Blog

November 1, 2020

Time for a Change

It’s that time again—the weekend many of us dread, when we turn our clocks back and darkness clamps down on our day even earlier. The good news is that most of us are able to sleep in until the sun rises. Remember to turn your clocks back one hour before you go to bed Saturday, October 31, and enjoy one more hour of rest this weekend.

Adult Ed: Job’s Response to Misery

Join Steve Christiansen this Sunday, November 1, at 10:00 am when he resumes his adult education course on the book of Job via Zoom. An incorrect translation has led us to believe that Job was a patient man. Not so, Christiansen explains, but he was persistent and he somehow kept going in spite of the odds. Job’s story is relevant for our time in that it raises many questions about the suffering of the innocent. Please note that the Zoom link to connect to this class is included in your Friday e-mail from St. Andrew.

Not yet receiving emails from St. Andrew? Click on the blue button to join the email list!

EMO Voter’s Guide

If you’ve not yet turned in your ballot yet, it’s time to get busy! Remember that all ballots cast in Oregon are due in drop boxes or at the County Clerk’s office no later than 8:00 pm on Tuesday, November 3. If you need some background information on ballot issues Oregon voters are being asked to approve or reject, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (EMO) has produced a guide for people of faith to consider when casting their ballots: https://emoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/EMO_Voters_Guide_Fall2020.pdf

Troop 618 Greenery Sales

Despite pandemic separation, St. Andrew’s BSA Scout Troop 618, 5618, and Crew 618 are again selling Christmas greenery for your holiday decorations. Wreaths, garlands, and centerpieces are available, with proceeds going to benefit the Scouts. If you’re interested and would like to see a digital brochure with images and prices, act now by contacting Scout volunteer Amy Harker. All orders are due to her by Monday, November 2. Greenery orders will be delivered to your home the weekend of November 21 and 22.

Thanksgiving is Coming!

The Service Committee is once again sponsoring Thanksgiving meals for Community Action families and we need your help. Community Action works with families on parenting, financial stability, housing, and education. These are families that really need help.

We will not be able to see those food boxes filling the Narthex this year due to COVID-19. Instead, we will be using money donated to Thanksgiving Food Box fund to purchase Winco gift cards for these families.

Last year we were able to donate 75 food boxes, which had a value of $50 each, to families in need. We would like to achieve this goal again this year; that will require $3,750 in donations. If you wish to give online, select designated giving, Thanksgiving Boxes—or you can send a check made out to St. Andrew with Thanksgiving Food Drive in the memo line.

This is a wonderful way to live out our faith, as well as giving a needy family the chance to celebrate Thanksgiving with a delicious meal. Please consider helping with a donation of any amount this year. Our deadline for donation is November 15 to give us time to purchase gift cards and get them to these families. Please email or call LuAnn Staul at 503-314-6321, or email or call Linda McDowall at 503-649-5091 with questions.

Dismantling Racism in Our Institutions

Join some members of our “Reckoning with Racism” team this Sunday at 12:30 pm in the worship Zoom room as we watch the Oregon Experience film titled “Oregon’s Black Pioneers” or watch it on your own at https://tinyurl.com/OregonBlackPioneers. Then learn more at Oregon Black Pioneers.

Long before Oregon became a state, black people were in the Far West, some brought as slaves but many others arriving as freemen looking for a new life. They opened boarding houses and stores, worked farms and mined for gold. But white settlers passed discriminatory laws to keep African Americans out or force them to leave.

Pastor Robyn

Help with Rent, Utilities, and Childcare

The director of Family Promise has informed its host coordinators that it has funds available for people needing help paying for childcare, rent, or utilities during this time of extraordinary need. People needing assistance are welcome to call Family Promise at 971-217-8949. Please be aware that these funds need to be used by the end of this calendar year.

PLU Confirmation Scholarship

Last year Pacific Lutheran University expanded its PLU Confirmation Scholarship nationwide so that any student who has been confirmed in an ELCA congregation can receive the $1,500 per year Confirmation Scholarship. This award stacks on top of other PLU scholarships, including those for academic or artistic achievements.

The Confirmation Scholarship form must be completed and submitted by a church official (pastor, youth leader, etc.) before the student’s high school graduation. PLU is a private liberal arts Lutheran university in Parkland, WA, that was founded by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants in 1890.

Preparing for Next Sunday

Men’s Book Club Reading List Update

Please note this update for the Men’s Book Club: Gary Grafwallner requests that members of the group please read The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown, edited by Catherine Burns instead of his original selection for January 2021 (The Tattoist of Auschwitz). A reviewer for the Daily Mail says, “All These Wonders is a compelling read, by turns uplifting, heartbreaking, and ultimately redemptive. If there is a real hero of the book, it is surely the human spirit, which, time and again, transcends whatever life throws at it.”

Date	Book	Host
November 9	Strip Tease, by Carl Hiassen	Ted Miller
December 14	Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump	Tim Holte
January 11	The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown, edited by Catherin Burns	Gary Grafwallner
February 8	News of the World, by Paule0e Jiles	Dan Fako
March 8	Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi	Larry Bliesner

The Men’s Book Club meets on the second Monday of the month via Zoom. If you’d like more information about the group, please contact Gary Grafwallner. To receive the Zoom link for each meeting, please contact the respective host.

Collins Summit: Shalom in Divided Times

What does shalom and unity look like in 2020, when racial unrest, political tensions, and COVID-19 have impacted nearly every aspect of our lives? This year at its Collins Summit, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon is asking
how we bring our whole selves to the table and stay engaged in light of our differences, not in spite of them.

The Summit will include a lecture from Lisa Sharon Harper, founder and president of FreedomRoad.us and one of today’s leading voices on the topics of poverty, racial and gender justice, and transformational civic engagement.

Register now for the virtual event to be held Wednesday, November 18.

St. Andrew’s Pandemic Protocols

1. Call or email ahead to arrange building access (even if you have a key).
2. Sign in at the table in the Narthex.
3. Wash your hands or use the provided hand sanitzer after signing in.
4. Wear a mask the entire time you are in the building.

With a third wave of infections sweeping the country, with the advent of flu season and cold temperatures that keep people inside, and with loving care for all members of our community so wearied by this pandemic, it’s more important now than ever to do all we can to protect ourselves and keep each other safe. Stay the course. Maintain the discipline that’s been effective so far.

Please note that the church building remains locked. Even if you have a key, we ask that you call or e-mail the church office to arrange access in advance of coming to St. Andrew. This allows us to monitor occupancy and prevent people from inadvertently interfering with others who need to come to the building to do their work. Please don’t assume you will be the only person inside. Staff continue to adjust their hours to prevent the spread of infection, while providing for online worship means that people are working in the building much of Saturday and Sunday.

When you do visit the building, we ask you to follow the protocols. Put on a mask before you even open the door, sign in at the round table in the Narthex, indicating what rooms you plan to visit, wash your hands, keep your mask on (covering both your mouth and nose) the entire time you’re inside, and remember to sign out at the time you leave. Use your own pen at the sign-in register or take a clean one from the left receptacle and deposit it in the used cup on the right.

We want you to have access to our libraries, to your mailboxes, and to the sacristy to prepare for worship. Individual Nifty Notters have worked in Fellowship Hall to finish projects. But our ministry groups are meeting online because it is so much safer. Be vigilant. Stay well! When we’re able to reopen, we want to welcome each and every one of you back inside the St. Andrew building!

Children’s Sermon: The Oregon White Oak

Editor’s Note: Each week for the next five weeks, you’ll see the previous Sunday’s Children’s Sermon reprinted in Weekly News.

Good morning, boys and girls. My name is Eric Luttrell. Today I will be offering the first of five children’s sermons presented by our Community Carbon yard science team about some special native plants. Native plants are special. They developed in our regional environment, with plants and animals evolving together to develop mutually beneficial relationships. Insects, birds, and mammals evolved interacting with a very large variety of plants, eating those plants and helping those plants with pollination and see dispersal.

My sermon today is about our native Oregon Oak trees. I am standing here beside Faith, one of two Oregon Oak trees that we recently planted. We are calling the second oak tree Hope. These trees will be the large canopy trees of our Reformation Earth Garden. As they mature, these canopy trees will shade large areas of understory trees and shrubs. We are lucky that we have this large area around our church to plant oaks, as they would become too big for planting in the yards around your house.

To give you an idea about how big Oregon Oak trees can get, this is a photo of an Oregon Oak tree in LuAnn Staul’s yard, so large that not all of it fits in the photo. That’s me standing next to it. This tree is five feet in diameter, about 50 feet tall, and about 300 years old. 300 years ago, when this tree was a sapling like Faith, our United States was just a small colony of the United Kingdom, consisting of 13 sub-colonies located right along the eastern shore of North America. At that time, there would have been no white Europeans in Oregon for at least 50 more years, which was also the time that we declared independence from that United Kingdom.

