Members' News and Worship Updates

This Week or Coming Soon

Annual Pledge Drive: Due Soon
Each fall we gather our resources for the upcoming year. The vast majority of these financial resources come from our parishioners. To maintain our staff, our worship space, and our ministries we need your help. Please pledge now so we can do accurate and prudent planning for 2024. [ Pledge Link ]

Monthly Men’s Gathering: October 2
We are starting a monthly men’s gathering. Our first meeting will be on Monday, October 2 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm at The Howe, 3675 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis. This is a gathering with one purpose, to meet and get to know each other. Feel free to come for 20 minutes or stay the whole time. This is open to all men from our church and friends. There will always be two of us there so worries that you’d be the only one. See you there.

Women's Retreat Registrations Due: October 2
Our church’s Women’s Retreat’s theme is Strong Women of the Bible. The retreat is open to your female family and friends and is Friday evening, October 13 from 6:30 – 7:30 pm at church and Saturday, October 14 from 9:30 am – 3:30 pm in the Lakeview Room at Hyland Lake Park Visitor Center in Bloomington. The retreat is designed to provide an opportunity to have fun, build new friendships, deepen existing friendships and help you to find inspiration with our discussion of strong women of the Bible led by our own Rev. Susan+. Enjoy a great lunch and chance to relax in nature. It costs Sts. Luke & James $50 per person to put on this retreat. We hope you will make a donation to the church that works for you. If you can make an additional donation over $50, we will use it to defray costs and allow all to attend. Thank you. Registration has proved a little confusing, so if you want to register and still haven’t, or want to add a friend to your registration or you think you may have forgotten to include your sandwich choice for Saturday, please contact Kathleen Boe directly at kathleenkboe@gmail.com. This promises to be a renewing and revitalizing day. We look forward to seeing you there!

First Friday Taizé Prayer: October 6
Wind down your week by joining us Friday, October 6 at 7:00 pm for our Taizé Prayer service. We invite you to spend time with us in meditative prayer the first Friday of the month. Taizé is a form a Christian prayer originating from the ecumenical Christian community of Taizé in France. Each service includes prayer, simple chants, and periods of silent reflection. Song refrains are sung many times to move prayer from the head to the heart.

Blessing of the Animals: October 10
Join us as we honor St. Francis of Assisi and the many ways God shares love with us through Creation. Bring your favorite well-behaved pet or stuffed animal for a blessing at the 10:00 am service.

Permanent Naming Team Update
Please keep the Permanent Name team in your prayers during time of Quiet/Confidential Discernment. Next steps in the permanent name process: • Approval of Bishop Loya by September 30 • Proposed Name to Vestry on October 2 • Vestry Vote on October 9.
The Permanent Naming Team: Dave Larson – Chair, Neal Cuthbert, Jake Fischer, Linda Lyman, Sandy Puckett, and Karin Spencer.

Photo: Outdoor worship on September 10

Photo: Outdoor worship on September 10.

Centering Prayer Group Wednesdays at 6:00 PM
Centering Prayer is a movement beyond conversation with God, to communion with God. It is a deepening of faith in God's abiding presence; of resting in God beyond thoughts, words and emotions. The meeting includes two 20 minute sessions of Centering Prayer, with an opportunity to leave after the first 20 minutes, if desired. We meet in the worship space of the church during the summer. No experience necessary! Please join us. For questions or more information, please contact Jake Fischer: jakebfischer@gmail.com or 605.680.2173. Let Jake know if you have schedule conflicts, if you require an online/Zoom option, or would be interested in helping to facilitate the group.

COVID-19 Protocols
The federal COVID-19 PHE declaration ended on May 11, 2023. Nevertheless, we will continue to monitor conditions that affect our parishioners' health. Our COVID-preparedness team will continue to meet.

• Masks are very welcome, but not required. • You will be invited to come forward for Communion. • You may receive from the chalice if you choose. • We ask that all who are eligible be vaccinated. • Stay home and watch the service on our livestream anytime you are not feeling well, have any cold, flu, or COVID symptoms, or have been exposed to COVID.

At-home Worship: We present recordings of our worship services on our YouTube channel. Typically, the edited service is available by late afternoon on Sundays, but since this is volunteer-driven work, the recording is sometimes published later in the week. Look for our worship service archive on our YouTube channel.

Sts. Luke & James Elder Profiles: Rev Cliff & Kathy Robinson
We continue our recently-launched practice of telling the stories of our parish members aged 75 or older. This week we feature the Elder Profile of Sts. Luke & James members, Cliff & Kathy Robinson . You may also pick up a printed copy at the ushers’ tables, on Sunday. And watch for more profiles of the elders of Sts. Luke & James in weeks to come.

