Make your Lenten Journey a journey. This Stations of the Cross resource is intended to get people out of their homes to experience the story of Jesus’ passion and to consider the story of the neighboring community. This is for you to use in a way that makes sense for you. You can do it all by yourself. You can make it a family affair. You can create a caravan of folks. Most importantly use this resource to deepen the relationship with Jesus who suffers, dies, AND rises for your sake and for the sake of the world. You may find the locations, scripture, and prayers here.
At its heart, Christmas is a celebration of the wondrous power of God’s love breaking into the weary world through the birth of a savior. Christmas is a celebration of hope, of joy! It’s a celebration we await with hopeful expectation every year, but perhaps with even more longing this year.
While it may not be exactly as years past this year, St. Philip will joyfully celebrate the coming of our savior again this Christmas Eve. There will be two different opportunities for worship. Please make plans to attend!
At 7:00pm there will be a Community Candlelight Celebration on the lawn beside the church. The whole Roanoke community is invited to come for a short service where folks will hear the Christmas story and sing Silent Night by candlelight. This will be an outdoor, masked, and socially distant event.
Then, at 9pm, join on Zoom for a live Christmas Eve worship service. This service will look more familiar to a traditional Christmas Eve service and will be accessible through computer or phone. The Zoom gathering will open at 8:30pm to allow for a half hour of fellowship before the service begins. To access the meeting go to www.zoom.com and enter meeting i.d. 875 0473 1483. The passcode is 24019. Please You do not need a computer or internet to join! Just call into the meeting from your landline or cell phone at 13017158592. At the prompt use the meeting i.d. and passcode above.
On December 27, the congregation will celebrate the First Sunday of Christmas with a service of Lessons and Carols. This service will be shared in our typical digital and conference call formats.
While it may look different than we’re used to, celebrations this year will be as joyful and meaningful as ever. Please make plans to attend worship at St. Philip.
On November 28, St. Philip will again host the Feast at Philips event to love, feed, and serve the Roanoke community in the holiday season. As with many things, the Feast will look different to ensure we are serving safely, but we are grateful for the opportunity to serve. This year, the congregation will be serving to-go meals only. All meals will be packaged at St. Philip and then distributed throughout the community – first responders, assisted living centers, apartment communities and other members of the community.
Additionally this year, St. Philip will be partnering with Trinity Lutheran on Williamson Road to distribute meals to community members from their location. To accomplish this, the Feast team will certainly need your help! Information will be sent out soon on how to help, but go ahead and mark the date on your calendar.
Cooked hams, turkeys, food packagers, trucks for delivering food, food deliverers, and financial donations will all be needed. You may volunteer to help or make financial contribution at this electronic sign up form and as always offering, including ones designated for Feast at Philips, can be made using the the Give Now link. Thank you in advance for the awesome ways you support this important community ministry.
St. Philip will host its annual Blood Drive on October 12 from 10am-4:00pm and October 13 from 1:00pm to 7:00pm. These dates are to accommodate the large number of donors the St. Philip drive serves while maintaining social distancing practices.
Please note that because of COVID-19 NO WALK-INS WILL BE ACCEPTED. All donors must make appointments. To schedule an appointment, you may go to redcrossblood.org and search for blood drives in 24019 zip code or contact Debbie Kanode at dwkanode@comcast.net. We are excited for this opportunity to serve our community!
On Come and See Sunday we remember the calling of the disciple Philip and his simple invitation to his friend Nathaniel. Along with Nathanael we celebrate the promise that Jesus is the Son of God, the messiah and hear Jesus call to each of us to follow by making the same simple invitation – Come and See. This year at St. Philip Lutheran we celebrated by asking Where do you see God active in the life of the church? These are the stories told in images and quotes from members.
For the past 26 years one of the most gratifying ministries at St. Philip has been a semi-annual blood drive held in May and October each year. Started by St. Philip members Margaret Mitchell, Ruth Farmer, Virginia Cassell, and Helen Miller in 1993, blood drives hosted by St. Philip Lutheran have collected a total of nearly 9,000 units of blood and have saved over 26,500 lives.
St. Philip Lutheran’s next blood drive is Monday, May 11, 2019, 11:30am – 7:00pm. The last day to donate blood elsewhere and still be eligible to give whole blood at St. Philip is March 10.
Please consider donating blood. Extend an invitation to your neighbors, friends, and colleagues to donate on May 11.
Lots of help from the congregation is needed to make sure the blood drive will be a success. Please look for a sign up sheet in the gathering space later in March or speak to Debbie Kanode to volunteer.
Life is a beautiful gift, one that we treasure deeply. St. Philip is hosting a three-part event to learn more about how we can celebrate life as aging adults. In March, there will be three sessions covering many important aspects of caring for elderly adults, including hospice care, legal processes, funeral planning, and legacy gift giving. These sessions will be held on March 1, March 15, and March 29. Each session will follow the 11:00 service on Sundays and include a light lunch. Please RSVP to the church office if you would like to attend these informative sessions! If you have questions, please see Pastor Laura.
In recent years, there has been an unfortunate increase in scamming attempts. It is important to understand what these scams can look like and how to avoid becoming a victim of scams. On February 15 from 12pm-3pm for a seminar and light lunch will be will be hosted by the League of Older Americans and St. Philip Lutheran. Lunch will be provided through a Thrivent Action Team. Please RSVP for this free event to the church office by February 9. All are welcome to join – invite your friends and neighbors so that we can all be better equipped.
Please remember to donate food and toiletries or make monetary donations at worship on February 2. All food/toiletries will be given to St. Mark’s Food Pantry and funds will go to Feeding America Southwest Virginia.
St. Philip’s mission together as disciples is to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the world. Pastors David and Laura are so excited to launch a new ministry at St. Philip to do just that! On Wednesday, January 8th at 7pm, we are going to launch a new Digital Worship service. The digital worship service will be a recording of Sunday worship service in an online interactive online format. Pastor Laura and Pastor David will host a chat for faith conversation and answer prayer requests as viewers converse and worship together.
This ministry is specifically intended for those who are not yet a part of the St. Philip community, but all are welcome to join. As we share advertisements for this service, please feel free to invite people you think might enjoy this kind of worship format. The pastors are so grateful for new opportunities to share God’s love and can’t wait to see what happens next!
