CGS Announcements Archive

This Sunday morning, August 22, is your last opportunity to support our EYC by purchasing a Locopop. This has been a great project for the EYC as they have raised funds for summer service trips through the sale of these delicious popsicles. Thanks to all who have bought and enjoyed them this summer. The popsicles are $2.25 apiece (or whatever donation you'd like to give). Four flavors are available: Strawberries & Cream, Cookies & Cream, Pomegranate Tangerine and Cherry Lime.

All of us enjoy getting away for summer vacation time or even for a weekend break. Remember that our service of Evening Meditation and Prayer is a perfect way to include worship in your weekend plans. If you're coming back into town on Sunday afternoons, please join us for this inviting and relaxing service at 5pm on the second and fourth Sundays of each month. It's our same warm and inviting Sunday afternoon serivce, just with a more reflective name. You are invited to come participate in our next services on Sunday, August 22nd. Dress is casual. Then...join us for a wine and cheese reception in the Duncan-Giersch Center following the service.

If you can help with setting up the wine and cheese receptions for these services, we would be grateful. Please contact Miriam Saxon if you can help.

Evening Meditation and Prayer--5:00PM, 2nd & 4th Sundays each month in the Church

YOU ARE INVITED!
August Migrant Ministry Camp Visit

THIS SUNDAY, August 22!

Meet in front of the Parish Life Center by 4:50pm.
We leave the church at 5:00pm to arrive at the camp around 5:30pm.
Please bring prepared food to share, drinks and folding chairs.
Carpooling encouraged.

Monetary donations are greatly appreciated!  Checks (written to Church of the Good Shepherd and clearly specified for MIGRANT OUTREACH) should be mailed to: Church of the Good Shepherd, MIGRANT OUTREACH MINISTRY121 Hillsborough St., Raleigh, NC 27603.  Donations to the migrant ministry that are placed in the Sunday offering should be in a separate envelope clearly marked for MIGRANT OUTREACH.

Contact: Margaret Park, Migrant Ministry coordinator, mpark@pobox.com, 787-5557

ALL ARE WELCOME!!  Serve One Another invites everyone to our monthly Potluck with a Program on Friday, August 20, at the home of Pat and Judy Austin. The Austins are providing the main dish, and guests are asked to bring side dishes and desserts. Let Pat and Judy know if you will be attending!  We look forward to seeing you.

From Janet Gilliam, Children's Ministries Director

I hope each of you is having a great summer watching your children run barefoot in the grass as they grow like weeds! These are the makings of the good old days! And to add to these memories we're scheduling a new "special event" Splash Dinner. Please mark your calendars for Wednesday, August 18, at 6pm. As usual, this will be a relaxed and laid back social event with no agenda other than fellowship. The special part will be that this event is to be held on the roof of a downtown condominium tower. Our associate rector, Bill Bennett, has invited us to be his guests for the evening at The West at North located at 400 West North Street.

Other guests will include our CGS Vestry and CGS administrative staff. This will give you an opportunity to gain familiarity with other members of our church family and of course for them to get to know you. Because the roof top is not one hundred percent child proof, the EYC is offering child care conveniently located only a few blocks away, at the church! Wren Blessing, our Youth Director and a mother herself, will supervise. I will share the proceeds of our donation basket with the EYC, making this somewhat of a fundraiser for them. Hopefully this is a win-win for everyone! And again, this is a one time special event. The next Splash Dinner returns to Shepherd's Hall.

Please contact me, Janet Gilliam (janet.gilliam@cgs-raleligh.org or 831-2003), to let me know if you're attending and please indicate whether you intend to use the EYC sitters, so they can insure that they are adequately staffed. I look forward to a great evening "up on the roof!"  Did I just hear the Drifters...?

From Wren Blessing, Youth Director 

To share food, writes Sam Wells, is the Church's "defining political, economic, and social act" (God's Companions, 6).  On Friday, August 13th, our parish will send a group of fourteen youth and adults to Gaston, South Carolina, to practice sharing food.  We will serve, learn, and pray alongside fifty other Christians through a program called "Harvest of Hope," rising early to glean corn and peppers from South Carolina farm fields (not unlike Ruth, Rt. 2:2-3 and Jesus, Lk. 6:1), loading food bank trucks, sharing meals with local churches, and learning about why people suffer from hunger and how we might make a habit of sharing the food God gives us.

Our youth and adult leaders are sent to South Carolina to serve and learn as members of our parish.  We count on your prayers.  Consider praying for our safety and growth each day that we are gone, August 13-15 (see p. 829, #47 in the BCP if you'd like a set prayer).  Please also consider sponsoring our students with a financial contribution to offset trip costs.  (Please note "EYC Harvest for Hope" on the memo line of checks which can placed in the offering plate at church or given to Wren Blessing.) We give thanks for the members of our parish who have already joined our EYC in prayer and generous giving, sponsoring us to learn, serve and grow in the name of Jesus Christ.  We look forward to sharing food and some of what we learn with you when we return. 

 EVERYONE is invited to participate in this ministry! Join us for food, fellowship and fun when we dine on the grounds of our adopted migrant camp every 4^th Sunday evening.  If you can lend a hand organizing donations, setting up the meal tables, helping with Spanish translation during the camp visits, or volunteering in any other capacity, please contact Margaret Park.

