Sept. 23, 2021
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Our Sunday Service at 10:00 a.m. is live.
Masks and social distancing are required in the Sanctuary.
Our livestream is available and will continue indefinitely on www.facebook.com/stpaulschatham and on our YouTube channel St. Paul's Episcopal Church Chatham, NJ - YouTube
A new year of Sunday School has begun!
The children leave the service before the Gospel with their teachers and return in time for communion. Our new Director of Christian Education, Elyssa Claudio, will teach class for our older children and Mary Foster is teaching the younger children.
The class schedule will be in person classes on the first and third Sundays, a virtual offering on Facebook live the second Sunday and either Children's chapel or a special event on the fourth Sunday.
Please register your children online at the link below.
https://www.stpaulschatham.org/sunday-school-registration
Next Sunday, October 3rd!
Blessing of the Animals
11:30 a.m.
Fishawack!
Chatham's Fishawack festival begins Friday evening, and continues through Saturday. Many entertainment events are planned. For more information, click here
Coffee Hour!
Coffee Hour after the 10:00am service has been a tradition at St. Paul's for many, many years. It is a wonderful time to chat with friends, enjoy refreshments and enjoy our fellowship. In order to ensure that we have this opportunity each week, we are looking for volunteers to sign up to 'host' Coffee Hour by bringing in individually-wrapped snacks and juice boxes to go with the coffee provided (and started by Sam!). Another essential role of the coffee hour host is setting up and cleaning up afterwards. If you have any questions, please contact the office.
Congratulations, Molly!
Molly Alperowitz completed a National EMT certification program at Union County College this summer and has joined the Chatham Emergency Squad as a High School cadet and volunteer first responder. Congratulations, Molly!
Joint Statement on Climate Change
Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Archbishop of Canterbury have joined together in an urgent appeal for the future of the planet. For the first time, the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Anglican Communion have jointly warned of the urgency of environmental sustainability, its impact on poverty, and the importance of global cooperation. Read the full statement here.
Music Notes
Two quiet anthems: the Offertory is by the wonderful composer, Moses Hogan. It's very meditative, sung in a gospel style with lots of emphasis on important words. It ends with a solemn plea of "Done with sin and sorrow. Have mercy". A short anthem by John Rutter, British composer with whom we're pretty much all familiar: God be in my head, and in my understanding. Like the Hogan, it is a cappella, which means unaccompanied by instruments. Always a good ear-training exercise for a choir to end in the key they started on! Have to say, this choir is remarkably good at that!
The prelude is Pastorale, by the French Romantic era composer, Cesar Franck. It is an evocative work, featuring the Swell oboe stop to remind us of shepherds herding their sheep. There is a brief rainstorm featured in the middle movement. So 19th century! The work takes around nine minutes, so we'll begin coverage of the service at 9:50 a.m.
The postlude, Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C, is by the Baroque composer, Dietrich Buxtehude. He's the organist whom J. S. Bach walked 200 miles to hear, and almost lost his own job as a result. Overstayed his vacation by a long time!
Jim Little
Ministry Volunteers Needed!
If you enjoy flowers, and would like to contribute to the Sunday service, please consider joining the Flower Arrangers at St. Paul's! Flowers are delivered to church every week from J & M, and are arranged in various vases or baskets for the altar. If you have limited experience (or none at all!) with arranging, training is provided! Typically, an Arranger is scheduled to serve once every six weeks or so, but scheduling is flexible. After the Sunday service, flowers are given to those who are in need of a bit of cheer. Please contact Laurie DeBiasse if you are interested.
St. Paul's has many ministries from serving on Sundays to Outreach, including Readers, Ushers, Counters, Coffee hour hosts, Flower arrangers, Sunday school assistants, Outreach, Special events, and transporting food donations to the food pantry. For additional ways that you can become more involved, please contact Rev. Ellen for more information.
