Welcome to St. Luke’s! We invite visitors and guests to come and explore this community at worship, at work caring for God’s world, and in fellowship together as we seek to create a community of faith in the city. There is a visitor card in the pew rack; if you’d like a call this week, please fill out the card and give it to the pastor or place it in the collection plate. Please join the congregation for refreshments after worship in the Wesley Room.
Welcome, children! Our nursery is located upstairs. Just follow the signs. Mrs. Fatu Colley is in charge of the nursery. The nursery is available from 10:45 until 12:15. Parents can take their infants, toddlers, and younger preschoolers to the nursery at any time during the service.
Older children worship with the rest of the congregation, leaving during our final hymn for twenty minutes of worship arts with Amy Catania and Deke Polifka, then rejoining their families during coffee hour.
Summer Music Camp Registration. The dates for children’s summer music camp will be July 11-15. This program filled up very fast last year, and there will be a limit of 25 children. This year Deke and Joyce are writing a musical for the children! For more information please talk to Deke (deke@saintlukesmethodist.org)
Tuesday Night Study Group. The Tuesday night study group, inspired by the election of a new pope, will be spending the next few weeks reading and discussing articles we find to share on the Catholic Church today, with the hope that we can compare our own United Methodist experience and tradition with the Catholic. If you want to participate, we’ll be sharing internet links each week, so please email the church office to be on the group list. We meet 7:30-8:30 in Anne’s office (enter by the church office door in the back of the church).
Today - Thomas Circle Singers at Second Sunday Concert. Come hear the Thomas Circle Singers at 2:00 pm in the sanctuary on May 8th. The concert will be followed by refreshments and an opportunity to meet the artists. Bring Mom (your own or somebody else’s)!
May 15th - All-Church Conversation -- Proposed Reconciling Statement. On May 15, St. Luke's will hold a church-wide conversation to consider formal adoption of a Reconciling Statement similar to that adopted by hundreds of other United Methodist Congregations across the United States. This statement would publicly reaffirm St. Luke's continuing welcome into our congregation persons who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. This statement would be a reflection of our welcome and inclusion of all of God's children and our continuing goal of expressing God's love and desire for justice in our world.
May 15th – Church Council will meet following the congregational meeting.
May 15th – Our turn with Shelter dinner. On the third Sunday of each month a group of St. Luke’s members and friends prepares and shares dinner with the Shelter residents. Dinner is for about 12 people. We meet at the Shelter at 6:45 and leave before 8:00 pm. If you would like to participate in this enjoyable experience, please contact Cory Scott at scootc@urbanretail.com.
May 22nd – New Member Sunday. We will receive new members into the life of the congregation. If you have been thinking about becoming a member, please talk to Anne.
May 22nd – Hymn Sing. There will be a Hymn Sing during worship on May 22nd. What’s a hymn sing? It’s an opportunity to sing that hymn that has particular meaning for you, or to introduce the congregation to a hymn we don’t all know yet. During Hymn Sings we sing each other’s songs of faith, and so expand our appreciation for each other and for our diverse worship traditions. Come ready not only to choose a hymn for all of us to sing, but also to tell why it’s important to you.
Annual Conference May 26-30. As a connectional church, we are one congregation among some seven hundred who comprise the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference. Each of the Annual Conferences in the United Methodist Church meets once a year for worship, fellowship, and discussion and voting on new direction in the life of the Annual Conference. (Every four years, elected representatives from each Annual Conference gather in a General Conference for the same purposes.) Annual Conference this year will be held in Baltimore. Adam Briddell is St. Luke’s lay member to Annual Conference, and will report to the congregation during worship on June 5th.
Narthex Decorating Task Force Sought. The narthex is the first space most of our visitors enter when they come to St. Luke’s for the first time. The church council would like to make it a more welcoming space, and seeks a few people to form a narthex decorating task force. If you think this would be fun, please contact Sonia Kassambara or Shalom Mulkey.
St. Luke’s Shelter is a ministry of St. Luke’s Church. The Shelter, which is located in the church, provides a small group of homeless men with a secure residence for up to six months. The Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place refers residents to the Shelter. The Shelter operates every night of the year. The dinner meal is provided 365 nights of the year by neighbors, members of nearby churches and synagogues, and several Wisconsin Avenue restaurants and grocers.
