June 2nd, 2020
Good Morning Church-
I hope this letter finds you well during this time of unrest. During this time it is important for us to remember to pray. The world is a hard place. It seems very apparent that sometimes our world can be what Saint Paul called a broken world. With the unrest surrounding the death of George Floyd and our continued concern with the global pandemic that is COVID 19 we as Christians are called to do what we do best. We pray. Sometimes we are also called to pray with our feet or our voices through peaceful means. We also know that violence of any kind is abhorred by Jesus Christ, and as I said in my sermon on Sunday God is Love. During our sojourn on this planet, we are to strive to be the true Body of Christ. Jesus pointed out the evil in violence in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pointed out our similarities at the well to the Samaritan woman. This is the message as the Body of Christ and the active promotion of the Gospel is the purpose of our Earthly pilgrimage.
You might remember that I usually say that I don’t really agree the sentiment that is expressed when we hear the What Would Jesus Do slogan. Maybe its time we try to ask what would Jesus say about this time we live in? Jesus would heal, point out the injustice in the world, and call for peace. The peace would come with a turning of hearts that would make us all realize that we are one Body made in the image of God. This turning would also ask us to acknowledge the deep injustices and divisions throughout not only our history, but the history of the world. So, today while you watch and listen, ask yourself what Jesus would actually think about our world today. If you have a hard time placing yourself in Jesus’ sandals while thinking about these events, there is a book that can help guide you. I encourage you to read what Jesus has said about divisions and hatred in the Gospels. Read what Paul has said about divisions and hatred in the Epistles. Then I ask you to pray the words of peace and wholeness that you will find sprinkled throughout the scriptures. I also implore all of you to remember the words that we pledged to God in our Baptismal Covenant.
When asked “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” We all responded, “I will, with God's help.” When we were asked, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? We again responded, I will, with God's help.
When we were all asked “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? We all said, “I will, with God's help.”
I think we all need that help now. I offer this prayer from the Book of Common prayer that we might all be reminded and enabled to be agents of love and justice while striving to make this place look a little more like the Kingdom.
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so
move every human heart and especially the hearts of the
people of this land, that barriers which divide us may
crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our
divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I have also been asked to deliver the words of our Bishop to you all. What follows are two different statements. The first is a sermon for Pentecost, and the second is a statement addressing the situation aftermath surrounding the death of George Floyd. Following both of these messages you will find our schedule for this week.
From the Bishop
Pentecost Sunday / May 29, 2020
Good morning and a very blessed and happy Pentecost to every one of you! For those of you who may be listening to me or hearing my words over the radio or on the internet for the first time, my name is Jonathan Folts and I have the privilege of serving our Lord and the people of the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota as their Bishop. It is an honor to be addressing all of you on this important day in the life of the Church – a day on which we celebrate God’s gift of the Holy Spirit – and a day on which to give God special thanks for the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives.
Our reading today from the second chapter of Acts is obviously the most descriptive and most popular story of how the Church received the Holy Spirit. The disciples are in a room together when, all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit comes rushing in like a powerful wind, and tongues of fire begin to dance on top of the disciples’ heads. Furthermore, they all begin to speak and hear themselves and each other talking in different languages! We hear this story as we sit in our church buildings – well, not today, of course, and I’ll be coming back to that in a moment – when we hear this story being told on Pentecost Sunday, we usually are sitting in our church buildings and smiling and nodding our heads as if what we are hearing is completely normal! The looks on our faces would no doubt cause an outsider to believe that we think that this Holy Spirit event is the most natural thing in the world! But this event wasn’t normal! – it was disruptive! – it was unsettling!
Let me explain it to you like this: I am a realistic optimist. And this means, in part, that I will look at a situation in its entirety – I will try and grasp the full reality of a situation – and then I’m going to start looking for hope! Because hope is where you and I are going to find God! Hope is where you and I are going to find Jesus! Hope is where we’re going to find God’s Holy Spirit at work! And there isn’t any situation in the entire world in which we can’t find some hope! Because there isn’t any situation in the world where God is not there!
