When you experience the loss of a loved one, please let the clergy know immediately so our church family may respond appropriately. If you, as part of your end-of-life or estate planning, are interested in purchasing a columbarium niche, we can help you with that as well.

Saturday, May 12

6:30 pm

Honoring Vic Niemeyer

faithful servant and steward of St. Michael’s

Join us for an Italian themed dinner with great desserts

Childcare provided with pizza dinner for the kids

Please sign up on bulletin board in church entryway

The IHN network provides families in difficult circumstances with a place of safety and protection while they start to regain their lives.

Please help make our church into a comfortable and welcoming place for the IHN families to live while they stay in our Education Wing. Volunteers are needed to help set up the living spaces, provide food, act as hosts at dinner time and overnight, and to then help get everything back to normal for Sunday school at the end of the week. Remember that Safeguarding God’s Children training is required for carrying out any hosting duties.

Sign up now to volunteer!

Contact Lesley Margerrison if you need more information or have questions.

• Safeguarding God’s Children is required training and certification for all church volunteers who supervise children or youth, including upcoming programs such as Interfaith Hospitality Network; Summer Sunday School, and Vacation Bible Camp.
• Safeguarding God’s People is required training and certification for all leaders of all adult ministries, small groups such as Sisters! and “Brothers”, prayer groups, Bible and other study groups, commissions, general leadership such as all vestry members as well as all Stephen Ministers and other pastoral leaders.
• All church staff are required to be trained and certified in both programs.

To participate in either of these trainings, you must first complete a face-to-face interview (see below). Following this interview you will receive an e-mail from the Diocese of Texas inviting you to complete the certification process. Upon the completion of this two-week process, you can then sign up for a particular training time. Note that you cannot sign up for or attend training until the certification process is completed.

For Safeguarding God’s Children: Please contact Debbie Vickery or the Rev. Janne Osborne to schedule an interview.

For Safeguarding God’s People: Please contact Mary Healy or the Rev. Janne Osborne to schedule an interview.

For your planning purposes, trainings in both programs are scheduled at St. Michael’s on May 20 and additional dates are being planned — details when you interview! Note that you can get the whole certification process underway with your intake interview; after certification is complete, you’re ready for a future training. ]]> http://www.st-michaels.org/safeguarding-all-gods-children-young-and-old/feed/ 0 http://www.st-michaels.org/st-michaels-community-garden/ http://www.st-michaels.org/st-michaels-community-garden/#comments Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:48:01 +0000 Mary Healy http://www.st-michaels.org/?p=3298 Come garden with us!

Some produce is now ripe for the picking and will be used to supplement both the St. Michael’s Food Pantry and the St. James Episcopal Church Neighbor to Neighbor program. To help with the garden, please sign up at the entryway bulletin board or contact Beth Michaels for more information.

Feed your neighbor, feed your soul.

First Heritage Award Honoree: Vic Niemeyer

The Vestry and Stewardship Commission have collaborated on a new award at St. Michael’s which we are calling the Heritage Award. Each year we wish to recognize a parishioner who has exemplified for at least 10 years at St. Michael’s true servant ministry. The recipient will be honored at a parish-wide dinner and will designate a charity to which gifts may be made in his/her honor.

I am pleased to announce that the Vestry has voted Vic Niemeyer as the very first recipient of the Heritage Award. Vic is a regular (when he can get a ride) at the 7:45 am Eucharist. Indeed, for years he was the chalice bearer at that service. For decades Vic has nurtured our church family, the wider Austin community, and the global community with his time, talent, and treasure. When asked what charity he would like to designate for gifts in his honor, Vic picked El Buen Samaritano, the Episcopal outreach ministry in south Austin that he and St. Michael’s have supported for years.

Look for more details about Vic and the dinner in coming newsletters, but block out Saturday, May 12, 6:30 pm for a great parish celebration of ministry.

Sharing how we experience our faith deepens our spiritual lives and helps others recognize how God is at work in their lives.  On this evening of Sharing Faith, it is our hope that you will experience a deeper understanding of your own faith as a Christian disciple and as an Episcopalian.

For more information, check out the information provided at the Diocesan link.  Or contact the St. Michael’s Dinner Coordinator, Mary Healy.  Online registration is available so register now!

Registration deadline has come and gone.  However, if you wish to attend one of the Faith Sharing Dinners, please contact Mary right away!

Please email Mary Conkling and tell her two things:

• from where you’re graduating
• what your future plans entail

A special recognition of all the graduates will happen Sunday, May 13 at the 9 & 11 am services.

If you have gently used children’s clothing, toys, books or baby items that you would like to donate, please drop them off at the Preschool entrance between 9 am and 1 pm on Thursday, April 26 or Friday, April 27. Please Note: We do not have the storage space to receive items before April 26th.

A special event in conjunction with the Yard Sale will be a SILENT AUCTION featuring items for all ages! Don’t miss out on the great deals. For more information please contact Elizabeth Flanagan or Dana Carvalho.

We are gathering at a NEW time, 2:30 pm. Please join us and bring a friend! All are welcome.

Contact Jackie King if you have questions.

