THE GREETERFEBRUARY 2015 (Lenten Edition)

FROM THE RECTOR

February: The beginning of Lent

Each year the church observes the season of Lent which in our tradition lasts forty days excluding Sundays until Easter. This year Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 18th. The forty days represents the days that Jesus spent in the wilderness before beginning his ministry. You may remember that story. It contains descriptions of Jesus being tempted by the devil and his ultimate triumph over those temptations. Now a temptation would not be a temptation unless it was, well, tempting. In other words, Jesus must have been at least enticed to give into what the devil was suggesting he do. Of course he didn’t.

In many ways Jesus’s story reflects our story, Jesus's temptations remind us of our own struggles and temptations we encounter in our own journey of faith. In the isolating terror of the Palestinian desert, Jesus prepares himself spiritually for what he must endure when he arrives in Jerusalem. The stories we will hear and our change in liturgy are invitations to wrestle with our own demons and confront the relentless temptations that are unique to each of us.

All of us struggle with the powers of this world. I am no exception. All of us know, as Jesus knows, that it is often easier to choose power, violence, and domination instead of the reconciling ways of the reign of God. Just take a look at the news any night and you can see the truth of that statement. We also know that there is a better way, and Jesus points the way for us. Jesus points us to Easter, the great triumph of life over death.

Lent then, is our opportunity to take stock of ourselves, to take an honest look at what “demons” may drive us and then to turn to Jesus and choose another path. It is a path that leads to the heart of love that God has for all of us. Lent is a time for reflection and action. Here’s your invitation to a holy Lent.

In the words of the prayer book: I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to theobservance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.

Fr. John

MINISTRY NEWS

LENT

St. Andrew’s is planning a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper February 17 5pm-6:30pm and four Ash Wednesday services on February 18 at 7:00am, 9:30am, 12:00 noon, and 7:00pm (there will be no family dinner 2/18). Please join us as we

begin our annual pilgrimage of Lent.

LENTEN PROGRAM SCHEDULE On the Wednesdays in Lent (February 25 and March 4, 11, 18, and 25), our Family Nights will look a little different. At 5:30 pm, we will pray the Stations of the Cross together; this is a short service in which Christians commemorate the Passion and death of Jesus Christ by spiritually walking in His footsteps. Dinner will be served as usual at 6:00 pm with programming beginning at 6:30. On February 25, the Fun Club will host an Intergenerational Game Night while the Fathers John are on Diocesan Clergy Retreat, and on the four Wednesdays of March, John Adams will offer Making a Prophet, during which we will study the messages of and responses to four of the prophets as a way of considering God’s relationship to Israel before the coming of Jesus.

ALTAR GUILD EVENTSMarch Meeting Wednesday, March 4, 9:30amCoffee Hour Host Sunday, March 1

OUTREACH NEWS

OUTREACH MINISTRY TO THE OMAHA STREET SCHOOLThe Omaha Street School (OSS) is a Christian-based, certified, private school offering a personalized education, a moral code, and tools for self-sufficiency to at-risk youth. On any given day, 30 to 40 area youth come to the school where the average class size is 8-10 students. Through caring and compassionate instructors, staff, and volunteers, the OSS provides what is often the last chance for these

students to receive their high school diploma. These students return to the school because they are valued as individuals who matter enabling them to continue their education and find employment. The Outreach Committee has voted to make a $1000 financial contribution in March, when it will be matched by a local benefactor during their March Madness Fundraising Event. St. Andrew’s will be providing lunches once a month for the students and staff. While sandwiches, chips, and cookies are often the staple, we wish to provide hot, nutritious meals. Melissa Peeler is looking for volunteers to help her prepare and serve these lunches on February 17, March 30, and April 21. Members of St. Andrew’s have also volunteered in the classrooms and as mentors and friends to the students. Please contact Melissa at melpeeler@hotmail.com or 402-212-3827 to volunteer and receive more information. The OSS is located at 3223 North 45th Street in the building that formally housed the Nebraska School for the Deaf.

YOUTH EMERGENCY SERVICES (YES) CLOTHING DRIVEThe Outreach Project for the entire month of February is to collect needed items for YES. YES was founded in 1974 as a local Omaha organization to serve homeless and at-risk teenage youth by providing critical needed resources to empower them to become self-sufficient. Additional information can be found on their web site www.yesomaha.org.Items in greatest need are blue jeans, sweatshirts, socks, long underwear, hand warmers, blankets, sleeping bags, and other warm clothing items. Please place donations in the black bins located in Engle Hall. Anyone running short of items to donate may want to consider purchasing these needed articles from a thrift store such as our very own Nearly New Shop. As donated items accumulate they will be taken to YES at least every other week.

