SUNDAY, JANUARY 24, 2021, 14^TH SUNDAY OF LUKE

Memorials:    

THOMAS SIMEON – 40 Days

KAITI SINIS – 3 Months

May their memory be eternal!

SERVICES THIS WEEK:

Saints Constantine and Helen services are open for parishioners and we encourage those who are not in high-risk categories to attend services.  Parish guidelines regarding capacity limits and safety restrictions are posted on the home page of our church website, https://www.stcons.org

The church building is professionally cleaned, disinfected, and sanitized weekly. 

We strongly encourage those who will not be attending church to participate in services through our website, at  https://www.stcons.org/video-streaming  

Sunday, January 24    14^TH SUNDAY OF LUKE - Orthros 9:00 am, Divine Liturgy 10:00 am

If you wish to follow along with the text, please use the link listed below:https://www.agesinitiatives.com/dcs/public/dcs/p/s/2021/01/24/li/gr-en/se.m08.d30.li.pdf

LIGHT A CANDLE AND SAY A PRAYER:  When you are not able to attend church, you can purchase a candle from our church website (home page or video-streaming page), which Father Teodor will light before the following service or a service that you specify.  Please give specific names, living or deceased, that you would like Father to remember in prayer.  Father will light candles one hour before each service.  For Sunday services, please place candle orders prior to 8:00 am Sunday morning.

Please Pray For:  Michael, Barbara, Lisa, Pat, Christopher, Jonathan, Alexandra, Tracy, Dianna, Lazarus, Henry, Betty, Catherine, Susan, Evelyn, Gregg, Peter, Stella, Ann Marie, Vasilios, Carol, George, Demetri, Steve, Molly, Maria, Elizabeth, Carol, Evans, Katherine, Mike, Connie, Mary, Margaret, Angela, Connie, Bill, Carrie, Vito, Pete, Amalia, Stephanie, Lisa, Connie, Jacob, Anastasia, Rima, Kylie, Effie, Nicholas, and Maria. (Names may be added by request. Please contact the church office)

UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES:

ADULT BIBLE STUDY:  Our Bible Study group will meet on the Zoom platform on Tuesday, Tuesday, January 26^th at 7:00 pm.  All adults are welcome to join the conversation, as we study of the Book of Job.  Zoom link is: https://zoom.us/j/7345256789, Meeting ID: 734 525 6789  If you have trouble connecting, or are in need of more information, contact: stcons2@gmail.com

GODPARENTS’ SUNDAY: Our next “Family Sunday” will be Valentine’s Day, February 14^th. On that day, our parish will celebrate Godparents’ Sunday.  Please plan to attend church and take communion with your Godchildren/Godparents on that day.

AMERICAN RED CROSS BLOOD DRIVE: As our country continues to deal with the COVID pandemic, the need for blood is greater than ever. On Thursday February 25^th, from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm, we will be hosting another American Red Cross blood drive in the Hellenic Cultural Center. To schedule an appointment, please log onto RedCrossBlood.org (our sponsor code: stcons) or call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) today.

NEWS AND NOTICES:

CYBER SECURITY ALERT:  Some parishioners have received a text or email that appears to be coming from Fr. Teodor asking for help.  If you receive something like this, PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND!  This is a scam, and they will try to give a story of someone in urgent need, or ask you to buy ITunes gift cards, etc. to help them out.  FR. TEODOR WILL NEVER ASK PARISHIONERS FOR HELP IN THIS WAY. If you are in doubt, please call the church office or Fr. Teodor directly.  Other area priests and churches have also been targeted by this scam.

Any time you receive an email or text from someone that sounds like it could be a friend, family member, etc, and it asks for money or gifts cards or anything of that sort, never answer it.  Always call the person whose name is being used to verify the issue and to let the person know that his or her name is being used in a scam.

STEWARDSHIP PLEDGES:  All parishioners must complete a Stewardship Pledge form each year to be considered a “member in good standing” at an Orthodox Church.  All parish households were mailed 2021 Stewardship Pledge Forms and the 2021 Archdiocese Calendars by mail; forms can also be picked up at the Pangari or Church office.  Please bring your completed pledge form with you when you attend church.  This year, if it is more convenient, you may also complete your 2021 Stewardship Pledge online at our website, at https://www.stcons.org/stewardship 

ICONOGRAPHY: There are still icons available for sponsorship, and we are still in need of general donations of any amount to complete our fundraising on Phase One: East and Dome. We are about 92% to completion of our fundraising goal! For those who are interested in sponsoring an icon, please talk to Father Teodor or contact the church office for more information

SINGLE AND ORTHODOX: This group’s purpose is to connect actively practicing single Orthodox Christians together and build new relationships. We will focus on providing positive social outlets, virtual events, retreats, and networking opportunities.  Check them out on Meetup.com and get connected today! www.meetup.com/orthodox-christian-singles-of-michigan/ 

IOCC YOUTH LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE:  Applications are now open for the IOCC (International Orthodox Christian Charities) Serve-X-Treme Youth Leaders in Service Conferences, to be held July 17 – 30 in Minneapolis, MN.  Emerging leader participants must be a high school senior as of fall 2021.  Youth gain leadership skills, a new understanding of service and volunteer opportunities within the IOCC, and new friendships with Orthodox youth from around the country.  For more information, https://iocc.org/take-action/serv-x-treme

