The 2023 Dismantling Racism Training schedule from The Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing is now available. This class is required for all parish clergy and all lay leaders, including vestry members. We also recommend taking the class every three years.
Click here to view the training schedule.
As most of you know, St. Gregory’s belongs to Family Promise (previously Interfaith Hospitality Network), an organization of churches in Athens that provides homeless families a temporary place to stay while they work their way back to stability. The breadwinners of the families get rides to work if needed. Those who don’t have jobs are provided some of the support they need to find one. Meals are provided. Family Promise also works to prevent homelessness by helping families with a rent or utility payment or with the purchase of a used vehicle. These are truly opportunities to put our faith into action.
While we have the chance to serve as onsite volunteers during three weeks of the year, there are many parishioners who are unable to show up in person but would be interested in helping with Family Promise. We hope our 2023 Epiphany Drive will provide the opportunity to do just that.
Family Promise has an Amazon wishlist which, of course, is readily accessible to anyone shopping on Amazon. This link takes you directly to the Family Promise wishlist. There, you may add items directly to your Cart, pay for them as you do any Amazon order, and Amazon delivers the items straight to the registered Family Promise address. This provides an easy way to help meet the needs of the homeless population served by this program, and we hope that many of you will agree and participate. We will announce this effort several times during our January 6-February 6 Epiphany Drive.
In recognition of the fact that not everyone shops with Amazon, we will also provide paper copies of the Family Promise wishlist as inserts in our church bulletins during January. You may purchase as many items as you choose, bring them to the Fellowship Hall at church any time from January 6 – February 6, and we will deliver them to Family Promise.
However you decide to participate, you may rest assured that your contributions will significantly impact Family Promise and its clients.
Deacon Christina’s Outreach*
As the cold weather kicks in, our Episcopalian brothers, sisters, and those who identify as neither, who also suffer from homelessness, receive hot coffee at Church of the Common Ground, our church without walls at Piedmont Park in Atlanta. They are in need of these specific items, 5 lb bags of sugars (no bigger than 10 lbs), containers of powdered (only) creamer, and boxes of hot chocolate. This sugar, creamer, and hot chocolate drive will continue until Christmas Day, December 25, 2022. A box for collection of these items will be in the parish hall foyer.
*for anybody wondering, our Outreach Committee supports local needs,
and our clergy outreach supports diocesan and wider church needs.
Have you been wondering what happens to all those colorful marshmallow PEEPS you see in the stores these days? Does anyone really eat them? Could they have some greater purpose? Well now they do. You can enter our Bible Story PEEPS contest and wake up your creative genius from its pandemic slumber.
Contest Rules:
Start with a cardboard box no larger than 2' x 2' x 3'.
Use paint, markers, paper, cloth or other disposable props to create a scene from the Bible using Peeps.
Make your characters (peeple and animals) out of Peeps and dress them to fit the Bible story you have chosen to represent. Melt, mold or glue the Peeps and other props in place as necessary.
Submit a card with your entry with the name(s) of the artists and the title. Extra credit will be given for using "Peep" in your title. (All clean puns accepted.)
Entries are due in the Parish Hall by Friday April 15 before the office closes (4:30PM).
The winner in each category (Individual, Family and Group) will be announced Easter Sunday Morning and will receive a chocolate bunny chocolate and have a donation made to the Athens Food Bank in their honor. Get to work, PEEPLE! Show off your Bible knowledge! Be creative, artistic and competitive! And have fun!
If you wish to dedicate an Easter lily in honor/thanksgiving of someone living or in remembrance of someone deceased, please complete the yellow form found in the narthex and leave the form and your donation in the offering plate or in Kendall’s office. You may also email your dedication or call the church office. The suggested donation is $15/lily. The deadline is Sunday, April 10.
This Sunday, March 20, you are invited to a reboot of the beloved Lectionary Class, so faithfully led for so long by Kenneth Taylor until (and even after on Zoom) his recent move across Georgia.
As he has turned over the reins, we will begin again with a look at the Gospel of Luke, the primary source for our gospel readings this liturgical year C, and cover what is important to you in about two chapters each week.
Feel free to read ahead, bring your questions and your favorite Bible with you at 9:15AM in the Parish Hall. Discussions will be led by Ellen Richardson and Ron Balthazor, and hopefully later on by some of you who might like to pitch in and take the lead now and again.
Participation is at your comfort level, whether you like to jump right into the discussion or prefer to listen and learn. All are welcome!