St. Matthews Episcopal Church

Episcopal Church in Snellville, GA

 “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

A Word From Mother Pat+: Perseverance

How long Lord, do we have to wait?

I am not good at waiting! If someone puts me on hold on the phone, I look around for something else to do. But in every day there are times when we must simply wait. When night comes, we can’t rush the dawn – it simply is not in our power to do so. We can get up and turn on all kinds of electric lights, but we can not make the daylight come any sooner than God plans.

In this season of the Church year that we call Advent, we enter a season of waiting. Many of you are like me and you dislike waiting in line or waiting in traffic and you may even dislike waiting for dinner to cook. That is why I like to microwave everything! Sometimes we are so impatient that we try to figure out which grocery line is moving the fastest or which lane of slow traffic will get us there more quickly. But Advent is not like that. Waiting in Advent can’t be rushed. Advent is always four weeks in length and no amount of hoping and praying will bring Christmas any sooner.

So here we are in the third week of waiting and perhaps we have already fallen into the chaos of the world rushing to buy presents and hurrying to get decorations up? As Christians, we are supposed to prepare for Christmas in a different way. We are invited to slow down, not speed up. We are invited to wait to light that beautiful green tree until Christmas actually arrives. We are encouraged to prayerfully seek out gifts for others which remind them of the love God has for us.

The primary reason for gift-giving at Christmas time is to remind us of God’s great gift of love to each of us. Perhaps you can slow down enough to pray each day and to attend worship each week. Come and slow down for just a few minutes in the presence of God. Then you can go out into that busy world renewed and refreshed. The waiting of Advent is somewhat like the waiting of a couple for that new baby – it is the waiting of anticipation and it is the waiting of mystery and hope.

Light your Advent wreath candles (one each week, so we are up to three) and say a short prayer every day recognizing that each candle represents the Light of Christ coming closer and closer to our hearts and lives. May this season bless you with a sense of God’s peace and may you find yourself ready to welcome the Christ Child this Christmas with an open heart.

So how long Lord do we have to wait? Just long enough, God tells us, so that our hearts once again become mindful of Christ’s love and just long enough so that we become a hopeful people ready to light up the world for God.
God’s peace, Mother Pat+



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A Word From Mother Pat+: The Advent Wreath

The Advent wreath is a circular ring symbolizing the unbroken and unending love of God. The green symbolizes life everlasting and the four blue candles mark our earthly time of waiting and anticipating the coming of Christ.

In the last 20 years, the Church has elected to use sarum blue in Advent instead of purple to mark the difference between the purple of Lenten penitence and the Advent season of waiting and preparation. The tall white center candle focuses our attention on the light of the world, Jesus, whose presence is central to our lives. The white center Christ Candle is not lit until all the other candles are burning, so in a way it reminds us how important our own lives are in helping bring light to the world while we wait on Christ’s return. The Advent wreath continues to be used through the Feast of the Epiphany, with all the candles blazing to mark the light of God in the world during the season of revelation – Epiphany.

The four blue candles can symbolize many things; however the themes of each week tend to reflect the lectionary readings – Week 1: Anticipation of the coming Messiah – Christ child; Week 2: Preparation for the Light of Christ coming into the world; Week 3: Rejoicing for God is near us; and Week 4: Hope for the Prince of Peace comes into the world. Others see the four candles as reminders of the four gospels or the ever brightening light of Christ coming into the world to banish sin and darkness. When purple and pink candles were used, the purple was for penitence and the third week pink candle was a “lighter” purple to allow for Joy to lessen the penitential nature of the season.

Since the change to Sarum Blue for the Advent season, the focus has been one of anticipation, preparation, joy and hope that we might wait expectantly for God to act in our lives and in the world. May this Advent provide you a quiet space so you can prepare your heart and mind for the gifts God has for you. In this first week of Advent simply take time to wait in prayer for God to guide you – Anticipate with joy the days to come.
Have a blessed and holy Advent. Mo Pat+



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A Word From Mother Pat+: Centered In Christ-A Reflection Of Christ To the World

St. Matthew’s mission statement starts out this way, “We are to continue the incarnating work of Christ”….   This season is the time when we re-examine our lives not looking at our sinfulness, but looking at how we reflect Christ’s image in the world.  How do we incarnate the love of God as lived out in the life of Jesus?

