Events & Outreach
Advent Vespers, Soup & Study - Friday, Dec 6
Join us for a brief soup dinner, followed by an Advent Vespers service with some Nativity reflections on the Book of Luke. We will begin at 6:30 pm and move to the sanctuary after our meal.
St. Andrew Lutheran Church, 335 Reynolds Ave, Parsippany NJ 07054
The church is barrier-free. Call 973-887-6713 for more information.
ADVENT BIBLE STUDY
Join us for our Advent Bible Study of the Nativity story of Luke, on Sundays after worship 12/1, 12/15, 12/22
Book club Christmas Party & Book Discussion
Our annual Book Club Christmas party and book discussion will take place on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 2:00 pm at our fearless leader’s home, so an RSVP is required. The book for this month is The Twelve Topsy-Turvy, Very Messy Days of Christmas by James Patterson and Tad Safran. This meeting includes a brief discussion (and the book is a hoot) followed by our annual Christmas gift exchange (gift value approx $25 - something you would like to get) and should be wrapped with no name as we engage in the ever Christian-like activity of gift swapping and all out thievery (all in good fun - there are rules, you know, to how one can steal). Please contact the church office at 973-887-6713 to RSVP, provide your phone number, and request that info be passed along to the group leader. The book for our Feb. 9 meeting is Family, Family by Laurie Frankel.
CHRISTMAS CONCERT
Dec 13 at 7:00 pm
Join us for a wonderful evening of special Christmas music, performed by our Minister of Music, Don Ehrmann. This year’s selections are all by women composers (and maybe an original from Don). The concert is free - our holiday gift to you. We only ask that you bring a non-perishable item for the Parsippany Emergency Food Pantry, if you are able.
Come an join us and reset your heart for the Reason for the Season… Jesus.
CHRISTMAS EVE WORSHIP
Join us for worship for Christmas Eve. All are welcome.
4:00 pm - Service designed specifically for families with children, and those young at heart.
9:00 pm - Traditional Candlelight Service of Holy Communion
Adopt-A-Family
Each year, St. Andrew adopts several families through social services to provide their requested Christmas gifts and ease the burden of holiday expenses. Specific requests are provided to us and we try to meet those needs. Wrapped gifts are due at the church by 12/15 at 10 am.
Youth Gingerbread Event -
Dec 15th from 4:30 - 6 pm
St. Andrew Youth and youth from the surrounding area churches will gather at St. Andrew to decorate gingerbread cookies. All are welcome. Please contact the church office to be connected with the event organizer if you have questions. 973-887-6713
Thank you for Finding the Lost Sheep
Thank you to the small but faithful group of walkers who walked 7 laps around our parking lot (1 mile) and finding “lost sheep” for a fun and healthy activity to support the Parsippany Area Emergency Food Pantry as people brought grocery store gift cards as their “entry fee". We collected $325 in grocery gift cards!
Parsippany Interfaith thanksgiving Gathering
On Tuesday, Nov. 26, the Parsippany Interfaith Clergy Council sponsored a Thanksgiving Gathering at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Parsippany. This event was such a special night because over 80 people joined together in celebrating our different faiths. The Interfaith Council brings together the various faith traditions in our town: Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian - Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Catholic. Together, we provided items and packed up 75 bags of Thanksgiving dinner food items for distribution by the Parsippany Emergency Food Pantry.
God’s Work - Our Hands Sunday - Sept 8, 2024
On Sept 8, 2024, we gathered together for the 11th annual “God’s Work. Our Hands.” Sunday on Sept. 8 2024. We collected school supplies and assembled 100 Disaster Relief School Back Pack kits for Lutheran World Relief. These kits enable children to continue to learn while they may displaced by natural disasters, war, persecution or other displacement.
Each kit contains the the following items : 1 sturdy drawstring cloth bag (11 X 17”) ; four 70-sheet spiral bound notebooks; one box 16 or 24 count crayons; one pencil sharpener, one 30-centimeter ruler, one pair blunt tip scissors, 5 new unsharpened no. 2 pencils with erasers; five black or blue ballpoint pens, and one 2-1/2” pink eraser. check out the details at www.lwr.org/kits/school-kits/instructions
BRIDGES RUN to Newark
Our congregation met the weekend before Thanksgiving to pack over 180 sandwich sacks which were distributed to the homeless in Newark through a program with Bridges. Our Youth and their families were heavily in involved in all aspects of preparation, packing and distribution. Thank you to everyone who helped! It was a meaningful event for all who participated.
Food Pantry -
Thank you for your Support!
Thank you to the many people who support our contributions to the Parsippany Emergency Food Pantry. Because of your generosity, St. Andrew was able to send another $600 (in addition to $525 earlier this year) in grocery store gift cards to the food pantry to enable clients to purchase bread, egg, milk, meat and produce, and other items they were not able to obtain at the food pantry. On Souper-Bowl Sunday we collected 130 food items. Our recent non-perishable food item collection during Lent netted several car loads of food delivered to the Parsippany Area Emergency Food Pantry. Our commitment to our neighbors through addressing hunger issues is on-going and calls to the heart of many at St Andrew.
