Pastor's Easter Message

My Easter message is posted on my page. Please take a moment to visit. Pr. Bill Barter

Joint Potluck with Sudanese Congregation This Sunday

St. Ansgar is hosting a joint potluck luncheon after worship tomorrow, March 21st. We will be joined by the Sudanese worshipping community. Please bring your favorite food to share with our new partners in ministry at St. Ansgar. The potluck begins right after service, about noon.

There will also be a brief presentation about the work of African Relief Ministries. An exciting venture in Sudan and in other parts of Africa has been the emergence of “micro-lending” or “micro-banks.” These grassroots financial institutions take very little capital and turn it into life-changing business loans. In Sudan, a large part of the resources goes to the widows of the Sudanese wars, and allows them to become self-sufficient.

ARM’s website is at www.africanreliefministries.org. You can read more about this here.

Reconciling in Christ

It's official. We are pleased to announce that we are now a Reconciling in Christ congregation of the ELCA. We welcome and affirm people of all gender identities and sexual orientations, and their families. For more information on the Reconciling in Christ program, go to: http://www.lcna.org/.

SCUFFY Regional Youth Ministry Event Photos

St. Ansgar hosted the SCUFFY Regional Youth Ministry event on March 13th. Youth from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont were present including 11 from our own St. Ansgar/ Sudanese Nazarene congregations.

Organ Renovation is Complete!

Our organ renovation and rebuilding is complete! Here is a synopsis of the work that has been done:

In the recent years, the organ’s entire electrical relay system had reached the end of its useful life. The thousands of delicate contact fingers were starting to break off from decades of repeated spark burning. Plastic parts in the console were disintegrating. The old cotton-covered wiring throughout the organ was now in violation of the National Electric Code. The power supply was no longer filtering the current properly. Malfunctioning mechanical relays were causing notes to stick.

The pedalboard frame had cracked, thereby not allowing the pedal keys to be tightened as much as they needed to be. This caused them to play even when they weren’t supposed to.

Faucher Organ Company replaced the entire electrical system with a new solid-state unit, having no moving parts and no longer creating any more destructive sparking. All the wiring and cables were replaced and brought up to code. A transposer was included, which easily allows an organist to play in higher or lower keys. A greatly-expanded combination action was installed, allowing guest organists to store their own stop combination memories.

A side benefit to designing the new relay system was the ability to add 6 additional stops to the organ without the need for additional pipes. This allows certain pipe ranks to serve double-duty, being available to play at two different pitch levels. This greatly increases the versatility and color dynamics in a small instrument.

The console, bench and pedalboard were also completely stripped and refinished at no cost, in return for the church being able to commit to the project early enough during the slow month following Christmas.

Other than tuning and perhaps occasional valve adjustments in the chests, there should not be any more electrical and relay issues for many generations ahead.