VOLUNTEER NEEDS: At this time, we are particularly in need of Adult Greeters, Ushers, and Youth and Young Adult Readers for Sunday services. We are also in need of volunteers to help with office/building clean up and organization tasks.  If you can help, please contact Annette at the church office 734.525.6789 or stcons2@gmail.com

QUESTIONS FOR FATHER TEODOR: In this unusual year with no regular Sunday School classes, Father Teodor will take a few minutes on Sunday mornings to answer questions from our young people (or adults!) about our faith. Questions can be submitted online using this link:  https://forms.gle/7ae8mqd6DNSghbQs6

HELLENIC CULTURAL CENTER BOOKING:  At the current time, the HCC is booking events beginning March of 2021. Masks and social distance restrictions are still in place, along with increased precautions in the preparation and serving of food and drink. Although they are not yet keeping regular office hours, if would like to discuss future bookings or other issues with the HCC staff, please contact Victoria at 734.525.3550 or Kathy at 313.303.6350 or helleniccc@gmail.com

STEWARDSHIP: NO MAGIC PILLS

(Excerpt from a past article by Fr. Mark Sietsema, Holy Trinity GOC, Lansing, written prior to the COVID pandemic – no travelling lately!)

Traveling as I have so much over the last three months, and being one who sleeps poorly in hotel rooms, I have seen lately more than my share of television at what I call the “Magic Pill Hour”, those wee hours of the morning when you can flip channels and find infomercial after infomercial touting the miracle solution to every problem in our American life.  You only need three easy payments of $19.95 … if you call right now, operators are standing by.

We don’t want to sweat.  We don’t want to strive.  We don’t want to wait patiently for results.  We are a society that is addicted to quick fixes.

But quick fixes are rarely good fixes. 

Stewardship of our church is one of those areas where we have indulged the fantasy of magic pills.  Why do we have this community, with this building and this staff and these activities?  In a word, salvation.  This whole business of church—and it behooves us to use the word “business” in this discussion—this whole business of church exists for one reason and one reason only.  To bring you to salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord.  You are here because you understand yourself to be perishing and you seek from God the salvation that you need.

Now, who should pay for your salvation?  You?  Or someone else?  The costs associated with spiritual development: who should bear them?  You?  Or some non-parishioners with a taste for souvlaki and baklava?  Churches have budgets: too often churches try to meet that budget in ways that involve other people’s money.  We make plans to get salvation and to have someone else foot the bill.  Often such plans don’t work so well.  And even when the fund-raising projects succeed, they fail—because they give the parishioners a sense that the working out of their salvation falls to a third party and not utterly on themselves.

There is no magic pill to replace stewardship.  Only dedicated, regular, sacrificial giving of your treasures, proportional to the blessings you receive—only this in the long run serves to fund churches adequately. 

It’s a lot to ask.  And the church wouldn’t ask it of you … except it’s the only way.  Nothing else works. Like diet plans that call for no “carbs” or no meat or only salads before 3 pm, quick fixes don’t work for very long.  If you want to lose weight, the only proven approach is the slow steady lifetime approach of diet and exercise, of sweat and self-discipline. If you want to have a church, a community with a building to house its worship and its activities, you have to ante up. You have to give—and give a lot.

And you have to give up things you might otherwise like.

You have to make your church the top priority in your charitable giving, and not number two or three on the list.  There are lots of other worthy causes out there—the museum, the symphony, Doctors without Borders— but spiritual health starts with a healthy local church.  No other organization in history has been the seedbed for human compassion like the Christian Church.  It is the soil in which most other humanitarian movements have sprouted.  

And to be a good steward, you also have to balance your spending on creature comforts. You have to weigh the pleasures of life against the good of your soul.   It is problematic when a Christian spends more in a year on the country club than he gives to his church, or spends more on concerts or season tickets or cable TV than he gives to his church.  There is a problem there, a profound problem of spiritual wellness.

Here’s the bottom line: good stewardship is hard.  We fool ourselves when we fail to say that out loud.  It’s really a burden to keep a church going, a burden on the families that hope to find salvation through the church.   A lot of churches advertise stewardship like something fun and easy.   It isn’t.  It won’t be.  And if it is, then whatever you’re doing isn’t really stewardship.

There is no magic pill.

Full article available at:
https://www.goarch.org/-/stewardship-no-magic-pills?inheritRedirect=

Memorial Service Information:  Please call the church office to schedule memorials in a timely manner so we can include the information in the bulletin.  On the day of the service, please bring a list of family names you would like Father to remember in prayer. At this time, due to COVID restrictions, koliva that has been prepared for the memorial service cannot be distributed to parishioners, but will be returned to the family to take home.  We are not currently allowed to have coffee hour, or distribute any cookies, paximadia or koulourakia.

Non-Orthodox Visitors Please Note:  Holy Communion is offered to Orthodox Christians who have properly prepared themselves.  Visitors are welcome to receive the Antidoron (Blessed Bread), which is distributed at the end of the Divine Liturgy.