Oaks of this size and age will be the direct ancestors of many generations of oak trees in an oak grove of many acres. I call them Grandparent Trees. The trees descending from the grandparent trees depended upon someone planting their seeds — what we call acorns. Who does the planting of those acorns? Squirrels. Squirrels like to dig holes and bury acorns for food for next winter. And, amazingly, they remember where they buried those acorns. They remember most of them. If they forget, those acorns will sprout and grow into new oak trees. This means that the oaks and squirrels have a symbiotic relationship—a relationship of mutual benefit. The oaks feed the squirrels and the squirrels plant the oak seeds.

Now why, specifically are we planting Oregon Oaks? Scientists have discovered that oaks in general are the most important trees upon which caterpillars feed. Caterpillars are the larval stages of butterflies and other insects that feed on tree leaves. And millions and millions and millions of caterpillars are collected every spring by adult songbirds to feed their baby chicks. And the best oak trees for hosting caterpillars are native oak trees, and Oregon Oak is our native oak tree.

While our newly planted Faith and Hope look like tall sticks now, when the young children in our church are in high school, they will be 25 to 35 feet tall, as tall as the back side of the sanctuary. Now it will take some time for our two small oak trees to grow large enough to supply lots and lots of caterpillars for baby birds. While we are waiting, the next best trees for caterpillars are native willow trees. And, lucky for us, we have several hundred native willows in the wetland on our property.

Besides caterpillars to feed baby birds, what else do oaks provide for wildlife? Acorns. All kinds of animals eat acorns—squirrels, chipmunks, birds, and deer.

In Oregon and California, the indigenous people (Indians) ate lots of acorns as a nutritious source of fats and carbohydrates. They would leach out the bitter tannins in the acorns, grind them into flour, and make a kind of bread. Since Oregon Oaks were the most common tree in the Willamette Valley (with millions of trees), and since the long-lived oaks had lots of acorns (millions and millions of acorns), acorns were an important native food source along with fish, meat, berries, and mushrooms.

Faith and Hope are the first of many trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses that we will plant in this area around me just outside our back patio. We intend to call this area our Reformation Earth Garden. With time, this garden will be the home of more than 40 different varieties of native plants. And because most of these 40 new varieties are different from the many, many varieties of native plants currently found in our wetland and forest, we are greatly expanding the diversity of our local ecosystem.

We will be planting these native plants as part of our responsibility to improve our environment for all living creatures. With time, we hope that this garden will become part of what Douglas Tallamy in his book Nature’s Best Hope calls America’s Homegrown National Park, with a variety of native plants in every yard.

Eric Luttrell

St. Andrew’s Online Book Fair

Seize these days, November 3-7, and support one of St. Andrew’s treasures—our libraries. For five days this coming week, you can shop online at Annie Bloom’s Books, indicate your purchases should benefit St. Andrew, and the bookstore will return 20 percent of the proceeds to our new library leadership team of Pam Farr and Barbara Gutzler so they can purchase new titles for our children’s and adult collections.

You can participate even without an internet connection. Simply call Annie Bloom’s at 503-246-0053 and tell the clerk to credit your purchase to St. Andrew.

If you’re hungry for some satisfying reading over the upcoming months, but don’t know where to start, check out Mary Nell Mahler’s list of some suggested titles below. You’ll see a copy of the book cover on Annie Bloom’s website and you can click on that to read more about the book.

Please remember that you need not limit your shopping to this list, however; the bookstore will use the total amount of your purchase to figure the 20 percent credit it returns to St. Andrew.

So grab a warm beverage and snuggle in to do some shopping at https://www.annieblooms.com/st-andrews-book-fair.

Suggested Titles for Your Consideration:

YA All of Us with Wings, by Michelle Ruiz Keil
F All This Could be Yours, by Jami Attenberg
F American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins
NF America’s Religious Wars, by Kathleen M. Sands
SS,F And I Do Not Forgive You, by Amber Sparks
H And Then You Die of Dysentery, by Lauren Reeves
NF The Art of Ramona Quimby, by Anna Katz
P,MG The Beadworkers, by Beth Piatote
F The Beekeeper of Aleppo, by Christy Lefteri
CPB A Big Bed for Little Snow, by Grace Lin
F,H The Big Finish, by Brooke Fossey
F Big Summer, by Jennifer Weiner
CPB Birdsong, by Julie Flett
CPB The Birth of Jesus: A Christmas Pop-Up, by Agostino Traini
CPB Bitty Brown Babe, by Deborah LeFalle & Keisha Morris
F The Boy from the Woods, by Harlan Coben
F Chosen Ones, by Veronica Roth
F The City We Became, by N.K. Jemisin
C Countdown to Christmas, by Mary Manz Simon
C Crossing on Time, by David Macaulay
NF The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, by Sue Monk Kidd
F Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phillips
C Double Bass Blues, by Andrea Loney
F Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk
F The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
F Erasing Memory: A MacNeice Mystery, by Scott Thornley
F Faithful Place, by Tana French
F The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin
C,F Here in the Real World, by Sara Pennypacker
Bio His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, by Jon Meacham
NF Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus, by Laura Fabrycky
CPB Little Mole Finds Hope, by Glenys Nellist
F Long Bright River, by Liz Moore
CPB Love Is…, by Diane Adams
F The Mirror and the Light, by Hilary Mantel
C The Night of His Birth, by Katherine Paterson
F The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
F On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
NF Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West, by David McCullough
F Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson
F Redhead by the Side of the Road, by Anne Tyler
F Royal Holiday, by Jasmine Guillory
NF Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir, by Ruth Reichl
CPB The Star in the Christmas Play, by Lynne Marie
CPB Summer Song, by Kevin Henkes
CPB This Is the Church, by Sarah Raymond Cunningham
F A Time for Mercy, by John Grisham
NF Trees in Trouble: Wildfires, Infestations, and Climate Change, by Daniel Mathews
NF When the Heart Waits, by Sue Monk Kidd
CPB Where the Best Stories Hide, by Roman Yasiejko
F With the Fire on High, by Elizabeth Acevedo
C,NF The World of the Old Testament: A Curious Kid’s Guide to the Bible’s Most Ancient Stories, by Marc Olson

Key:
Bio: Biography
C: Children’s Book
CPB: Children’s Picture Book
F: Fic8on
H: Humor
NF: Nonfic8on
P,MG: Poetry, Mixed Genre
SS: Short Stories
YA: Young Adult

In Need of Prayers…

Family and friends of Patty Werner (sister-in-law)	Peace and God’s comfort at her death	Susan Werner Reiser
Carole Harmon and her family	Peace, comfort, and support as she is in hospice care	Pastor Robyn Hartwig
Jim Smith (brother-in-law) and his family	Peace, comfort, and support as Jim is in hospice care	Mary Smith
Margie Lee (wife)	Strength, comfort, and healing	Robert May
Liz Andersen	Correct diaggnosis, effective treatment, and healing	Liz Andersen
James & Tammy Vogt, Audrey Vogt and Brenna Vogt (parents & sisters)	Healing and recovery from COVID-19	Kyler Vogt
Peter Kindem (uncle)	Healing and recovery from lung transplant	Megan Webber
Debbie (daughter’s friend)	Healing and recovery from open heart surgery	Joanne Zenger
Jane Quigg (sister)	Healing and recovery from hip replacement	Eric & Jan Luttrell
Ellie Prink (aunt)	Healing and recovery for multiple health issues	Carol Hogan
Elaine May	Healing and recovery from knee replacement surgery	Staff
Our nation	Integrity of the election	Staff
The American people	Patience, calm, and safety as we await election results	Staff
Bishop Laurie Larson Caesar Oregon Synod and Staff	Strength and wisdom	Staff
Refugees and Immigrants	Acceptance, safety, and just treatment	Staff
Military Personnel, especially Justina Hailey Hope Brocker, Evan Dahlquist, Dawson Dethlefs, Neil Fiegenbaum, and Jerami Reyna	Courage and protection	Staff
Grace Lutheran Church (Enterprise, OR) Nativity Lutheran Church (Bend, OR)	Serving with us in the Oregon Synod	Staff
Beit Haverim (Lake Oswego, OR)	Blessings on our interfaith partners	Staff

If you know someone in need of prayers, please contact the church office by phone at 503-646-0629 or email office@standrewlutheran.com Tuesday-Friday, prayerchain@standrewlutheran.com Saturday-Monday.

Wednesday Evening Meditation

Our midweek Prayer Services continue into the fall on Wednesday nights via Zoom. The service will focus on our role in creation, with music, prayer, meditations, and scripture.

