COVID-19: ACCA Needs Your Immediate Help

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During the COVID-19 crisis, ACCA is continuing to help our low-income neighbors with both food and rent assistance. The fastest and safest way to help their great efforts is to donate to ACCA on-line. ACCA will use your donation to provide rental and food assistance to your needy neighbors.

Please follow these steps to donate online to ACCA:

  • Go to ACCA web site – https://accacares.org/
  • Click on the blue “Donate Now” button at the top of the home page.
  • This will bring you to ACCA’s donation page on the Greater Washington Catalogue for Philanthropy website. The Catalogue is a nonprofit partner that processes donations to ACCA through PayPal, and no cost to you or ACCA.
  • In the box next to “Amount $,” please enter the amount you wish to give.
  • For now, please do not designate a specific donation category, so that it is easier for ACCA to apportion your donation quickly to the greatest need, as this crisis unfolds.
  • If you wish to become an ongoing (“recurring”) online donor, then please click on the blue text that says ”Dedication? Anonymous? Recurring?” Then select how frequently you wish to automatically donate.
  • Click on “Add to Cart and Proceed to Checkout” and finish your payment process on the secure page.

Of course, you can always donate to ACCA by sending a check to:

ACCA, Inc., 7200 Columbia Pike, Annandale, VA 22003

Thank you for continuing to share Christ’s love in your community.

Morning Prayer, March 15, 2020 – 10:00 am

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Please join us for the office of Morning Prayer live at 10:00 am on our Facebook page.  To follow along, the liturgy is available for you in pdf format here.

St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Ephesians that we are all one body (Ephesians 4:4).  Even though we are separated, we are still one body in Spirit as disciples of Jesus, and one way that Spirit is manifested is through our worship and through our common life of prayer.  I hope you will join us.

If you are not able to be with us at 10:00, the video will be available for delayed viewing soon after the service ends.

St. Alban’s response to the COVID-19 virus pandemic

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Dear St. Alban’s Family,

Join us on Sundays at 10am as we livestream Morning Prayer via YouTube. Access the livestream and archived video recordings here.
Weekdays at 8am we offer Morning Prayer via Zoom online conferencing. Click here for access details and link.
Check your email! We are sending regular updates and messages, including scheduled Zoom social events for our church family. If you’re not on our email list, please contact us and request to be added.

I hope you have seen the pastoral letter recently sent out from Bishop Goff in response to the coronavirus pandemic. In the letter, Bishop Goff relates that she met online with the clergy of the Diocese of Virginia and, as the Ecclesiastical Authority, directed that there will be no public worship at churches in the Diocese of Virginia through March 25. If you are aware of someone who might not have received her email, please pass it on to them.

Bishop Goff made it very clear that churches are, at the moment, not closing, and staff will be reporting for work. What does that mean for our parish family?

While Bishop Goff mentions “physically gathering for public worship,” I take her directive to mean that, in addition to our Sunday worship, there will be no church sponsored, or church-sanctioned, gatherings. This includes choir rehearsals, Lenten programming, Education for Ministry (EfM) sessions, Tuesday Eucharist and Bible Study, Chatting Fingers, Sunday School, Youth Group gatherings, Vestry and any of the other varied ways we gather.

While the doors will be closed for public gatherings and worship, we plan to continue live-streaming our daily office of Morning Prayer from the downstairs chapel, and are making plans to provide some kind of livestream of worship (either Morning Prayer or Eucharist) on the two Sundays we are apart. We will be reaching out to those we are aware of who live alone, to check in and make sure everyone is OK.

I hope you will take advantage of the technology with which God has enriched our lives to stay connected through our online worship and to stay connected with each other – checking on friends, neighbors, fellow parishioners and the most vulnerable among us.

I am grateful for Bishop Susan and Bishop Jennifer’s leadership in this difficult and challenging time. While we might be inconvenienced in the short term, not gathering in numbers helps to mitigate the spread for the community-at-large. In our conference call it was clear that this was a tough decision for them to make, but it was the right decision to make.

During this two week period, please do not hesitate to reach out to your parish staff and clergy if you are in any need, are feeling anxious, frightened or need someone to talk to. As Bishop Goff said in her pastoral letter, “do not be afraid. God is good.” Hold each other up in prayer. Now, as always, God is with us.

Faithfully,

Fr. Jeff