welcome – Church of the Holy Apostles

March 1, 2019 holyapostlespa Announcements

Announcements for 3/3/2019

Worship

† Today is World Mission Sunday in the Episcopal Church.

† March 6th is Ash Wednesday. The following services are offered:

7:30AM—Imposition of Ashes; no Eucharist

9:15AM—Imposition of Ashes; no Eucharist

12:15PM—Holy Eucharist with the Imposition of Ashes

6:30PM—Holy Eucharist with music and the Imposition of Ashes

† There are many opportunities to participate in a holy Lent this year. Please pick up a Lenten booklet this morning, or look for the online version on our website soon. Feel free to take a booklet for a friend or neighbor, it would be an easy way to invite them to church!

† Morning Prayer is offered at 8:30AM on Sunday mornings and at 9:15AM Tuesdays through Fridays. Anyone can pray the service privately using the Book of Common Prayer or one of a number of smart phone apps! See the last section of the digital edition of the “Acts of the Apostles” for details.

Outreach

† We will be hosting our next Darby Mission meal on Tuesday, March 19th. We will be cooking chili and need food preparers (main dish, cornbread, mac & cheese, salad, dessert) and people to join in and serve the meal. We will meet at the church at 5PM to driver together, or 5:30 at the Darby Community Center (1021 Ridge Ave., Darby PA). A sign-up sheet is posted in the parish hall, find the online sign-up sheet here.

Children and Youth

† Nursery Childcare is available during the 10:00AM Sunday service for children ages 3 and younger in the Godly Play Room.

† Sunday School: Children Preschool – 2nd grade and 3rd – 8th grade attend Sunday classes at 10:00AM, the same time as the church service starts; children join their parents in the church in time for communion. Classes are held on the 1st, 3rd, & 4th Sundays of the month. On 2nd Sundays children attend church with their parents, either the 10:00PM Holy Eucharist service or the 5:30PM Family Worship Service. When there is a 5th Sunday, children attend church with their parents, with some of the children taking part in leading the service.

† The Holy Apostles Choir School begins its pilot program in late February. If you have a potential student, apply today. Applications are available on-line or on the “connect” table. The Choir School will accept only 20 students for the pilot semester. Placement preference will be given to members of the Church of the Holy Apostles. More information is available at holyapostlespa.org/choir-school/. Please forward this information to friends and neighbors who may be interested. Contact Deb Stambaugh if you have any questions.

Parish Life

† March 5 we will celebrate Shrove Tuesday with a pancake dinner at 6:30PM in the parish hall. Children in the parish are encouraged to come help James lock up the “Alleluias” until Easter morning. Todd Delevan is providing some of his legendary homebrewed beer for the adults.

† If you enter the church building when the Little Friends Day Care is in session (7:00AM – 6:00PM Mon-Fri), and are anywhere other than in the church itself, please obtain a “Church Member” name tag from the Parish Office and wear it while you are here. This will show the teachers and children at the day care that you are a person who belongs here. Any workers/maintenance people or visitors who come into the buildings are required to wear a “Visitor” name tag to identify themselves to our own staff as well as to the day care staff and children.

† The Cash for Causes Program at Giant Supermarket:

-Purchase through JT Wertz

-5% of card value is given to Holy Apostles operating fund.

-Can be used in store or when ordering Giant groceries through peapod online delivery service.

Education

† You are invited to join our Lenten “soup group” which meet Wednesday nights in lent, beginning on March 13. Come for the soup and stay for a lively discussion about faith and life (or come for the discussion and stay for the soup!) This year’s topic is:

“Good News & God’s Mission”

† Bible Study is held on Thursdays at 11AM.

Diocesan Events

† Next Saturday, March 9, 2019 at 2:00 PM: Bowling with the Bishop at Wynnewood Lanes. Youth across the Diocese are invited for a day of pizza and bowling.

June 29, 2018 holyapostlespa Announcements

Announcements – 7/1/18

Sunday July 1st, 2018
The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Worship

† The Rev. Doris Rajagopal, the Missioner of the Darby Mission, is our preacher this morning.

† Next week July 8^th, Healing Prayer will be offered immediately following communion.

Children and Youth

† Holy Apostles is working toward establishing a flourishing children’s choir program. Please look for a children’s choir questionnaire on the “connect” table across from the Rector’s office.

† Confirmation Class will continue during the summer months on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month at 5PM, with the exception of August 12. Class on that day is cancelled.

† Sunday School classes are not held over the summer months and will resume in September.

† Nursery Childcare is available during the 10:00 a.m. Sunday service for children ages 3 and younger in the Godly Play Room.

† The Sunday School is organizing a collection as a welcome for the Connect by Night shelter. Please bring toiletries or socks and leave them in the box in the hallway outside the parish office.

Outreach and Service

Connect by Night

† Connect by Night begins this evening and continues through the month of July! We are happy to welcome our guests to our church home during this time.

† Help with making lunches and welcoming guests is still needed several evenings toward the end of the month, please contact Joe Zorc to volunteer.

