz. We promise to keep doing God’s work and to keep you in our prayers. We thank you for the wonderful legacy of books and reading you have left us.

 



Share this on your social network:

Knit Crochet and Pray Items Help Rosebud Episcopal Mission and Local Needs

2/12/2021 UPDATE!
Thanks to the generosity of St. Matthew’s parishioners and the work of Knit Crochet & Pray members, we are mailing four boxes to Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota with the following in the shipment:
23 sets of hats/scarves/gloves
31 sets of hats/scarves
13 extra hats
5 extra pairs of gloves/mittens
1 pair of socks.
Their temperatures were actually minus35 degrees last week and a wind chill of -35 this week!
36 sets of hats and scarves and a box of flat plastic flashlights twill go to the homeless at the Church of the Common Ground.
KCP continues to work on more mittens, scarves and hats for Rosebud, as well as chemo caps for chemo patients in the Atlanta area. Thank you for generosity, and thank you, KCP! If you are interested in helping with this active group’s efforts, please contact Beth DIGiovanni.

Original Post: Help St. Matt’s Knit, Crochet, Pray Ministry With January Giving

We would like to invite you to help the children on Rosebud and our local homeless at the Church of the Common Ground to stay warm this winter. During the month of January we are asking for contributions of clean used sweaters and/or fleece and/or warm yarn. These items may be dropped off at church in the plastic bin (with a KCP sign on it) in the back of the church by the bench. The KCP members will make mittens from the sweaters and fleece and hats/scarves from the yarn. The KCP has made the work for Rosebud one of its continuous projects.

Rosebud Episcopal Mission was established in 1889 for the Lakota Tribe in South Dakota.  According to the 2017 census the population was 11, 354 with over 4,000 children now between the ages of 4-18 years (Mother Lauren Stanley,2020), and it covers an area of 1,970.362 square miles. The 2017 census reported 39.7% of the residents had incomes below the poverty level. It is divided into the Mission East under Rev. Anne Henninger with four churches and the Mission West under Rev. Dr. Lauren Stanley, Superintending Presbyter, with eight churches.

Our church found out about Rosebud when our postulate at the time, Nancee Cekuta (now Reverend Nancee at Holy Trinity in Fayetteville, NC), was assigned by our diocese to work there one summer. She came back telling us of the great needs on the reservation, especially for children waiting for buses  in extreme cold. Since that time, our church, led by the St. Matthew’s Knit, Crochet, and Pray Ministry (KCP), has collected and made donations of hats, scarves, and gloves for the school-aged children (ages 4-18 years) on the Rosebud Reservation. South Dakota and Rosebud have been hard hit by COVID-19; Mother Lauren is recovering from her second COVID-19 case.

Thank you so much for helping those in need.

 

From Mother Lauren at Rosebud Episcopal Mission

To: Beth DiGiovanni, Knit, Crochet and Pray
Date: 12/30/2020 8:09 PM

Subject: All of the knitted items have gone out and we had a blast giving them out!!!

Oh, Beth, this has been SOOOO fun this year. We put the hats, scarves and gloves in the stockings that we gave out via the GLORY program, and then gave more to the White Buffalo Calf Woman’s Society (the domestic violence and sexual abuse shelter for women and their families).
And everyone was overjoyed!!!!

WIth COVID, we haven’t been able to gather our children … so we went to them instead and delivered to parents and grandparents, so the kids could open the gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas.

I’m attaching one photo … because it’s just so darned cute! Little one wore it all night, and all the next day!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! All y’all really helped make Christmas in a really weird year seem so much more normal for our children!

Blessings and peace,
Lauren

The Rev. Dr. Lauren R. Stanley
Superintending Presbyter, Rosebud Episcopal Mission (West)



Share this on your social network:

Outreach Project — SE Gwinnett Co-Op’s Winter Wonder

Co-Op’s Winter Wonder 2020 Christmas Assistance Program

Once again the Southeast Gwinnett Food Co-Op is offering gift cards as their Christmas assistance program to eligible clients who have minor children living in their household. This small offering will help the heads of house–holds care for their children’s needs and remind them that they have friends walking alongside of them.

You are invited to make a donation in the form of a $25 Walmart gift card. Gift cards can be placed in the special collection container before or after all Sunday’s outside services, dropped off at the church parking lot on Saturday afternoons 10/24,10/31,11/7 and 11/14 from 12-2pm or given to Jennifer Papadatos, Cheryl Wheeler, Greg Andrews or Dotty Merrifield. All donations must be submitted by November 16th.



