Newsletter: December Happenings

Click here for the Weekly Info Sheet

This Sunday we are thrilled to be hosting the Vancouver Orpheus Male Choir at 3pm. If you haven’t got your tickets yet, don’t worry! Tickets are available at the door. Those who have attended before know how wonderful this choir is, and this Christmas concert promises to be a real treat.

Speaking of treats, we are eagerly accepting donations of baking for the concert intermission! Do bring something by 11.30am on Sunday if you can. Don’t forget about the Silent Auction: There are beautiful baskets and items available for you to bid on this Sunday afternoon!

Finally, looking ahead to Christmas—if anyone wishes to provide flowers for the sanctuary, please speak to Emily in the office.

Offering Envelopes & Stewardship

Click here the 2024 St Andrew’s Stewardshp plan

click here for the 2024 Pledge Form

All who attend the St Andrew’s Church in Langley are invited to make a financial commitment to the church in order that we can meet our budget and continue to provide Christian ministry in the Anglican style to the people in the neighbourhoods around us. You can give online through our website, you can fill out a Pre-Authorized Debit form at the church entrance, or you can pick up a box of church envelopes, dated for each Sunday of the year. Each person who gives to the church is assigned a number in order to make it easy for our bookkeeper to create and distribute the annual tax receipts, usually in February or March.

Because so many people have moved to online forms of giving, we are doing something a bit different with the offering envelopes this year. In the past, offering envelopes have been specified to a particular person and so your tax receipt number has been printed on the envelopes. This year, your tax receipt number has not been printed on the envelopes, and so you must remember to write it on the envelope before you give it to us at the church. This is to ensure that we are able to account for your contribution and give you and appropriate tax receipt. If you are unsure of your tax receipt number, please speak to Andrew or to Cathy who have the list stashed in the office. You can also just write your name on the envelope.

Write your number!

When you give an offering envelope to the church, please remember to write your name or your tax receipt number on the envelope!

Future Spiritual Practice Retreats

Since cancelling the November Spiritual Practice Retreat, I have received some feedback that there are people interested in having these retreats in the new year. I am willing to help facilitate more of these retreats, but I need your help to be able to make them happen.

Here are some of the jobs that I need help with:

Music - I need one piano player and a few singers to come and help make Evening Prayer something special.

Hospitality - I need one or two people to help make coffee & tea, make or buy snacks, and set up / clean up the hospitality station.

Office work - I need someone to come in and help with printing, folding & stapling both the bulletins for Evening Prayer and any materials that might be required for the retreat.

Set up & Clean up - I need just a couple of volunteers to help set up things like chairs, prayer stations, and anything else we might need in the church.

Ideas - I need all of you who would like to attend these retreats to give me some ideas about what kinds of subjects would be interesting to you. Would you like a retreat on music? Do you want a retreat on how to study the bible? (It’s not good enough for you to say that you’ll just come to anything! I need you to be specific!)

These retreats usually happen the last Saturday of the month in the afternoon. I am open to trying a different time of day if that makes it easier for people to come. Please connect with me or with Emily in the office if you are willing to help make these events happen!

Care Home Ministry

We will visit Harrison Landing at 2:30 pm on Wednesday, December 13th. Please note the time is 2:30 rather than 2pm.

We will visit Harrison Pointe at 2pm on Thursday, December 21st.

For both of these December services, it would be great to have some strong singers join us to help with the Christmas Caroling!

Christmas Services

Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday this year! On Sunday December 24, we will have the regular 8am and 10am services, and then a special Christmas Eve Eucharist at 7pm. Then on Monday, December 25th, we’ll celebrate Christmas Day at 10am.

The following Sunday is December 31, New Year’s Eve. Because so many people will be away, we will cancel the regular Sunday services at St Andrew’s and invite you to join in at either the parish of St George, Fort Langley, or the parish of St Dunstan in Aldergrove. More information about service times will be forthcoming.

If you have any questions about this, please connect with the office.

As always, please let me know if you or anyone you know would like a visit from the clergy!

Love from,

Andrew