Being a realistic optimist, therefore, is to be a missionary of God’s hope! And I’ll tell you – I would much rather be a realistic optimist than a realistic pessimist! Because a realistic pessimist is a person who will grasp the reality of a situation, and then they’re going to point out all the things that are going to continue to go wrong in that situation – and furthermore, they’re going to predict that everything is going to just keep getting worse and worse and worse! Now I don’t see Jesus doing that! Throughout the Gospels, I see Jesus grasping the reality of a situation and then pointing people towards a new reality! A new reality of hope! And we who are God’s missionaries here in South Dakota? That’s the path that we want to follow, too.
Now, having said that, I will confess to you that, when it comes to the Pentecost story in the Book of Acts, if you and I had been in that same room with the disciples when the Holy Spirit came rushing in – and if I had seen tongues of fire dancing on top of your head – my very first inclination would not be to believe that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. No, my first inclination would be to believe that your hair is on fire. And my second inclination would be to tell you that your hair is on fire – loudly – and vigorously smack the top of your head with my hands, trying to put the fire out!
And yes, I have seen the pictures of the disciples at Pentecost, I’ve seen the icons and the little flames of fire dancing on the disciples’ heads, and I’ve seen the disciples all standing there, gazing upwards towards heaven with these expressions of peace across their faces. But I all but guarantee you, those pictures were taken after the disciples had stopped running around and had stopped smacking each other on the top of the head!
And really, that is exactly the way that we sometimes react when the Holy Spirit is up to something, isn’t it? The Holy Spirit disrupts us, shakes us, moves us – and when that disruption happens, sometimes our very first reaction is to yell – loudly -- and then we go and try and snuff the Holy Spirit out!
The Holy Spirit can be disruptive! – however, because you and I have heard this Pentecost story so many times, we’ve become very used to it! This story has become normal to us, so much so that we stop associating the Holy Spirit with our being disrupted!
So my point is simply this: one way to consider where the Holy Spirit is currently active in our lives is to ask ourselves this: “Where in my life are things currently being stirred up? Where is it that I am finding myself feeling disrupted, shaken, and unsettled?” You see, when we stop and admit the fact that we are feeling unsettled or disrupted – we are being realistic about our situation! And then, when we take the next step and start looking for hope – when we start looking in these situations of ours for the creation of brand-new possibilities and how these possibilities might lead us to the experience a brand-new reality – that’s where you and I are going to find the Holy Spirit at work! Right there! Right there!
Here are some cases in point: the vast majority of us are still no longer worshipping in our church buildings – and I daresay that most of us can remember that very first Sunday when we could not go into our church buildings because of the COVID-19 virus. It wasn’t safe. Our experiences at that time – our experiences of being and feeling disrupted were real. And yes, some people spent some of their time doing a fair amount of yelling about this situation, because it was going to require a change! But after the yelling stopped – after our initial feelings of being disrupted had passed – what did the Church start to do? We started looking for hope! We started listening to what God was inviting us to do. We realized that we were in a brand-new reality – and so as the Church, as God’s missionaries, we started to look for where the Holy Spirit was at work in the creation of a brand-new reality.
For example, prior to these times, I’ve never worshipped with four different Episcopal congregations in our diocese over the span of four hours, without ever leaving my home! And that’s because three of those congregations – Trinity in Pierre, Calvary Cathedral in Sioux Falls, and St. Andrew’s in Rapid City, prior to now, never had online services before! The fourth “congregation,” Rosebud Episcopal Mission, started their online service about a year and a half ago, but it, too, was created out of a crisis situation! The hard winter weather was keeping people from being able to attend church, so this online service was created! – and enjoys a following that is global!
Indeed, the number of people who are tuning in to our online services is amazing! And we’re not just online – we’re on the radio, too! The Cheyenne River Episcopal Mission has never had worship services on the radio before! And people are tuning it! Further, because of an innovative priest in Standing Rock who has found different ways of ministering to the people of his community as best he can during these times, he now has ten new families as part of his flock! Ten new families who haven’t even stepped foot in the church building. That’s being a missionary of hope!
