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        912-236-2500

SCHEDULE OF WORSHIP
Week of August 1, 2024                                                        PRAYER LIST 

Sunday, August 4: The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
10:00 a.m.    Nursery Opens
10:30 a.m.    Holy Eucharist: BULLETIN

Livestreamed services can be found on the on the Christ Church YouTube channel


MESSAGE FROM THE REV. SAMANTHA K. MCKEAN

What’s your go-to strategy when you experience disappointment? Are you quick to hush it up, stuffing the bad feeling down and draping it over with forced cheer instead? Or maybe you let disappointment open like a pool and dive in, wallowing there, letting everything else recede to the shoreline? Maybe you fight it, setting your jaw, determined to drive the car of your own destiny and make things go your way? Maybe resentment is what you jump towards, blame an easy place to pin the sense that things should have gone differently?

I’ve tried all of these strategies and more. But the very hardest way to deal with disappointment, I’ve found, is to just let it be.

One of the best things about the Bible is that it’s a mess. There is very little tidy piety to be found there; instead, it’s full of people who look and act a lot like us: more skittish and bumbling than brilliant and bold, getting it wrong more more often than they get it right. And all through the comedies—and tragedies—of their errors, they are loved by a God who seems capable of handling quite a lot of nonsense.

All of this rings through beautifully in the Psalms, our original Prayer Book. Don’t let its neat lines of verse and poetic language fool you: the Psalms are as much a mess as the rest of the Bible, maybe even more so. That’s what makes them wonderful. The psalms range from jubilant to dismal, pleading to vengeful. There are prayers that are petty and shortsighted, wistful and melodramatic, self-inflating and humble. And all of them belong.

It’s kind of amazing, that prayers that have passed through so many centuries of hands to get to us today haven’t been edited down to become a bit more polite. Lucky for us.

What the psalms—and the Bible—teach us is that we don’t need to pretty up our experiences before coming to God with them. When we pray, we are allowed to be cheerful, morose, spiteful, lost, and content. We are allowed to be in whatever place we find ourselves. We are even allowed to be just plain disappointed.

God can handle it. God has handled it before. And often, when we bring our whole, messy selves to God, what we get in exchange is what we need the most: the reminder that we’re loved, just as we are.


CONNECTION

Christ Church Book Group

Thursday, August 8, 10:30 a.m.

Join us each second Thursday in the undercroft as we explore insights from thought-provoking works. This month's selection is Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I've Loved) by Kate Bowler. Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. The book tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.

Savannah VOICE Festival Concert Collaboration

Sunday, August 11, 5:00 p.m.

Next Sunday at 5 p.m., the choirs of Christ Church and First Baptist will join forces with singers from the Savannah VOICE Festival to perform a concert here at Christ Church as part of the 2024 Festival. The concert, titled Sanctuary, features opera scenes and arias that take place in churches—usually with very "worldly" topics! Tickets can be purchased through the VOICE Festival's website.


Donating Flowers for the Altar


Ever wondered how to donate altar flowers for Sunday worship? The flower guild manages these requests, and is glad to hear from you! Flowers can be given in memory of or in thanksgiving for a loved one, with a suggested donation of $100. If you would like to donate flowers, contact Catherine Gussler at cmgussler@gmail.com or 912-222-0888.


Information Session for Faith-Based Dementia Respite Program

Sunday, August 11, 12:00–12:30 p.m.
Green-Meldrim House, 14 West Macon St.

With the support of Bishop Logue, the St. John's Outreach Committee is building a faith-based, intercongregational dementia respite ministry. For four hours a day, participants would join with trained volunteers for a day full of games, music, art, exercise, shared meals, and service projects. The program will be housed at St. John's Episcopal Church, but it would be an intercongregational endeavor. If you are interested in learning more or getting involved, all are invited to an information session on Sunday, August 11 from 12–12:30 at the Green-Meldrim house on St. John's campus. Children are invited to games and lunch at Cranmer Hall during the program. Click here to RSVP, or call the St. John's Church office at 912-232-1251. Please RSVP to svanderlip@stjohnssav.org if you have children wishing to attend.


Christ Church Choristers

This coming fall, Christ Church will start a new chorister program for all children and youth in 3rd through 12th grades. Through this program, young singers will learn musicianship, leadership, music theory and history, as well as the Episcopal liturgy and theology that we practice every Sunday. The program is affiliated with the Royal School of Church Music in America, which shares our Christ Church belief that children are not the church leaders of the future; they are the church leaders of the present. For more information or to sign up, please contact Director of Music George Fergus.

RJGA Book Discussion

Thursdays, 7–8 p.m., July 11–August 1


Join us tonight, August 1, as Racial Justice Georgia completes its four-part discussion series of Dr. Catherine Meeks' recently published memoir, A Quilted Life. The meeting will take place from 7–8 p.m.

Click here for the Zoom meeting link.


Christ Church Website Gets a Makeover



Our updated website is now live! This new version includes up-to-date information in a streamlined, navigable format, without altering the look or feel of the original site. In consultation with the vestry, a communications task force made up of Rosemary Mackey, Sarah Smith, Suzanne Phillips Smith, George Fergus, and Samantha McKean partnered with web designer Seth Golbey to implement these changes. Check it out at christchurchsavannah.org!
 

Save the Date!

  • August 11, Savannah VOICE Festival Concert at Christ Church
  • August 18, Back-to-School Blessing
  • August 18, Pool Party for Kids at Bockius-Suwyn House
  • September 4, Wednesday Noon Service resumes
  • September 8, Interim Rector Canon Cathy Zappa's first Sunday
  • September 8, Adult Forum at 9:30 a.m. resumes
  • September 8, Concert Series: George Fergus, organ
  • September 15, Neighborhood Parties

Next Week at Christ Church


Sunday, August 4: Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
     10:30 a.m. Holy Eucharist

Monday through Friday, August 5–9
     10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Docent Tours

Thursday, August 8
     10:30 a.m. Christ Church Book Group
 

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK







Thanks to Mills Fleming for the photographs.
Centered in Worship
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Joyful Living

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We invite you to worship with us at Historic Christ Church.
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Church Location: Johnson Square | 28 Bull Street
Our mailing address is:
28 Bull Street
Savannah, GA 31401

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