We are Christians and we are supposed to be living icons so that others see Christ through us.  An icon is simply an image which provokes and evokes something greater than itself.  So when people see us, they are reminded of God in some small way by our words, our actions and our willingness to be Christ-centered.  Yet, often the demands of family, work, play, exercise, and service crowd out Christ from the center of our lives.  We fall prey to trying to “balance” or “juggle” all the demands on our time.  Most of us find it impossible to truly “balance” family, work, God, ministry, and personal time to take care of ourselves.  So we skip exercise or we are too tired to pray or play with our children.  Balance is not possible unless we put Christ in the center of our lives.

When we center ourselves in God, we put God in the middle of our day and the middle of our life.  The outer particles of an atom can orbit at great speeds only because of the stability which the atom’s center provides.  So it is when we center ourselves on the one absolute, the one thing in life which is constant and stable.  God’s presence is always with us.  God’s love is always there.  Christ has done the work for us – his life, death, and resurrection have given us the “center”.  All the rest of our lives may spin in what seems like a wildly erratic pattern, but with Christ at the center we can be sure that we will always be in God’s loving presence; and we can draw upon God’s Spirit for strength and guidance.

So, stay centered in God through prayer and worship.  Jesus modeled a life “centered” in God.  He faithfully worshiped, prayed and lived in community in order to keep himself centered.  Take care of yourself so that you can mirror Christ to the world.  Christ is risen and the world has been forever changed.  Stay centered in the One who is the center of all that is.  Reflect the love of God to everyone through your centeredness in God.  We are those people who continue the incarnating work of Christ.

 

 



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A Word From Mother Pat+: Saints and Mission

Stanley Hauerwas, a contemporary theologian said this: “The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principles for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self-sacrificing love in their lives. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message, but to be the message.” That also is the stated mission of St. Matthew’s parish – to continue the incarnating work of Christ.

We just celebrated All Saints Day remembering those who have left a name and whose stories we know like St. Simon & St. Jude, St. Mary & Martha, St. Peter, St. Matthew or St. John. But we also remember all the faithful departed whether they made a mark in the world or not; the saints who are known to God alone.

Each of us has prayerfully completed a ministry commitment form to help St. Matthew’s know where God is calling us to give our efforts of time and talent and how to best use our resources for the building up of God’s kingdom.

So we pray that we might live our lives as the “visible church” knowing that we are the message of Jesus in this time and place. And we remember those who have died because their faithful life and witness reminds us what it means to be baptized: to live our lives focused on God’s eternal presence.

At baptism we are given the seed of eternal life and we become a saint of God. Then we begin the journey of discipleship so that we may with God’s help have the strength to live as peacemakers, as pure and humble before God, as beloved children of God for that is what we are.

We are not trying to live into a new set of ideals or principles in order to reform or even revolutionize our society, rather we are called to be a Christ-centered community which embodies forgiveness, sharing and self-sacrificing love. We are called not to be the bearer of Christ’s message, but to be the message.

As the body of Christ gathered and formed by God into this community of faith called St. Matthew’s, we offer ourselves anew to God giving of ourselves and our resources for the work of God’s kingdom. See you Sunday, as we journey together toward the fulfillment of God’s plans.   Mo Pat+



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A Word From Mother Pat+: “Remember, Commit, Give – Be the Church”

Remember who you are

Commit to God

Give of yourself and the resources you have been given by God

Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, we are all baptized by the one Spirit into one Body, and given gifts for a variety of ministries for the common good.  We are the church.  The building may be where we gather to worship and to study and to serve others; but we are the church, not the building.  One of St. Matthew’s parish tag-lines is “it’s the people.”  So, remember who you are as a child of God, beloved by God, made in the likeness and image of God, and called to follow Jesus Christ as Lord.  Each new day is a gift from God.