Understand this now: the reality of our being in a pandemic has not changed! We are still, most of us, not in our buildings. And yet, at the same time, we are being God’s agents of missionary hope! And we are continuing in our efforts to bring that hope to all of God’s people just as the original apostles did after the original Pentecost event had occurred.
So – the next time that you experience a disruptive moment in your life – be it related to the virus or not. The next time that you feel shaken or disturbed – admit it. Own it. Name the reality! And then I want you to go find your Bible -- or Google it -- and read the Pentecost story in Acts 2. And as you read the words of the story, remind yourself that the Holy Spirit can indeed be disruptive. And then, right after you finish doing that, turn to John 20 and read verses nineteen through twenty-three. And focus on these words of Jesus: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
Stay with those phrases – and then, in the midst of the reality that everything seems to be swirling around you – be still. Stay with those two verses, stay in that center, allow your mind to start calming down so that you can start listening to God with your heart, and start looking for the Holy Spirit. Go to that place inside of yourself where you find your spirit being strengthened by God’s Spirit, strengthening you, giving you courage, no matter how loudly the winds of the world are howling around you. Listen for the hope that the Holy Spirit is offering. Look for the hope that the Holy Spirit is offering. And then, with your life, respond to that hope – and make that hope known to others.
Be God’s missionary. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, get out there – and with God’s help, let’s change the world. Amen.
May 29, 2020
Dear Faithful Missionaries of the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota:
May the unity that the Holy Spirit calls us to share with all people be a call readily heard and responded to with eagerness across our nation and the world.
Once again, our country has been rocked and confronted with both the reality and brutality of racism. The senseless and needless murder of George Floyd by a former Minneapolis police officer in front of onlookers who were pleading for his life grieves our hearts, makes us angry, and demands that justice be served. I have reached out to both Bishop Brian Prior of Minnesota, and to Bishop-Elect Craig Loya of Minnesota, and I have pledged to them our prayers and support in whatever ways they may need us.
While preparing for Bishop-Elect Loya’s consecration this upcoming week, and amid the ongoing COVID-19 virus, the two of them have been shepherding their people with supportive pastoral care during this most recent tragedy. They have been reminded, as I shared with our clergy last Thursday, that our great enemy never rests, never lets up, and never stops in trying to divide God’s people.
This event, once more, has raised the level of fear in people of color to new heights – a fear that we continue to grapple with here in South Dakota as well. The primary difference is that when violent acts of racism are perpetrated in our state against Native Americans, there is no continual nationwide coverage or statewide publicity. Silence, denial, or apathy is too often the response. Thus my prayer is that we, as a Diocese, will find our voice. My hope is that we will both speak and act on behalf of George Floyd, on behalf of our missing indigenous women and children, and on behalf of all people of color who are profiled, targeted, abused, and murdered because of the color of their skin. The sin of racism is indeed a reality. That does not mean, however, that we are powerless to confront it and to change it.
Please join me in praying this prayer for the human family. Lift up George Floyd and his family; lift up the people of Minnesota and those whose neighborhoods and livelihoods have been affected by the aftermath of his murder; lift up Bishop Brian and for Bishop-Elect Craig and all the clergy who are caring for their people; and lift up those of us here in South Dakota as we confront racism in our own backyards. Finally, I ask you to lift up those who are devoting their lives and witness to changing the world so that it reflects the reality that God created us to enjoy.
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Jonathan H. Folts
XI Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota
Schedule for this week
Tuesday- Trinity Guild on the Lawn 1 pm
Wednesday- 11:30 am Vestry Check in Parish Hall, 12 noon – Noonday prayer via Facebook live, 12:30 – 2pm “The Pastor is In” on the lawn.
Sunday – Trinity Sunday celebration on Facebook Live at 10 am, Distribution of Communion on the grounds immediately following the service until 12 noon.
God bless you all and know that you are all in my prayers, as I hope I remain in yours.