KIDS AGAINST HUNGERKids Against Hunger is an organization that seeks to end the hunger of children around the world. Kids Against Hunger packages highly nutritious and life-saving meals for starving and malnourished children and their families throughout the United States and developing countries. The St. Andrew’s Youth Group is looking forward to helping by packaging meals again this year at the Million Meal March in April. In order to do this, we will be fundraising. If you would like to donate to this incredible event, please contact Lauren or Steve White at 402.216.8584 or say@standrewsomaha.org. One box costs only $54 and holds 36 meals with 6 servings each. One Person + Two Hours + $100 = Feeding one child for an entire year.

ST. MONICA’S GUILDThe ladies of St. Monica's Guild would like to once again thank the members of St. Andrew's for their continued support of our Welcome Bag project. Because of your generous donations, we were able to deliver 27 completed Welcome Bags to the St. Monica's Home in Lincoln for women entering substance abuse treatment in January.   These handmade bags are given to each woman entering treatment and are filled with basic supplies for them to use throughout their stay.  Many of these women come to St. Monica's Home with only the clothes on their backs, and these bags not only supply them with the security of knowing that they will have their basic needs met, but show that they are not alone and that they have the support of others during their treatment. 

We are already beginning to collect items for our next delivery to be made in June. Our greatest needs at this time are new bath size towels and washcloths, full size Suave conditioner, body wash and deodorant, and body lotion, razors, full size toothpaste & toothbrushes, and feminine products. If you find a great sale on a brand other than Suave, that is fine. We just want to be careful that we do not inadvertently give them a product containing alcohol. We can always use any extra fabric that you might have to make our handmade bags.   We are grateful for all you have donated in the past and appreciate your continued support of this project.   Thank you!!!!!

FELLOWSHIP AND FUNDRAISING NEWS

WEDNESDAY EVENING FAMILY NIGHT MEALS For several years, dinner together has been an integral part of our Wednesday Family Nights. Cheryl Huss has recently retired from this ministry, and we would like to thank her for all she has done. We are currently looking for someone who would like to serve St. Andrew’s by taking over this project as well as individuals

who can help on a week by week basis. We are currently using Valentino’s, HyVee, and WheatFields as caterers, so cooking is not required (although we would certainly not refuse anyone willing to cook). We are in need of volunteers to set up the serving table, prepare beverages, and clean up after the meal (thanks to disposable plates, little dishwashing is involved). Please contact Sarah Black or either Fr. John if you would like to help us with this ministry. Also note, there will not be a Family Dinner get together February 18, as that is Ash Wednesday.

UNDER THE HILL GANGWe are starting a new group and naming it the "Under the Hill Gang".  The Under the Hill Gang is a new group of younger adults (generally defined as folks whose earliest memories don't predate Gerald Ford's presidency) consisting of couples with young children, married couples without kids, and single individuals. Our "Inaugural Event" is Friday, February 20th at 6:00 p.m. for a Meal and Merriment!  Dinner and babysitting will be provided by the church.  We hope you can join us as we form new friendships within the St. Andrew's community!Please RSVP by phone or email to Sarah Black (402-660-7649 sarah@standrewsomaha.org ) by February 16th, so that we can plan appropriately.

The 53RD ANNUAL ANTIQUE SALE The Antique Sale will soon be upon us (April 10-11), and those who have been involved with it previously, know how great of an event this is.  Besides being a major fundraiser for the church, it is also a great time for fellowship and meeting members from different worship services we don’t see often enough.   A sign up board has been placed in Engle Hall for those wanting to lock in their special volunteer opportunity before the rush and the calling begins.  Please check what positions and times are available and add your name where you would like to volunteer.  Then be sure to take a reminder slip (available on the sign up board) to jot down what you have specified you would like to do and take it home to add to your personal calendar.  Someone will call you closer to the actual Sale time as a reminder and to finalize our staffing.  Any questions, please call or email Noreen Witty (402-289-3882) nwitty@cox.net.

THANK YOUThe dinner to raise money for the Youth Mission trip to the Dominican Republic was a huge success. Almost $10,000 was raised, and while that won’t cover all of the costs, it is a great start. Thank you to everyone who joined us and everyone that made a donation.

