July 2007 Archives

Father Lawrence has posted an update to his "Rector's Reflections" section of the website.

In this update, he talks about a call for a day of corporate prayer on Sat the 28th. You can read all of the details in his update.

Due to a break in the weather, we are returning our regularly scheduled events at Canterbury House to that location. Previously they had been happening at the Garland Campus, but you can now attend events at Canterbury as we were doing before we got deluged with rain.

The Lew family would like to thank you all for the meals, prayers, notes and cards we received during the last few weeks. Your love was always felt in our hearts and in our home. We read the notes and cards to Linda each day. We also want to thank all who brought food to the reception and to all who participated in the service.

With Love and Thanks,
Tim, Nicci, and Chris

After a technical delay, we now have available the audio files for the first five sessions of Father Lawrence's "The Holy Spirit & You" class. You can download mp3's of the teachings as well as read the entire course schedule at our new page for the class here:

http://www.rowlettanglicans.org/theholyspiritandyou.html

We hope to be current with the future audio downloads from this point. If you have any technical questions about the mp3 files, please email Joe. If you have any questions about the course itself, call the church office. Thanks.

My dear brothers and sisters,

I thank my God for you every time I think of you; and every time I pray for you all, I pray with joy because of the way in which you have helped me in the work of the gospel from the very first day until now. And so I am sure that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus. You are always in my heart! And so it is only right for me to feel as I do about you.”

These words from the opening letter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians sum up my feelings for each of you and the joy I have in my heart as I consider the journey we are on together. Much has been accomplished during the past four months since our separation from the Episcopal Church. However, there are still many issues for us to prayerfully consider. Therefore, with the Board’s support, I am calling the people of Holy Trinity Anglican Church to a day of corporate prayer this coming Saturday, July 28. The Board and I will be on retreat from 8am-5pm to consider God’s will for the future of our church and to hear from Him about the timing of the steps that lie on the path to building a new church. The decision to call the congregation to this day of prayer came out of the Board meeting this past Monday evening. Many issues are before us as a congregation, including a possible name change, paying off the land on Miller Road, strategies for reaching out to the neighborhood around us, incorporating newcomers into the parish, insuring adequate ministry space at our current location, and building a new campus in accordance with God’s timing. These are only a few of the many issues that are before us as a congregation. As you have heard me say before, we must spend more time receiving input from the Lord than input from the world on important matters such as this. I believe that God has the answer to each of the issues that lie before us but we must spend an appropriate amount of time in prayer. Therefore, I ask each of you to commit to spend at least one hour in prayer on Saturday. That may mean five minutes each hour throughout then day, 20 minutes at three different times during the day (before each meal), or one solid hour. Below is a list of requests to guide you during this time of prayer:

• Possible name change for our congregation
• Building Campaign & Master Plan
• How to reach out to and incorporate newcomers to the parish
• Possible ministry space expansion at current location
• Ministry Programs and Outreach for the coming year

Remember the words of James: “If any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all.” (James 1:5)

Thank you in advance for your prayers as we all seek the Lord’s will. May God bless each of you.

Faithfully in Jesus,

Father Lawrence Harrison

Do you know what an Alb is? How about the difference between Catholic and catholic? Or perhaps you're confused about the differences between an assistant Bishop, a Co-adjutor bishop, a Diocesan bishop, or even a Suffragan bishop? Perhaps you've never really known the difference between a high church and a low church is. No idea what any of these things are?

Well, we have something for you. A new page on our website here is the "Anglican Dictionary". In addition to the terms listed above, you'll find definitions for a boatload of other terms in use in the Anglican church.

Go give it a read, and if you have any questions about the terms used there, drop us a line about it. The same goes if you have a problem with the definition used, or perhaps you wish to suggest a term that isn't there, then please, let us know.

UPDATE Jul 16th from Joe Siegler: Version two of the dictionary is online. Originally posted just about two weeks ago, we've already had a big change in format to the dictionary. Version 2 is a bit more organized. There are pages now for each letter in the alphabet (although X, Y, & Z have no active definitions), and there are individual pages for each entry too. The upside of this is that the software that drives this site is a database based solution, so I can use it to do the "heavy lifting" instead of the first version where I hand coded it all myself. Don't know why I didn't think of this the first time. However, the single biggest thing in v2 of our dictionary is you can search through it! There is now a search capability in the dictionary where you can look up whatever term you want.

I've also added a few pictures where relevant for items. Going forward, I will be checking my church photo archives for anything relevant, and will be taking pictures of certain items to enhance the usability of the dictionary. A couple of examples of the photo additions can be seen here, here, and here.

The new location is http://www.rowlettanglicans.org/dictionary/index.html. As usual, if you have anything to say about this, drop me an email, or let me know at church. Thanks!

The sermon files on the website have been updated, and are now current. This includes both sermons from the Sunday July 8th services.

If you were not in attendance at the 11AM service, you will want to listen to this special sermon by Father Lawrence about Linda Lew.

You will not want to miss it.

You can reach the sermons page here.

Every week we all enjoy the fruits of the altar guild’s labors. Now they could use a few more willing hands to join the team. Please see Nila Hopkins, or call her at 972-270-3039, for more information or to volunteer.