In the faith of the Kingdom,
Good Morning Church-
I hope this letter finds you well during this time of unrest. During this time it is important for us to remember to pray. The world is a hard place. It seems very apparent that sometimes our world can be what Saint Paul called a broken world. With the unrest surrounding the death of George Floyd and our continued concern with the global pandemic that is COVID 19 we as Christians are called to do what we do best. We pray. Sometimes we are also called to pray with our feet or our voices through peaceful means. We also know that violence of any kind is abhorred by Jesus Christ, and as I said in my sermon on Sunday God is Love. During our sojourn on this planet, we are to strive to be the true Body of Christ. Jesus pointed out the evil in violence in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pointed out our similarities at the well to the Samaritan woman. This is the message as the Body of Christ and the active promotion of the Gospel is the purpose of our Earthly pilgrimage.
You might remember that I usually say that I don’t really agree the sentiment that is expressed when we hear the What Would Jesus Do slogan. Maybe its time we try to ask what would Jesus say about this time we live in? Jesus would heal, point out the injustice in the world, and call for peace. The peace would come with a turning of hearts that would make us all realize that we are one Body made in the image of God. This turning would also ask us to acknowledge the deep injustices and divisions throughout not only our history, but the history of the world. So, today while you watch and listen, ask yourself what Jesus would actually think about our world today. If you have a hard time placing yourself in Jesus’ sandals while thinking about these events, there is a book that can help guide you. I encourage you to read what Jesus has said about divisions and hatred in the Gospels. Read what Paul has said about divisions and hatred in the Epistles. Then I ask you to pray the words of peace and wholeness that you will find sprinkled throughout the scriptures. I also implore all of you to remember the words that we pledged to God in our Baptismal Covenant.
When asked “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” We all responded, “I will, with God's help.” When we were asked, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? We again responded, I will, with God's help.
When we were all asked “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? We all said, “I will, with God's help.”
I think we all need that help now. I offer this prayer from the Book of Common prayer that we might all be reminded and enabled to be agents of love and justice while striving to make this place look a little more like the Kingdom.
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so
move every human heart and especially the hearts of the
people of this land, that barriers which divide us may
crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our
divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I have also been asked to deliver the words of our Bishop to you all. What follows are two different statements. The first is a sermon for Pentecost, and the second is a statement addressing the situation aftermath surrounding the death of George Floyd. Following both of these messages you will find our schedule for this week.
From the Bishop
Pentecost Sunday / May 29, 2020
Good morning and a very blessed and happy Pentecost to every one of you! For those of you who may be listening to me or hearing my words over the radio or on the internet for the first time, my name is Jonathan Folts and I have the privilege of serving our Lord and the people of the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota as their Bishop. It is an honor to be addressing all of you on this important day in the life of the Church – a day on which we celebrate God’s gift of the Holy Spirit – and a day on which to give God special thanks for the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives.
Our reading today from the second chapter of Acts is obviously the most descriptive and most popular story of how the Church received the Holy Spirit. The disciples are in a room together when, all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit comes rushing in like a powerful wind, and tongues of fire begin to dance on top of the disciples’ heads. Furthermore, they all begin to speak and hear themselves and each other talking in different languages! We hear this story as we sit in our church buildings – well, not today, of course, and I’ll be coming back to that in a moment – when we hear this story being told on Pentecost Sunday, we usually are sitting in our church buildings and smiling and nodding our heads as if what we are hearing is completely normal! The looks on our faces would no doubt cause an outsider to believe that we think that this Holy Spirit event is the most natural thing in the world! But this event wasn’t normal! – it was disruptive! – it was unsettling!
Let me explain it to you like this: I am a realistic optimist. And this means, in part, that I will look at a situation in its entirety – I will try and grasp the full reality of a situation – and then I’m going to start looking for hope! Because hope is where you and I are going to find God! Hope is where you and I are going to find Jesus! Hope is where we’re going to find God’s Holy Spirit at work! And there isn’t any situation in the entire world in which we can’t find some hope! Because there isn’t any situation in the world where God is not there!
