Worship Services
Services
Eucharist:
2nd Sundays 10:30 am with Pastor Steve Quist
Summer 3rd Sundays with the Rev. Coleen Tully
Morning Prayer:
1st,3rd, 4th, and if a 5th Sunday 10:30 am with Licensed Lay Worship Leaders
Vestry - Lay Leadership
Sue Fritz, Administrator, Altar Guild
Mike Martin, Evangelist & Licensed Lay Worship Leader
Bruce Louwagie, Jr. Warden & Licensed Lay Worship Leader
BC Franson, Sr. Warden & Licensed Lay Worship Leader
Gary Fritz, Treasurer, Vestry & Eucharistic Minister
Charlotte Wendel, Vestry & ECMN Delegate
Episcopal News Service:
Calendar - Click on link
If you have church activities to post on the calendar email info to mmleach@me.com
Gatherings
Vestry- 4th Sundays after church
Episcopal Church Women (ECW)
Dinner Bunch - Food and Fellowship monthly hosted and cohosted in people's homes
Men of St James (MOSJ)
Youth Group - Activities scheduled regularly. Charlotte Wendel and BC Franson Co-Leadership.
Contact Charlotte Wendel, cwendel37@gmail.com or BC
Franson, bc.franson@smu.edu, Youth Fellowship Leaders, for Youth Group Information
Bp Loya's Message 8.29.25
Beloved in Christ,
At last night’s interfaith vigil at St. Mary’s Basilica in Minneapolis, Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman offered a moving reflection on the description of Rachel weeping over her lost children in Jeremiah 31. She called us to draw together across our faith traditions to join God’s project to build a world where there are no more Rachels weeping over their lost children.
In the passage, the prophet’s poignant lament is, as ever, interwoven with a restatement of God’s promise to love and restore God’s people from their present devastation. Later, Jeremiah calls the people to “set up road signs, put up guideposts,” and take note of the highways” they will travel back to the promised land.
Weeping with God over what is lost, remembering the promise, and posting signs to point the way is now, as it has always been, the work of the leader among God’s people.
Now is a time for us as a church to do that work with clarity and courage. The plain truth is that we are creating many weeping Rachel’s by our refusal to pass basic gun control laws. The plain truth is that an authoritarian and xenophobic political movement is eroding our democracy, and clothing itself with the stolen name of Jesus. Now is the time for us to show up looking, sounding, and acting like the real Jesus in the world. Now is the time for us to remember that the stakes of the gospel are high, and that following Jesus asks something big of each of us. Now is the time to remember that the Eucharistic communities we serve are not nice gatherings offering maudlin spiritual comfort, but are in the business of subverting the world’s violence with God’s irresistible love.
When we lead with clarity and courage, not everyone will be happy about it, and not everyone will want to come along. The inclusive gospel of Jesus also draws clear lines about what God does and does not tolerate. As you prepare to preach this weekend, remember that while it is not our job to appease people so they will stay on the journey, and it’s not our job to turn the liturgy into a political rally, it is our job to keep pointing clearly and unambiguously to what God promises, and to what God asks of us. It’s our job to put up signs on the road that point to God’s promised reign of peace, so that our whole church becomes sign posters, ushering the whole world into a future where Rachel weeps no more.
I cherish each of you, and I thank God for you.
Grace and Peace,Width12000Width3 Width6000Width3 Width6000Width3 Width6000Width3 Width5400Width3 Width12000Width3 Width12000Width3 The Right Reverend Craig Loya
X Bishop
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God's Hands in the World
PASTORAL LETTER FROM THE BISHOP NOV. 8
VIDEO LINK
https://vimeo.com/476330770
To All God’s Beloved in Minnesota,
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ.
On this Lord’s Day, we gather in the wake of one of the most bitterly divisive presidential elections in our nation’s history. We have known for some time that either outcome would be a painful disappointment for about half of our population, including many, many Minnesotans.
The narrative in popular media would have us believe that there are two Americas: red and blue. The real story, however, is not that simple. The electoral map is not the only fracture in the fabric of our national life. The challenges of 2020 have exposed a labyrinthine network of chasms that cut across social, economic, and racial lines, to name just a few. After the votes are counted, we remain a deeply divided nation.
In his second letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul reminds us that “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Jesus repairs the breech between us and God, and as baptized disciples, the Spirit sends us to be repairers of the breech with God. One of the marks of the Holy Spirit’s activity in the world is when dividing lines of every kind are crossed, and exclusion is turned to embrace. Our mission is to join the Spirit in that work.
But make no mistake: the reconciliation that we are called to work for is not a mere compromise. It is not settling for an easy peace with the forces of evil that are real in our world. It is not simply agreeing to disagree, pretending that we have not inflicted wounds on one another, or that Christians should check the public square at the church door. The reconciliation we are called to is about inviting one another to embrace the politics of Jesus. The politics of Jesus are neither red nor blue. The politics of Jesus are about embracing the poor, loving our enemies, feeding the hungry, lifting up the oppressed, reforming the unjust structures in society, seeking good for the other instead of insisting on our own way, disregarding the boundaries of social exclusion, calling out our own self-interested hypocrisy and that of our religious and civic leaders, making room at the center for those who have been pushed to the margins. Those are the things that Jesus actually did. These are the marks of what it means to be his followers in the world.
The kind of reconciliation Paul knew, and exhorts us to, is what happens when we allow our selfish desires, our insistence on our own way, our idolatrous commitments to national identity or political party, to be crucified with Jesus, so that we are raised to new life in the ecstatic embrace of God’s love. I can tell you from my own hard-won experience that such a death and resurrection is the only way we can truly be free
Our world is crying out in every corner to know and feel that liberating, life-giving love.
As 2020 draws to a close, many of us are anxious about the future of our beloved old Episcopal Church. While we can be sure that God will always have the church God needs, the future of our branch will depend largely on whether we are willing to commit ourselves to Jesus’ way of love with a fierce and singular passion. That love, and that love alone, has the power to mend the fractured fabric of our common life. The message of Jesus will always be compelling to the world, but only when its followers live the politics of love with radical integrity and authenticity.
That, beloved, is the work that lies before us. As we gather on this and every day, are we willing to allow our own preferences, our own desires, our allegiance to anything that is not of God, to be crucified with Jesus? Are we willing to love our enemies, seek good for each other, embrace the millions on every side of the election who are poor and oppressed, repent of the ways our institutions, including our own church, collude in the lie that some lives are worth more than others? Are we willing to give away our own comfortable pew in order for someone else to have a seat at God’s table?
The coming months and years will continue to be full of division and challenge. From where I stand, there is nothing more important any of us can give our one life to than joining the Spirit’s project of healing our hurting and divided world with love. Giving ourselves up, and giving ourselves over to that love is the way to true, abundant, and everlasting life. Thanks be to God we have been invited into that work. Thanks be to God we have been given the gift of one another as Minnesota Episcopalians. Thanks be to God for each of you, who are precious, cherished, and loved so much more deeply than you can imagine.
Yours in the Way of Love,
The Right Reverend Craig W. Loya
X Bishop
The Episcopal Church in Minnesota
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From the Right Reverend Craig W. Loya
X Bishop, The Episcopal Church in Minnesota
November 6, 2020