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AN UPDATE ON IN-PERSON WORSHIP FROM FATHER DUANE At the regular Vestry meeting this week, the Vestry and I discussed a time-frame for returning to in-person worship. The Vestry voted to not return to in-person worship during the month of July. At the July meeting, it will make a decision about August. I’ll try to summarize our discussion. We considered the moral, theological, and legal implications for our congregation given the size of our buildings and the age and size of our congregation. While our Bishop has given permission to return to in-person and to hold communion services, here are several challenges for our unique situation. The Vestry and I had hoped to hold communion services in July, but we are concerned by the recent uptick in cases around the city and state. Churches are consistently ranked as one of the least safe places to gather during this pandemic primarily because of our openness and welcoming approach to life together. The feeling was that while we all miss in-person worship, we think the health and safety of each of you is more important. As the saying goes: just because one can do something, does not necessarily mean one should do something. Let me assure that when we feel it is safe to gather, we will return to in-person worship with communion. We eagerly hope for this to happen. Some of you may be thinking, “but St. Swithins in the Swamp is gathering and having communion.” We have different communion procedures in our diocese and different theology than other churches. Secondly, most churches are physically larger than Mount Olivet so distancing is not as much of an issue. Our size is typically a great strength of our church because it’s an intimate and warm place. But in the time of a pandemic, a large, half-empty church is an advantage. For me, I’d rather wait and continue to be the village church God has called us to be. Hang in there, friends. Reach out and check on one another. Just because we can’t gather at 530 Pelican Avenue, doesn’t mean we have to lose touch with one another. NEWS & EVENTSEVENING PRAYER at 4pm followed by HALF-CAFF begins Sunday, July 5
Beginning July 5, we will return to each parish hosting a weekly service. For Mount Olivet, there will be a service of Evening Prayer held on Sundays at 4pm. It will be a Book of Common Prayer service with organ music. This will continue to be held online until it is safe to return to in-person worship. You will need a Book of Common Prayer or access at PDF copy on our website. You can stream the service on our new YouTube channel, Mount Olivet Episcopal Church (Algiers Point), and on Facebook. You can also listen to the service over the telephone by calling 504-509-4650 at 4pm. Following the service, there will be our own coffee hour. The link to the new Zoom coffee hour will be sent out next week. If 10am is a better time for you to worship, you are invited to join Annunciation for Morning Prayer. Annunciation parishioners will be invited to participate in Mount Olivet’s 4pm Evening Prayer service if that time works better for them. CHILDREN’S SUNDAY SCHOOL Valeria Emmet will be bringing Sunday School online to our children soon. Please contact Valeria if you are interested. JUNE IS PRIDE MONTH There’s still time to celebrate Pride!
CHURCH SERVICES, EVENTS, ACTIVITIES Here is a complete list of online events scheduled through next Thursday:
HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS Hurricane season has unfortunately not been cancelled. Are you prepared? Check out Ready.nola.gov/plan/hurricane/ for information, checklists, and other helpful resources. If you need help evacuating in the event of a hurricane or other disaster, please let Fr. Duane know. MINISTRY OPPORTUNITIES Readers needed! We need people to pre-record readings for our Sunday worship service! If you have a smartphone or computer with video recording ability, you have all the equipment you need. Please let Fr. Duane know at Duane@AnnunciationEpiscopal.com More than ever, we need beauty in our lives! Sign up for Altar Flowers with Suzanne Fontan at sfontan@entergy.com. PARISH NEWS Neighbors in Need The Algiers Point Lil Free Pantry continues to accept donations at the community garden at 615 Opelousas Street. GIVING The work of the Church goes on, even if the building is closed. Your generosity is needed and appreciated more than ever. Please give what you can, and if you are concerned about being able to fulfill your pledge, just reach out to Cyndi Hardy at Mount Olivet. Together, we can weather these uncertain times. The all-around best way to give is with a recurring contribution through your bank account. It’s easy to set this up online, or Parish Administrator Jessica Jackson can walk you through it. Give her a call at 535-4452. We are also grateful to accept your gift at any time in either of the following ways: Donate online at www.MountOlivet.org/Give. OR text GIVE to 504-565-2682. OR mail your check to your church. PRAYER REQUESTS Prayers for Members of the Armed Forces, especially Sergeant Major Patrick Milstead and TSgt Earl Dontavious Moorer. Prayers for the repose of the souls of the departed. June Birthdays: Dennis Bergeron, Sr. (06/07), Sarah Bullock (06/09), Meredith Blevins (06/18), John Neisler (06/24). Do you or does someone you know need our prayers? Please submit prayer requests by the end of Monday for inclusion in the weekly news/service bulletin by contacting Rev. Duane at Duane@AnnunciationEpiscopal.com or (504) 357-8211. Prayer requests will automatically expire after one month on the list. If you want to renew a request, just let us know. STAYING CONNECTED YouTube Live Our online worship services are best viewed and heard through your internet-enabled TV. Open the YouTube app or channel and use the search window to locate Church of the Annunciation Episcopal and subscribe to our YouTube Live channel. Please note that our online services are live and subject to unforeseen technological glitches. Should our broadcast freeze, lose audio, video, or otherwise be interrupted, be patient. If we haven’t sorted it out in a minute or two, you can try refreshing the page. If it’s been several minutes or you see a notice that the video has been removed (due to overaggressive artificial intelligence monitors), go back to our main YouTube landing page and check to see if we’ve started over with a new feed. Perhaps use this time to pray for your worship team. It certainly can’t hurt. If you are on Facebook, be sure to like and follow us, facebook.com/MountOlivetAlgiersPoint/ Zoom Meetings Zoom is a video-conferencing tool that is free and very easy to use. If you already have Zoom and know how to join a meeting, our meeting IDS are the same as our main phone numbers. 504 895 8697 for Annunciation, and 504 366 4650 for Mount Olivet. We use the same password for all our meetings. Message Father Duane if you don’t know it. Zoom works best when we can all see each other, but if you do not have access to a computer or smartphone with a video camera, you can still join in by telephone. Dial (346) 248-7799 and when prompted, enter the Meeting ID. Call Rev. Duane for the numeric passcode. Weekly News News is emailed weekly and posted to our website www.MountOlivet.org shortly after. If you have announcements to include in weekly news, please send them to Kyran at community@annunciationepiscopal.com.
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