     6:30 pm:  Informal Gathering Time
     7:00 pm:  Wednesday Evening Prayer
     7:30 pm:  Centering Prayer

Join us for any or all of these events. The connection link is sent out Wednesday afternoons, so please watch for it.

Worship Plan

Looking ahead to the coming seasons of the church, the Worship Planning Committee is announcing that current worship practices will continue through Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

To review, St. Andrew offers livestream worship via YouTube at 8:30 am on Sundays, with worship broadcast via Zoom at 11:00 am. Both services include the opportunity to share in remote Communion. Adult Education classes and gatherings for children, Confirmation students, and high school youth are all offered via Zoom, as is Wednesday Evening Prayer.

People without internet connection are able to listen to a recording of Sunday worship by calling 503-643-9416. Please see “Connecting to Worship at St. Andrew” for details.

Highlights for the Week

Check the church calendar for the most up-to-date information.

Sunday, November 1, All Saints Sunday

8:30 am	Livestream Worship	YouTube
9:30 am	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
10:00 am	Sunday School (age 3 – 5th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	Confirmation (6th – 8th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	High School Youth Group	Zoom
10:00 am	Adult Education:  The Misery of Job	Zoom
11:00 am	Online Worship	Zoom
12:00 pm	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
12:30 pm	Viewing of “Oregon’s Black Pioneers” (with Reckoning with Racism chort)	Zoom

Tuesday, November 3

10:00 am	T’ai Chi	former Bales Thriftway on Cornell Rd
10::00 am	Worship Planners Meeting	Zoom

Wednesday, November 4 – Weekly News submissions due by 4:00 pm

12:30 pm	Bonhoeffer Seminar	Zoom
6:00 pm	Handbell Ensemble Rehearsal	Sanctuary
6:30 pm	Informal Gathering Time	Zoom
7:00 pm	High School Youth Game Night	Zoom
7:00 pm	Wednesday Evening Prayer	Zoom
7:30 pm	Centering Prayer	Zoom

Thursday, November 5

12:00 pm	Team Ministry Meeting	Zoom
7:00 pm	Executive Committee Meeting	Zoom

Friday, November 6

10:00 am

T’ai Chi

former Bales Thriftway on Cornell Rd

Sunday, November 8, Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

8:30 am	Livestream Worship	YouTube
9:30 am	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
10:00 am	Sunday School (age 3 – 5th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	Confirmation (6th – 8th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	High School Youth Group	Zoom
10:00 am	Adult Education:  The Political Responsibility of the Church	Zoom
11:00 am	Online Worship	Zoom
12:00 pm	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom

Connecting to Worship

Ways to Give

Thank you for supporting the ministries of St. Andrew!

October 25, 2020

October 18, 2020

Adult Education: Job’s Response to Misery

St. Andrew begins another adult education class on Sunday, October 18, when Steve Christiansen leads us through an exploration of the book of Job. It is a story with obvious parallels to our time.

As Christiansen explains, “the phrase ‘the patience of Job’ was taken from an incorrect translation of the New Testament book of James (5:11, KJV), ‘You have heard of the patience of Job.’ Job was anything but patient! In his misery, he demanded answers from God, sometimes resorting to blasphemy. No, this story is not about patience, but about endurance, about persistence, about somehow putting one foot in front of the other in spite of the odds. At the end of the story, Job’s fortunes are restored, but we are left with many questions regarding the suffering of the innocent. There are no easy answers here, but much fodder for discussion.”

EMO Voter’s Guide & Forum

Oregon voters will be asked to say yay or nay to four measures on their ballots in the coming days. Do you know what the issues are or how you will respond? Once again, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (EMO) has produced a guide for people of faith to consider when casting their ballots.

You’re also invited to join an Oregon Faith Voter Forum via Zoom on Tuesday, October 20, at 7:00 pm to learn about work to support the vulnerable and to hear a faith-based perspective on the 2020 Oregon ballot measures. Register now.

Spirituality Book Group News

The Spirituality Book Group will meet on Sunday, October 18, at 3:00 p.m. via Zoom, when Sharon Fako will lead the discussion of The Mountains Sing, by Nguyen Phan Mai. According to Amazon, the book is “an epic account of Vietnam’s painful 20th-century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling.”

The Zoom link will be sent out a day before the meeting to all who are on the Spirituality Book Group list. If you would like to attend, contact Mary Smith for connection information.

Blessing Our Reformation Earth Garden

Next Sunday, the congregation is invited to return to the church for a special outdoor event: the blessing of our St. Andrew Reformation Earth Garden. We’ll all wear masks, maintain a safe distance, celebrate the planting of Faith and Hope, and learn about our Community Carbon Science Team’s ongoing efforts to be good stewards of this Earth. Join us north of the sanctuary on the patio, parking lot, or in the garden itself. The service will be short, but bring a chair if you think you will need one.

Five years ago, we mourned the loss of the majestic Douglas-fir that once centered this space, but we now marvel at another native tree, the Reformation red cedar, that’s growing up toward the sky in its place. Good soil nurtures native plants that feed birds and other wildlife—and, ultimately, us. It’s a beautiful system.

Table Talk: White Supremacy

Gathered around the table in his home, Martin Luther talked freely and openly with his colleagues and students about matters of faith, theology, and varied aspects of daily life. In an effort to cultivate this kind of spirited discussion, we have a tradition at St. Andrew of gathering for Table Talks.

Though we cannot gather in person, Pastor Brocker invites you to participate in the next Table Talk via Zoom on Thursday, October 29, 7:00-8:00 pm.

At the first Presidential Debate on Tuesday, September 29, President Trump could not bring himself to clearly and unambiguously denounce White supremacy. In the essay “White Supremacy Is a Script We’re Given at Birth,” Reggie Williams, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary, observes “how prevalent and persistent White supremacy is in this country.” Williams is a member of the Board of the International Bonhoeffer Society—English Language Section. He has written a book entitled Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. According to Williams, White supremacy is not simply a problem for a small minority of violent young men; “it’s written in our flesh and rehearsed throughout history.” As a Black man Williams himself has experienced some of the consequences of the script of White supremacy.

In this Table Talk we will ask some very basic questions: What is White supremacy? How have we seen White supremacy manifested in our lives? Why is White supremacy so prevalent and persistent? To prepare for this Table Talk, you are encouraged to read Reggie Williams essay mentioned above.

Giving

The church I grew up in required every member give 10 percent of their gross income to the church. If you paid less than 10 percent, you were not allowed to do certain things, and we were told that blessings from God were being withheld.

At times in my life, my budget would not really allow for 10 percent of my gross income to go to the church. I always felt shame about giving 3 or 4 percent, so I stopped giving at all. Then I stopped talking to church leaders about it, and I eventually stopped going to church.

I didn’t want my spiritual experience for the week to feel like I was letting God down. So instead of going to church on Sundays, I started going for hikes. I felt peace and tranquility that made me feel so much better than the judgment I felt at church. And for several years, that was my church.

I know that God needs our help. We have a beautiful place of worship and, without help from the members, we would no longer have this beautiful space.

It’s easy to think about all of the wonderful things we receive from coming to this church, without thinking about the boring, behind-thescenes things that need to happen to make sure we are able to enjoy the wonderful things.

We think about the way we feel when we see our friends, the smile and hug we get from the pastors, the peace and reverence we feel as we take communion. And how often do we think about the mortgage being paid, the grounds being maintained, purchasing materials for Sunday School activities, deep cleaning the building? Well, we might think about the cleaning of the building a little more now due to the coronavirus.

We tend to focus on the things we receive more than the things we are helping to build. And we should all realize that by giving freely, we are helping to build the kingdom of God. This is not a membership fee; it is not a tax. We are giving freely so that we can be a part of the building up of His kingdom. And because we are doing that, future generations will have a beautiful place to worship. Children will have access to more opportunities to learn and to grow in faith.

If we look at our offering as an obligation, that is what it will be. But if we understand that our gifts are used by the church to make sure that we all can continue to receive the type of spiritual experience we desire, we will begin to enjoy it. We will look for additional ways to give and we will begin to make it part of our regular budget.

Andy Roberts

Donate to Outside in Oct. 1 – 24

Since 1968, Outside In has transformed lives by helping to break cycles of chronic homelessness, poverty, and poor health among Portland’s LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, those experiencing homelessness, and the underserved. With COVID-19 plaguing our country, Portland still has a high number of people living on our city streets every night.

Outside In provides a safe space where youth can get their immediate needs met and begin building supportive, trusting relationships with adults who can help. Your financial gift will provide the basics—safety from the streets, showers, laundry, meals, and case management— to help these young people get on their feet with dignity.