Share this on your social network:

Outreach Project – St. Matthew’s Preschool Supply Drive

OUTREACH — PRESCHOOL DONATION DRIVE
Final Week wraps up!
We are excited to be welcoming children back to St. Matthew’s Preschool and Kindergarten for the 2020-2021 school year!
October 3rd-October 31st the Outreach Committee will be collecting supplies for St. Matthew’s Preschool and Kindergarten. Donations can be left in the donation bin found at the back covered entrance to the church (handicapped entrance) starting October 3rd. If your donation is too large for the bin please contact Jennifer or Juanita to arrange for drop off. Please avoid dropping off items during preschool carpool times (9:30am-10:00am and 1:30pm-2:00pm).
If you wish to ship items directly to the preschool, send to:
St. Matthew’s Preschool
1520 Oak Rd.
Snellville, GA 30078
To learn more about our wonderful St. Matthew’s Preschool, click here.



Share this on your social network:

Holy Cow Survey Results

The results for the survey conducted at St. Matthew’s in July are below. One file contains graphs of the questions around reopening. The other file contains all of the free text comments that were written by parishioners. On Friday, Holy Cow will meet with clergy and wardens to discuss the results for the diocese. We should learn how our results compare with other parishes. An updated report, which will summarize both the results from St. Matthew’s and how St. Matthew’s compares to other churches in the diocese will be published in the October 2 copy of The Messenger.

Holy Cow Survey St. Matthews Graphs

Holy Cow Survey St. Matthews Free Text Response



Share this on your social network:

Musings, September 2020 — Update On In-Person Worship Services

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

We passed a milestone of a different sort this past week – September 15 marked six months since we closed the building to sanctuary worship. Less than 24 hours after the vestry voted to close the church on March 14, Father Tommy, along with Amanda Livermont, Steve McFarland, Karen Anderson and Becky Olbon, created on-line worship in the Coil chapel to make sure we did not miss a Sunday service!
Back in those days, we talked about the celebration we would have back in the sanctuary at Easter. It hasn’t worked out that way, but thanks be to God and a lot of effort on the part of clergy, staff and parishioners, we have not missed a Sunday service and we added daily services on Facebook with the express purpose of affirming that coming together in community to worship God was STILL the most important thing we could do as Christians – in the face of pandemic, economic uncertainty, protests and hurricanes, we continue to share our faith and love for one another by showing up several times a week to praise God and pray for each other and the world.

On September 8, Bishop Wright let the clergy know that we could begin worshiping outdoors on campus, with the maximum number of persons capped at 50, for a service no longer than one hour, and maintaining social distancing and the wearing of masks. Several teams have been working on the required reopening plan for both outdoor and future indoor worship and these plans will be complete by the end of this month, with the required paperwork sent in to the diocese to allow us outdoor worship under the Pavilion in October. We will use Realm to register for ALL activities on campus, including these on-campus services, to comply with contact tracing requirements. For this reason it is important that all adult family members be signed into Realm, with updated contact information available for each adult.

There will be more information coming out soon with details about how to register for attending the service as well as information about the service for those continuing to attend online. St. Matthew’s remains committed to offering several options for parishioners (and visitors!) to remain connected with our church community. However, I wanted to take a moment to pause, and reflect back on the past six months, and to share how grateful I am to be part of this community and how amazing it is that so many people have stepped up to help make on-line worship happen – from technical management to leading worship. Beloved, we are blessed to have the church family we do, and so I thank each and every one of you – for your leadership, for your support and for your constant prayers. I pray that we will continue to move towards more people on campus and to returning to the sanctuary for our services. I also recognize that maintaining a presence on-line for those who cannot physically attend the service is critically important, and that ministry will go on. Please stay tuned to The Messenger for updates.
With deepest affection,

Mother Liz+



Share this on your social network:

Morning Prayer And the Canticles

Written and compiled by Kyle Osborne, Director of Music at St. Matthew’s

The office of Morning Prayer was created by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the 1549 Book of Common Prayer.  Cranmer combined the offices of Matins (the nighttime vigil), Lauds (which took place at Dawn) and Prime (which took place around 6am) from the Liturgy of the Hours (also known as the Divine Office which marked the hours of each day with prayer) to create Morning Prayer.