Previous Elder Profiles:
Barb Buehl, Tony Morley, Char Carlson, Al Carlson, Bonnie Carleen, Maxine Richmond, Bobbie Kaufmann, Sara & David Sommer, Marie Radomsky, Jim & JoAnn Grilley, Sarah Sivright, Urve Daigle, Judy Diffley, Joe Ordos, Ruth Anne Olson, Joanna Reeves, Janis & Roger Martin, Fran Doring, Jinny Bouvette, John Wagner & Susan Newman, Jim & Barb Alexander, Cliff & Kathy Robinson,

Building Use
Our church building is used for much more than just Sunday morning worship. Most of our lower level houses a child care that is open every weekday. We host several community groups too. Take a look at an example of a typical week's activities. (Note: the events in the sample are typical, but may change slightly each week. Be sure to contact our office whenever you plan to conduct any event at church!)

Keep in Touch

Connect Your Faith

Worship Videos

First Friday Taizé: 7PM Monthly (No Taizé in July, August or January)
Our Taizé service has returned to the nave (main worship space) and has also returned to its previous time, 7PM. This is a half-hour service of quiet reflection with modern chants (reiterated worship songs). Masks are welcome, but optional, for in-person worship, but you may also join the service via our live-stream on Facebook.

Community Forum
Yes, Community Forum. You might remember our learning community has been called "Adult Forum," then simply "Forum," and now it’s "Community Forum." Why? Because the planning group is very sensitive not only to what plans it makes, but also for whom those plans are made. Adult Forum sounded exclusive: adults only and the implication was that they should be us, insiders. Forum was used for a few months to indicate that all ages were welcome. But it was decided that that, too, was exclusive of people who are not members of the congregation. The Community Forum is for everyone! The group also has made plans to leave open Sundays, mostly so that the incredibly rich and important coffee hours that we spend – really, truly hours! – after the Sunday liturgy might continue to be available with no precluding or intervening events.

Donations
Our existence as a faith community depends upon direct donations from our participants. Your contributions preserve our worship space, pay the staff that are engaged in worship, outreach, and justice initiatives, and directly support projects in our community. Many of our parishioners have found it easiest to set up electronic funds transfers (EFT) by contacting our office. However, we welcome donations via credit card using the links in the Donations section below.

Photo: Bishop Loya presents Rev. Susan Daughtry to the parish

Connect to Information

The Epistle
We publish a newsletter that will help you get to know us, our people, our passions, and our opportunities for engagement. Please take a look at one of our recent editions.

August Vestry Corner
As promised, we started this process of earlier communication about our 2024 budget and yearly calendar, so that we can be more prepared in planning and sharing our time, treasure and community If you haven’t already, please take a look at the 2023 budget and reach out if you would like to see something different in 2024. We have gathered most of our information by the published August date, and are now processing the resources needed both for operating and capital needs. You can still send us ideas. Please reach out to me, or any of the vestry members. Our contact information is in your bulletin and the Epistle.

In our August meeting, your Vestry adopted the national Safe Church Model Policy for Protection of Children and Youth and Safe Church Model Policy for Protection of Vulnerable Adults
We celebrated that each vestry member has been Safe Church Trained. I am happy to talk to anyone about why these are vital policies to have in place for a culture of safety and care among us.

We were presented with two draft documents for further consideration until the September meeting. One is a Finance Policy and Procedures Manual, which will be an enormously helpful reference for current and future stewards of our finances. The other is a side-by-side 2023 budget and 2024 draft budget, so we can assess where we are and where we want to be. I am grateful for our resources, and for the collective reflection of the many members who put them together. Reading the reports accepted in the consent agenda each month, I am grateful to see the literal blossoming of work our members are doing both on and off the vestry. We have approved items that are outside of our operating budget, which are capital expenses. One we approved earlier is now getting installed; our new safety/security system. This will be paid for through the Matsis bequest that was given expressly for capital needs. The second is to survey and stripe our parking lot, which is starting to generate revenue through the daily ParkPoolr App. We also approved costs incurred to move windows representing St. Luke and St. James from the St. James Episcopal Church. These will be installed in window boxes to honor our histories, even as we look to the horizon.

If you would you like to make a report to the Vestry, you can use this form. If you’d like your report to be seen in our upcoming wardens and vestry meetings, your submission must be received by the first of the month.

Vestry Minutes
Our Vestry meets monthly to represent the parish in matters of worship, education, service, community life, and business. Meeting minutes are posted here AFTER they have been approved at the following month's meeting.

Annual Meeting Reports
Here's an archive of our recent Annual Reports.
2022 Written Reports and Agenda: [ PDF ]
2021 Written Reports and Agenda: [ PDF ]
2020 Written Reports and Agenda: [ PDF ]

2022 Full Meeting Video: [ YouTube ]

Donors Area

General Giving

Individual giving is by FAR the source of funds that our community has. We maintain our worship space and grounds, pay our staff, purchase our supplies, and support charitable work.

Pledge Now

Weekly Schedule