These items are meant to be relevant for regularly attending parishioners at Holy Ascension.
Announcements Email list
You can signup for church announcement emails here.
Choir
If you are already singing in the choir, you should be on Marie’s email list for choir updates. Contact her if you are not getting those emails. If you are not in the choir but would like to be, please talk to Marie. Here is her choir resources folder.
Directory
We have a private directory, but it requires a password. The password is the thing that Paul used to check all the time, ask someone for it if you don’t know. :-). Ask Loretta if any changes need to be made.
Coffee Hour Schedule
Here is the online coffee hour schedule.. See Marissa for changes.
Birthdays, Anniversaries, etc.
Besides the main calendar for services (on the home page), we also have a
Birthday/Anniversary/NamesDay calendar on Google.
On this calendar, B = Birthdays, A= Anniversary, N= Names Days. You can subscribe to this calendar, see the schedule page for more info. See Loretta for corrections or additions.
Play Group:
We have playgroup/preschool on Tuesday mornings from 9am-12noon. Contact Brigid Maines for more information. Check the calendar for the latest updates/cancellations.
Cleaning:
Families rotate by month for church cleaning. Contact Mary Heyman with questions or to get on the rotation.
Family Camp:
Here is the family camp information page.
Forms/Documents:
Funeral rights: In Michigan you can specifically designate someone (or a church) to have legal control of your body and funeral arrangements after death. Some of us with non-Orthodox immediate family might find this particularly important. You can fill it out and have it notarized (we have a couple of Notary Publics in the parish) and leave a copy with the priest or parish secretary for the church’s files. You should also have one together with your will and other such documents so that there is no dispute should a death suddenly happen. Here is the blank form directly from the state of Michigan. To make it easier, we also made a version of it that’s partially filled out to include that your local Orthodox Church that you attend be given this authority, that version is here.
Member Stewardship – Planned sacrificial Giving:
At our parish we do not pass a donation basket during services. Besides being a distraction from our prayer and an imposition on visitors, it can discourage proper intentional stewardship. Basket-passing is public, it depends on whatever means a person has with them, it varies based on attendance, it does not take into account the modern methods of financial transfer, and make record-keeping (for taxes, etc) arduous.
Stewardship for church members should rather be planned out in advance based on a sacrificial amount of one’s income. It should be cheerful and regular and taken from one’s “first fruits”, and given on a regular basis independent of attendance. To avoid pride, it should be private – “do not let your left and see what your right hand is doing”. Therefore we recommend highly to all members to set up direct regular giving from one’s bank account, directly to the church, and also to annually review your giving. Besides this being medicine for the soul and teaching one to trust in Christ, regular reliable electronic giving helps the church immensely to plan and budget for its needs and to provide a stable diet of services, ministries, and spiritual opportunities for all.
Online giving can be setup on the DONATE page.