St Andrew's Church Gothenburg

Dear family and friends of St Andrews,

The long hot summer is over and we are enjoying some cooler weather as well as getting much-needed rain. I hope that this has alleviated the problem in the country over the forest fires. We can now look forward to the autumn and the changing season and enter in to a new time in the church. The long green season of Trinity will continue till the first of Advent but as you know the church year really begins at the same time of the Academic Year. A lot of people have been away this summer and now they’re returning and we once again enter into our life together as a community of faith witnessing to the life of Jesus Christ to our community.

Many things have happened in the life of the church largely as far as our infrastructure goes so I will share a few things about that with you now.

In June the committee voted to put the Surplus gained over the past year to some good use. The computer system and printer in the church office has been upgraded. A subcommittee has taken on the task of once and for all dealing with the mold problem which has bothered us for many years. Many of you as a result of the renovations in the church over the past winter have expressed a desire to petition off the back of the church with a transparent wall. During the construction of the new bathroom the old wooden wall which was temporarily constructed proved that the space at the back of the church could be utilized for things like Christian education. It would also give our families who bring children a place to take them during the service if they get restless. Another subcommittee took on the task of having the architect design several options around this and we finally came up with a plan  that seemed to make everyone happy and the city planning board has approved it. Right now it is being investigated as to how we will fund this project and we are reaching out to Grant awarding organizations to help us meet the cost. So more on that later as We Know what is available to us.

The Harvest Festival in our church will be celebrated on the 2nd of September at the morning service at 11 o’clock. Our tradition at St Andrews is that on the Friday before we will have a general cleaning of the church and on Saturday the church will be decorated for Sunday. Please talk to Anne Taylor if you have any questions. We can use all the help we can get to accomplish these tasks. On Sunday at the main service the children will be involved in bringing various food items to the altar to be blessed. I think it would be appropriate on that Sunday to use real baked bread for the communion. So don’t forget that will be Sunday the 2nd of September at the 11 service. And one last but most important note is that we will have a potluck Harvest dinner following the service. You are all asked to contribute some food item for that event. Thank you in advance it has always been a fun time and a good way of inaugurating the many events which will be taking place during the fall.  Also on the 2nd of September there will be a 9:30 service that morning as well.