Please donate from October 1-24 and send your donation to St. Andrew with “Service Committee Special Projects” on the memo line. Thank you for your response!

Bonnie Bliesner and the Service Committee

Just Vote: Harnessing Our Values for Justice

On the day after the election, will you be able to say that you did everything you could to turn out the vote for climate justice? Join EcoFaith Recovery for Just Vote: Harnessing Our Values for Climate and Racial Justice for 90 minutes beginning at 8:45 am on Thursday, October 15, and Thursday, October 29, via Zoom.

Learn how you can get engaged with text banking and phone banking to turn out the vote for the elections. Or create your action plan for calling two or more friends or family members in swing states to engage them in conversation about the values that will inform your vote. Take action during the meeting to make a difference in this election while grounding yourself in spiritual practice with others and cultivating the power of your own story as a catalyst for change.

Through EcoFaith’s initiative, we empower one another and our communities to “rediscover the courage to rise up with the most vulnerable and oppressed in the face of systems that escalate injustice and climate chaos.” Even if you are just getting started, you will receive valuable information on campaigns you can engage with now, mentorship on how to start an action team, and support for creating an effective plan. Go to the Just Vote website to learn more and get the Zoom link.

2020 Beaverton Virtual Art Show

Artistic talent abounds among us! This month, you can go online to see the work of some 350 artists, including St. Andrew’s own Ken Reiner, who were selected to participate in Beaverton’s 2020 Virtual Art Show. Browse the entire collection or search by artist name. The art is available for purchase, too, so if you see something you really like you can follow up with the artist.

Faith and Hope

On Thursday morning, the men’s landscape maintenance crew planted Faith & Hope, two Oregon oak trees that are the keystone plants in our Reformation Earth Garden. Hope went in easily, but Faith had to deal with some resistant substrate. A pickaxe solved that problem. Come bless our garden next Sunday (see previous article).

Caterpillars Feed Hungry Bird Babies

Bird parents raising a cluster of hungry nestlings face a gargantuan task. Unlike humans, who eat three or four meals a day, baby birds feast on 30 or 40 meals a day. Typically, both parents fly out to find food for their chicks and race back to the nest to plunge more nutrition down the gullets of the next generation.

Careful observers have long known that caterpillars are the mainstay of most bird diets here in North America. It makes sense. Caterpillars are really just soft bags of fat and protein that deliver maximum nutrition for the effort required. It’s much easier for parent birds to scoop up a single caterpillar than to round up at least 200 aphids to provide a similar serving for their young.

So, if we’re to enjoy having an abundant variety of birds visiting and living in our yards, we must make sure that caterpillars are living there, too. Need some convincing numbers? During a normal nesting period of just over two weeks, chickadee parents must find 6,000 – 9,000 caterpillars to feed their young—depending on the number of nestlings they’re raising.

How can we support the thousands of caterpillars necessary for bird reproduction? Douglas Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope, has the answer. Plant a native oak. It’s a keystone species that provides habitat for hundreds of different types of caterpillars. Other indigenous plants that are very good at ecosystem support (especially harboring caterpillars) are native cherry and willow trees.

St. Andrew is blessed to have a wealth of native species on its property already, and the Reformation Earth Garden being developed north of the sanctuary will highlight several of the keystone plants that support a thriving ecosystem.

Carol Harker

Dismantling Racism in Our Institutions

The 16 members of St. Andrew’s “Reckoning with Racism” cohort who are participating with 200 people of faith across Oregon in the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon Reckoning with Racism process invite you to join us in our homework this week. We have learned that the Atfalati band of the Kalapuya Indians first made the Tualatin Valley basin their home about 10,000 years ago up until white settlers arrived. They lived in villages at Wapato Lake in what is now Forest Grove. Their villages extended out to Chakeipi, or “Place of the Beaver,” located in present day Beaverton. You can learn more here.

This week, please join our cohort in our homework of considering how we came to own the land on which our church building is located and how the previous three generations of our families came to own any land our families have owned. Who was the land purchased from? Why was it available? Where did the capital come from? What life did/does the land bear, and for whom?

If you would like to explore these questions with some of us this Tuesday, October 20, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., please e-mail me for the Zoom link. We would particularly love to hear directly or by e-mail from those of you who know about the history of the land on which our congregation is located!

Pastor Robyn

Habitat for Humanity Fundraiser

Help Habitat provide decent housing for low-income, hardworking families.

On Tuesday, October 27, at 8:00 am, Habitat for Humanity will host its annual Build a Home, Frame a Future fundraiser. We’ll gather virtually on YouTube to celebrate Habitat homeowners and raise funds to build and repair homes for families in Washington County. You’ll have the opportunity to hear from some of the families that have been impacted by having a Habitat home.

If you have questions or would like connection information to access the gathering, please contact Dan Fako by email or phone at 503-626-3414.

Thank You to the Faithful

Thank you to all the faithful at St. Andrew for your 2020 gift of $400. In today’s world, where everyone is banding together for the good of all, we appreciate your choice to support Willamette West Habitat for Humanity and our families. Thanks to your generosity, we can keep building affordable homes in cities throughout Washington County.

Together we are building homes for families headed by people like Ellen, who first learned about Habitat while she was volunteering on a Women Build volunteer day. After years of abuse, Ellen successfully escaped with her sons and Habitat was there with a hand up just when she needed it. Her 4-bedroom home means her autistic boys have a safe place to thrive and personal space to call their own.

Your generosity helps build and repair homes all over Washington County. With your help, we’re helping local families develop the strength, stability, and independence affordable housing brings. They, and we, can’t thank you enough.

Mark Forker
Habitat for Humanity Executive Director

Collins Summit: Shalom in Divided Times

What does shalom and unity look like in 2020, when racial unrest, political tensions, and COVID-19 have impacted nearly every aspect of our lives? This year at its Collins Summit, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon is asking how we bring our whole selves to the table and stay engaged in light of our differences, not in spite of them.

The Summit will include a lecture from Lisa Sharon Harper, founder and president of FreedomRoad.us and one of today’s leading voices on the topics of poverty, racial and gender justice, and transformational civic engagement.

Register now for the virtual event to be held Wednesday, November 18.

Remember these dates:

November 3-7, 2020
for St. Andrew’s Online Book Fair

You’ll be able to shop online, with 20% of sales proceeds coming back to benefit our libraries. Details to come!

In Need of Prayers…

Family and friends of Diana Heidinger (sister-in-law)	Peace and God’s comfort at her death	Judy Heidinger
Family and friends of Dr. Philip Gehrin	Peace and God’s comfort at his death	Susan Reiser
Jim Smith	Peace, comfort, and support as Jim is in hospice care	Mary Smith
Patty Werner (sister-in-law)	Comfort, strength, and successful treatment	Susan Reiser
Janet Vorvick	Comfort and courage in facing mental health challenges	Janet Vorvick
Garett McDowall	Healing and recovery from a stroke	Mike & Linda McDowall
Noah Oyen	Healing and recovery from surgery	Pastor Robyn Hartwig
Jeff George’s grandmother	Healing and recovery from COVID-19	Gretchen Bancroft
Matia Brocker	Healing and recovery from surgery	Pastor Mark Brocker
Elaine May	Successful knee replacement surgery (Oct 27)	Staff
Sylvia Hazel Wood (great-granddaughter)	Blessings on her birth	Mary Nell Mahler
Our nation	Integrity of the election	Staff
Those confined to their homes: Mareline Barnes, Dave Bumgardner, Jean Fredrickson, Tara Harper, Douglas Hooke, Betty Horst, Dorothy Moore, Phyllis Morris, Ed & Jean Pacey, Helen Rogers, Dave & Sharon Roth, Margie Schindele	Assurance of God’s presence	Staff
All who are imprisoned	Peace and strength	Staff
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon Holy Trinity Catholic Church	Blessings on their work	Staff
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (Madras, OR), Our Savior’s Lutheran Church (Prineville, OR)	Serving with us in the Oregon Synod	Staff
Golden Temple of Oregon (Portland, OR)	Blessings on our interfaith partners	Staff

Help Set the Table for Immigrant Families

Across the world, the communal bowl signifies that one does not eat alone, in isolation. For refugees and immigrants, isolation is the most threatening aspect of leaving their homeland behind and rebuilding a life in the U.S. How do families cope? They come together at mealtime and they share.

Is it possible for us to understand what our refugee families have lost? How daunting it must be to navigate a new life in America—particularly during a pandemic. The people of Lutheran Community Services NW witness the enormous challenges of rebuilding a life. They set the table for refugees to thrive by providing the emotional and practical support they need. And you can help! View the Communal Bowl video or donate now.

