Holy Eucharist

The Holy Eucharist, commonly known as Communion or the Mass, is our principal act of worship as a community of faith. In it, we recall the act of Jesus with his disciples on the night before his death by taking bread and wine and sharing the sacred feast that Jesus himself commanded: "This is my body (and blood); take and eat this in remembrance of me."  (See Matthew 26:26-29.)   The understanding in the Episcopal Church is that the Eucharist signifies a REAL PRESENCE rather than the bread and wine changing to flesh and blood.  Real Presence means that Christ is truly present in the sacraments in a significant manner that conveys grace to the partaker.  Having said this, it is less about understanding what is going on and more important that we participate in this sacrament as a community in response to God's love.  In our parish, any person seeking to know God is welcome at the Eucharistic table.

 

Sunday morning services are at 8:00 and 10:00 from September through May, and at 9:00 during the summer. .

Children's Chapel

During our 10:00 AM service (September – May), we offer our children a developmentally appropriate alternative to the sermon. This takes them out of the church where they can move around a bit, sing loud, dance, and hear the Word in a child-friendly way, which helps them to focus better when we celebrate the Eucharist together. The children leave with a member of the clergy after the reading of the Gospel and return during the exchange of the peace. Parents are welcome to accompany their children to chapel any time.

Seasonal Offerings

Each liturgical season has its own theme and we try to mark out each season with different settings to music and liturgical adornments that reflect the liturgical color designated. These changes are at times subtle and other times more bold. We invite you to live a liturgical year with us to discover the richness of the Anglican Spiritual journey. A couple of examples of our litugical changes are listed below.

Advent (The beginning of the Church Year)

Advent is about preparation and beginnings.  The promises from the prophet Isaiah are those of pregnant expectation.  The color of the season is a deep azure blue to depict the dawn sky just before sun rise.  Just as surely as the sun rises, so God will do something amazing and wonderful -- beyond any expectation that you may have in mind.  From human dead ends come the hope and glory of the christ child.  Elizabeth barren and beyond child bearing years and Mary a virgin, both expecting children because as the Gospel of Luke reminds us that with God nothing is impossible!  The dark colors and lessons of expectation remind us in this season of short days and long nights that the Dayspring from on high will soon break upon us.  We make Advent wreaths and use them in our homes to mark the weeks of expectaiton prior to recieving our saviour at Christmas.

The Epiphany Band

Epiphany is the season following Christmas and begins with the completion of the 12 days of Christmas on January 6th lasting till the beginning of Lent.  This season is marked by the theme of Manifestation or bringing to light the promised saviour.  The lessons are about the beginning of Jesus minsitry and our charge as God's people to be about our mission to share God's love to a broken world.  So just as the season is about making the Christ manifest to the world, so it is about our vocation as Christians as well.  St. Augustine noted that while Christmas was the manifestation of Christ to the Hebrew people, Epiphany is the manifestation of Christ to the Gentile world.  For this reason, the season of Epiphany was second in importance to Easter in the Ancient Church. 

Each year in the season of Epiphany, from the Sunday on or after Jan. 6 till Lent begins, we break out our electric guitars and drums and rock the place!  Our Epiphany band is made up of wanna-be rockers within the parish community .  We utilize the Epiphany season as a joyful expression of "the gift of Christ to the Gentiles" (St. Augustine) as manifested in the visit of the Magi in the Gospel of Matthew.  We are upbeat and prayerful and we always save a little extra for the postlude (the music at the end of the service). 

Lenten Offerings

During Lent, we hold various services that invoke the journey of Jesus to the Cross. Please check with our weekly schedule as the offerings vary from year to year. The Wednesday Lenten Program for 2009 involved a discussion based around a video series produced by the National Church called Via Media. We gathered and watched a short video, enjoyed a meal togther and participated in a focused conversation based upon the content of the video. We ended our evening with a short evening prayer service, normally from an alternative Book of Prayer (i.e. Church of Canada, New Zealand, English, etc.). Our final offering on April first featured our Bishop, Jeffrey Lee as he visited with our parishioners and addressed some questions posed by our parishioners that were brought up over the course of the previous week's discussions. We enjoyed Bishop Lee's time with us as it provided us with some insight into his thought on some of the issues we presented but we were most interested in having soem time to get to know Bishop Lee. Thanks for coming out! Wednesday evenings in Lent from 6:15-8:00 p.m.