Being a realistic optimist, therefore, is to be a missionary of God’s hope! And I’ll tell you – I would much rather be a realistic optimist than a realistic pessimist! Because a realistic pessimist is a person who will grasp the reality of a situation, and then they’re going to point out all the things that are going to continue to go wrong in that situation – and furthermore, they’re going to predict that everything is going to just keep getting worse and worse and worse! Now I don’t see Jesus doing that! Throughout the Gospels, I see Jesus grasping the reality of a situation and then pointing people towards a new reality! A new reality of hope! And we who are God’s missionaries here in South Dakota? That’s the path that we want to follow, too.
Now, having said that, I will confess to you that, when it comes to the Pentecost story in the Book of Acts, if you and I had been in that same room with the disciples when the Holy Spirit came rushing in – and if I had seen tongues of fire dancing on top of your head – my very first inclination would not be to believe that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. No, my first inclination would be to believe that your hair is on fire. And my second inclination would be to tell you that your hair is on fire – loudly – and vigorously smack the top of your head with my hands, trying to put the fire out!
And yes, I have seen the pictures of the disciples at Pentecost, I’ve seen the icons and the little flames of fire dancing on the disciples’ heads, and I’ve seen the disciples all standing there, gazing upwards towards heaven with these expressions of peace across their faces. But I all but guarantee you, those pictures were taken after the disciples had stopped running around and had stopped smacking each other on the top of the head!
And really, that is exactly the way that we sometimes react when the Holy Spirit is up to something, isn’t it? The Holy Spirit disrupts us, shakes us, moves us – and when that disruption happens, sometimes our very first reaction is to yell – loudly -- and then we go and try and snuff the Holy Spirit out!
The Holy Spirit can be disruptive! – however, because you and I have heard this Pentecost story so many times, we’ve become very used to it! This story has become normal to us, so much so that we stop associating the Holy Spirit with our being disrupted!
So my point is simply this: one way to consider where the Holy Spirit is currently active in our lives is to ask ourselves this: “Where in my life are things currently being stirred up? Where is it that I am finding myself feeling disrupted, shaken, and unsettled?” You see, when we stop and admit the fact that we are feeling unsettled or disrupted – we are being realistic about our situation! And then, when we take the next step and start looking for hope – when we start looking in these situations of ours for the creation of brand-new possibilities and how these possibilities might lead us to the experience a brand-new reality – that’s where you and I are going to find the Holy Spirit at work! Right there! Right there!
Here are some cases in point: the vast majority of us are still no longer worshipping in our church buildings – and I daresay that most of us can remember that very first Sunday when we could not go into our church buildings because of the COVID-19 virus. It wasn’t safe. Our experiences at that time – our experiences of being and feeling disrupted were real. And yes, some people spent some of their time doing a fair amount of yelling about this situation, because it was going to require a change! But after the yelling stopped – after our initial feelings of being disrupted had passed – what did the Church start to do? We started looking for hope! We started listening to what God was inviting us to do. We realized that we were in a brand-new reality – and so as the Church, as God’s missionaries, we started to look for where the Holy Spirit was at work in the creation of a brand-new reality.
For example, prior to these times, I’ve never worshipped with four different Episcopal congregations in our diocese over the span of four hours, without ever leaving my home! And that’s because three of those congregations – Trinity in Pierre, Calvary Cathedral in Sioux Falls, and St. Andrew’s in Rapid City, prior to now, never had online services before! The fourth “congregation,” Rosebud Episcopal Mission, started their online service about a year and a half ago, but it, too, was created out of a crisis situation! The hard winter weather was keeping people from being able to attend church, so this online service was created! – and enjoys a following that is global!
Indeed, the number of people who are tuning in to our online services is amazing! And we’re not just online – we’re on the radio, too! The Cheyenne River Episcopal Mission has never had worship services on the radio before! And people are tuning it! Further, because of an innovative priest in Standing Rock who has found different ways of ministering to the people of his community as best he can during these times, he now has ten new families as part of his flock! Ten new families who haven’t even stepped foot in the church building. That’s being a missionary of hope!
