Women of Grace, St. Mark's Women's Group, will meet in the church on Thurs, July 18, at noon. Senior Warden Cheri Thayer will discuss future plans for St Mark’s. Bring your lunch and join us for an interesting meeting. All women of St. Mark's are included in Women of Grace.

Come for interesting conversation and great fellowship.

Deacon Ken Kraft invites members of St. Mark's and others in the Southern Deanery to help clean the grounds and interior of the Church of the Holy Communion in Allendale, SC, on Sat., June 29. We are restoring this air-conditioned, 122-year old building for a monthly Sunday service and a cooling/warming center for a very needy community. The project includes major shrubbery trimming, cleaning the interior of the church, painting and repair of doors, lawn mowing, debris removal, etc. Bring tools and gloves for outside work. Ken will supply lunch, water, and a truck and trailer. Additional trucks would be appreciated. Contact Ken at (843) 489-2544 for more information.

St. Mark’s women’s group will meet in the church at noon on Thursday, June 20. Glenda Lee Nutting will speak to the group about plans for a Stephen Ministry program at St. Mark’s. All women are welcome.

The Wandering Rector will be at Publix on Robert Smalls Pkwy. on Tues., June 11, at 10 a.m. Join him for coffee and conversation.

There will be one service at 10 a.m. on June 2 followed by a covered-dish picnic and information about St. Mark’s many ministries and volunteer opportunities. We need help with set-up and clean-up. Please contact Jane Frederick at jane@f-farchitects.com or 843-441-2030 to volunteer. This is a BYOC event (Bring Your Own Chair) and everyone should bring a dish to share.

There will be one service at 10 a.m. on May 19, the Day of Pentecost, followed by a covered-dish picnic and information about St. Mark’s many ministries and volunteer opportunities. We need help with set-up and clean-up. Please contact Jane Frederick at jane@f-farchitects.com or 843-441-2030 to volunteer. This is a BYOC event (Bring Your Own Chair) and everyone should bring a dish to share.

On May 5 between the two services, we will have a visioning session to discuss a future parish hall. We want to hear your ideas and priorities. Join us in the church after the 9 a.m. service.

Welcoming all sisters in Christ to grow through faith and fellowship, to learn and flourish spiritually, and to connect and serve as called.

St. Mark’s continues its Confirmation/Inquirers’ class with a light supper at 6 p.m. followed by the class at 6:30 p.m. This series covers the history, faith, liturgy and polity of the Episcopal Church and offers a great opportunity for any who wish to learn more about the church, as well as anyone who may be considering being confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church when Bishop Ruth visits later this year. The class will be led by Fr. Roy and Deacon Ken. Please contact one of them or the church office for more information. Come and see!

Help make crosses for Palm Sunday with our resident expert Kit Bruce on Sat., March 23, at 1:30 p.m. in St. Mark's Center. The crosses will be distributed the next day on Palm Sunday. Kit will show you how--it's not that hard. Bring scissors to trim the palmetto fronds. If you can help, give Kit a call at 843-295-0058 or email kitbruce1111@gmail.com.

No reservations necessary. Come on out--it's fun!

Welcoming all sisters in Christ to grow through faith and fellowship, to learn and flourish spiritually, and to connect and serve as called. The Rev. Patricia Daniel-Turk will speak to the group.

St. Mark’s continues its Confirmation/Inquirers’ class with a light supper at 6 p.m. followed by the class at 6:30 p.m. This series covers the history, faith, liturgy and polity of the Episcopal Church and offers a great opportunity for any who wish to learn more about the church, as well as anyone who may be considering being confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church when Bishop Ruth visits later this year. The class will be led by Fr. Roy and Deacon Ken. Please contact one of them or the church office for more information. Come and see!

St. Mark’s continues its Confirmation/Inquirers’ class with a light supper at 6 p.m. followed by the class at 6:30 p.m. This series covers the history, faith, liturgy and polity of the Episcopal Church and offers a great opportunity for any who wish to learn more about the church, as well as anyone who may be considering being confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church when Bishop Ruth visits later this year. The class will be led by Fr. Roy and Deacon Ken. Please contact one of them or the church office for more information. Come and see!

St. John’s Lutheran Church’s annual Chili Cook Off is back! This year’s cook off will take place on Sat., March 9, from 5-7 p.m. Fr. Roy will be submitting his own chili in the competition and you can enter your favorite recipe too. All chili should be brought in a crockpot and must arrive by 4:45 pm to be judged. Mark your calendar now and plan to attend. Minimum donation: $ 8 per person or $24 per family. Proceeds to benefit Good Neighbor Clinic. St. John’s is located at 157 Lady’s Island Dr.

St. Mark’s continues its Confirmation/Inquirers’ class with a light supper at 6 p.m. followed by the class at 6:30 p.m. This series covers the history, faith, liturgy and polity of the Episcopal Church and offers a great opportunity for any who wish to learn more about the church, as well as anyone who may be considering being confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church when Bishop Ruth visits later this year. The class will be led by Fr. Roy and Deacon Ken. Please contact one of them or the church office for more information. Come and see!

In the final adult class, Tom Miller will lead a discussion on "Pascal's Wager," invented by the 17th Century French mathematics prodigy and devout Roman Catholic Blaise Pascal (pictured), that suggests it is only rational and we have nothing to lose by believing in God. We will also visit selected pieces of Pascal's "Pensees," the purpose of which was to convert readers into serious Christians. Next, it's on to the 17th century contemporary of Pascal, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Here we will decide if he is correct that while we see all things in God, "it is also necessary that we have ideas of our own," even if our ideas are always changing.  We conclude with Leibnitz's "On the Ultimate Origin of Things" in which he develops the cosmological argument for the existence of God, which he based on the principle of sufficient reason. Did he get this right?