At our baptism, we committed to God with our whole being.  Don’t look back at yesterday and dwell on the failures or on the successes, because we don’t live in the past.  Live today as the gift that it is.  We only have today, there is no promise of tomorrow and we can’t re-play yesterday.  So, commit yourself to living the life you were meant to live, a life of love and joy in the fullness of God’s presence and in the company of the people of God who travel this road of discipleship with you.

This week the church celebrates All Saints Day which falls on Nov 1st, and then again on Sunday, Nov 7th we remember all the saints whose work has enabled us to gather in praise and worship.  We remember all those in our families and our communities whose lives have touched our own and whose example has inspired us to faithful discipleship.  We also renew our own baptismal vows to God.

Give of yourself and your talents, in ministry to others.  Give of yourself in praise and worship to God.  Give of your treasure in support of God’s work in the world.  Give of your time in prayer, worship and in ministry.  Give the greatest gift of all, yourself to God in moments of prayer throughout each day and in weekly worship.

Be the Church because that is what Jesus calls us to do.  The church is the body of Christ and as such we become what the world sees.  Of course, our buildings are a visible reminder of God’s presence and the buildings are a wonderful place for us to worship and to do ministry together; but the buildings are not the church – WE are the body of Christ, we are the church.  It takes each of us joined together to show the world the fullness of God’s grace and the joy of a life lived in Christian discipleship.

Remember that you are the beloved of God and live like it.  Commit to be an active part of the body of Christ, the Church.  Give yourself to God’s work and together we will show the world the love and grace of God by being the Church, the body of Christ in this time and place.

It is time to commit our time, our talent, and our financial resources to the work of God’s kingdom in and through St. Matthew’s.  The body of Christ, the Church, is incomplete without your gifts.  Tell us how you plan to serve God’s kingdom in this coming year.

Come and worship, come and serve, commit to being the Church.  Mother Pat+

PS, don’t forget to turn your clocks back 1 hr this Saturday night Nov 6th before you go to bed or you will be really early for worship.  See you Sunday.



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Tenth Annual St. Matthew’s Car Show WrapUp

Our 10th Annual St. Matthews Car Show turned out to be a great success this year.  Some of the best vintage classic cars, trucks and motorcycles in Georgia were in attendance to the tune of over ninety cars.  We had a fantastic Silent Auction with over 30 items and we had bidders on every single one of them.  We had several new arts and craft vendors and, last but not least, we had Tipsy Pig who brought us great ribs, chicken, and barbeque.

Family Promise of Gwinnett County, who works to help homeless families in the area, was the recipient of a whopping $20,000 donation. We couldn’t have done it without our sponsorships, our volunteers, our Bake Sale, Knit Pearl and Pray, our Kids Zone, the car registrations, vendor fees and the monies raised from our silent auction.  Plus Bishop Rob was here with us to pick the Bishop’s Choice trophy recipient and stayed with us through the trophy presentations.

A great big Thank you to all that helped to make this show such a great Outreach and Fellowship event.  The Car Show Committee, our volunteers, all of our sponsors, those who supported us with your prayers and encouragement and all of St. Matthews , we thank you all!!

Check out the photos here! 



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A Word From Mother Pat+: Busy For God’s Kingdom

This is a busy time of year for all of us in our personal lives and in the life of the parish. Over the past 6 weeks, the Vestry, the Stewardship team and the clergy have asked each member of St. Matthew’s parish to focus on their baptismal vows. This is the time of year when we ask each member of St. Matthew’s to pray about their commitment to ministry, service and tithing. We engage in this cycle of prayer and discernment in order to decide how God is calling us to work for the Kingdom in the days ahead. God wants us to be part of bringing the world to Christ and so we need everyone to do their part to help bring God’s vision to reality in this time and place.

There is an old joke that says “God is coming, look busy!” This joke of course assumes that between the time of Jesus’ ascension back to heaven and His second coming that somehow God is in the dark about whether we are busy working for God’s kingdom or focused solely on ourselves and our own ambitions. The truth of course is that God is fully aware of our choices and our work and “looking busy” isn’t necessarily what God has in mind for us.