Migrant Ministry Events Schedule -- Potluck suppers take place on the fourth Sundays of the growing season. Leaving from the church at 5:00, we arrive at the camp at 5:30 and stay for about two hours.

August 22 - Camp Visit

September 19 - Episcopal Farmworker Fall Festival in Newton Grove

September 26 - Camp Visit

October 17 - Farmworkers attend 10:15 service followed by lunch at local restaurant

Monetary donations are greatly appreciated!  These funds are used to purchase pillows, work gloves, fans, medicines and other essentials.  Checks (written to Church of the Good Shepherd and clearly specified for MIGRANT OUTREACH FUND) should be mailed to: Church of the Good Shepherd, MIGRANT OUTREACH MINISTRY, 121 Hillsborough St., Raleigh, NC 27603.  Donations to the migrant ministry that are placed in the Sunday offering should be in a separate envelope clearly marked for MIGRANT OUTREACH FUND.

If you would like to know more, please add your e-mail address to our list of participants to receive invitations to special events and occasional updates about the Migrant Farmworker Ministry. Click on "update my profile" at the very bottom of your next CGS e-newsletter, check the Migrant Ministry box and be sure to save your update.

Contact:  Margaret Park, Migrant Ministry coordinator, , 787-5557

Our 2010 VBS was fun, BUT, in an attempt to be mindful that all children are not so fortunate, they added to their activities, a service project!  Every child worked on a "God loves me!" blanket that will be sent to a child in Africa who has faced hardship due to an AIDS related cause.  At VBS, the final hour was devoted to hand tying a warm, comforting blanket that proclaims "God loves  Me!" right on the fabric.  They also personalized some "God Loves Me" coloring books that will be given with the blanket.  Congratulations "Good Shepherd children on completing **25** such blankets!  They are literally blanketing Africa with God's love. 

Currently 40 million children around the world are desperately vulnerable because of AIDS.  These are children whose parents are sick or  deceased, whose families have taken in extra children, or who live in communities  where there is not enough food, teachers, or health workers because of the pandemic.  This effort was made possible through World Vision in a program called "Operation Kid to Kid." We are  proud of  our children's willing spirits and busy hands!  They continue to grow in the knowledge of what God wants of them.   Kids-we're proud of you and we love you!

You are Cordially Invited to an Open House at the Church of the Good Shepherd.

Bring Friends and Family.  Take a walk through our historic sanctuary, enjoy the beautiful architecture and stained glass windows.

A member of our congregation will be available to provide information about our church and answer any questions.

Light Refreshments will be served in the lobby of the Duncan-Giersch Center.

• Date: Friday, August 6     
• Times:  5:00pm - 9:00pm 
• Cost: Free                             

From Rev. William D. Bennett, Jr. 

Mother Barbara Cawthorne Crafton"The life of faith is not about becoming a better and better person through a superhuman effort of will. It is about connecting with the power of a loving God." - Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, "Forgiveness: What It Is and What It Isn't," YES! WE'LL GATHER AT THE RIVER! Church Publishing JourneyBook, p.62

The authentic practice of radical forgiveness is at the very heart of anything that can be called a true Christian life, or a truly Christian Church. As we heard in last Sunday's Gospel reading, Jesus, when asked by his disciples, "...teach us to pray..." places forgiveness of sins ("trespasses," "debts") as the centerpiece of the form of prayer which he teaches them. In Benedictine Monasteries, the Abbot, after the communal meals, will intone the Our Father, repeating the phrase ""...forgive us our trespasses..." three times, as an affirmation of how deeply in the DNA of real Christian community forgiving one another is, and how much it sets real Christian life apart from the murderous cycle of recrimination, resentment, and revenge which can dominate the world, under the thrall of the power of death as it indisputably is. The wisdom of the Gospel of Jesus Christ understands that honest acknowledgement of sin, and also the practice of the forgiveness of sin by one who has been hurt by the sinful actions of another is the only way we can experience real liberation and freedom in this life. It is also the only way we can break through to one another and be able to live in real community with each other. In talking about the sacramental rite of The Reconciliation of a Penitent, in earlier times known as "Confession," Episcopal priest, spiritual director, and author Barbara Cawthorne Crafton writes: "At its best, confession has nothing to do with shame or with superficial legalisms. It is the act of a spiritual adult who recognizes an action in her past as unworthy of the beloved child of God she knows herself to be, and who desires to be free to do things differently next time. Primarily, confession is the restoration to community of one who is estranged from it. It is a profound welcome home to one who has spent some time in self-imposed exile... Only when we have allowed God's reconciling love to shine on even the soiled places can we know ourselves to be wholly loved." (YES! WE'LL GATHER AT THE RIVER, pp. 49-50). Whether you have or will avail yourself of this sacramental rite, its presence in the life of the Church is a sign of the centrality of forgiveness, both the receiving and giving of it, as central to being a baptized Christian.

As has been announced earlier, Mother Crafton will be with us to lead a "Forgiveness Weekend" at the beginning of our Fall Adult Christian Formation programs, the weekend of September 17-19. This will include a Friday evening gathering, a Saturday retreat which is currently scheduled from 9 AM-2:30 PM, and she will teach and preach on Sunday morning. More details on all of these will be forthcoming, but please put that special weekend on your calendar now.

"...it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you... He wants you alone. "My son, my daughter, give me thine heart" (Proverbs 13:26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Confession and Communion," LIFE TOGETHER)

Peace and Blessings, Bill