Category: Uncategorized

The Single Moms’ Bible Study that had been planned for March 5 has been postponed until March 12 in order to accomodate to Inner City Mission Trip.  The meeting will begin at the usual time and will return to the first Saturday of the month in April.  For more information contact Lizz Looker.

On Sunday, Father David announced that he wanted to see Church of the Messiah have 100% participation in our Inner City Mission Trip this coming weekend, March 4th-5th.  The response was wonderful!  We have four trays of food donated, three people volunteered to go along (including our much needed female chaperon!), and we received at least four scholarships already (and the count is not finished yet)!  There are still opportunities available.

• We still need volunteers–we have eleven volunteers and we would like to have twenty people helping.  You can come Friday night and stay through the whole time or you can come for any part of the event.
• We still need food–we need to feed around 70 people and we have food for forty right now.  Make a caserole, buy a frozen lasagna, make a run to Sam’s, BJ’s, or Costco’s and pick up some treats for the kids.
• We still need money–We’ve already received four scholarships, but it is $39 per participant, not just per child.  If we are taking twenty people, we need $780!

You can still participate.  Click here to see how and view testimonies.   Call Fr. Scott or Lizz Looker for more info. 

Remember: Our Goal is 100% Participation!

Father David announced that he wants 100% of the congregation participating in the upcoming Late Night at His Warehouse event.  Friday and Saturday, March 4 – 5, our Youth Group will be ministering in downtown Jacksonville in some of the poor neighborhoods in the city.  The Youth Group needs your help.  There are three ways you can participate:

1. You can give money–the cost is $39 per participants and we would love to scholarship students;
2. You can send food–we need to bring enough food to feed between 50 and 70 people Friday night;
3. You can come along–We would love to have twenty people attending and ministering this weekend.  Our Youth Group has eight students; we need your help.  We particularly need female chaperons.  

100% participation means that we need YOU to do SOMETHING! 

Contact Fr. Scott or Lizz Looker to volunteer!

On Sunday, February 20, Fr. David announced the resignation of Brian and Amy Sewell and the youth pastors of Church of the Messiah.  He also announced that Fr. Scott and Lizz Looker would be the interim youth pastors until further notice.   Fr. Scott stated that all of the planned activities, including the steak sale deliveries from Longhorn Steakhouse and the Late Nights @ His Warehouse, would be continuing as planned.  The Youth Group will be meeting Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 8:00 at the Looker home.  One of Fr. Scott’s first actions was creating a youth group web-site.  That site may be found by clicking here.  It will also be in the links sidebar from now on.   On Sunday evening,  Lizz wrote on Facebook, “We are so excited to be named as the interim youth pastors. We have so many great plans!”

Did you ever wonder why some people kneel at times during our service?  Do you want to know when you are supposed to make the Sign of the Cross or, more importantly, why we make the Sign of the Cross at all?  What’s the deal with the incense?  Most importantly, what does any of our worship have to do with the Bible?

Sunday, March 6, Church of the Messiah will be having an Instructed Eucharist.  This means that we will “skip” the sermon that day and in stead we will have someone “narrate” all of the actions taken during the service.  We will explain why we do what we do, what it has to do with the Bible, and answer all of the above questions and more! There will be a special bulletin that will include narrated comments.

This will be a great service to bring a friend and an excellent outreach opportunity.  If you’ve ever brought a friend and they had questions you could not answer, invite them back and tell them they’ll get their answers on March 6!

There is a whole lot going on this weekend at Church of the Messiah!

This Saturday, from 12:30-3:30, we have our annual Fish Fry at the Arlington Senior Citizens’ Center (see below for a map and directions).  Bring a side dish or a dessert and the church will provide the dinner-ware, fish, and, a new addition by special request HUSH-PUPPIES!  There will also be hotdogs for the kids and land-lubbers.  Bring your friends to this wonderful event!

Then, Sunday, immediately after Church, we will be having our Annual Congregational Meeting.  We will be reviewing last year’s budget, presenting the 2011 budget and discussing future plans for Church of the Messiah.  The meeting should be over in less than an hour. 

We’ll see you this weekend!

This Saturday, February 19, is the first of our three Community Gatherings for the year.  We will be having our annual Fish Fry at the Arlington Senior Citizens’ Center at 1078 Rogero Road (see the map below).  Once again Earl Shimp will be providing us with some ofhte best fish in all the seven seas!  There will be hot dogs and hamburgers provided for the little tykes and land-lubbers.  Bring a side dish or a dessert.  There will be activities for our children and youth.  Come together and celebrate our Church Family.  Everyone is welcome; bring your friends!

Saturday, February 12, our youth are participating in a “Work and Play” day at the Arlington Branch of Emergency Pregnancy Services.  We will gather at Brian and Amy Sewell’s at 8:45 or just meet at the Merrill Road location at 9:00 am.

While we were unable to attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C., this year, we can still stand up and put our support behind the pre-born!  While protesting and marching are one way, getting out and assisting those who are one the front lines of the abortion battle is another.  Emergency Pregnancy Services provides assistance to hundreds of women every year and their facility needs to be a warm and welcoming place.

Tomorrow we will spread a few bags of mulch, weed their flowerbeds and trim their roses.  While this may not be “life-saving” work, it allows them to save money on landscaping and direct that money to helping women in need.

While this is a youth event, everyone is welcome.  We will finish up by noon and have pizza together afterwards.

CEC Home, the news page of the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church has published a promotional piece regarding Fr. Looker’s weekly weblog, The Hilltop Shepherd’s Watch.  In addition to announcing the blog, CEC Home has added the Blog to the “CEC Links” sidebar (right between Facebook and Wikipedia!).  This means readers from all across the communion could now be introduced to Fr. Looker’s writings.

On Sunday, February 6, Fr. David announced that we would be having a congregational meeting in two weeks.  He stated, “Although is it not required by the canons (laws) of our Church, we have said that we would always be as transparent as possible and we would live within our means.  Because of that, we will hold a congregational meeting on February 20 to review last year’s budget, present this year’s  projected budget and discuss our plans for the future.”  The meeting will occur immediately after our regular 10:30 service and should be no longer than 45 minutes.  We encourage everyone to make plans to attend.