By the time you get this newsletter, many of you will have prayed about your ministries and committed to service for the coming year and you will have offered a financial pledge to God’s work in and through St. Matthew’s. For those who have not yet completed your discernment, I would encourage you to prayerfully do so. God needs all of us to work for the coming kingdom. Every act of ministry and every gift for God’s work is important, no gift is too small or too insignificant to be blessed by God and used for God’s work.
Perhaps you are wondering why we renew our ministry and financial commitments each year rather than just giving and serving as we have in the past. Well, God calls us to new challenges from time to time and God may be calling you to stretch your comfort zone and commit to something new. There are so many opportunities to work for God’s kingdom that we have to select only a few ministries where we believe our gifts can best be used.

Balance your spiritual portfolio – make sure you have a commitment to some type of Christian education or Scripture study, personal prayer time, corporate worship, and service both to the parish and to the community. Lastly, make some commitment to financial support of God’s work at St. Matthew’s – it does not have to be a Biblical tithe of 10%; but when we give of our treasure in whatever amount you decide, you will find your faith in God is strengthened and God’s work can be done.

There are many opportunities for spiritual growth and I encourage you to take advantage of them. Start with Christian Education on Sunday mornings – just 45 minutes of conversation and discussion with other Christians can give you new insights and keep you from Spiritual stagnation. Water which simply stands in a pond or pool will become stagnant unless it has a fountain to circulate the water or fresh water is coming in. So it is with our spiritual lives, we become complacent and stagnant when we don’t get fresh ideas and insights.
So, engage in the work of building God’s kingdom and commit to prayer, study, ministry and service.

See you Sunday. Mother Pat+



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A Word From Mother Pat: “Will You Strive For Justice and Peace”?

Will you strive for justice and peace? Will you….?

Our final baptismal promise asks, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” Our answer is, “I will, with God’s help.” Yet this promise seems like such a lofty and far away goal that we usually don’t know how to begin. One way that we can begin is to pray about what God wants us to do to help promote justice and peace. We can pray that God will let us see Christ in each person we encounter, talk with or hear about each day and invite God’s Spirit to engage us in seeing that person with the eyes of Christ.

Each of us is called to spend our life for God. We spend lots of things. We spend our money on food, clothes, cars, houses and other things we need to live. We spend our time on work, play, family, friends, and God. We spend our talents on our work, our hobbies, and our world in an effort to do the best we can with our gifts.

All our “spending” has one thing in common – we give something in order to get something. We give money (spend it) for items or projects that we want. We spend (give) our time to those efforts we believe are important. Spending means giving something in order to get something else or to make more of what we have. So if we are called to “spend” our life for God, what are we giving and what are we seeking to get?

My answer would be that we give all of ourselves, our time, our abilities, our treasure of money and love to the One who gave it all to us. We give back to God that which God has so lavishly given to us – love. We do all of this in order to develop a closer relationship to God. In order to get closer to God, we give away (spend) those things which keep us from putting God first. We spend (give) in order to further God’s kingdom and share the love of God which we have been given. We give (spend) in order to have unity of heart and will with Christ our Lord and Savior. We spend our time and resources to strive for peace and justice in a world where profound issues of racial inequity, poverty, and discrimination abound. Our 5th baptismal promise calls us to spend our time, talent, and treasure both individually and corporately to bring God’s vision of peace, justice and dignity into our sphere of influence.

We all choose how we spend our time, talent and treasure. Our time, talent and treasure are those parts of our lives where we have to make choices. What we seek as we spend our lives (time, talent, and treasure) is to have a deeper and deeper relationship with God who is the source of all good things. Love is the key to spending well. God’s love for us is the source of our talents, our treasure and our lives. God’s love for us provides us the reason for us to spend our lives for God. There are many opportunities on the ministry commitment form to share in the work of justice and peace. Support outreach efforts, volunteer to serve in justice ministries, pray for the needs and concerns of those around us; and then act on behalf of Christ to serve those in need.