Game Night - January 10 at 7:30 pm
Join us for a night of good fun as we engage in friendly competition for bragging rights and a “grand” prize, or the consolation award for “biggest loser” It’s all in friendly good fun and everyone has a blast. We meet at 7:30 pm in the Friendship Hall on the 2nd Friday (usually) of the months of January, March, May, July, September, and November. Our next Game Night is January 10 at 7:30 pm in Friendship Hall. Call the church office to confirm. 973-887-6713
Outreach - Our Ministry in Action
Health Kits
As part of our Lenten call to service, we collected items for Health Kits for Lutheran World Relief. Each kit contains 1 towel, 2 bars of soap, a comb, toothbrush, and nail clipper. The kits were shipped to LWR with Thrivent Action Team money. Over 75 Health Kits were sent.
Recycled Eye Glasses for Lions Club
We recently collected over 50 pairs of glasses to give to the Lions Club Eyeglasses Recycling Program. Through this program, lenses of all strengths are fitted and labeled to provide glasses to people who can not afford them.
Parsippany Emergency Food Pantry & Family Promise of Morris County
Hunger and homelessness are issues that have concerned St. Andrew since our beginning. We have a continuous year-round collection for the Parsippany Area Emergency Food Bank. We specifically honor our fathers during June as we strive really “bring in the goods” to help stock the pantry during the summer months when schools and scout groups are not in session. The need grows during the summer as many families in need have lost access to some benefits provided through the school free or discounted breakfast and lunch programs. The burden then falls entirely on the family, which may be struggling
St. Andrew has also been a supporting congregation with Family Promise of Morris County (originally Interfaith Homeless Network and then Interfaith Council for Homeless Families) to provide programs for homeless families since 1986. This congregational support model has become a national model for supporting homeless families and moving them to transitional housing and then permanent housing. Unfortunately, the pandemic has limited how congregations are able to house and support these families, but the program has pivoted and been able to assist families with other placements. However, this comes at a cost, and right now financial support is most needed for the program to continue serving their clients. We also recently collected 54 cases of water and Gatorade for their Our Promise drop in/life skills/tutoring center to help stave off dehydration from extreme cold.
Christmas Angels
St Andrew and Children’s Circle adopt several families from the social service office in Boonton each Christmas to help ensure that their Christmases are full of joy and that there are presents under the tree for these families in need.
Coat Drive
We occasionally clean out our closets and make sure that our neighbors in Morris County are warm. We recently donated 195 winter coats of various sizes to a Coat Distribution organized by Market Street Mission.
Easter Egg Hunt
What fun we have! We collect the “stuff” to fill about 600 plastic eggs, stuff them on the Sunday before Palm Sunday, hide them (rain or shine) and let the kids have a blast, usually on the Saturday before Palm Sunday! The community and Children’s Circle Day Care Center children are invited for the fun and it’s just a great 15 minutes of chaos with plenty of eggs to go round.
Lutheran World Relief
Our Adah Circle and the congregation often create disaster relief kits for Lutheran World Relief, assembling and shipping school kits, layettes (infant kits), or personal hygiene kits to be distributed around the world where war, natural disaster and political unrest leave people without basic necessities.
Not be left out, we honor our mothers in May with a collection to provide blankets to people in need through Lutheran World Relief’s blanket program. Each year, we raise approximately $200 toward the expense of shipping blankets to people in need throughout the world. These blankets are often used by refugees, victims of disaster, and others in need.
In 2011, crafty members of St. Andrew assembled and stitched together 23 quilts for LWY and another 90 knitted baby blankets went to two area neo-natal units.
In 2019 we sent 65 Personal Care Kits to LWR, and sent $800 in gift cards to 2 ELCA Synods to provide disaster relief to victims of a spate of hurricanes in the US Southeast.
In 2020, we made and shipped 225 face masks for LWR to distribute to communities in need unable to get access to PPE, as part of their 150,000 Mask Challenge.
ELCA Disaster Relief
The members of Saint Andrew participate in global disaster relief work through contributions to the ELCA Disaster Relief program. With boots on the ground around the world, the ELCA Disaster Relief programs are often among the first on scene to help when disaster strikes, and because of long-standing relationships with governments and aid programs, the ELCA Disaster Relief programs are often engaged in recovery long after the initial damage is done. St. Andrew often pulls together collections of special items needed for specific disaster relief efforts, like hurricanes or wildfires.
ELCA World Hunger
The members of Saint Andrew contribute to the ELCA World Hunger either through direct giving, or through their offerings, notating a portion to be designated for this ministry. The ELCA World Hunger program supports health clinics, provides microloans, water wells, animal husbandry to create self-sufficiency, community meal programs, and advocacy around the world (and in the U.S.) in places of need. The ELCA World Hunger program address hunger from all angles, tackling both immediate and systemic problems that get at the root causes of hunger and poverty.
Advocacy
We engage in letter writing campaigns, especially as they relate to legislation for hunger and homelessness, both on the local and national levels. We participate in an annual Bread for the World offering of letters to help keep our legislature’s feet to the fire on items frequently on the chopping block like SNAP benefits and funding for emergency shelters.
Narcotics Anonymous - Saturday evenings
St. Andrew is proud to offer a safe place for members of Narcotics Anonymous to meet. This group meets on Saturday evenings. Please check out their meeting information on their website
