8 a.m. – Spoken Holy Eucharist

9:30 a.m. – Intergenerational Faith Forum on Martin Luther King

10:30 a.m. – Jazz Eucharist with Youth & Adult Choirs and sermon by the Reverend Susan Pinkerton

11:45 a.m. – Meeting for those interested in volunteer tutoring at Covenant Prep

5 p.m. – Youth Group

5:30 p.m. – Worship led by youth – All are welcome!

Join us for a new tradition of evening worship, led by our youth group, on the third Sunday of the month. The youth group will gather as usual at 5 p.m. to get everything ready, then we’ll have worship at 5:30 followed by an informal potluck supper.

Christian education isn’t just for kids! While our younger members have Sunday School in the Education Wing, we offer a Faith Forum in Hubbard Hall for adults. On occasion, an intergenerational Faith Forum brings children and adults together. Bagels and coffee are served and all are welcome.

Intergenerational Faith Forum in honor of MLK, followed by Jazz Eucharist, Sunday, January 19: Our intergenerational Faith Forum at 9:30 a.m. will feature several stations where parishioners of all ages will learn about and reflect on the work and legacy of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. At the 10:30 service, the Hot Cat Jazz Band will bring Gospel and Dixieland jazz style to the service music and hymns.

Annual Meeting, January 26: All are encouraged to attend the parish Annual Meeting, starting at 9:30 a.m. We will break for the 10:30 service, then reconvene for a potluck brunch and the remaining agenda items. Please bring a potluck dish as follows: Last name A to I: Main dish (sandwiches, quiche, casserole, etc.); Last name J to P: Fruit or salad. Last name Q to Z: Baked goods.

Note: There is no 8 a.m. service on this day.

The slate of candidates to be voted on is as follows. Vestry members are elected to three-year terms. Wardens and Treasurers are elected for up to three consecutive one-year terms.

To serve a three-year term on the Vestry:

June Aziz

Jyothsna Diaz

Anne Harney

To serve a one-year term as Warden:

Geoff Emerick

Virginia Van Dyk

To serve a one-year term as Treasurer:

Tim Goetz

John Roche

To serve as delegates to convention:

Geoff Emerick

Virginia Van Dyk

Alternate: Tim Goetz

Sacred Circle is a small committed group of women who meet once a month to explore our relationship to the sacred and to honor the divine in everyday life. Our meeting this month will be on Tuesday, January 21 at 7 p.m. in the church. Please come. All women are welcome. For more information, call Beth Rocco at (860) 521-5433.

The January service of Choral Evensong will feature the choirs of Trinity Church, Hartford. Evensong is an ancient service that includes readings, chants, and prayers and offers worshippers a quiet, reflective space in which to be renewed and connect with God. All are invited — bring a friend.

All are invited to an information session in the Reception Room after the 10:30 service on January 19 to learn more about opportunities to provide after-school tutoring at Covenant Preparatory School, which is one of St. John’s community service partners. Covenant Prep is a tuition-free, faith-based college preparatory middle school located in downtown Hartford that provides young men from underserved communities the foundation to pursue higher education, develop their character, and live with integrity as community leaders. Come learn how you can support these students as an after-school tutor!

Rabbi Michael Pincus of Congregation Beth Israel is organizing an event on May 17, 2020, in which Farmington Avenue faith communities will join together to honor our local first responders. He would like to have two lay representatives from St. John’s to work with him and other faith community representatives to plan the event. If you are interested in helping, please contact the parish office.

Each year, we publish a Lent devotional featuring your Lenten reflections. We invite parishioners (and family and friends too) to choose a particular day in Lent, reflect on the Gospel reading for that day, and produce something in response — a written reflection, a poem, a photo, a drawing. All ages are invited to participate. To contribute, look for the clipboards in Hubbard Hall that have a sheet of paper for each day of Lent. Choose a day, fill out the top portion of the sheet of paper for that day with your name and contact info, and take the bottom portion (which has the Gospel reading for that day and some instructions for what and how to contribute). Return your contribution to Margie Baker, in person or by e-mail, by Wednesday, February 19.

St. John’s EYC (Episcopal Youth Community) has big plans for the winter! And we need your help, parents and friends. Most nights we need an extra adult to be present, and some nights we also need a dinner angel. This is a fun and relatively easy way to support the teenagers of St. John’s. Please go to our online sign-up to choose a Sunday evening or two when you can help: https://tinyurl.com/EYCHelpers

The February Faith Forums, at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays, will be devoted to “Episcopal 101” — an introduction to the beliefs and practices of the Episcopal Church. While this series is especially useful for newcomers or those considering baptism or confirmation, everyone is welcome to attend!

Happening provides high school-aged youth an opportunity to have a spiritually connected weekend of shared story, talks, worship and music that is led and planned by other teens. In a world that presents real challenges in finding space and tapping into faith, Happeningcreates community around safe, hopeful, non-judgmental and real conversation about how Christ’s grace fits in. Register here. Contact Margie Baker with questions.

Confirmation classes begin with an overnight lock-in at St. John’s on Saturday night, February 22 through Sunday morning, February 23. Then classes will be held during the education hour (9:30 a.m.) on Sundays from February 23 through March 29. Each week, the class will look at different aspects of our baptismal vows and what it means to live them out. All youth in grades 8 to 12 are invited to join the class, even if you’re not sure that you want to be confirmed (or even if you’re already confirmed!). Those who wish to be confirmed may do so at the Easter Vigil at Christ Church Cathedral on Saturday evening, April 11, or wait to be confirmed when St. John’s has our next bishop visitation, which will be in the first half of 2021.

Dear St. John’s friends,

Here we go again! Starting on Thursday, January 23, I will again be out of the office for several weeks of medical leave for my second knee replacement. I will not be checking e-mail or voicemail while I’m out. In my absence, you may contact Peggy O’Toole, our financial manager, at [email protected] or 860-523-5201 x 311. Peggy will either respond to your inquiry or forward it to another staff member or parish volunteer to handle. Peggy will be in the office Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The office will be closed on Fridays until I return to work full-time.

I expect to return to work mid-February, but only part-time and mostly working from home. I will return to the office full-time in early to mid-March.

Thank you for your support and good wishes!

Ellen Painter Dollar

Parish Manager

Our own Joel Lohr, president of Hartford Seminary, published an op-ed in the January 12 Hartford Courant calling on readers—and Christians especially—to recognize the scourge of anti-Semitism, and to acknowledge our role in both perpetuating it (historically and currently) and combatting it. He concluded with this call to action: “If as a Christian you have not been to a synagogue, or met your local rabbi, or you have no Jewish friends, consider this an invitation.” (To read the whole op-ed, go to https://tinyurl.com/LohrOpEd.) To that end, mark your calendars for a special interfaith tour of several local faith communities on Sunday, March 15, organized by Dr. Lohr and Susan Pinkerton, along with Rabbi Michael Pincus and Aida Mansoor (our interfaith panelists for a Faith Forum back in November). We’ll gather at St. John’s after the 10:30 service for a light lunch, then have a tour of the church, walk to Congregation Beth Israel for a tour of the synagogue, and then carpool to the Berlin Mosque. The tour should end between 2:30 and 3 p.m. Save the date!