Notices — Second Sunday of Advent — 5th Dec 2021

NOTICES:

 

Happy Birth­day to: Christine Thur­ley; Jen­nifer B.; Pau­line Newell; Kathy Drum­mond; Chris­toph­er Brooks; Fabi­an LoS­chiavo; Rajah Selva­ra­jah; Ron­ald Naidu; Belinda Reddy; and Thomas Fleming.

 

 

Con­grat­u­la­tions: Fr Jeff’s anniversary of Dea­con­ing and Priest­hood was this week on 30 Novem­ber, St Andrews Day.  (Alto­geth­er 28 years of act­ive ordained ministry).

 

Tonight: 6pm Even­ing Service.

 

Christ­mas cards sale: New stock now avail­able!  2021 Stock — $8 or $10 per pack; and 2020 Stock — Reduced to $8 per pack.  Sup­port the Lep­rosy Mis­sion.  Avail­able from the Par­ish Resource Centre. Please see Stephan Gates dur­ing Morn­ing tea.

 

Stan­more Nurs­ing Home Gifts:  Money can be donated via the offer­tory plate (placed in a sep­ar­ate labelled envel­ope) or the St Luke’s Church Work­ing Account (see back of Ser­vice book­let for details).  Please remem­ber to ref­er­ence your gift – “Nurs­ing Home”.  Even if we can­not sing Car­ols, we can still take chocol­ates etc.

 

 

 

Advent Reflec­tions: Are being held on Wed­nes­day, after 10.30 a.m. Euchar­ist and Morn­ing Tea from 1^st Dec 2021, and in the even­ing at 7.30 p.m. on those same days.

 

 

 

Beware of Scam­mers!  This week I have had sev­er­al calls from per­sons say­ing they are from the NBN and Tel­stra and want­ing to help me check the speed of the inter­net.  Luck­ily, I was aware of their schem­ing.  If you get these calls hang up imme­di­ately.  Do not open your com­puter.  They can and will gain entry to your bank accounts and steal from you.  Fr. Jeff

 

Christ­mas 2021 Services 

Sunday 19^th Decem­ber — 6pm Christ­mas Car­ols with Play – in the Carpark.

Fri­day 24^th Decem­ber — 11pm Christ­mas Eve Service.

Sat­urday 25^th Decem­ber – 9.30am Christ­mas Day Service.

 

---

Christ­mas Car­ols With Play — the car-park at 6pm on Sun 19th Dec.

There will be abund­ant oppor­tun­it­ies to par­ti­cip­ate in the ser­vice.  Volun­teers are needed to read a part in the Christ­mas Play.  We hope as many young parish­ion­ers as pos­sible can take part, sup­ple­men­ted by grown-ups with Fabi­an provid­ing dress-ups.

Since we can all sing the car­ols togeth­er this year, there will be no form­al choir; nev­er­the­less for all who are inter­ested Jo Bur­ton will lead a group of sing­ers in a small num­ber of short excerpts of song to intro­duce the major sec­tions of the play.  There will be a rehears­al after morn­ing tea on Sunday 12 December.

Please con­tact Stu­art Veitch at morn­ing tea (or on 0400 312 354) to register your interest/for fur­ther information.

 

---

ST PAUL’S PANTRY:

Each week we take any food and oth­er items donated for the pantry at St Paul’s Bur­wood.  Last week we were told the cup­boards were bare, so we donated our reg­u­lar quarterly dona­tion a little earli­er! The fol­low­ing is the email received from Fr James Collins, Rector:

“I am most grate­ful to the good people of St. Luke’s, Enmore, for the sup­port giv­en to the Par­ish Pantry here at St. Paul’s.  I have just returned from a meet­ing and checked the bank account and the gen­er­ous $500 dona­tion from St. Luke’s has arrived.  We are truly blessed at St. Paul’s to have such a ded­ic­ated team who care for every­one and any­one.  I think that the pan­dem­ic has exacer­bated some exist­ing divides in soci­ety and that we are going to see an increased num­ber of people in need in our com­munity for the fore­see­able future. Thank you very much for your help.”

Please remem­ber that the bags provided to the needy are need­ing to be taken by hand — most don’t have a vehicle, so if you can keep your dona­tions to rel­at­ively small items like pack­ets of noodles, microwaved rice, small tins of baked beans etc these are the most needed.  Some of the lar­ger items last week were donated to the Bur­wood Women’s Refuge.

 

---

Food for our worms –Please leave your worm food gifts at church on Sundays or drop off dur­ing the week.  (NB — no dairy, cit­rus or meat)  Fr. Jeff

 

Lea MacNeil has jam, con­serves, pickles and vari­ous sauces to sell; please email her at lea.macneil@gmail.com to order them from her.  All pro­ceeds go to St Luke’s Parish.

 

---

EVENTS IN 2022 

Mark the date: Sat­urday 12th Feb­ru­ary 2022 for a War­dens Din­ner “Under the Stars”.  Will be a catered din­ner, $20pp with tick­ets on sale in the New Year.

 

---

A note from the Treasurer:

Par­ish Giv­ing through 2021 has been less than for the same peri­od through 2020 with the short­fall mainly due to the declines of June and July of this year, coin­cid­ing with the lock­down (see chart).  While the gap has nar­rowed in the past three months, 2021 Par­ish Giv­ing remains about $4,000 lower than for the same peri­od last year.

