• Services this week
• Parish notices
• Financial update - February 2025
• Staying Grounded in Times of Chaos
• News Roundup on the website
• Contemplative Prayer
• Thursday Eucharist at 11am for the next 2 weeks
• Diocesan Book Club
• 25 Mar Parish Council meeting
• 27 Mar Taizé Prayer at St Philip
• Volunteer opportunity: Offerings Coordinator & Counters
• Looking Wider
• This Saturday: Clean Up Victoria
• until 30 Mar: Street Hope Socks for Easter
• 18-23 Mar Victoria Sketch Club Annual Art Show and Sale
• Missions Update: Hope Home, Haiti
• 26 Mar An Evening of Arabic, Celtic & Jewish Music
• end of March deadline: Congregation Emanu-El Refugee Project - Syrian-Palestinian refugee sponsorship
• Anglican Journal: March 2025
• Vancouver Island Cursillo events in 2025
• Issues with Shaw emails not receiving weekly newsletters
• This Week in Prayer
• Useful links

16 March 2025 - Second Sunday in Lent

8am Holy Communion

9am Community prayers downstairs in the youth room

9.30am Eucharist, in-person and live streamed via Facebook Live [LINK]

• Celebrant & preacher: Fr. Allen Doerksen
• Altar Guild: Jackie Prowse, Kathy Fyfe
• Usher: Bruce Richmond
• Music leader:  Shannon Carmichael, Stacy McGhee
• Readers:  Gaye Stone, Rev. Rebecca Yeo
• Prayers of the People: Lisa Alexander
• Powerpoint & slides:  Clayton Savage, Marcus Schlag
• Facebook Live: Karishma Iyer
• Children's ministry:  Gerianne Knowles-Robson
• Youth ministry: Ruth McGhee
• Coffee: Karen van Rheenen, Louise Bluck
• Offerings counters: Betty Davidson, Anna Sander

Please join us downstairs in the hall for coffee and fellowship after the 9.30 service.

18 March, Tuesday 10.30am Contemplative Prayer

20 March, Thursday 11am Holy Eucharist followed by book study starting at noon

Here is a summary of Parish income and expenses for February 2025:
Income: $24,300, of which:

• Offerings: $16,700
• Rental: $2,000
• Other: $5,600

Expenses: $36,200, of which:

• Salaries: $17,400
• Synod: $3,400
• Other: $15,400

Balance: ($11,900)

Note that this accounting reflects the date of bank deposits or cheques cashing, rather than when the expenses occurred or donation was made. The ‘Other’ income line was interest on GICs.

Notable ‘Other’ expenses included:

• $8,700 for a substantial part of our sound system upgrade
• $1,000 gas bill,
• $2,500 donation to PWRDF

This season of Lent is a time of intentional reflection when we make space in our lives for God to change our hearts in preparation for the new life that awaits us in the resurrection we celebrate at Easter.

This year we will share brief videos in a series called Staying Grounded in Times of Chaos. Those who have gone before us have lived in chaotic times as well, and passed wisdom on to us as we follow Christ today. In this series, voices across our diocese will share practices from our tradition that help us live out our faith when the world feels crazy. We begin our series with Brendon Neilson, Executive Director. 

To begin watching the series, please click on the link below. A new video will be released every Wednesday between now and Holy Week.

header image: Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

please share with Shaw & Hotmail subscribers - 

New feature on the website: news roundup, all the newsletter items together, published on Fridays. This is mainly to help those whose Shaw email still isn’t letting the e-newsletter through.

If you are still not receiving the weekly St Philip e-newsletter on Fridays, PLEASE CHECK THE PARISH WEBSITE
www.stphilipvictoria.ca

Most news and events items in the newsletter are routinely posted on the News and Events sections of the website first.

You can always catch up with past e-newsletters HERE

Photo by Natalia Łyczko on Unsplash

Please join us on Tuesday mornings, 10:30 - 11:30, meeting in the choir area of the nave (at the front of the church), for a 20 minute contemplative sit with a time of prayer following. 

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

On 20 and 27 March 2025, the Thursday Eucharist will begin at 11am. Following the service on those Thursdays, please join us at church at 12 noon for Diocesan Book Club, via Zoom on the big screen. 10am start time will resume on Thursday 3 April.

Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

Diocesan Book Club 
Thursdays from 12-1:15pm via Zoom

Book: No Matter What: Crisis and the Spirit of Planetary Possibility by Catherine Keller

March 20- Week 3: Power and Its Alternatives with Allen Doerksen
March 27- Week 4: Love-tangles of Theology with Juli Mallet 

 *The author will be here in Victoria in late April to speak at the first session of the John Albert Hall Lectures event, at Christ Church Cathedral: MORE HERE

7pm at the church. All are welcome to attend.

Image by Harish Sharma from Pixabay

All are welcome to St Philip Oak Bay for a candlelit service of song, silence and contemplation in the style of the Taizé Community on Thursday, March 27, 2025 at 7pm.

Our long-serving Offerings Coordinator, Betty Davidson, is looking for a successor who would like the opportunity to serve the St Philip community in this essential role. The role could be shared and training and support will be provided.

We are also looking for volunteers to join the team of offerings counters - this is always done with another person, and can be arranged for either after the 9.30 service on Sunday or on a Monday afternoon.

