A Concert for the Good Friday Offering
Friday, March 29, 2024, 2:00 PM
from The Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs
As The Episcopal Church’s Good Friday Offering prepares to mark 102 years, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry invites the whole church to an afternoon of sacred music and collective giving to support siblings in Jerusalem and the Middle East.
Recorded at Christ and St. Luke’s Church, Norfolk, in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, the concert will air online at 3 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. CT March 29 on The Episcopal Church’s Facebook page and website. Viewers will have the opportunity to make donations during the event to go toward the offering, also frequently gathered by churches during Good Friday services.
“We will not forget those caught in the crossfire between warring factions in the land where our Lord walked,” Curry writes in his annual Lent letter to Episcopal churches. “As we mark our Lord’s passion and death on Good Friday, we remember those whom he loves facing injustice and oppression today, and remember the urgency of love—true, sacrificial love.”
The Good Friday Offering was first gathered in 1922 as an intentional response of The Episcopal Church to support Anglican ministries in the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East that were impacted by the devastation of World War I, the Spanish flu pandemic, and social and political unrest affecting Armenian Christians, among others throughout that region.
The Good Friday Offering continues to support churches, medical programs, and schools today, including St. George’s Anglican Episcopal Church in Baghdad, the only Anglican church in Iraq; the eye clinic in Ras Morbat, Yemen; and the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, among numerous other institutions within the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East.
The Office of Global Partnerships offers downloadable resources—in English, French, Mandarin, and Spanish—about the Good Friday Offering, including posters, bulletin covers and inserts, litanies, and more. Information about ways to give can be found at iam.ec/goodfridayoffering.
“This is my last Good Friday letter to you as your presiding bishop, and I want to both express my gratitude for your gifts in years past and encourage you to give again to support God’s beloved in this area of the world,” Curry writes. “This is what love asks of us.”
For more information, contact Archdeacon Paul Feheley, Middle East partnership officer, at [email protected] or (800) 334-7626 x6222.
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