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The Truth Project: A couple from St. John's has been hosting the showing of Focus on the Family's The Truth Project at their home on Tuesday evenings. In a recent study, the Barna Research Group found that only 9 percent of professing Christians have a biblical worldview. Because of this, today's believers live similarly to non-believers. A personal sense of significance is rarely experienced, we spend our money and time on things that fail to satisfy, and we begin to wonder what life’s ultimate purpose really is. To counter this slide within the body of Christ, Focus on the Family launched The Truth Project, a DVD-based small group curriculum comprised of 13 one-hour lessons taught by Dr. Del Tackett. This home study is the starting point for looking at life from a biblical perspective. Each lesson discusses in great detail the relevance and importance of living the Christian worldview in daily life.

Outreach 2011: At the end of 2011, St. John's donated $1,000 to Union Mission Ministries, $1,000 to the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Tidewater, and $1,000 to Memorial United Methodist Church (the donation to Memorial is in addition to the rent we pay as part of our Covenant Agreement with Memorial). St. John's also served a meal to some 100 homeless people at the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center on December 4.

Annual Parish Meeting: St. John's Annual Parish Meeting was held December 11. We adopted a budget for 2012 of $45,000, including $4,500, or 10% of our budget, for charitable outreach and $2,400 to fund a Sunday School class for toddlers.

Sanctuary Refurbishment: Memorial United Methodist Church completed refurbishing the sanctuary in early November, and are delighted to be back in the sanctuary for worship. We are also most grateful to Pastor John Cole and the people of Memorial for being so kind and accommodating to us. The friendship and love between our two congregations is a wonderful thing. "Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Psalm 133:1).

September-October 2011

The Women of St. John’s met October 1st. The main topic of discussion was outreach. There was a report on the weekend meal program in the Virginia Beach Public Schools that the Women supported previously. It was also reported that because of the poor state of the economy, Union Mission does not currently have supplies of canned food for us to go shelve, as we did a couple of years ago. About 10% of the population in Virginia Beach are currently on food stamps, an all-time high. We are investigating opportunities to serve at the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center in Virginia Beach. The Women of St. John’s recommended that the church pay for the food that goes into the school weekend meal program out of our allotted outreach funds.

At its September 14th meeting, the Vestry of St. John’s discussed outreach, advertising, and Sunday School/Christian education. Father Rob noted that due to the size of our current attendance and membership, he did not have any definite plans to conduct adult Bible study except on an ad hoc basis. When we do have adult Bible study on Sundays, it will be held in the church office and will start at 10:30 AM. We are investigating opportunities for St. John's to go as a group to Union Mission (as we did several years ago at Christmas) and/or the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center in Virginia Beach. Following discussion of several options for advertising, it was decided that we should instead look to enhance and improve our website. We will investigate options for getting a professional website design firm. It was decided to give $200 to Memorial UMC as a thank you for allowing the youth mission group from St. Matthew's, Newport Beach, California to spend the night at the church back in July.

Sunday School: Christian education for all ages is an essential and vital ministry. At the current time St. John's offers Christian education for elementary, middle school, and high school students through our partnership with Memorial United Methodist Church. Memorial’s Sunday school begins at 9:45 AM.

Summer 2011

Youth Mission from California: On July 23-24 a group of some 30 young adults from St. Matthew's in Newport Beach, CA visited St. John's. They were on their way to a church work camp in Rocky Mount, NC.  They spent Saturday night at our church and worshipped with us on Sunday morning. St. John's treated them to a pizza and swim party at the rectory on Saturday as well as a delicious breakfast on Sunday cooked by some of our parishioners. One young man from St. John's, along with another young man from St. Thomas of Canterbury in Roanoke, went with the group to the weeklong work camp in Rocky Mount.

Episcopal Visitation: On June 5 our Diocesan Bishop, the Rt. Rev. William McClean, visited St. John's, confirmed four adults, and received one adult into the Anglican Catholic Church.

April 2011

Outreach Projects: St. John's recently gave $1,000 to the Crisis Pregnancy Center of Tidewater, $1,000 to Union Mission Ministries, and $1,000 to Memorial United Methodist Church (Memorial is the church where we meet, and this donation was in addition to our weekly contribution to Memorial).

The Women of St. John's recently supported a project to benefit children in Virginia Beach schools who have little or no food outside of the school lunch program. They collected food that was distributed to needy children at the end of the school week so that they would have food over the weekend.

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