† After this service, please help us move some books and other furniture to make room for our guests.

Darby Mission

† We are hosting a meal on Tuesday, Oct. 2nd at 5:00 p.m.

† We are hosting a cook-out on Tuesday, July 31st for the students and families of summer camp. If you are available and interested in participating at Darby that day, please contact Joe Zorc

Parish Life

† A huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped with the Upper Darby Flea Market last Sunday. We raised over $500. Thanks for your donations and time!

† Bishop Gutierrez will visit CHA on Sunday, December 9th for Confirmations, Receptions, and Reaffirmations. If you are interested in any of those rites, or would just like to know more talk to Fr. James.

† If you visit the church during the week (and we hope you do!), please use the red double doors nearest the church offices. Please take special care to lock doors behind you, and ensure that they latch properly. Doors that are not locked or completely shut are a very serious safety concern for Little Friends Daycare. Thank you

† Online church calendar: Stay connected with what is happening in your church. Visit the online calendar at http://www.calendarwiz.com/holyapostlespa . All events happening at the church need to be added to this calendar to avoid conflicts with the use of our facilities. Email the church office to schedule events.

Diocesan Events

† Anti-Racism Training Workshop: For anyone interested, this will take place Saturday, July 28th, 8 a.m.—2 p.m. at St. Asaph’s, Bala Cynwyd. Fr. James is on the Planning Committee for this.

† Ladies Tea Party: Join women from all over the diocese for a fun event at St. David’s Episcopal Church, Wayne on Saturday, September 15th 1 p.m.—3 p.m. Tickets are $10 and proceeds go to Thistle farms, a ministry that helps women who are human trafficking, prostitution and addiction survivors.

May 22, 2018May 22, 2018 jstambaugh A Note from the Rector

A Note from the (Former) Rector: History of Connect-by-Night at Holy Apostles

by the Rev. Steve Snider (Rector 1991-2006)

We began sheltering circa 1994, I think it was, with a group of interdenominational parishes coordinated by an organization called Shepherd’s Place. Sally Griffith, now a parishioner of Holy Trinity Rittenhouse Square, alerted us to the organization and affected the marriage between CHA and Shepherd’s Place. We signed on and a core group of parish volunteers quickly expanded to the numbers you have today. I advocated and Sally was our first coordinator by default! She did a great job. Looking through the 2006 directory, the year I retired from CHA, I count 40+ families or individuals who stepped up to host and prepare bag lunches, drinks, sanitize, etc. Many of them are still helping today. I also remember our earliest volunteers now departed: Win Becker, Sr., Peter Cadwallader, Bonnie Davis, Ray Dyer, Bob & Carole Moore, Vince Raimondo, Harry Sibley, Sandy Smith, Gene Stivers, and I hope for forgiveness for missing anyone else.

Prior to our first year of hosting, we sent flyers around the neighborhood and the result was predictable. Some neighbors called to complain; some anonymously called the township resulting in a surprise inspection, albeit with an apology from the inspector; some called and offered to help. Ultimately, we had many more neighborhood helpers than complainers. After the first couple of years the nay-sayers stopped saying, well, ‘nay’.

When we first began, we were assigned winter months, and thus helped to save many from freezing on the streets. We needed to put a hold on our involvement in 1999 when the parish hall underwent re-construction. When we re-joined the rota for the month of July, which worked well since we had just installed air-conditioning in the parish hall. We have been helping people avoid heat related catastrophes ever since.

At some point in the mid-90’s, Shepherd’s Place ceased to exist and the sheltering operation came under the auspices of Connect-By-Night social services in Upper Darby. Largely, CHA and other parishes hosted the overflow from the permanent shelter located at 63rd & Market in Upper Darby. That shelter was overwhelmed by the first year of its opening. At first our guests – numbering from 25 to 60 people each night – included children, most often with their mothers and sometimes with both parents/partners. In time, the children began to disappear for an assortment of reasons, some of them good.

I am so pleased and give thanks to God that CHA continues in this life-saving outreach. By my count 2018 marks the 24rd year in this sacred endeavor…anyway, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Steve+

October 13, 2017October 13, 2017 jstambaugh Announcements

Announcements – 10/15/17

Welcome to Church of the Holy Apostles! This Sunday, October 15th, will be the 19th Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 23. Our Guest Celebrant for Holy Eucharist, Rite II at 10:00 a.m. will be the Rev. Canon Shawn Wamsley. The Rev. James Stambaugh, our Deacon-in-Charge, will serve as Deacon and Preacher.

Childcare is available during the 10:00 service for children ages 3 and younger in the Godly Play Room.

Name tags are available in the narthex and also on the table across from the rector’s office. Please wear one with your name so that our new rector can begin to become better acquainted with you.

Next week Morning Prayer will continue to be held at 8:00 a.m. Tuesday through Friday. On Tuesday the 17^th and Wednesday the 18^th, other than for Morning Prayer, James, our Deacon-in-Charge, will be out of the office at the diocesan conference, Discipleship Matters.

