Print Issue: November 21, 2002

Parish Hosts World AIDS Day Prayer Service, Celebrant Singers

JONESBORO - A World AIDS Day prayer service, featuring the Celebrant Singers and Orchestra, will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 3 at St. Philip Benizi Church.

The Celebrant Singers and Orchestra, an ecumenical Christian music ministry, will sing during the prayer service.

The Christian musicians, who travel as missionaries for the Gospel, will also hold a musical event there following the prayer service.

Father Vincent Gluc, OFM Conv., parochial vicar at the parish, and Portsbridge Hospice chaplain Rev. Tom Shannon, a Baptist minister, will preside at the prayer service. It is the sixth annual World AIDS Day prayer service sponsored by the parish AIDS ministry.

World AIDS Day is observed Dec. 1 internationally as a time for greater education on HIV/AIDS and worship services that focus on intercessory and healing prayer, hope in God and love and compassion in the midst of the pandemic.

The prayer service will remember those who have died and those who are living with HIV/AIDS and their friends and families. All are invited to attend. The church is located at 591 Flint River Road.

Following the service, the Celebrant Singers will present a musical "praise celebration" of contemporary choral music, accompanied by a live orchestra and with personal witness talks and prayer. The event is family-oriented and open to the public. A free will offering will be taken.

The group's 10 singers, 12-piece orchestra, and lighting and sound technicians are chosen from international auditions. The talented and committed young adults are not salaried, but raise half the cost of their own travel expenses in order to share the Gospel through music, Scripture and personal testimony.

Founded and directed by Jon Stemkoski, they were invited to sing at the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver and in St. Peter's Square in Rome. They have traveled in the United States, Canada, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, Egypt, Iran, India, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong.

This is their second visit to St. Philip Benizi Church. For information contact Rose Campbell at (404) 366-9331 or John Patterson at (770) 968-9638.