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Compline (Night) Prayer Tuesdays at 8pm

Join us for a simple closing prayer at the end of the day. Tuesdays at 8pm.

Known as Compline (pronounced comp-lin), it is also known as Night Prayer, or Prayers at the End of the Day, and is the final church service of the day in the Christian tradition of canonical hours. The English word Compline is derived from the Latin completorium, as Compline is the completion of the working day. The word was first used in this sense about the beginning of the 6th century by St. Benedict in his Rule.

This ancient and simple service lasts about 20 minutes and gives one a chance to slow down, pause and thank God for the day that is past, and ask for his protection through the coming night. There is typically no sermon or homily.

A typical Compline Prayer can be found at http://www.bcponline.org/DailyOffice/compline.html

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Advent is upon us!

On November 27th, Hope Sunday, we began the season of expectation as we memorialize the birth of Christ the Savior. The following Sundays in Advent are:

Advent 2, Peace Sunday,
December 4th
Advent 3, Joy Sunday,
also called Marian Sunday, to honor The Blessed Virgin Mary, December 11th
Advent 4, Love Sunday,
December 18th

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About us

St. Barnabas is an Episcopal Church and part of the Anglican Communion. This means we are both sacramental and mission oriented. We are a Total Ministry, or Ministry of All the Baptized, congregation, where all are encouraged to participate as each is called by God to do. This means some are called to help with worship, music, teaching, pastoral care, hospitality, greeting, ushering, intercession (prayers), altar guild duties or reading in addition to ordained ministry.

Our ministry team includes Father David Glaser and Father Bill Stech, our priests, and Jan Varady commissioned to pastoral care, Nancy Scott commissioned to pastoral care and hospitality, and Kathy O'Connell, Christian education coordinator and administrator.

We use the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. For your convenience, we use easy-to-follow printed bulletins. Our music is wide-ranging, from traditional hymns to contemporary praise choruses. During our service feel free to stand, sit or kneel as you are able. We take an offering, which helps support the church and our outreach to the community, and we appreciate any gift you make. We hope you will find in our service a renewed certainty that God has visited His people.

We welcome you!

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Green Earth Bag Workshop

St. Barnabas Quilter's Guild presents a "Green" Earth Bag Workshop, Sunday, November 20, 2011, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Taking care of the earth can be fun, and you won't believe how easy it can be. The event is free for all. Held at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, 20500 Old U.S. 12, Chelsea, Michigan.

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For the Bible Tells Me So shown during St. Barnabas Days

This documentary film, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and on the Oscar shortlist of documentary features for that year, focuses on homosexuality and its perceived conflict with religion. Interviews delve into real families—some well-known and some not—and their struggles to come to terms with what it means to honor God through sexuality in modern-day America.

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Contemporary Praise Workshop & Concert Friday, June 10, 7pm

St. Barnabas Days festivities will be kicked off by Danny Cox, music director at the multi-campus Kensington Community Church, Troy, Michigan, who will lead a contemporary praise music workshop for Chelsea area musicians. Before his music directing days, Danny was a full-time recording artist, studio musician and producer.

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Liturgy of Easter

This period of the year, from Easter Day through the Day of Pentecost, is the oldest part of the Church Year. It is directly derived from the fifty-day period in the Jewish calendar, which began with Passover and concluded with Pentecost (the Greek term for “fiftieth day”). The Lord’s death and resurrection took place at Passover, and its completion—the empowering of the apostles by the Holy Spirit—took place on Pentecost. These are the church’s original feast days, which in very early times were both moved to the Sundays following the Jewish festivals, because of the early church’s intense reverence for the first day of the week as the Lord’s Day, the Day of Resurrection. The early Christians considered every Sunday to be a celebration of the rising of Christ and of the coming of the Holy Spirit—a repetition of Easter and Pentecost.

At an early date, the Great Fifty Days came to have a number of liturgical characteristics that set them apart from the remainder of the Church Year. Many of those were lost in later generations of the church, but others are still very much a part of our liturgy, including some that have been revived by many of the liturgical churches in recent years. Some of the more notable of those Eastertide liturgical notes are described here.

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The Lord's Supper instituted on Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday is part of the Triduum, or three holy days before Easter. "Maundy" comes from the Latin mandatum novum, "new commandment," from Jn 13:34, "Love one another as I have loved you."

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On Good Friday we fast and pray

The Friday before Easter Day, on which the church commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus. It is a day of fasting and special acts of discipline and self-denial. In the early church candidates for baptism, joined by others, fasted for a day or two before the Easter (Paschal) feast.

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Holy Week is here

Holy Week Schedule:

Maundy Thursday
April 21, 2010, 7pm

Good Friday
April 22, 2010, 7pm

The Great Vigil of Easter, Holy Saturday, 9pm
April 23, 2010

Easter-Resurrection Sunday, 10am
April 24, 2010

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St. Barnabas is an open and affirming congregation.
We welcome ALL to join us.