St. Mark’s continues its Confirmation/Inquirers’ class with a light supper at 6 p.m. followed by the class at 6:30 p.m. This series covers the history, faith, liturgy and polity of the Episcopal Church and offers a great opportunity for any who wish to learn more about the church, as well as anyone who may be considering being confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church when Bishop Ruth visits later this year. The class will be led by Fr. Roy and Deacon Ken. Please contact one of them or the church office for more information. Come and see!

The adult education program on the Early Church History being led by Tom Miller will continue at 10:00, February 27, in the St. Mark’s sanctuary.  In this session we will be rubbing shoulders with the only Roman Catholic cleric believed to be canonized primarily for the  enormous volume and importance of his writings, the 13th century Saint Thomas Aquinas.

It will be exciting to come to appreciate the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the impact of his theological and philosophical writings on Christian orthodoxy.  While we learned that  Augustine was considered a Platonist in his  intellectual approach to God and the soul,  the thinking of Aquinas is similar to that of Aristotle. 

Specifically, we’ll question why Aquinas jilted the highly respected Benedictines for the upstart mendicant Dominicans, how he constructed his Five Ways  connect-the-dots proof of God’s existence, and try to make of the  instances of Aquinas actually levitating during his meditations.  

The discussions are lively, free form, and questions are eagerly encouraged.  No knowledge of philosophy, theology, or church history is needed to enjoy this hour of fellowship.

St. Mark’s will hold a Confirmation/Inquirers’ class on Wednesday evenings during Lent beginning on Feb. 21 with a light supper at 6 p.m. followed by the class at 6:30 p.m. The six-part series will cover the history, faith, liturgy and polity of the Episcopal Church. This class offers a great opportunity for any who wish to learn more about the church, as well as anyone who may be considering being confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church when Bishop Ruth visits later this year. The class will be led by Fr. Roy and Deacon Ken. Please contact one of them or the church office for more information. Come and see!  

Paula Miller will present a program on her water color painting entitled, “Do You See What I See?”

Local oysters, hotdogs, homemade chili, entertainment by the Sometime Later Band, s'mores around the bonfire! Mark your calendar for Fri., Jan. 12, 5 p.m. in Live Oak Park, Port Royal. Oyster dinners are $25 per person; hotdog dinners are $10. Make your check payable to St. Mark's, write the number and types of dinners on the memo line, and have it in by the Jan. 8 deadline. You can mail your payment to St. Mark's at PO Box 761, Port Royal 29935, drop it by the Center during office hours, or give it to a designated person after the one 10 a.m. church service on Dec. 31 or either service on Jan. 7.

At this session, you will be introduced to Augustine, who, according to Tom, is "one of the most original and provocative theologians of the Christian Church. The future Bishop of Hippo, Augustine struggled mightily trying to decide what religious path to follow, resulting in a moving conversion experience described in his autobiography Confessions."

Tom Miller continues his Epiphany series with week 2 where we'll meet the lustful young Berber who was his mother's worst nightmare yet would eventually be the Bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa, now Algeria. The world came to know him as St. Augustine. Augustine's excruciating spiritual pain and anguish will be experienced, as will his adoption of Manichaeism, which he later rejects, as he shares a moving account of his conversion to Christianity in his Confessions.

For those of us who are unsure whether God exists, week three will bring Thomas Aquinas and his easy-peasy five-step philosophical proof to get us on track. “The Ox,” as he was known, missed a few steps, as we'll see. Also, God's bookie, the French polymath Blaise Pascal, will make a cameo appearance with “Pascal's Wager,” which handicaps the believe/don't believe arbitrage.

Our home stretch will be in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the Roman Catholic British philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist, and literary and art critic G. K. Chesterton, best known as the creator of the loveable, pudgy Father Brown. We, however, will spend our final session with Chesterton's Orthodoxy as he addresses what he viewed as an increasingly decadent world.

Reading material and links to instructive videos will be posted in “Red Lion Weekly” in advance of each session. If you plan to attend or have any questions, email Tom Miller directly at youngtom1969@gmail.com.

Tom Miller will lead a four-week Epiphany series on church history and evolving Christian thought beginning at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays in the Center on Jan. 23 and 30 and Feb. 6 and 20. According to Tom, the series begins with a romp through the fast times and dangerous world of the 3rd and 4th centuries early Church. (Pictured: Bishop Nicholas loses his cool with Arius at the Council of Nicaea)

In the second week we'll meet the lustful young Berber who was his mother's worst nightmare yet would eventually be the Bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa, now Algeria. The world came to know him as St. Augustine. Augustine's excruciating spiritual pain and anguish will be experienced, as will his adoption of Manichaeism, which he later rejects, as he shares a moving account of his conversion to Christianity in his Confessions.

For those of us who are unsure whether God exists, week three will bring Thomas Aquinas and his easy-peasy five-step philosophical proof to get us on track. “The Ox,” as he was known, missed a few steps, as we'll see. Also, God's bookie, the French polymath Blaise Pascal, will make a cameo appearance with “Pascal's Wager,” which handicaps the believe/don't believe arbitrage.

Our home stretch will be in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the Roman Catholic British philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist, and literary and art critic G. K. Chesterton, best known as the creator of the loveable, pudgy Father Brown. We, however, will spend our final session with Chesterton's Orthodoxy as he addresses what he viewed as an increasingly decadent world.

Reading material and links to instructive videos will be posted in “Red Lion Weekly” in advance of each session. If you plan to attend or have any questions, email Tom Miller directly at youngtom1969@gmail.com.