Preparing for Next Sunday

Highlights for the Week

Check the church calendar for the most up-to-date information. When you go to the online church calendar, you can click “List” and “Week” to see details for the week (blue buttons in screen shot, below) rather than the whole month. Click “Next >” to see the next week.

Sunday, October 18: Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

8:30 am	Livestream Worship	YouTube
9:30 am	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
10:00 am	Sunday School (age 3 – 5th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	Confirmation (6th – 8th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	High School Youth Group	Zoom
10:00 am	Adult Education:  The Political Responsibility of the Church	Zoom
11:00 am	Online Worship	Zoom
12:00 pm	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom

Tuesday, October 20

10:00 am	Worship Planning Meeting	Zoom
12:15 pm	Community Carbon Leadership Meeting	Zoom

Wednesday, October 21 – Weekly News submissions due by 4:00 pm

6:00 pm	Handbell Ensemble Rehearsal	Sanctuary
6:30 pm	Informal Gathering Time	Zoom
7:00 pm	High School Youth Game Night	Zoom
7:00 pm	Wednesday Evening Prayer	Zoom
7:30 pm	Centering Prayer	Zoom

Thursday, October 22

12:00 pm	Team Ministry Meeting	Zoom
7:00 pm	IT Meeting	Zoom

Sunday, October 25:  Reformation Sunday

8:30 am	Livestream Worship	YouTube
9:30 am	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
10:00 am	Sunday School (age 3 – 5th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	Confirmation (6th – 8th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	High School Youth Group	Zoom
10:00 am	Adult Education:  The Political Responsibility of the Church	Zoom
11:00 am	Online Worship	Zoom
12:00 pm	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
1:00 pm	Blessing of St. Andrew’s Reformation Earth Garden	Next to Patio

Connecting to Worship

Ways to Give

Thank you for supporting the ministries of St. Andrew!

Monthly Finance Report

October 11, 2020

The Political Responsibility of the Church

In the final class on the Political Responsibility of the Church, Pastor Mark Brocker will focus on “Election 2020: What Is at Stake?” this Sunday, October 11.

Plan to join the 10:00 am Adult Education class via Zoom. Session outlines are available on the Adult Ed page, where you can also see recordings of earlier class sessions.

Coming Next Week: Job’s Response to Misery

St. Andrew will begin another adult education class next Sunday, October 18, when Steve Christiansen leads us through an exploration of the book of Job. It is a story with obvious parallels to our time.

As Christiansen explains, “the phrase ‘the patience of Job’ was taken from an incorrect translation of the New Testament book of James (5:11, KJV), ‘You have heard of the patience of Job.’ Job was anything but patient! In his misery, he demanded answers from God, sometimes resorting to blasphemy. No, this story is not about patience, but about endurance, about persistence, about somehow putting one foot in front of the other in spite of the odds. At the end of the story, Job’s fortunes are restored, but we are left with many questions regarding the suffering of the innocent. There are no easy answers here, but much fodder for discussion.”

The Zoom link to connect to this class will be included in next Friday’s e-mail.

EMO Voter’s Guide

Oregon voters will be asked to say yay or nay to four measures on their ballots in the coming days. Do you know what the issues are or how you will respond? Once again, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (EMO) has produced a guide for people of faith to consider when casting their ballots: https://emoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/EMO_Voters_Guide_Fall2020.pdf

Remember that Oregon’s voter registration deadline is Tuesday, October 13. Ballots will begin to be mailed to voters on October 14. Voters can use any official ballot drop site in Oregon to return their voted ballot during the 20-day voting period.

Men’s Book Club

Members of the Men’s Book Club will meet via Zoom at 7:00 pm on Monday, October 12, to discuss The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. Eric Luttrell is the host.

Rated highly by reviewers and several powerful men, the book is about “gender equity and its golden thread is empathy,” says Dr. Paul Farmer. Warren Buffet says, “I think this is one of the best books I’ve ever read.” And Trevor Noah adds, “This book is a beautiful and concise mission statement on what we need to do to move society forward—continue to empower women. At every level and in all places women are truly the bedrock supporting their communities.”

Melinda Gates introduces the reader to women and girls whose experiences are much different from her own. “They’ve taught her a great deal,” Dr. Farmer says, “and in this beautifully crafted and artful memoir, Melinda Gates invites the reader to learn from them, too.”

If you’d like more information about St. Andrew’s Men’s Book
Club, please contact Gary Grafwallner.

Spirituality (Women’s) Book Group News

The Spirituality Book Group will meet on Sunday, October 18, at 3:00 p.m. via Zoom, when Sharon Fako will lead the discussion of The Mountains Sing, by Nguyen Phan Mai. According to Amazon, the book is “an epic account of Vietnam’s painful 20th-century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling.”

The Zoom link will be sent out a day before the meeting to all who are on the Spirituality Book Group list. If you would like to attend, contact Mary Smith for connection information.

Coming Up for St. Andrew Book Clubs

Spirituality Book Group (Women)

Sunday, November 15, at 3:00 pm
Book: Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver
Discussion Leader: Mary Ann Snider

Sunday, December 13, at 3:00 pm
Book: The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
Discussion Leader: Fran Miller

Men’s Book Club

Monday, November 9, at 7:00 pm
Book: Strip Tease, by Carl Hiassen
Host: Ted Miller

Monday, December 14, at 7:00 pm
Book: Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump
Host: Tim Holte

Wednesday Evening Meditation

Our midweek Prayer Services continue into the fall on Wednesday nights via Zoom. The service will focus on our role in creation, with music, prayer, meditations, and scripture.

     6:30 pm:  Informal Gathering Time
     7:00 pm:  Wednesday Evening Prayer
     7:30 pm:  Centering Prayer

Join us for any or all of these events. The connection link is sent out Wednesday afternoons, so please watch for it.

Donate to Outside in Oct. 1 – 24

Since 1968, Outside In has transformed lives by helping to break cycles of chronic homelessness, poverty, and poor health among Portland’s LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, those experiencing homelessness, and the underserved. With COVID-19 plaguing our country, Portland still has a high number of people living on our city streets every night.

Outside In provides a safe space where youth can get their immediate needs met and begin building supportive, trusting relationships with adults who can help. Your financial gift will provide the basics—safety from the streets, showers, laundry, meals, and case management— to help these young people get on their feet with dignity.

Please donate from October 1-24 and send your donation to St. Andrew with “Service Committee Special Projects” on the memo line. Thank you for your response!

Bonnie Bliesner and the Service Committee

Telling Your Pandemic Story

Have you wondered how our ancestors managed to cope with the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, when 50 million souls were lost worldwide and 675,000 Americans died? People in the future will no doubt be wondering about us and what we did to get through this time. Like it or not, we are making history behind our masks.

Please share how you’ve been using your time, your strategies for getting through these days, things you’ve done to create joyful moments for yourself or others, the projects and passions you’ve renewed or discovered anew. What you’re doing might give others the spark needed to make 2020 a little easier to bear.

You don’t even have to write your story. Simply call the church office at 503-646-0629 and you may see it in a future issue of this newsletter.

Just Vote: Harnessing Our Values for Justice

On the day after the election, will you be able to say that you did everything you could to turn out the vote for climate justice? Join EcoFaith Recovery for Just Vote: Harnessing Our Values for Climate and Racial Justice for 90 minutes beginning at 8:45 am on Thursday, October 15, and Thursday, October 29, via Zoom.

Learn how you can get engaged with text banking and phone banking to turn out the vote for the elections. Or create your action plan for calling two or more friends or family members in swing states to engage them in conversation about the values that will inform your vote. Take action during the meeting to make a difference in this election while grounding yourself in spiritual practice with others and cultivating the power of your own story as a catalyst for change.

Through EcoFaith’s initiative, we empower one another and our communities to “rediscover the courage to rise up with the most vulnerable and oppressed in the face of systems that escalate injustice and climate chaos.” Even if you are just getting started, you will receive valuable information on campaigns you can engage with now, mentorship on how to start an action team, and support for creating an effective plan. Go to the Just Vote website to learn more and get the Zoom link.

Table Talk: The Prevalence & Persistence of White Supremacy

Gathered around the table in his home, Martin Luther talked freely and openly with his colleagues and students about matters of faith, theology, and varied aspects of daily life. In an effort to cultivate this kind of spirited discussion, we have a tradition at St. Andrew of gathering for Table Talks. Though we cannot gather in person, Pastor Brocker invites you to participate in the next Table Talk via Zoom on Thursday, October 29, 7:00-8:00 pm.

