Notices — Third Sunday of Advent

NOTICES:

2020 Opshop Cal­en­dars for sale – lim­ited num­ber avail­able at $2 each.  Please see Andy Serafin.

This week: Advent Study – Monday at 7.30 pm & Wed­nes­days after Morn­ing Tea:  ome along for some lively dis­cus­sion and fel­low­ship on a Monday Even­ing.  The study we are using for Advent dis­cus­sions is the Advent and Christ­mas “Sac­red Space Booklet”.

Play Group @ Enmore will meet in St Luke’s hall — Monday 16 Decem­ber 2019 — last meet­ing for 2019.  It will recom­mence on Monday 3rd Feb­ru­ary 2020 from 10am to 12 Noon.  For Inform­a­tion phone Ian: Mob 0427 250 390.

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Next week:

Sunday 22 Decem­ber — will be our day to vis­it Stan­more Nurs­ing Home after church and morn­ing tea, to sing car­ols and give them a small gift; 

Sunday 22 Decem­ber — at 6.30 p.m. we will hold our ‘Nativ­ity Play Without Rehears­al’ and sup­per to follow.

Christ­mas Eve (oth­er­wise known as Mid­night Mass) we are hold­ing at 11 p.m.

Christ­mas Day our Euchar­ist and Car­ols will be held at 9.30 a.m. fol­lowed by morn­ing tea organ­ised by Jo Bur­ton and help­ers.  Unfor­tu­nately, with so many of us away at Christ­mas it is not pos­sible to host a lunch on Christ­mas Day.

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Hos­pit­al­ity volun­teers:  Thank you to Mar­ilyn Gibbs, Jen­nifer B. & Steph­en Gates for volun­teer­ing to make up anoth­er hos­pit­al­ity team.  If we could get two or three oth­er people for anoth­er week­end, our hos­pit­al­ity teams would not feel so burdened.  YOU can do this – no effort needed and all food can be bought and the cost reim­bursed.  Teams often swap due to com­mit­ments as well!  If you are inter­ested, please see Ruth Champion. 

Christ­mas cards ($10 per pack) — avail­able from the Par­ish Resource Centre.  Please see the Man­ager, Steph­en Gates dur­ing Morn­ing tea.

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For your diary — 2020 events:

Epi­phany Pil­grim­age to Leura – Sat­urday 11 Janu­ary, 2020. Hos­ted by Lea and Don­ald at 22 Albert Street, Leura.  Arrival time is 12 noon for Euchar­ist at 12.30pm, fol­lowed by BBQ at 1 pm. 

Wordsworth & Maskell Pipe Organ Recit­al — Sunday, 29 March 2020 at 3pm.  From Vienna to Enmore, accom­plished young Aus­trali­an-born organ­ist Dav­id Rec­cia Chynoweth per­forms works by J S Bach, Koehne, Alex­an­dre Guil­mant & oth­ers on the St Luke’s Wordsworth & Maskell Pipe Organ (1883), unique in Aus­tralia, to mark the res­tor­a­tion of the façade pipes. Keep the date! 

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Food for our little friends — Don’t for­get to keep your cooked food scraps, fruit peel­ings, tea leaves and cof­fee grounds for the par­ish worm farms.  (No cit­rus dairy or meat).

Homemade curds, rel­ishes, pickles and jam - If you would like to order some, please email your order to Lea MacNeil (lea.macneil@gmail.com) and it will be delivered to the OpShop.