Par­ish Coun­cil acknow­ledges with thanks that most parish­ion­ers now give by way of reg­u­lar online trans­fers, and strongly encour­ages this means of giv­ing.  With the hol­i­day sea­son approach­ing, the reli­ab­il­ity of estab­lish­ing a reg­u­lar dir­ect trans­fer can be a help­ful means of ensur­ing that par­ish giv­ing does not go along on hol­i­days with you.  In the New Year, if your cir­cum­stances per­mit, parish­ion­ers may con­sider mak­ing a small annu­al incre­ment to your giv­ing, even a dol­lar or two a week will make a pos­it­ive difference.

 

---

Weekly Inter­ces­sions for our Com­munity:

Sunday: Beth Arm­strong; Jen­nifer, Peter, Elise & Blake B.; Fr John & Joanne Bowen; Fr Philip & Rose­mary Brad­ford; and Tony Brownlow.

Monday: Ian Barnett; Ken­neth Bar­ongo; and Chris­toph­er Brooks.

Tues­day: Les & Lyn Car­ring­ton; Ruth Cham­pi­on; and John Dickson.

Wed­nes­day: Tiffany, Kev­in, Alex­an­der & Nich­olas Chiew; Kathy Drummond.

Thursday: Ron, Binh, Milly, Nam & Viol­etta Clarke; and Edi & Oscar Davis.

Fri­day: We pray for Fr John Bunyan’s pas­tor­al care min­istry at Bank­stown Hos­pit­al and all those he min­is­ters to.

Sat­urday: Dear lov­ing Fath­er, please deliv­er us from the coronavir­us and lim­it its impact on Aus­tralia and the world. In your mercy bring a swift end to this crisis.  Please pro­tect with your lov­ing care those we love — our fam­il­ies, friends and neigh­bours.  Let your fath­erly hand guide, shel­ter and strengthen them.  Cast out all anxious fears and doubts.  Give us an increas­ing trust in you and fill our hearts and minds with your peace.  We pray for those around the world now strug­gling with vari­ous COVID strains.  Heal and com­fort those who are sick and suf­fer­ing.  Pro­tect and guide the health pro­fes­sion­als who are at the front line.  Please give wis­dom and cour­age to those who bear respons­ib­il­ity for con­front­ing this chal­lenge. We ask these things through the power­ful name of Jesus.  Amen.

 

---

Pray­ers for the sick: Julie Olston; Ari­el Som­mer; Noel Jeffs; Joan Dale; Judy Jew­son; Aman­da Romeo; Maryrose Crowth­er; Angus; John Bowen; Robert & Lyn­dall Dubler; John Can Pahali; Alex Regos; Aman­da Cow­ley; Peter Knox; Barry McKay; Ruth Dodd; Andrew Strat­golda; and Phil­lip Hall.

 

Recently Depar­ted: Noelene Humphries and Tosia Cribben.

 

Anniversar­ies of the Depar­ted: Jes­sica Juer­gens; and Kath­leen Anderson.

 

Saints Com­mem­or­a­tion:  6^th Nich­olas of Myra, Bish­op & phil­an­throp­ist (d. c. 342);  7^th: Ambrose of Mil­an, Bish­op & teach­er (d.397);  and 8^th: The Con­cep­tion of the Blessed Vir­gin Mary; & Richard Bax­ter, Pas­tor and spir­itu­al writer (d. 1691).

 

Long Term Pas­tor­al Pray­er list: Ray Som­mer; Robyn Old­field; Isa­belle Djor­gjevic: Lyn Car­ring­ton; Steph­en Thur­ley; John Dick­son; John Hardy; Shir­ley, Bar­bara & Jade Allen; Kiki Chun; Beth Arm­strong; Ann Jeffs; Rhi­an­non Henry-Edwards; Marissa; Jude, Isla, Meg & Al Don­nell; Pau­line Newell; Ann Con­nolly; Day­alan Sam­inath­an; Kuwert; Grace & Han­nah Ashton; Anaisha, & her par­ents Anu & Digvi­jay; Rev Laurie McIntyre; and Loch­lan Lonesborough.

 

Read­ings for Next Sunday — Third Sunday of Advent:  First Read­ing: Zephaniah 3.14–20; Psalm: A song of Isai­ah;  Second Read­ing: Phil­ip­pi­ans 4.4–7; and Gos­pel: Luke 3.7–18

  

---

Points for Thought/Discussion from WorkingPreacher.org

1. When have you seen or exper­i­enced new life in your­self or someone else? (Luke 3:6)
2. Can you think of a time you were a mes­sen­ger who pre­pared the way for good news? (Mal 3:1)
3. If “thoughts and pray­ers” seem trite, who might you con­sider telling “I hold you in my heart”? (Phil 1:7)

This week’s Reflect & Con­nect ques­tions writ­ten by Julie Sevig.

 

---

We appre­ci­ate things may have been fin­an­cally harder due to COVID-19, but ask that you con­sider mak­ing a dona­tion to sup­port both the Christ­mas Bowl and ABM Advent/Christmas Appeals.

The Christ­mas Bowl Appeal — annu­al appeal of the Acts of Peace, the inter­na­tion­al aid agency of the Nation­al Coun­cil of Churches.

We encour­age parish­ion­ers to donate online via actofpeace.org.au/christmasbowl (our par­ish is registered as ‘Enmore-Stan­more Anglic­an Par­ish’), or call 1800 025 101.

 

 

ABM 2020 Advent and Christ­mas Appeal.

We encour­age parish­ion­ers to use QR Code on the digit­al dona­tion cards or make a dona­tion online at abmission.org.au/Christmas21

 

 

Please note: There are a lim­ited num­ber of dona­tion envel­opes in the church foy­er for those who do not use mobile phones or have inter­net access.