At the first Presidential Debate on Tuesday, September 29, President Trump could not bring himself to clearly and unambiguously denounce White supremacy. In the essay “White Supremacy Is a Script We’re Given at Birth,” Reggie Williams, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary, observes “how prevalent and persistent White supremacy is in this country.” Williams is a member of the Board of the International Bonhoeffer Society—English Language Section. He has written a book entitled Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. According to Williams, White supremacy is not simply a problem for a small minority of violent young men; “it’s written in our flesh and rehearsed throughout history.” As a Black man Williams himself has experienced some of the consequences of the script of White supremacy.

In this Table Talk we will ask some very basic questions: What is White supremacy? How have we seen White supremacy manifested in our lives? Why is White supremacy so prevalent and persistent? To prepare for this Table Talk, you are encouraged to read Reggie Williams essay mentioned above.

2020 Beaverton Virtual Art Show

Artistic talent abounds among us! This month, you can go online to see the work of some 350 artists, including St. Andrew’s own Ken Reiner, who were selected to participate in Beaverton’s 2020 Virtual Art Show. Browse the entire collection or search by artist name. The art is available for purchase, too, so if you see something you really like you can follow up with the artist.

Where Are All the Birds?

This morning Jan asked me, “Where are all the birds?” What she was commenting on was that we are not seeing many birds in our suburban Beaverton backyard, and we’re used to seeing birds. We have a bird feeder with a diverse selection of seeds, a suet ball, a hummingbird feeder, and a bird bath, all rarely used.

I said, “I know why.” Carol Harker and I have just finished reading a book by Douglas Tallamy, Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard. Dr. Tallamy is a professor of wildlife ecology with a focus on the interaction between plants and wildlife. His research shows that resident birds and insects (including bees and butterflies) feed on locally native plants. The problem is that Jan and I live in a subdivision that is a non-native plant ecosystem (there are only three native plant species in our yard!).

We had lots of birds of many varieties in our previous Beaverton yard. When we lived on Cooper Mountain, there were always birds to
be seen: scrub jays, goldfinches, house finches, chickadees, several kinds of sparrows, swallows, and more. When there was an open one-acre lot across the street, we always had bluebirds in our nest boxes (It is well known that bluebirds need about an acre of open land to feed their chicks). After a large new house was built on that lot, the bluebirds moved on, but swallows now use the nest boxes.

There were also hummingbirds, usually both Anna’s and rufous, and they would have two families every year. The fledglings, which I called the “teenagers,” would fight over access to our two hummingbird feeders. The hummingbirds nested in a forest a couple of yards away.

I think that is the difference from our current yard. On Cooper Mountain, we had a very large predominantly native forest (including Jenkin’s Estate) to the north and, to the south, the 800-acre Cooper Mountain Nature Park with its open meadows and oak woodland.

You may know that we spend the winter at our house in San Antonio, Texas. There we have a different, but similarly wide variety of birds: cardinals, blue jays, mockingbirds, three kinds of doves, and many more. We can sit in our breakfast nook and watch them at our feeders and bird bath. Nearly every yard in our suburban neighborhood has a native live oak, and many have native cedar elm, Texas red oak, and mountain cedar. Two blocks away there is a wide native forest around a dry creek bed that forms a long linear park across San Antonio, and two miles away there is a nature park over a square mile in size. In both our San Antonio neighborhood and on Cooper Mountain, the plantings are mostly non-native, but the resident wildlife has nearby access to a variety of native plants (trees, shrubs, annual and perennial flowering plants, and grasses). Unfortunately, our Beaverton home north of Sunset Highway doesn’t have a concentration of nearby native plants. As a result, our yard receives few bird visitors.

Now that we understand some of the reasons there are few birds, next week I will discuss how all of us can make a difference.

Eric Luttrell

Dismantling Racism in Our Institutions

The 15 members of St. Andrew’s “Reckoning with Racism” cohort invite you to join them in learning about the Doctrine of Discovery and the ways European descendants benefit from a violent history of land grabbing and genocide that was justified by patriotism and Christian religion. This same theology formed an international legal structure that continues to dispossess Indigenous Peoples of their land.

What does it mean to be a peacemaker today in a world where the present is defined by the violence of the past? You can watch the Doctrine of Discovery video informing the cohort’s discussion this week on YouTube.

Pandemic Story: 20 Naked Ladies

One of our St. Andrew faithful stopped by the building a week ago and shared the pleasure he’s gotten from the 20 naked ladies in his yard. True story. But it’s not as salacious as it sounds.

Larry & Phyllis Vachal were delighted by the display of belladonna lilies, aka “naked ladies,” in their yard in 2020 They inherited the planting put in by previous owners when they moved into their home in 2003. The next spring, they wondered what the green foliage by their back fence was going to produce. Then it all died back. After the plants rested for some weeks, they awakened again to put on their dazzling show.

Larry describes it this way: “All of a sudden, I noticed a sprout poking up. Then another. And another. This year I counted 20.” Soon, fragrant pink lily-like flowers emerge above the naked stalks.

Like many of us, Larry has spent more time than usual puttering around his yard during the pandemic. He and Phyllis are natives of North Dakota, where naked ladies simply won’t grow. But they flourish in zones 7-10, even during a pandemic.

Collins Summit: Shalom in Divided Times

What does shalom and unity look like in 2020, when racial unrest, political tensions, and COVID-19 have impacted nearly every aspect of our lives? This year at its Collins Summit, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon is asking
how we bring our whole selves to the table and stay engaged in light of our differences, not in spite of them.

The Summit will include a lecture from Lisa Sharon Harper, founder and president of FreedomRoad.us and one of today’s leading voices on the topics of poverty, racial and gender justice, and transformational civic engagement.

Register now for the virtual event to be held Wednesday, November 18.

In Need of Prayers…

Family and friends of Dr. Philip Gehring	Peace and God’s comfort at his death	Susan Reiser
Family and friends of Chris Goodwin (brother-in-law)	Peace and God’s comfort at his death	Debi Gustafson
Family and friends of Pat Hall (sister)	Peace and God’s comfort at her death	Fran Miller
Diana Heidinger (sister-in-law) and her family	Comfort, peace, and acceptance as Diana is in hospice	Judy Heidinger
Patty Werner (sister-in-law)	Comfort, strength, and successful treatment	Susan Reiser
Janet Vorvick	Comfort and courage in facing mental health challenges	Janet Vorvick
Margie Lee (wife)	Strength to endure chemotherapy	Robert May
Matia Brocker	Healing and recovery from surgery	Pastor Mark Brocker
Jeremy Bliesner (son)	Healing and recovery from eye surgery	Larry & Bonnie Bliesner
Chris Bekemeier	Healing and recovery from surgery (Oct. 2)	Pastor Robyn Hartwig
Bernie Dwigans	Healing and recovery	Carol Hogan
Phil Johnson (cousin’s husband)	Healing and recovery	Linda Fransen
Ellen Cliford (daughter of a good friend)	Healing and recovery	Sharon Fako
Our nation	Integrity of the election	Staff
St. Andrew Council, Executive Committee, Staff	Wisdom and discernment	Staff
Karen Klingelhafer, Kyler Vogt, and all seminarians; India Jensen Kerr and all ministry candidates	Encouragement and support	Staff
Grace First Lutheran Church (Bend, OR) Nativity Lutheran Church (Bend, OR) Church of Living Waters Lutheran (Burns, OR) Peace Lutheran Church (Burns, OR)	Serving with us in the Oregon Synod	Staff
Bilal Masjid (Beaverton, OR)	Blessings on our interfaith partners	Staff

Help Set the Table for Immigrant Families

During these uncertain times, remember how families all over the world cope; they come together and support each other at mealtime, around the Communal Bowl. Lutheran Community Services Northwest is setting the table for refugee and immigrant families as it provides the emotional and practical support to help them rebuild their lives. Click here for a sneak peek at their fundraising video. On October 15, the organization will release its complete video and ask people to take a virtual seat at the table and contribute to support local refugee and immigrant families.

A Blessing for St. Andrew’s Reformation Earth Garden

Save the date:
Sunday, October 24, 2020
1:00 pm

Everyone is invited to gather in and around the garden north of the St. Andrew Sanctuary for a short blessing ceremony.
Wear a mask; bring a chair if you’d like, and see your church friends as we celebrate our Earth Care core value.

Preparing for Next Sunday

Highlights for the Week

Check the church calendar for the most up-to-date information.