Spending our lives for God does not mean giving up who we are. It does not mean abandoning our families or leaving our jobs. Spending our lives for God simply means recognizing that the choices which we make everyday about how we live, where we focus our energy, what we spend our money on, tells the world what we value. So spend your life for God by remembering God’s love for you and then loving others in God’s name. Spend your life fully living and don’t be afraid that you will run out of currency, because God’s love flows into us faster than we can ever spend it!
Strive for peace and justice in the name of the One who loves all of creation. We are the beloved of God and our work on behalf of peace and justice helps everyone learn that they too are the beloved of God. Mother Pat+



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A Word From Mother Pat: Seek and Serve, Baptismal Promise #4

Week 4 Baptismal Promise – Seek and Serve

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?  Will you, Jesus asks us again this week.

If we look closely at scripture we see that there is a lot of going & coming, sending and being sent.  Some of the classics are Abram and Sarai being sent by God into the desert to find a new home;  Moses and the Hebrew people going on a journey with God to a land of milk and honey, escaping Pharaoh, and finding a way to live as God’s holy people;  Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem and from there taking a long journey into Egypt and then back to Nazareth, all guided by God’s plan.

Then we start to encounter Jesus traveling with his disciples back and forth across the sea of Galilee and into Gentile towns.  Next thing we know, Jesus is sending the disciples out two by two on mission trips to spread the good news.  And of course, the story of Paul who, while persecuting the early Christians, encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus–and we know how that turned out.  Paul, blinded by the presence of the risen Christ, is led to a home where he hears the truth about God’s love for all people; and he learns that he is called to seek and serve Christ in all the people, even those that he once considered worthless sinners.  Paul’s call to discipleship sends him to seek and serve Christ in the pagan gentile world of his time.  Paul finds out that it is only when he can see Christ in himself that he can see Christ in others.

It is likely that we will not have such a profound encounter with the risen Christ, but we are still called to seek and serve Christ in ourselves and in all persons, expressing the love of God to everyone.

This week we are invited to see ourselves as God’s beloved and to show the love of Christ to all persons.  What ministries might God be asking you to undertake in this coming year which express God’s love to your neighbor and to yourself.? What spiritual disciplines might help you find joy and wonder in God’s glorious creation?

Again this week, Jesus asks us through the power of the Holy Spirit, “Will you be my hands and feet?  Will you speak my words of love and support to those in need?  Will you give of your resources to serve others?  Will you prayerfully engage in listening for the needs of the community?”  I pray that you answer will be, “I will with God’s help”.  Amen.

 



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Baptismal Promise # 3

Rooted in Christ and carrying the cross of cross we are to Proclaim the good news.

In case you have not taken a good look at the prayer card that you got in the mail with your ministry commitment form. I invite you to take a deeper look. Rooted in Christ – what does that really mean to you?

The cross reminds us of Christ’s saving act, but it also reminds us that in our humanity we are capable of great sin. But Jesus doesn’t leave us in that sinful place – he offers grace and forgiveness. Jesus came among us in order to show us how to live and he came to share God’s forgiveness and grace with us. The Church is Christ’s body – that means that we are to live in such a way that people meet Jesus when they meet us. That is how we live out our third baptismal promise which is to PROCLAIM by word and example the good news.

That is what we are supposed to be about. We are to be that compassionate and caring place, the church, where Christ is proclaimed, lives are transformed and people’s needs are met through word, sacrament, service and community.

We, as the committed disciples of Christ at St. Matthew’s, are to be that place which centers and grounds all who come to us. We are the place where people do not have to be ashamed of their sins but rather find and experience God’s abundant love and forgiveness in our midst

In our third baptismal promise, God asks “Will you Proclaim by word and example the good news?” “Will you”, Jesus asks us again and again everyday. Will you be my eyes and ears to see and hear the needs of the world? Will you take action by your words and deeds to bring the love of God to those who have not yet found their way?

Will you, Jesus asks us. And we prayerfully and faithfully say, “I will with God’s help”.

I invite you to continue your prayerful discernment about how you are called to live into your discipleship. Rooted in Christ, supported by worship, education, community & service we grow in our spiritual maturity and in our faith. As we fix our focus on the cross gazing toward God, we see the outstretched arms of Christ which form the crossbeams of the cross – we are invited and challenged to reach out in evangelism and social outreach. As we journey with Christ we find ourselves more and more opening our arms in a wide embrace proclaiming by word and deed the good news of God’s love for all creation. Blessings, Mother Pat+



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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.