Invitatory and Psalter
At the Invitatory, the Venite (Psalm 95) or the Jubilate (Psalm 100) are said or sung. The Venite, a carryover from the office of Matins (Vigil), is an invitation to worship. The Jubilate, which was used as an entrance song in The Temple, is a song of thanksgiving and praise. The Jubilate was also the opening Psalm at Lauds (Dawn Prayer). This coming Sunday we will be singing a setting of the Venite (S-35).

Venite     Psalm 95:1-7
Come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have molded the dry land.

Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!

Jubilate      Psalm 100
Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands; *
serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with a song.

Know this: The Lord himself is God; *
he himself has made us, and we are his;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise; *
give thanks to him and call upon his Name.

For the Lord is good;
his mercy is everlasting; *
and his faithfulness endures from age to age.

Canticles
After the first and second lesson at Morning Prayer a Canticle is said or sung. A Canticle is a song of praise with a biblical or biblically inspired text. Perhaps the most famous Canticles are the Gloria (Glory to God in the highest) and the Magnificat (Song of Mary). See BCP pages 85-96 for a list of Canticles 8-21. Canticles 1-7, which use traditional language, can be found on BCP pages 47-52. Many different musical settings of the Canticles can be found, including chant, choral, organ, and metrical paraphrase.

We will be using metrical paraphrases for both Canticle 12 – A Song of Creation (Benedicite, omnia opera Domini), and Canticle 21 – You are God (Te Deum laudamus) this coming Sunday.

A Song of Creation is from the Greek Septuagint version of the book of Daniel. This Canticle is often referred to as the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men (Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were the three young men who praised God even after being placed in the fiery furnace during the Babylonia Exile). A Song of Creation was originally used in Christian worship as a canticle at Easter Vigil and Thomas Cranmer suggested its use as an alternative to the Te Deum during Lent.

Our setting for Canticle 12 comes from Wonder, Love, and Praise #885. The metrical paraphrase of the text is by Carl Daw. The music is by Williams Bradley Roberts and was written specifically for the text.

Let all creation bless the Lord,
till heav’n with praise is ringing.
Sun, moon, and stars, peal out a chord,
stir up the angels’ singing.
Sing, wind, and rain! Sing, snow and sleet!
Make music, day, night, cold and heat:
exalt the God who made you.
All living things upon the earth,
green fertile hills and mountains,
sing to the God who gave you birth;
be joyful, springs and fountains.
Lithe waterlife, bright airborne birds,
wild roving beasts, tame flocks and herds:
exalt the God who made you.

O men and women everywhere,
lift up a hymn of glory;
let all who know God’s steadfast care
tell out salvation’s story.
No tongue be silent; sing your part,
you humble souls and meek of heart:
exalt the God who made you.
Carl P. Daw, Jr.

The Te Deum is one of the oldest hymns of praise. Dating from c. 387 the authorship was traditionally ascribed to Saint Ambrose (d. 397) but is now considered to be by an unknown author. Traditionally, the Te Deum was said at the end of Matins on all days that the Gloria was said at Mass.

Our setting for Canticle 21 is #366, verses 1-4, from The Hymnal 1982. The text is attributed to Ignace Franz and translated by Clarence A. Walworth. The music GROSSER GOTT is from Katholisches Gesangbuch, Vienna, c. 1774.

Holy God, we praise your name;
Lord of all, we bow before you;
all on earth your scepter claim,
all in heav’n above adore you.
Infinite your vast domain,
everlasting is your reign.

Hark, the loud celestial hymn
angel choirs above are raising;
cherubim and seraphim
in unceasing chorus praising,
fill the heav’ns with sweet accord:
“Holy, holy, holy Lord.”

Lo! the apostolic train
join your sacred name to hallow;
prophets swell the glad refrain,
and the white robed martyrs follow;
and from morn to set of sun,
through the church the song goes on.

Holy Father, Holy Son,
Holy Spirit, Three we name you;
while in essence only One,
undivided God we claim you,
and adoring bend the knee,
while we sing this mystery.

I encourage you to take time to read, explore, and meditate on the Canticles. Listen to different musical settings and be refreshed.