THE CURATE’S CORNER“Let us confess our sins”

Lent, more so than any other time of the Church year, is a season of confession. In the Invitation to a Holy Lent (pages 264-65 in the Book of Common Prayer) from the Ash Wednesday service, the Church invites us to prepare for our annual commemoration of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection with self-examination and repentance. At our Lenten Eucharists, we follow this directive by opening the service with the Penitential Order, which moves the General Confession to the beginning of our worship, where it won’t get lost between the Prayers of the People and the Peace.

Lent is thus the perfect time for a curate in search of a newsletter article topic to comment briefly on confession in the Episcopal Church. Confession is one of several ways that we, once baptized into Christ’s body, address our ongoing sinfulness. Forgiveness of sin is a function of baptism, and some people in the early Church, fearful that they would sin again after

baptism and thus be damned, postponed baptism until they were lying on their deathbeds (the Emperor Constantine is the most famous example of this behavior). Against this superstition, the Church taught that God’s forgiveness in baptism extends to sins committed afterward, provided that the Christian recognizes those thoughts, words, actions, and inactions as sinful, repents of having done or not done them, offers penance to God and any neighbors who were affected, and resolves to amend his or her life in the hope of not committing the same sin again.

Confession takes place in two contexts: a General Confession as part of a corporate worship service, and the private Rite of Reconciliation between an individual penitent and a priest. In the Book of Common Prayer, the former includes a pause for silence before the confession, allowing each of us to name before God anything that we particularly recognize as having failed to follow God’s will and thus distorted our relationships with God, our neighbors, and all creation. This pause allows us to make the General Confession personal in the same way that the pauses for naming the sick and the dead allow us to personalize the Prayers of the People. Having thus acknowledged our own sins to God, we can continue our worship with a clean heart.

Private confession fell out of favor with those churches that split from Roman Catholicism during the Reformation. For some, the objection was theological, that no person required a priestly intermediary to make confession to God; for others, it was more practical, that private confession had become entirely formulaic, with rote statements of transgression and predictably inconsequential acts of penance replacing real pastoral conversation and guidance. Today in the Episcopal Church, private confession is available using the two forms of Reconciliation of a Penitent (beginning on page 447 of the Book of Common Prayer). The unofficial guideline for private confession is that “all can, some should, none must” personally confess their sins to a priest. Private confession usually proves most helpful to those who are struggling with an ongoing sin or the lingering memory of a past sin and thus need something more personal than the General Confession in order to deeply feel God’s forgiveness.

So as we proceed through Lent, let us do so in the spirit of confession, looking to identify the sin in our own lives and in the institutions in which we are participants, name that sin to God, repent of our failures to live into God’s will, and amend our lives so that, come Easter, we will all be more closely following Jesus on our pilgrimage through life than we are on Ash Wednesday.

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORI am nearing the end of my first month as the new part-time Administrative Assistant and am very glad to be here. I am a life-long Episcopalian. Some of you knew me as Erin Vest (daughter of Jon and Rhonda) at St. Mark’s in the 80s and Holy Family in the 90s. I lived out of the state for 15 years, but have been back in Omaha since April. I am member of St. Augustine’s in Elkhorn where I also sing in the choir, but will be attending most of the Wednesday evening programs and some other fellowship opportunities here at St. Andrew’s. I look forward to meeting more of you and hope to begin remembering more names!

The next edition of The Greeter will come out just prior to Holy Week in order to include the additional service announcements. Please have submissions in before March 17.