Understand this now: the reality of our being in a pandemic has not changed! We are still, most of us, not in our buildings. And yet, at the same time, we are being God’s agents of missionary hope! And we are continuing in our efforts to bring that hope to all of God’s people just as the original apostles did after the original Pentecost event had occurred.
So – the next time that you experience a disruptive moment in your life – be it related to the virus or not. The next time that you feel shaken or disturbed – admit it. Own it. Name the reality! And then I want you to go find your Bible -- or Google it -- and read the Pentecost story in Acts 2. And as you read the words of the story, remind yourself that the Holy Spirit can indeed be disruptive. And then, right after you finish doing that, turn to John 20 and read verses nineteen through twenty-three. And focus on these words of Jesus: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
Stay with those phrases – and then, in the midst of the reality that everything seems to be swirling around you – be still. Stay with those two verses, stay in that center, allow your mind to start calming down so that you can start listening to God with your heart, and start looking for the Holy Spirit. Go to that place inside of yourself where you find your spirit being strengthened by God’s Spirit, strengthening you, giving you courage, no matter how loudly the winds of the world are howling around you. Listen for the hope that the Holy Spirit is offering. Look for the hope that the Holy Spirit is offering. And then, with your life, respond to that hope – and make that hope known to others.
Be God’s missionary. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, get out there – and with God’s help, let’s change the world. Amen.
May 29, 2020
Dear Faithful Missionaries of the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota:
May the unity that the Holy Spirit calls us to share with all people be a call readily heard and responded to with eagerness across our nation and the world.
Once again, our country has been rocked and confronted with both the reality and brutality of racism. The senseless and needless murder of George Floyd by a former Minneapolis police officer in front of onlookers who were pleading for his life grieves our hearts, makes us angry, and demands that justice be served. I have reached out to both Bishop Brian Prior of Minnesota, and to Bishop-Elect Craig Loya of Minnesota, and I have pledged to them our prayers and support in whatever ways they may need us.
While preparing for Bishop-Elect Loya’s consecration this upcoming week, and amid the ongoing COVID-19 virus, the two of them have been shepherding their people with supportive pastoral care during this most recent tragedy. They have been reminded, as I shared with our clergy last Thursday, that our great enemy never rests, never lets up, and never stops in trying to divide God’s people.
This event, once more, has raised the level of fear in people of color to new heights – a fear that we continue to grapple with here in South Dakota as well. The primary difference is that when violent acts of racism are perpetrated in our state against Native Americans, there is no continual nationwide coverage or statewide publicity. Silence, denial, or apathy is too often the response. Thus my prayer is that we, as a Diocese, will find our voice. My hope is that we will both speak and act on behalf of George Floyd, on behalf of our missing indigenous women and children, and on behalf of all people of color who are profiled, targeted, abused, and murdered because of the color of their skin. The sin of racism is indeed a reality. That does not mean, however, that we are powerless to confront it and to change it.
Please join me in praying this prayer for the human family. Lift up George Floyd and his family; lift up the people of Minnesota and those whose neighborhoods and livelihoods have been affected by the aftermath of his murder; lift up Bishop Brian and for Bishop-Elect Craig and all the clergy who are caring for their people; and lift up those of us here in South Dakota as we confront racism in our own backyards. Finally, I ask you to lift up those who are devoting their lives and witness to changing the world so that it reflects the reality that God created us to enjoy.
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Jonathan H. Folts
XI Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota
Schedule for this week
Tuesday- Trinity Guild on the Lawn 1 pm
Wednesday- 11:30 am Vestry Check in Parish Hall, 12 noon – Noonday prayer via Facebook live, 12:30 – 2pm “The Pastor is In” on the lawn.
Sunday – Trinity Sunday celebration on Facebook Live at 10 am, Distribution of Communion on the grounds immediately following the service until 12 noon.
God bless you all and know that you are all in my prayers, as I hope I remain in yours.
In the faith of the Kingdom,