Blessings,
Kyle Osborne
Director of Music and Organist

Links for listening:
Te Deum in alternatim – The Te Deum sung by the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame-de-Paris led by Cantor Jehan Revert, in alternatim with Pierre Cochereau at the Grand Orgue of Notre-Dame. The choir sings the first half of the verse. The organ, representing the Heavenly Choir of Angels, plays the second half of the verse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDqL6pjpjY

Te Deum for Solo, Chorus and Orchestra by Marc Antoine Charpentier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxZQ1ODN1iU

 Coronation Te Deum by William Walton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_lfKdAHgGw

 Jubilate Deo by Benjamin Britten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_lfKdAHgGw

 Te Deum by Anton Bruckner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgDBhcF8mus

 Magnificat from Collegium Regale by Herbert Howells
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpB9mQHORlg

 Nunc Dimittis in C by Charles Villiers Stanford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e17kukPiXz8

 Let all Creation bless the Lord – A song of creation by Alice Parker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6UxsYRwXQ

 Glory to God in the Highest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBWbAmKr5OU



Share this on your social network:

Church Preschool Approved For Opening

Earlier this month, the Church Preschool Board and the Vestry reviewed the documents Juanita Little had prepared for reopening the preschool.  Juanita spent an inordinate amount of time going through CDC and other recommendations that applied to the safe opening of preschools. We so appreciate her time and effort spent in this; she was able to take a large volume of information and distill it into policies and procedures for reopening the preschool following CDC guidelines.  After reviewing those documents, the Executive Board and the vestry approved reopening the preschool, provided that COVID 19 counts in the surrounding area served by the preschool do not dramatically go up.  The current plan is to open the preschool on September 14.

The first question many of us might ask is, “Why the preschool and not the church building?”  There are two key reasons for this.  First, the diocese allows the Episcopal Schools and Preschools to go by the recommendations of the CDC, whereas the churches go by the decision of the bishop, based on input from his advisors.   Second, the demographic for the preschool (predominantly young children and their teachers) is very different from the demographic for the church.  Additionally, the preschool is designed to keep each class separate from the other classes – in teaching, and in exercise and bathroom breaks.  This is not something we are able to do in the church.

Please know that we have teams working on preparing the church for a time when the buildings can be opened – we want to be ready to offer safe on-site worship as soon as we get clearance to do it.  In the meantime, please join us if you can for online services:  Monday and Friday Compline at 6 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday Morning Prayer at 8:00 a.m., Wednesday Healing Service at 10:00 a.m., and Sunday Worship at 10:00 a.m.  All these services may be accessed using the link to Facebook on our website, or by going directly to the St. Matthews page on Facebook.  And all the services are recorded, so you can watch them anytime!



Share this on your social network:

Musings With Mother Liz — Holy Trust

One of the key lessons from both the Gospel and the Old Testament readings last Sunday was the idea of fostering Holy Trust.  Elijah was looking to God to save him from what he thought was certain death at the hands of Jezebel.  Elijah believed that all the other prophets of Israel had been slain and that there was no one left to acknowledge God as Supreme other than he.  Peter challenged Jesus to prove him self and Jesus invited Peter to get out of the boat and walk to him on the water.  And it worked, until Peter took his eyes off Jesus.

As a community of Christ, we find ourselves in a time of Holy Trust.  We are five months in to this pandemic, and the trust we had five months ago that God was in control of what is happening in the world – well, that trust may not feel as strong today as it was in March.  I don’t know about you, but I must be careful here, because my trust in God gets tangled up with what I think God should be doing.  In other words, I may find myself trusting God if things move in a direction of which I approve.  If things don’t seem to be moving at all, or they are moving in a direction which I don’t agree with, then my trust in God – well, safe to say it takes a beating.  And sadly, that’s not really trusting God – rather, it’s asking God to trust ME – to bring about that which I think is right.

I know that we are not all in agreement about whether we should be able to come together in the sanctuary to worship.  However, this is the bishop’s call, and I believe he is going by the counsel of health experts in making his decisions.  Last week, the bishops of the Episcopal Church had a Zoom meeting with Dr. Anthony Fauci.  From Bishop Rob’s report, Dr. Fauci commended the Episcopal Church for its wisdom in NOT returning at this time to in person worship.

So I am going to humbly ask you to hang in there, and hold tightly to Holy Trust – trust that we WILL get through this and that, in the interim, we will use the gifts of social media to stay connected.  In Peace, Liz+



Share this on your social network:

At St. Matthew’s, our MISSION is to continue the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, by serving the greater community through loving its children, caring for the unfortunate and witnessing to the healing power of God’s love.

The St. Matthew's campus is closed, but you can find us on Facebook.Click for details