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Oct 193 min read

Parish and Episcopal Resources for the Upcoming Election

St. Martin’s Online Prayer Vigil for Election Day

November 5 starting at 8:00 am

Join Mother Leslie online as we pray together early on election day. We will have a brief service of scripture and prayer as our communities and our country engage in the collective responsibility of letting our voices be heard and gathering together for the life and common good of our country. The service will be broadcast on November 5 at 8 am and available for viewing throughout the day.

            The bulletin for this brief service will be available online for downloading beforehand, and printed versions will be available to pick up at church on the weekend of November 2 and 3.

 

Rides to the Polls

No excuses early voting will be available in Missouri starting on October 22. Please contact Mother Leslie or our parish administrator Janet Theiss if you need a ride to the polls from October 22 through November 3.

 

Diocesan Resources for the Upcoming Election

            Prayer matters! Prayer changes things. Prayer changes us.

Beginning on Sunday, October 20, 2024 and concluding on Sunday, November 10, 2024, communities of faith within the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri are invited to pray with intention for our nation as we the people prepare to vote faithfully in the November election. As followers of Jesus, we believe that prayer is the lens through which we dream with God and build a beloved community.

            This season of prayer in our common life is an opportunity to walk in love as Christ loved us and to unify in common purpose despite our differences. While we may have contrasting dreams, hopes, and aspirations, we are united in the thread of prayer which draws us closer to the heart of God.

            Prayers are provided for each Sunday and the days surrounding the election during this season to be used in both public worship and private devotion.

 

Click here to download the PDF.

 

Worship Services and Prayer Hotlines

from The Episcopal Church

We are also blessed to have a variety of resources available from the Episcopal Church for this election season.

 

Nov. 1 Prayer Service from the Washington National Cathedral

with Presiding Bishop Curry

On November 1, our outgoing Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Michael Curry, will preside at “Holding on to Hope: A National Service for Healing and Wholeness” on All Saints’ Day, Friday, November 1 from 3-4:30 pm Central Daylight Time. This service will be live streamed in both English and Spanish and include multidenominational partners as we come together as a nation.

 

Live Prayer Hotline Nov. 1-5

From November 1 and continuing through November 5, a live prayer hotline will be available from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm Central Time, staffed by clergy and chaplains of the Episcopal Church. The phone number to call the hotline is (202)-998-3510.

 

AFTER THE ELECTION

And finally, a brief post-election Prayer Service will be offered on Zoom on November 4 at 3 pm Central Time. You will need to sign up to receive the Zoom link and as soon as we learn how to sign up, we will pass that along to all.

 

Collect for an Election:

Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States and  of our communities in the election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

                                                                                      ---Book of Common Prayer, p. 822

Oct 191 min read

Diocesan Book Study for Native American Heritage Month


November is Native American Heritage Month. Join Mother Leslie in her role as Diocesan Missioner for Indigenous Engagement and people from around the diocese as we study and discuss the classic book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

 

Braiding Sweetgrass is a modern classic, a mixture of ecological and cultural history that advocates for a reawakening of our connections with native wisdom and with the creation upon which we depend. The author, doctor Robin wall camera, is a distinguished professor of environmental biology at the State University of New York, a gifted writer and storyteller, and a member of the citizen Potawatomi nation.

 

If you are interested in botany, history, or creation care, as well as learning more about our indigenous kindred, this book will become one of your treasured resources. Even if you have read it before, come join in the discussion circle.

 

The book is available from online bookstores and also as an ebook.

 

Come join us as we discuss this book via zoom on the following dates:

 

November 4th, 7:00 PM

 

November 11th, 7:00 PM

 

November 18th, 7:00 PM

 

November 25th, 7:00 PM

Zoom link:

 

Please contact Leslie at to let her know your interest and to answer any questions you may have.

Oct 192 min read

Rector's Reflection: Here Are The People, October 19, 2024

Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,

 

If you are of a certain generation, there may be a game you played with your hands as kids: here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors and here are the people.” Do you remember that game? Because here is a key truth about that game—eventually we pull our hands apart, and the people go out into the world. But they’re still the church. In fact, that’s where they are the best church of all—embodying Jesus’s loving, transforming, hopeful message in a world desperate and starving for all those things.

 

In our gospel for this Sunday, Jesus is trying to explain to us this fact: the church exists in a specific place, but it also exists beyond the parish walls and outside of times of worship. As followers of Jesus, we who share in his baptism and his cup, we live BOTH in the heart of God, and in the broken places in the world. This is what makes us more than fans of Jesus. Our worship as a community is meant to empower us to make common cause with those we meet beyond the walls of our beloved building and beyond the friendships we form here.

 

And so I also want to remind many of you that YOU need the fellowship of regular worship, the balm of regular communion more than once in a while in your life. Organizing your life around a pattern of daily and weekly worship is vital in reminding ourselves of the ways we are connected to one another.

 

We are the church of St. Martin all together here, worshiping and giving thanks, but that we also have to be the church of St. Martin out there, where people need us to show us who God is in the face of poverty, exploitation, fear, and division. We discover who we are called to be in being brave enough to turn the values of the world on its head to reflect the love of God in a world that thirsts for it.

 

The way of Jesus is the way of service, community, and healing. That’s why we shouldn’t say that we take communion, but that we share communion. Jesus asks us to share in his cup—and by his willingness to lay down his life for us, he has transformed a cup of suffering and death into a cup of blessing and community. Jesus asks us to share in his baptism—and his baptism is the transformation of our lives from lives focused on ourselves into lives of purpose for the reconciliation of the world. Jesus calls us into community and fellowship with him, so that we may extend that fellowship with the whole world.

 

Especially as we prepare to head to the polls next month, I pray that we boldly keep that commandment of fellowship even with those with whom we may disagree.

 

As we will sing in one of my very favorite hymns this weekend, “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, and we pray that all unity may one day be restored. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

 

In Christ,

Mother Leslie+

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