February and March Birthdays and Anniversaries

02/01 Blake Rider

02/02 John Schaefer

02/02 Karen Skinner

02/03 Jackie Ross

02/03 Andy Ketterson

02/03 Kathleen Kauth-Fisher

02/04 Chris Kircher

02/05 Charlotte Austin

02/05 Roxi Adams

02/07 Sarah Black

02/08 Stephen Haakinson

02/08 Jarrod Olson

02/08 Jeff Dunic

02/09 Lee Hammond

02/10 Carol Casper

02/10 Loren Ditsch

02/11 Juleen Olson

02/11 Lucy Puls

02/12 Kelly Dornan

02/12 Braxton Rife

02/12 Jaxson Schuller

02/13 Jay Adams

02/15 Eileen Hansen

02/15 Nathan Ladenson

02/17 Terrie Saunders

02/17 Ron Dunic

02/17 Henry Hallgren

02/18 Susan Menter

02/18 Steve Gottschalk

02/18 Taylor Markoff

02/19 Dan Coonce

02/19 Christian Harter

02/20 Paula Wallace

02/20 Kevin Wagner

02/20 Kevin Henry

02/20 Hope Kircher

02/21 John Sorenson

02/26 Madison Markoff

02/27 Theresa Huss

03/01 Burke Smith

03/02 Vicky McHugh

03/04 Lauren Engle

03/05 Jenny Else

03/06 Maria Malnack

03/06 Libby Else

03/10 Taryn Smith

03/11 Erin Zogleman

03/12 Claire Atkins

03/12 Francesca Swynford

03/12 Charley Pugsley

03/12 Bernice Coffey

03/13 Bob Tritsch

03/13 Sande Markoff

03/13 Alice Spence

03/13 Eric Rodawig

03/14 Pat Ahrens

03/14 Haley Malnack

03/15/ Nathan Hudson

03/16 Jamie Baker

03/17 Jody Smythe

03/18 Kerri Rensch

03/18 Alex Grossoehme

03/18 James Hallgren

03/18 Anna Kay Sitzman

03/19 Phil Pierce

03/19 Dave Brown

03/20 Dara Coffey

03/20 Erin Stokes

03/20 John Dodge

03/20 Laura Dodge

03/21 Dick Erickson

03/21 Mike Barnes

03/21 Dana Coonce

03/22 Nick Dornan

03/22 Kayden Ver Maas

03/23 Isabella Artman

03/23 Eloise Frink

03/23 Sophia Huss

03/25 Tom Upton

03/25 Bill Smythe

03/25 Angie Lewis

03/25 Jeffrey Hudson

03/26 Maddie Miles

03/27 Bridget Baker

03/29 Jordan Hankins

03/31 Gail Koch

03/31/ Ed Krieger

02/2 Jim and Terrie Saunders

02/2 Bill and Jody Smythe

02/29 John and Carolyn Curtis

03/12 Chisten and Larry Stiverson

03/14 Jim and Karen Conrad

03/14 Andrew and Caitlin Davis

03/18 Andy and Pat Ketterson

03/21 Peter and Joan Hill

03/21 Shari and Mark Williams

If your name does not appear in our birthdays and anniversaries, let the office know so we can update our records. Call 402-391-1950 or email ginny@standrewsomaha.org

Ministry ScheduleMarch 1 March 8 March 15 March 22 March 29

Acolytes Palm Sunday9:00 Ian Haakinson

Lucian ReiterConner SmithElla Haakinson

Paige RifeLauren Sitzman

Charley PugsleyMatt Dornan

Lucian ReiterAnna Kay Sitzman

10:30 Jim Hallgren Henry Hallgren

Kelsey ConradSarah Conrad

John DodgeLaura Dodge

Ron Dunic Kelsey ConradSarah Conrad

Altar GuildS Polly Goecke Pat AddisonE Karen Ekholm Terrie Saunders/

Susie TruppL Mina

WitherspoonAileen Henry

Healing Prayer7:45 Lois Westfall Lois Westfall Lois Westfall Lois Westfall Lois Westfall9:00 Matt /Jamie Karen/Nancy Lance/Ashley Andy/Jamie Matt/Karen10:30 Cricket F. Dorothy S. Anne G. Dorothy S. Cricket F.Lay Readers7:45 Jordan Hankins Keith Ross Lois Westfall Ron Dunic Jordan

Hankins9:00 Don Peeler

Melissa PeelerDavid AdcockKayleigh Baker

Dan SitzmanCamille Culp

Taryn Smith Beth Summers

Karen ConradBen Bryan

10:30 Kelly BourneTara O’Shea

Ken WestClaire Atkins

Elizabeth HallgrenIngrid Van Blerk

Anne GambalLee Hammond

Tara O’SheaAndy Ketterson

Ushers7:45 John Mabry John Mabry John Mabry John Mabry John Mabry9:00 Mary Cash

Roger RoweMatt Dornan

Sharon KygerBarb Jackson

Kim JohnsonLiz OrrickKaren Quintana

Don PeelerSusan MenterKeith Gourley

Steve and Lauren White

10:30 Gordon FoleyKen CrattyDave Gambal

Charley and Nancy PugsleyDave Gambal

Lee HammondD.J. O’SheaRun Dunic

Gordon FoleyKen CrattyDave Gambal

Charley and Nancy PugsleyMike Barnes

Greeters7:45 John Mabry Laraine Crane John Mabry Laraine Crane John Mabry9:00 Tish and Monty

HalsteadTom and Jean Sitzman

Todd and Cathy Engle

Barb Jackson Camille Culp

10:30 Cricket Foley Janice Nelson tbd Anne Gambal Lisa Hammond

ALL SUNDAY SERVICES

Altar GuildNearly New

Lay ReadersLiturgy Team

VestryFinanceDaughters of the King

Healing PrayerStephen Ministry

St. Monica’sECW Board