June News & Notes
What's happening at St. Jacob's this month
From the Pastor’s Desk
Happy First of the Official Summer Months!
I’m streamlining a few of the ways we do things, and trying to condense our apps and services so our workflow makes more sense. One of those things is using Substack for more than just a place to put my sermon recordings - but also what we’re doing and news about our church life. So if you’ve already been receiving my weekly sermon updates then this won’t be a surprise, and if you were added to our mailing list some other way, then you’ll also be receiving more form us. Thanks for engaging with us from near or far, we’d love to get to know you better, even if you’re not close enough to worship in person with us!
As always if you have questions or would like more info about any of these events, please reply to this email, or reach out to me 605,269 eight eight eight three.
Upcoming Events
For most churches who observe the traditional Church calendar, they have already moved into post Pentecost time, or Ordinary time. But here at St. Jacob’s we’re still looking forward to another of our biggest and newest (to us) festivals, Shavuot! We’re celebrating this time between Pentecost, when the early believers were reacquainted with the Holy Spirit in that upper room, to the holiday of Juneteenth (approximately three weeks). This season recalls the renewal of God’s covenant with His people (all humanity who was interested). It was a time for God to remind us that He will to be our god and inviting us to be His people. He does this through meeting them on Mt. Sinai, the giving of the law, the 10 Ways (commandments), and inviting us to participate in living in His Kingdom.
This year we are doing a new thing with our Shavuot festival. While the Bible talks about having a celebration at the end of the wheat harvest 49 days after Passover, it also has specifications for how to celebrate Passover if you weren’t ready, or were traveling. To me this speaks of God’s great provisions for His people wherever they live and the circumstances they will find themselves in.
Because we live in the far Northern Hemisphere, and because our wheat harvest is hardly in mid to even late May, we are utilizing a new calendar this year.
We are celebrating Pentecost as the start of the Shavuot season, which will culminate on Juneteenth Eve, 6/18 with our journey “through the wilderness”, and picnic celebration in the “land of Milk and Honey”. The first year we celebrated, we barely had a clue what and why we were doing this event. But as we’re experiencing this from the inside and with the ability to reflect after several years, we understand even more deeply, how special this event is. This event celebrates the end of slavery, to people who did not follow God, and how tricky life is as we grow into our freedom.
Juneteenth does not effect many of us directly. We were not a part of the slaveholders, and our ancestors were not slaves in the United States. But it has recently been made a new federal holiday, and as citizens of this country we bear both the grief and celebration of slavery and it’s joyous end! For this reason we’ve chosen to help learn how to keep this new federal holiday as part of our annual Shavuot celebration, since the themes are the same - freedom from slavery, and continued choosing to follow God and the redemption and delivery He offers us in every age from all the things of this life that still enslave us in body, mind and spirit.
We hope you’ll join us as we prepare to continue accepting God’s new life and abundance, and then as we celebrate all that He has done and is continuing to do in our festival!
Other Special Things in June
We will be taking Juneteenth off, so no regular Friday dinner or Bible study on 6/19. Enjoy!
On Friday, 6/27 we will have dinner as usual but no Bible study following.
On Sunday, 6/28 we’ll have Church @ Camp! Please reach out for details about when and where if you are able to join us! Last year we had so much fun with this service.
Dates to Know
Summer is a huge holiday season here, and this year is no different. With a thousand things on the calendar, and a very small congregation, we’re taking a few weekends of vacation, please mark these dates as different in yours!
Our Summer service changes:
7/17-19 - Sabbatical Weekend - No Services
8/2 - No Sunday Service
8/7 - No Friday Dinner/Study
Please also note that if you use google calendar, you can also export our gcal to yours so that you’ll see everything going on there too. If you need help with this let me know and I’ll help you set that up.
Regularly Schedule Events
Men’s game night has also taken a summer sabbatical.
We’ve moved our Women’s breakfast to an every-other week schedule for the summer months! Our summer schedule is 6/4, 6/18, 7/2 7/16, 7/30, 8/13, 8/27 at 7am. Please reach out for details on location.
Upcoming Ministerial Events in Our Community
Vacation Bible School - This event is hosted by the Lead-Deadwood Ministerial Association. We gratefully accept donations for this event, as well as volunteers to help make this a reality in our community! Please mark your calendars for Monday - Thursday evening 5-8pm July 13-16.
VBS Dinner Service - St. Jacob’s will be serving dinner on Monday 7/13 and we’d love for people to come help us serve!
Pray with Us
We continue to thank God for the ways He’s provided for us financially and with resources to keep our little church going. When we started we agreed that when we run out of finances and the doors start to close that’s our sign that our work in this capacity is done. We acknowledged this won’t be a failure but God moving us into another season and chapter. Honestly sometimes it felt like closing would be a relief. It occurred to me that I haven’t said or even felt that niggling desire to be done in some time. I do believe this is God’s work in my life, giving me the strength to keep going, to continue trusting Him not only to provide external resources (space, money, etc.) but all the internal ones we also need to do this work (the many gifts of the Holy Spirit). Thank you for your prayers!
We are in the beginning stages of continuing to develop the New American Orthodox (NAO) denomination. When we birthed these twins two and half years ago, they seemed so much like the same thing: NAO and St. Jacob’s. We dressed them alike, treated them the same and didn’t hardly think of them as separate from each other. But I’m beginning to realize that they are in fact very different. And the NAO deserves to grow up with its own identity and character. It also means that it can mature and birth other congregations and churches of its own. There are already other people who are interested in joining us on this journey, who can’t do that if it’s just our small St. Jacob’s in our particular small town. We pray for God to bring the right board members, the right minds and hearts to help us make this a reality. If you are interested in helping us in any way with this new project, please let me know! I really feel certain that what we’re doing is special, and God is using us to do something in the right place and time. And if that’s not for you, we’d still love your prayers for our guidance, wisdom and most of all that we can listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice and follow wherever He leads. I’ll continue to keep you updated as we continuing building this out!
as always, with love,
Sierra Ward, pastor