On Thursday, November 2nd at 6:00 p.m., we will hold a service for the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. There will be a procession to our columbarium where prayers will be said for all those interred there. The service also will include commemoration and prayers for all our loved ones who have passed.

Save the dates: Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m., Nov. 1^st, 8^th, and 15^th. Adult (and Older Teen) Study Group: The Christian Year: The Strange and Wondrous Rhythms of the Church Calendar.”

Save the Date! VETERANS MASS on November 13th, sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania Veterans Ministry: Monday, November 13^th, 7:00 p.m. at St. Stephen’s Church, 19 South 10^th Street, Philadelphia 19107. All are welcome. Dinner before service at 5:30 p.m. RSVP required: see Facebook diopa-veterans. Parking 10^th Street off Market. To add the name of a veteran to the prayer list for this service, please email veterans@diopa.org (please indicate if the veteran is deceased).

We are continuing to collect photographs of everyone in the parish to make a photo book for our new rector. If you have not already done so, please send a photo of you/your family to the parish office by email to holyapostlespa@gmail.com, or by regular mail to the church address. Thanks very much.

We are in the process of updating the parish directory. You will be receiving a request for the relevant information by email, or by regular mail if you do not use email.

Please note that parish office hours next week will be Thursday, Oct. 19^th and Friday, Oct. 29^th, from 10:00 – 2:00 p.m.

October 2, 2017October 25, 2017 jstambaugh From the Deacon's Desk

From the Deacon’s Desk #2

Dear Holy Apostles,

You may have noticed a new logo printed on the front of our Sunday morning service leaflets, and on the reverse of this newsletter. The logo’s tagline is: “A PLACE TO BELONG.” Back in September I proposed this to the vestry as a motto, and as a way of articulating the kind of place we all want Church of the Holy Apostles to be. There is a lot of content in this simple, four word phrase, so I want to use my monthly newsletter article to linger over some of the meaning that I see, and how it shapes our life together as followers of Jesus.

“A PLACE…”

There is a tension in Christianity between two poles: journey and place. One of the most enduring practices and metaphors for the Christian life is one of journey and pilgrimage. Movement is so important to our identity as Christians. The first Christians identified themselves as travelers on “the way” (Acts 9:2). Jesus identifies himself as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). In short, the Christian life is a pilgrimage through this life and this world, toward our ultimate destination of resurrection life with God. Actual pilgrimages, when Christians go on a journey to places such as Rome, or Santiago de Compostela, are physical actualizations of the spiritual reality that we are all pilgrim’s on God’s highway.

But, hand in hand with the importance of journey is the importance of particular places to the Christian life. From ancient times, the flourishing of Christian life has to do with a deep connection to a particular place. The upper room in Jerusalem, Golgotha, the Catacombs of Rome, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Canterbury, Lindisfarne, Glastonbury, Iona: these are places in which the Church has rooted itself, has found nourishment, and has nourished. These and many other places have shaped the Christian imagination for centuries. Christian monks and nuns take a vow of stability in which they promise to stay put in one place, to nourish a prayerful connection to a particular piece of dirt for their entire lives. Places that have been a home to prayer and Sacrament for years and years are saturated with the presence of God. The worship of God is tangible in places long hallowed by God’s people. You can feel a holy place. I believe that Church of the Holy Apostles in Penn Wynne is such a place. For nearly 75 years, faithful people have gathered in this place to pray and sing in praise of their Creator. Marriages have begun here. Children (and adults) have been welcomed into Christ’s community through baptism here. Some of our beloved dead are buried just outside. This is holy ground.

Furthermore, Church of the Holy Apostles is and must continue to be rooted in this neighborhood and in this community. Our role is to be a spiritual oasis for our township, a place of prayer and refreshment, outreach and ministry that supports and upholds the place in which we live. This support might be fairly invisible to our neighbors and those who do not attend here, but it is no less real.

“TO BELONG…”

For many years, the Episcopal Church has used the tagline: “All are welcome.” As true as this statement is, we cannot stop with a simple welcome. Welcome implies that this is our place, and that it is okay with us if visitors drop by from time to time. Belonging is a much more intimate situation. When we declare that someone belongs here, it means that it is their place just as much as ours. It means that we are more complete when another person or family joins us at God’s table. Belonging recognizes that we are all just stewards of this holy place, that this Church belongs to God, and that God invites everyone to be God’s children. We are all, in fact, guests at God’s table, not hosts.

By declaring that Church of the Holy Apostles is a place to belong, we are inviting others to join us as integral parts of God’s family rooted in this holy place at this time. I believe that many people in our neighborhoods, both young and old, feel as if they are not rooted or grounded in anything. There are many who feel isolated and disconnected. God is calling us to make room for them; to invite them to become rooted and grounded in God’s love in this place. You—and others—are more than welcome here. This is a place to belong.

In Christ Peace,
Deacon James