St. Luke’s Shelter Next Step Kitchen is a program of St. Luke’s Shelter and St. Luke’s Church, providing job training in restaurant skills for homeless men and women. The program is located downstairs in the St. Luke’s kitchen. For more information, go to www.saintlukesmethodist.org.
Many thanks to the most recent donors of St. Luke’s Shelter: the Escheated Estates Fund of the District of Columbia; The Workers of St. Alban’s; Fannie Mae Help the Homeless Walkathon; and many, many neighbors and friends. Donations to St. Luke’s Shelter can be made through the Sunday offering (by designating St. Luke’s Shelter) or by mail to St. Luke’s Shelter, 3655 Calvert Street, NW Washington, DC 20007.
About St. Luke’s Choir. The St. Luke’s choir rehearses every Sunday morning at 9:30 am. The St. Luke’s choir seeks to strengthen our worship by encouraging congregational singing, by honoring the varieties of the congregation’s faith heritages and traditions, and by embracing new ways of discovering God’s presence in our lives, through worship that is vibrant and alive. You don’t have to be able to read music to be a part of St. Luke’s choir. We keep it simple. For more information, contact Director of Music Ministry Deke Polifka, deke@saintlukesmethodist.org.
Jazz in the Garden … Coming Soon! Summer is right around the corner, and with summer comes Jazz in the Garden, a Thursday evening concert series for the whole neighborhood. Bring your picnic supper and friends and enjoy a delightful evening in the St. Luke’s garden. Jazz in the Garden will celebrate its fourth summer in 2005! All concerts are free and all are welcome.
Coming Soon … St. Luke’s Guest House! We are developing a new ministry of hospitality for student and church groups visiting DC for experiential learning and advocacy. For more information, check out the web site at www.saintlukesmethodist.org
St. Luke’s web site is always current! Check it out at www.saintlukesmethodist.org. Thanks to Derek Willis for making this happen.
Put yourself on the map. We have a map on the wall in the Wesley Room so that we can see where everyone is from and also the places we all keep in our hearts. Please add your places during coffee hour today.
Sermon copies for the hard of hearing can be picked up every Sunday in the narthex. Each week’s sermon is also available on the web.
Joys and Concerns…
Karen shared the blessing and joy having Kojo as her son as he turns ten
The joy of Shalom and Nate’s upcoming marriage
The joy that Terri’s parents are here today
For Drew, whose grandmother died
Sharon shared the joy of having Shalom as a daughter-in-law
For Likando who still has pneumonia
For Missy’s neighbor Bill, who is missing
For Beth Stroud and for the United Methodist Church as it moves toward becoming an inclusive denomination
For Susan Calloway, former staff member at Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place, with cancer
For Penny’s sister-in-law in London
For Nedi’s family
The joy of friends visiting from Saudi Arabia
Curt brings greetings from Betty Lawrence at Knollwood
For Gary, husband of Sonia’s co-worker
The joy of Sonia’s mother’s promotion
The joy that Leslye’s brother Wade was named Teacher of the Year by his school
Continued prayer for Martha
For the people of Sri Lanka
For our congregation as we explore the process of becoming a reconciling congregation
For St. Luke’s future pastor, Dave Myers, and for his wife Deb, in this time of transition
Continued prayers for Betty Lawrence at Knollwood
For peace
For the Pyle’s young friend Eric
For our military in Iraq and for the people of Iraq, and for our leaders that they may lead with wisdom
For the children and staff of Wings of Hope Orphanage, in Haiti.
For Prince of Peace Methodist Church in Holguin, Cuba
For the community of St. Luke’s Shelter.
For those living with HIV/AIDS
For our members who are unable to attend because of their health: Emma Cox, Jeanne Goss, Lucille Dade, and Margaret Roberts.
Our Mission Statement
St. Luke’s United Methodist Church seeks to serve the community’s spiritual and physical needs. We are a small congregation dedicated to creating an atmosphere of inclusiveness in which all feel welcome to worship. At St. Luke’s, we try to follow the example of Christ’s ministry and teaching by sharing our building, our time and our prayers in many community partnerships. We embrace new ways of giving thanks and work to teach the joy of God’s grace to all whom we can reach.
We follow in the Wesleyan tradition in our belief that “scriptural holiness entails more than personal piety; love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice and renewal in the life of the world.”