Read­ings for the com­ing week: 

Monday	Num­bers 24.2–7,15–17	Psalm 25.3–9	Mat­thew 21.23–27
Tuesday	Gen­es­is 49.2. 8–10	Psalm 72.1–7	Mat­thew 1.1–17
Wednesday	Jeremi­ah 23.5–8	Psalm 72.15–21	Mat­thew 1.18–24
Thursday	Judges 13.2–7,24–25	Psalm 71.17–22	Luke 1.5–25
Friday	Isai­ah 7.10–14	Psalm 24.1–6	Luke 1.28–38
Saturday	Song of Songs 2.8–14	Psalm 33.17–21	Luke 1.39–45

Read­ings for Next Sunday: Fourth Sunday of Advent First Read­ing: Isai­ah 7.10–16;                 Psalm: 80.1–7,17–19; Second Read­ing: Romans 1.1–7; & Gos­pel: Math­ew 1.18–25

Weekly Inter­ces­sions for our Com­munity:  Monday: Janet Walms­ley; Nadia Wheat­ley; Janet Wid­mer & Cliff; and Sally Woell­ner; Tues­day: Kay & Nata­sha Younie; Amelia Zea; Shir­ley & Bar­bara Allen;  and Vic­tor Any­ar­isi; Wed­nes­day: Beth Arm­strong; James, Elli­ot & Harry Barnes; and Ian Barnett; Thursday: Ken­neth Bar­ongo; Saf­fron Bell; and Cyn­thia Berke­mei­er; Fri­day: Peter, Jen­nifer, Elise & Blake B.; and Mervyn Bish­op; Sat­urday: We pray for all whose lives and live­li­hoods are threatened by or have been des­troyed by bush­fire.  That they will be com­for­ted, sup­por­ted and sus­tained in their time of need. We also pray for all those help­ing to fight these fires that they may be kept safe.

Long Term Pas­tor­al Pray­er list: Rose­mary Brad­ford; Shir­ley, Bar­bara & Jade Allen; Beth Arm­strong; Ann Jeffs; Rhi­an­non Henry-Edwards; Marissa; Jude, Isla, Meg & Al Don­nell; Lyn Car­ring­ton; Ruth Cham­pi­on; Gary & Kar­en Stein­er-Hill; Ken­neth Bar­ongo; Pau­line Newell; Bar­bara Beec­roft; Ron­an & Veron­ica Nath; Sr Eliza­beth (SSC); Loch­lan Lones­bor­ough; Ann Con­nolly; Mea­ghan Pat­ter­son; Saf­fron Pow­ell; the Per­kins Fam­ily; Fr Peter Carls­son; Bee Meng Soh; Day­alan Sam­inath­an; Aman­da & Dav­id Romeo, & Court­ney; Grace & Han­nah Ashton; and Baby Anaisha, & her par­ents Anu & Digvijay.

Dis­cus­sion Ques­tions for Advent 3 1. Isai­ah paints God’s redemp­tion as a dan­ger­ous desert made lush and safe. What image would you use? (Isa 35:6–9) 2. Would you live dif­fer­ently today if you thought the Lord was com­ing tomor­row? Why or why not? (James 5:7–9) 3. If someone asked you, “Is Jesus the one?” what evid­ence would you point to that he is God’s chosen? (Matt 11:3) (From Work­ing Preacher.com)

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“Joy to the World” An Acci­dent­al Classic

Did you know that “Joy to the World” was not writ­ten as a Christ­mas car­ol? In its ori­gin­al form, it had noth­ing to do with Christ­mas. It wasn’t even writ­ten to be a song.

Isaac Watts was one of the great hymn writers in church his­tory, and I guess noth­ing shows that bet­ter than the fact that he wrote one of his most fam­ous hymns by acci­dent. In 1719, Watts pub­lished a book of poems in which each poem was based on a psalm. But rather than just trans­late the ori­gin­al Old Test­a­ment texts, he adjus­ted them to refer more expli­citly to the work of Jesus as it had been revealed in the New Testament.

One of those poems was an adapt­a­tion of Psalm 98. Watts inter­preted this psalm as a cel­eb­ra­tion of Jesus’s role as King of both his church and the whole world. More than a cen­tury later, the second half of this poem was slightly adap­ted and set to music to give us what has become one of the most fam­ous of all Christ­mas carols.