Benefiting Camp Allen’s Summer Camp Ministry

Starry Nights Austin has become a tradition for gathering Episcopalians in the greater Austin area.

Come join us for a night of fun under the stars, while celebrating the ministry of some wonderful Episcopalians. The event benefits children who need financial assistance in order to attend a life-enriching week at Camp Allen. Everyone is welcome to join the fun, and tickets start as low as $75 for dinner, drinks, a live auction, and live music.

This year we will be celebrating the lives and ministries of: The Rev. Robby Vickery, Carrielu Christensen, and George McGonigle. Please join us as we give thanks to these three great Episcopalians who have given so much to our congregations, diocese and institutions.

To purchase tickets for the event visit click here or call (936) 825-7175.

Come join your fellow St. Michael’s parishioners as we volunteer at the Capital Area Food Bank Saturday, April 28. We will sort food and enjoy fellowship from 9:00 am to Noon. Volunteers can be as young as 8. Any individual youth volunteer between 8 and 17 must be accompanied by an adult (21 or older).

Sign up on the bulletin board in the church entryway. Questions? Contact Alice Hall, Outreach Coordinator.

So, we wanted to let everyone who uses E-Giving know the current credit card fees so any adjustments deemed necessary by the individual giver can be made. Currently, MasterCard, Visa and Discover all incur a 2.75% fee, while American Express is 4.00%.

As a reminder, if you are using E-Giving with a credit card and aren’t collecting miles or points, there is an ACH option available which does not incur the card merchant fees. These transactions are deducted directly from your checking or savings account and can be one-time or recurring just like credit card payments.

Please note that a Debit Card will incur the same fees as MasterCard; it is not treated as an ACH transaction.

For further information or any other E-Giving questions, please contact Steve Hamilton in the church office.

“Courtyard Conversations”

Thursday, April 19, 6:30-8:00pm

$10.00 per person

Appetizers, Desserts, and Beverages will be served

Please join us, and bring a friend!

Sign up now (no later than Tuesday evening!) by calling the church office.

Several of us are arriving early (around 4:00 pm) to prepare the sides, dessert, etc. and enjoy the fellowship. Come early to prepare something for the group – or just to relax.

It’s free so bring a friend…

Please email James Russell if you have a question or want to make a group contribution.

We light the new fire outside and then process into the church led by the Paschal Candle, the light of Christ. We listen to the stories of God’s great acts of salvation and respond with songs, psalms, and hymns (bring the kids in PJs and with blankets). Holy Baptism is celebrated and the first Eucharist of Easter concludes this ancient and very meaningful service.Childcare is available for those in kindergarten or younger.

Easter Day April 8 at 7:45, 9:00 and 11:00 am; 6:00 pm

All Easter Day services are celebrations of the Holy Eucharist. 9 am is our “Children’s Festival” when the Music Team leads hymns and songs. At 11 am, the Chancel Choir leads our singing, presents an Easter anthem, and everyone sings “Hallelujah” from Messiah. Children are invited, at all services, to bring their mite boxes and flowers to decorate the cross.

No Sunday School today. Nursery is available during 9 & 11 am services.

Before there was Easter Christians gathered every week for worship and fellowship meals. At first this happened on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, but eventually this shifted to Sunday. The purpose of these early Christian worship-meals also shifted. Originally, believers assembled to prepare for Jesus’ return during their own lives, but when this did not happen as expected, the focus of weekly worship shifted to Jesus’ resurrection. Sunday began to be spoken of as “the eighth day” and “the first day of the new creation.”

It was not until the second century that a commemoration of Jesus’ crucifixion began to be celebrated annually, and it was not on a Sunday. This original commemoration of Jesus’ death took place on the Jewish Passover. However, by the fourth century this commemoration of Jesus’ death had shifted to the Sunday after the Passover. At the same time, this Sunday after the Passover celebration, Easter, shifted its focus to Jesus’ resurrection as the Church already had a Sunday of the Passion and a Good Friday to celebrate Jesus’ death. [Note: Easter started as a "Good Friday."] In the centuries to come, Easter will remain about the resurrection, but the weekly experience of Sunday as a celebration of resurrection will be replaced by an experience of Sunday as a memorial of Jesus’ passion and death. For most Christians today Sunday worship probably still is such a memorial. [I offer that the Church would be better off with less Sunday worship emphasis on "Christ has died" and more on "Christ is risen. Christ will come again." The early Church was on to something when it focused on living in the kingdom that the resurrected Jesus will bring.]

In the past I have taught that Sundays are “little Easters.” It would be better to say that Sunday gives Holy Week and Easter their true meaning, not the other way around.

[These "Thoughts" are indebted to the scholarship of the Rev. Stephen Gerth of St. Mary the Virgin Church, NYC]

• Sundays  10:10-10:55am (between the 9 and 11 am worship services)
• Mondays  2:00-3:00pm
• Wednesdays  noon-1:00pm

If you are looking for a way to “connect” with other St. Michael’s women, then please consider joining one of these groups now. A Sisters! meeting has prayer, Bible study, shared reflections, fellowship, and fun. If you are looking for a special hour for yourself with others like you, please get involved with Sisters!

For more information or to sign up, please contact Mary Healy.