Sunday, October 11, Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

8:30 am	Livestream Worship	YouTube
9:30 am	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
10:00 am	Sunday School (age 3 – 5th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	Confirmation (6th – 8th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	High School Youth Group	Zoom
10:00 am	Adult Education:  The Political Responsibility of the Church	Zoom
11:00 am	Online Worship	Zoom
12:00 pm	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom

Monday, October 12

7:00 pm

Men’s Book Club

Zoom

Tuesday, October 13

9:00 am	Facility Management Team Meeting	Zoom
12:30 pm	Yard Survey/Citizen Science Team Meeting	Outside-front
6:00 pm	HR Meeting	Zoom
7:00 pm	Finance Team Meeting	Zoom

Wednesday, October 14 – Weekly News submissions due by 4:00 pm

10:00 am	Reopening Meeting	Zoom
6:00 pm	Handbell Ensemble Rehearsal	Sanctuary
6:30 pm	Informal Gathering Time	Zoom
7:00 pm	High School Youth Game Night	Zoom
7:00 pm	Wednesday Evening Prayer	Zoom
7:30 pm	Centering Prayer	Zoom

Thursday, October 15

12:00 pm	Team Ministry Meeting	Zoom
7:00 pm	Council Meeting	Zoom

Sunday, October 18, Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

8:30 am	Livestream Worship	YouTube
9:30 am	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
10:00 am	Sunday School (age 3 – 5th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	Confirmation (6th – 8th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	High School Youth Group	Zoom
10:00 am	Adult Education:  The Political Responsibility of the Church	Zoom
11:00 am	Online Worship	Zoom
12:00 pm	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom

Connecting to Worship

Ways to Give

Thank you for supporting the ministries of St. Andrew!

October 4, 2020

The Political Responsibility of the Church

With just weeks to go before U.S. elections in November, Pastor Mark Brocker considers the church’s responsibility to respond to societal challenges. This Sunday, October 4, he’ll take up the topic of “Responsibility for Future Generations.”

Plan to join the 10:00 am Adult Education class via Zoom. Session outlines are available on the Adult Ed page, where you can also see recordings of earlier class sessions.

Wednesday Evening Meditation

Our midweek Prayer Services continue into the fall on Wednesday nights via Zoom. The service will focus on our role in creation, with music, prayer, meditations, and scripture.

     6:30 pm:  Informal Gathering Time
     7:00 pm:  Wednesday Evening Prayer
     7:30 pm:  Centering Prayer

Join us for any or all of these events. The connection link is sent out Wednesday afternoons, so please watch for it.

Donate to Outside in Oct. 1 – 24

Since 1968, Outside In has transformed lives by helping to break cycles of chronic homelessness, poverty, and poor health among Portland’s LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, those experiencing homelessness, and the underserved. With COVID-19 plaguing our country, Portland still has a high number of people living on our city streets every night.

Outside In provides a safe space where youth can get their immediate needs met and begin building supportive, trusting relationships with adults who can help. Your financial gift will provide the basics—safety from the streets, showers, laundry, meals, and case management— to help these young people get on their feet with dignity.

Please donate from October 1-24 and send your donation to St. Andrew with “Service Committee Special Projects” on the memo line. Thank you for your response!

Bonnie Bliesner and the Service Committee

Plan Your Vote

Oregon’s voter registration deadline is October 13. Set your mind at ease. If you ahve a computer, if only takes a minute to check to ensure that you are registered. Just follow these steps:

• go to sos.oregon.gov
• click on “Voting & Elections”
• click on “My Vote”
• click on the blue box, “Go to My Vote Now”
• fill out your first name, last name, and date of birth
• click “Submit”

Within seconds, you will see your voter registration information.

Wildfire Response

Lutheran Disaster Response stands ready to help victims of recent and ongoing wildfires. Gifts designated for “U.S. Wildfires” will be used in full (100%) to assist those affected by wildfires, until the response is complete.

Or go to the Oregon Synod Wildfire Relief Fund to fund direct support to congregations providing relief and aid related to the fires in Oregon.

Telling Your Pandemic Story

Have you wondered how our ancestors managed to cope with the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, when 50 million souls were lost worldwide and 675,000 Americans died? People in the future will no doubt be wondering about us and what we did to get through this time. Like it or not, we are making history behind our masks.

Please share how you’ve been using your time, your strategies for getting through these days, things you’ve done to create joyful moments for yourself or others, the projects and passions you’ve renewed or discovered anew. What you’re doing might give others the spark needed to make 2020 a little easier to bear.

You don’t even have to write your story. Simply call the church office at 503-646-0629 and you may see it in a future issue of this newsletter.

Where’s Susan?

Waldo’s not missing here at St. Andrew, but Parish Musician Susan can be hard to find. With her marriage to John Reiser earlier this year, Susan Friesen became Susan Werner Reiser. Please update your church directory with her current contact information:

Name: Susan R. Werner Reiser
Cell phone: 503-334-6353
Personal e-mail: srwerner.reiser@gmail.com
Church e-mail: srwerner.reiser@standrewlutheran.com

Let’s Talk; Let’s Listen Contues

Thanks to all of you who have been making phone calls as a part of our Let’s Talk; Let’s Listen campaign this summer. It’s not too late to participate in this project. The information we are gathering will help the St. Andrew leadership teams respond to the needs of our community.

To sign up to call someone: https://tinyurl.com/Call-Signups
To access Questions for Callers: https://tinyurl.com/Call-Questions-to-Ask
To access the Followup Form: https://tinyurl.com/Form-for-Followup

Or, contact Lynn Santelmann, Pat Christiansen, Larry Bliesner, Scott Taylor, LuAnn Staul, Victoria Kovalenko, or Bob Stadel and one of us can get you connected.

Preparing for Next Sunday

Backyard Gatherings + More!

Seize the day! One way many of us have stayed connected in recent months is through neighborhood backyard gatherings. Mary Smith, Sharon Fako, and Pastor Robyn have developed guidelines for doing this safely. The St. Andrew MACG Core team is ready to help you host and/or lead a gathering in your back yard, your front yard, or even at St. Andrew in one of the outdoor areas. Plan a gathering now while the weather remains favorable.

Have you been wanting to learn more about how to make a carbon garden in your yard? We can arrange for someone from the Community Carbon Team to come and give your group some ideas. Are you motivated to take some action before this fall’s election? Perhaps you would like to gather some people to write postcards to voters who may not know their names have been removed from voter lists, or perhaps you would like to write letters to our elected representatives. Or would you like to come together and play games with other fun-loving people? Or simply get together and catch up?

Please contact Pat Christiansen or Larry Bliesner, co-chairs of the MACG Core Team, to get started. We can help you find out who lives in your neighborhood, connect you with people who can help with your particular area of interest, and help you with guidelines to hold your gathering safely. Let’s enjoy this beautiful fall weather with some safe get-togethers with some of our favorite people.

Nature’s Best Hope – Native Plants

In his book Nature’s Best Hope, Douglas Tallamay describes a visit to Portland. Our city has a reputation for its parks, green outlook, and eco-friendliness. Yet during a walk through Portland neighborhoods he found very few native trees. Ninety-one percent of the trees he identified were introduced from other continents or ecoregions. This means that most of the trees we have in our neighborhoods are not able to support local wildlife.

Carrying capacity is the ability of a particular place to support specific species without degrading local resources. When one species exceeds the carrying capacity and degrades the habitat many species suffer. For local wildlife, plants determine the carrying capacity. The number and type of plants in the landscape play a crucial role in the abundance and diversity of animals that can live in that landscape.

Native plants not only support wildlife, but they offer additional benefits, too. Planting native plants can conserve water and reduce the need for pesticides and fertilizers that can pollute local rivers and streams. Songbirds, bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects fight garden pests, pollinate food crops, and improve the soil. Fall is the best time for planting. If you are considering adding plants to your landscape, consider adding natives to increase the carrying capacity of your landscape.

LuAnn Staul

Men’s Book Club

Members of the Men’s Book Club will meet via Zoom at 7:00 pm on Monday, October 12, to discuss The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. Eric Luttrell is the host.

Rated highly by reviewers and several powerful men, the book is about “gender equity and its golden thread is empathy,” says Dr. Paul Farmer. Warren Buffet says, “I think this is one of the best books I’ve ever read.” And Trevor Noah adds, “This book is a beautiful and concise mission statement on what we need to do to move society forward—continue to empower women. At every level and in all places women are truly the bedrock supporting their communities.”

Melinda Gates introduces the reader to women and girls whose experiences are much different from her own. “They’ve taught her a great deal,” Dr. Farmer says, “and in this beautifully crafted and artful memoir, Melinda Gates invites the reader to learn from them, too.”

If you’d like more information about St. Andrew’s Men’s Book
Club, please contact Gary Grafwallner.

Spirituality (Women’s) Book Group News

The Spirituality Book Group will meet on Sunday, October 18, at 3:00 p.m. via Zoom, when Sharon Fako will lead the discussion of The Mountains Sing, by Nguyen Phan Mai. According to Amazon, the book is “an epic account of Vietnam’s painful 20th-century history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling.”

The Zoom link will be sent out a day before the meeting to all who are on the Spirituality Book Group list. If you would like to attend, contact Mary Smith for connection information.