Photo by John McArthur on Unsplash

Concerned about the environment and want to do something?  Clean Up Victoria: a litter pickup event on Saturday, March 15, 10-12:30.  Meet other volunteers at Centennial Square.  All supplies are provided, so just bring willing hands to tidy the streets of downtown Victoria.

Clean Up website

More about

- Ceal McLean

We are gathering Socks and Easter Treats  to make Happy Easter greetings for the unhoused community on Pandora, as part of Street Hope Victoria's Easter Chocolate drive.

What's needed? any number or combination of: pairs of new socks (boot length or longer),  and treats to put inside such as

• One chocolate bar (ex. Snickers, Mars bar, etc.)
• One small chocolate Easter egg (ex. Cadbury cream egg)
• One small bag of M&Ms OR three individually wrapped Ferrero-Rocher or Lindt/Lindor chocolate balls/truffles
• One small Easter card with a nice uplifting message from you to the recipient; no envelope required

We are hoping to collect 100 pairs. We will be collecting these items until  March 30. They will be blessed on Palm Sunday  and handed over to the Street Hope volunteers to give out.

There will be a box in the narthex for donated items.  Thank You!

- St Philip Missions Committee

Images:

Chocolate, Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Socks:  Mockup Graphics on Unsplash

There is a new Newsletter of The Foundation for the Children of Haiti from Gladys Thomas, providing an update on recent developments in Haiti - click on the link below to download (PDF).

The end of March fundraising deadline is rapidly approaching. To learn more about this initiative and the family, and for donation instructions and contact details, click here

Members of a recently sponsored family are looking for a used stand mixer and spare tools to help with employment.

A Peace and Solidarity Evening of Arabic, Celtic & Jewish Music
Featuring
Sari Alesh (violin) and Dave Conway (guitar)
Kvell’s Angels Klezmer Band

Fundraising Concert Sponsoring a Syrian-Palestinian Refugee Family

A Multi-Faith Collaboration of Christ Church Cathedral and Congregation Emanu-El
together with Christian, Muslim, Jewish and unaffiliated individual participants.

Wednesday, March 26, 2025 at 7 pm
Christ Church Cathedral (Entrance from Quadra St.)

Middle Eastern Delicacies served during intermission

Admission by Donation - doubled with matching funds

Highlights:

• Lent, our ‘God-given time of disruption’
• Future of General Synod, Journal on table as CoGS gets set for March meeting
• Churches seen playing growing role in community music movement
• Ethicist and theologian Eric Beresford was ‘a natural teacher’
• Read the whole issue here

There are several Cursillo events coming up in 2025 on the Island, including:

• - Flatbread Fundraiser at St Philip's, Cedar (Saturday, May 3)
• - Cursillo weekend at Camp Pringle (May 29-June 1)
• - 4th Day Workshop at St. Peter's, Quamichan (Saturday, June 14)
• - Rondalyn Resort Cursillo Campout (August 22-24)

For more information about Cursillo in our diocese and upcoming events, CLICK HERE.

Canadian Anglican Cursillo

World Body of Cursillos in Christianity (OMCC)

If you, a friend, or someone in your household use(s) a Shaw email address, and you haven't been receiving weekly newsletters recently, please be aware that Shaw email suddenly started rejecting all - or most - messages sent from St Philip in early February. The other Anglican parishes on the Island, and probably other organizations, are having the same problem. 

Everybody’s email program will have different settings, but here are some things you can do:

1. check junk/spam mail folder and keep checking it regularly, mark as "Not Junk" any legit emails that get in there

2. adjust Shaw spam filter settings

3. add sender to whitelist and Contacts list

4. forward a previous newsletter e-mail to reportnotspam@shaw.ca

5. as a last resort, resubscribe with a non-Shaw email. Others don't seem to be affected, except some Hotmail users.

You may need to do these more than once before it takes effect. It seems to affect a majority but not 100% of Shaw users, and is not 100% consistent for those it does affect. Others with the same problem report that they were able to use these instructions in Shaw Webmail .

- Anna

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

• Live Streams:  via Facebook Live [LINK]
• Service outline: for those viewing the live stream, the coming Sunday's 9.30 service outline is online here
• Listen to a past sermon only: click here, choose a sermon, scroll down & click "jump to sermon". Now featuring audio-only as well!
• Service recording & sermon audio: choose any past Sunday here (listed most recent first)
• More news & events from our church neighbours and wider community: click here
• Previous parish newsletters: click here and click "Recent issues" near top left for a drop-down menu
• Parish Council minutes: click here , see under Downloads
• Staff contacts: via the parish website
• Liturgy for the Islands and Inlets: click here for full text
• Salal + Cedar (Diocese of New Westminster): click here
• Book of Alternative Services: click here
• Anglican Church of Canada lectionary: click here
• Revised Common Lectionary: click here
• Diocesan Comings & Goings: read latest
• Inclusive Christians at UVic: read latest
• Faith Tides: click here for latest issue
• Contemplative Society: latest news
• L'Abri Canada: read latest
• Sorrento Centre news: click here
• PWRDF updates: read latest
• KAIROS Canada: read latest
• Anglican Church of Canada news: click here
• Anglican Journal: click here for latest articles

The Welcome pew leaflet, weekly parish news, current Anglican Journal, & Faith Tides, recent Parish Council minutes and more are all available in print in the narthex. Please let Anna know if more print copies are needed, on Sundays or for sharing with those who don't use email.