Coming Up for St. Andrew Book Clubs

Spirituality Book Group (Women)

Sunday, October 18, at 3:00 pm
Book: The Mountains Sing, by Nguyen Phan Mai
Discussion Leader: Sharon Fako

Sunday, November 15, at 3:00 pm
Book: Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver
Discussion Leader: Mary Ann Snider

Sunday, December 13, at 3:00 pm
Book: The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
Discussion Leader: Fran Miller

Men’s Book Club

Monday, November 9, at 7:00 pm
Book: Strip Tease, by Carl Hiassen
Host: Ted Miller

Monday, December 14, at 7:00 pm
Book: Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump
Host: Tim Holte

Monday, January 11, at 7:00 pm
Book: The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris
Host: Gary Grafwallner

Centering Prayer Training

Whether or not you’ve participated in St. Andrew’s Centering Prayer group that meets via Zoom each Wednesday at 7:30 pm, you are invited to a three-hour Zoom workshop on Centering Prayer to be held Saturday, October 17, beginning at 9:00 am. Contact the church office to register.

The workshop is appropriate for beginners or anyone wishing to refresh their practice of Centering Prayer. This approach to prayer is a form of meditation rooted in the Christian contemplative tradition and popularized in recent decades by Father Thomas Keating. The purpose of Centering Prayer is to foster deeper intimacy with God through silence and stillness.

Camp Lutherwood’s Online Harvest Festival

Visit the Spirit of Harvest online to learn more and watch Camp Lutherwood’s livestream event on YouTube at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, October 7. Start bidding on exclusive camp experiences and purchase raffle tickets on the online auction! (Please note: You must be registered to bid on any items.) Donate to Camp Lutherwood and encourage others to do the same!

Dismantling Racism in Our Institutions

The 15 members of St. Andrew’s “Reckoning with Racism” cohort invite you to join us in some of our reading as we begin to do the work of dismantling racism. This week we read a short article from Portland Monthly titled “How Oregon’s Racist History Can Sharpen Our Sense of Justice Now,” an article by Walidah Imarisha.

You can learn more at Common Table. Then contact Pastor Robyn or call her at the church office (503-646-0629) if you would like to participate. Upcoming Tuesday Zoom gatherings are scheduled from 6:30-8:00 pm on October 13 and 27, and November 10.

Pandemic Story: Keeping Herself in Stitches

When she’s not playing the organ or directing St. Andrew’s bell ringers, Susan Werner Reiser might very well be exercising her talent as a seamstress. Having sewn for herself, her home, her daughter, and her grandchildren for years, Susan decided to go into business and established an Etsy shop, SeasonalCoverings, in 2013.

During the pandemic, when so many small enterprises have struggled, business at SeasonalCoverings has been booming! Tree skirts in several sizes are her most popular item—and they’re not only for Christmas. Right now, people who decorate with the seasons are snapping up her reversible Halloween/Thanksgiving tree skirts.

Susan’s customers come from the world over and she’s sent orders to Australia, Japan, Canada, and Germany. In addition to tree skirts, aprons, and table runners, Susan also responds to custom requests. She’s made clothes for a stuffed animal Grinch for Kim in Florida and created an elegant tree skirt from a wedding gown. Etsy customers who’ve shopped SeasonalCoverings are unanimously impressed by the quality of her work. One buyer expressed it this way: “Truly beautiful…. When I opened it, it made me feel like it was crafted for me by someone that loves me. Hard to explain.”

Did you know that we at St. Andrew have been the recipients of Susan’s gifts in designing several banners and large wall hangings that she has made for display in the sanctuary? This summer, Kyler Vogt’s sermon on his vision for children’s ministry inspired her latest creation. It will be new to all of us when we’re able to return to worship in our building.

Do you have an online business that you’re nurturing through the pandemic? Contact the church office and let us know.

In Need of Prayers…

Family and friends of Chris Goodwin (brother-in-law)	Peace and God’s comfort at his death	Debi Gustafson
Family and friends of Pat Hall (sister)	Peace and God’s comfort at her death	Fran Miller
Family and friends of Lynn Dunn (friend)	Peace and God’s comfort at her death	Anne Newell
Family and friends of COVID-19 victims	Peace and God’s comfort at their deaths	Staff
Workers in the healthcare system	Protection, courage, and strength	Staff
Janet Vorvick	Comfort and courage in facing mental health challenges	Janet Vorvick
Diana Heidinger (sister-in-law)	Peace, comfort, and guidance	Judy Heidinger
Jim Heidinger and daughters	Comfort and acceptance regarding Diana’s diagnosis	Judy Heidinger
Margie Lee (wife)	Strength to endure chemotherapy	Robert May
Jeremy Bliesner (son)	Healing and recovery from eye surgery	Larry & Bonnie Bliesner
Chris Bekemeier	Healing and recovery from surgery (Oct. 2)	Pastor Robyn Hartwig
Bernie Dwigans	Healing and recovery	Carol Hogan
Phil Johnson (cousin’s husband)	Healing and recovery	Linda Fransen
Ellen Cliford (daughter of a good friend)	Healing and recovery	Sharon Fako
Judy Deal	Healing and recovery from shoulder replacement	Susan Deal
Suzanne Warnes	Healing and recovery following reactions to chemo	Suzanne Warnes
Harriett Stevens (mother)	Healing and recovery from a fall	David Stevens
Veterans suffering from PTSD during the fires	Continued healing and comfort	Pastor Susan Kintner
Carol Hogan	Thanksgiving for good test results	Carol Hogan
Noah Oyen and all firefighters	Protection and endurance	Staff
People impacted by ravages of climate change	Safety and protection	Staff
Peaceful protesters in America	Courage and protection	Staff
People working to ensure a just vote in 2020	Courage and persistence	Staff
Bishop Laurie Larson Caesar Oregon Synod and Staff	Strength and wisdom	Staff
Refugees and immigrants	Acceptance, safety, and just treatment	Staff
Military personnel, especially Justina Hailey Hope Brocker, Evan Dahlquist, Dawson Dethlefs, Neil Fiegenbaum, and Jerami Reyna	Courage and protection	Staff
Trinity Lutheran Church (Tulelake, CA) St. Timothy Lutheran Church (Portland, OR)	Serving with us in the Oregon Synod	Staff
Hoshanah Rabbah (Tigard, OR)	Blessings on our interfaith partners	Staff

Dear St. Andrew Saints,

We want to thank the Nifty Notters for the two cozy quilts gifted to us and keeping us warm. And our thanks to the Prayer Shawl knitters for the beautiful shawl whose prayers have been wrapped around us during those hard moments.

The harsh reality of losing our home and a lifetime of heirlooms is setting in and makes us feel so very sad, but then we remember all the love and care and support we have from all of you. We find ourselves often in the lament of the Psalms, but we also are comforted by the words of Psalm 91, which assures us we live in the shelter of the Most Holy, who will guard and protect us and who will answer our prayer.

You have answered our prayers with your love. Thank you!

Blessings,
John & Christine Core

Highlights for the Week

Check the church calendar for the most up-to-date information.

Sunday, October 4, Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

8:30 am	Livestream Worship	YouTube
9:30 am	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
10:00 am	Sunday School (age 3 – 5th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	Confirmation (6th – 8th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	High School Youth Group	Zoom
10:00 am	Adult Education:  The Political Responsibility of the Church	Zoom
11:00 am	Online Worship	Zoom
12:00 pm	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom

Tuesday, October 6

10:00 am	Worship Planners	Zoom
12:30 pm	Citizen Science & Yard Survey Team Meeting	Community Garden Parking Lot
7:00 pm	MACG Meeting	Zoom

Wednesday, October 7 – Weekly News submissions due by 4:00 pm

12:30 pm	Bonhoeffer Seminar	Zoom
6:00 pm	Handbell Ensemble Rehearsal	Sanctuary
6:30 pm	Informal Gathering Time	Zoom
7:00 pm	High School Youth Game Night	Zoom
7:00 pm	Wednesday Evening Prayer	Zoom
7:30 pm	Centering Prayer	Zoom

Thursday, October 8

12:00 pm

Team Ministry Meeting

Zoom

Sunday, October 11, Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

8:30 am	Livestream Worship	YouTube
9:30 am	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom
10:00 am	Sunday School (age 3 – 5th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	Confirmation (6th – 8th Grade)	Zoom
10:00 am	High School Youth Group	Zoom
10:00 am	Adult Education:  The Political Responsibility of the Church	Zoom
11:00 am	Online Worship	Zoom
12:00 pm	Virtual Coffee Time	Zoom

Connecting to Worship

Ways to Give

Thank you for supporting the ministries of St. Andrew!