Raleigh Moravian Church

Many thanks to all our Oak City Cares donors and volunteers in 2023. Want to kick start 2024 with us?!? Our first meal of the year is this Saturday, January 6th! See all the details in SignUp Genius.

RMC - Oak City Cares Outreach - Saturday, January 6th, 2024 Raleigh Moravian Church supports Oak City Cares on the first Saturday of each month. You are invited to assist us with this rewarding service ministry. You can donate grocery store gift cards, donate supplies, help prepare breakfast, and/or help serve breakfast at the Oak City Cares facility. It's t...

Thank you for contributing to our Reverse Advent “Giving Tree” to benefit the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC. In December, we collected 1345 pounds of non-perishable food, pushing our total for the year above a ton—2136 pounds, with one more Sunday in 2023 still to go! Cash gifts for December total $2509. We do have worship service Sunday, December 31, at 11 a.m. We will enjoy a Singstunde—song service of favorite hymns—and pass out watchwords for 2024. Join us—and bring a can of black-eyed peas to donate so Food Bank clients can have good luck in the New Year!

Merry Christmas from Raleigh Moravian Dieners! If you enjoyed celebrating Lovefeast Candle service with us last night, these are just some of the amazing volunteers who make it all possible. May your Christmas be filled with the light and love of Christ!

It’s almost Christmas Eve, one of the busiest days on the Raleigh Moravian Church calendar. Because Christmas Eve falls on Sunday this year—THIS Sunday!!—we will not have regular worship service at 11 a.m. Instead, we will have three Candle Lovefeasts, which are beautiful services full of music, a simple shared meal and the soft glow of candlelight. We will have Children’s Lovefeast at 2:30, with carols and songs beloved by our little ones, plus a special snack! Our Morning Stars children’s choir leads the music. At 5 and 7:30, we will have traditional Lovefeasts, with carols and anthems from the Moravian repertoire plus many familiar to all. We will share sweetened buns and hot Moravian coffee. Our band plays for 30 minutes before each evening service. All are welcome! Please consider bringing a can or box of food to contribute to our Reverse Advent Drive for the Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina.

Can you help us reach our Reverse Advent goals this weekend? Each Advent we support the Food Bank of Eastern and Central NC. Our goal is to collect $4000 in monetary donations and 2k pounds of food. We are about halfway to each of those numbers. Be sure to bring your donations to Christmas Eve 2:30, 5, or 7:30pm services!

The band and adult choir of Raleigh Moravian Church shared beautiful music on Sunday. You can enjoy them again during our Christmas Eve Lovefeasts on Sunday, December 24, at 5 and 7:30 p.m. The band plays for 30 minutes before each service, and the choir performs several anthems. We also have a 2:30 p.m. Lovefeast designed for children, featuring our Morning Stars children’s choir. All are welcome to celebrate with us!

Sunday, December 17, is the third Sunday in Advent. At Raleigh Moravian Church, worship will feature special music from the Raleigh Moravian Band. Please join us at 11 a.m. Don’t forget your donations for the Food Bank!

We’re making progress on our Reverse Advent goals for contributions to the Food Bank of Eastern snd Central NC. For the first two weeks, we have received 644 lbs. of food—only 1356 to go to our goal of a TON of food! Monetary donations to date are 1823, toward a goal of $4000. Thanks for all your generosity! This is canned soup month at the Food Bank. Those cans wrigh a lot, so bring them on!! Remember that this Sunday’s 11 a.m. service for the third Sunday in Advent is the last regular worship service of Advent. The fourth Sunday falls on Christmas Eve, when we have Candle Lovefeasts at 2:30, 5 and 7:30. We WILL collect donations then, too.

The musicians of Raleigh Moravian Church shared holiday joy with the community this weekend. Band members entertained visitors to the Historic Oakwood Christmas Tour Saturday afternoon. Sunday afternoon, music director Sara Montgomery, members of our Men’s Chorus, and SisterSing, the women’s ensemble, proved “heedless of the wind and weather” by journeying to Springmoor Life Care Retirement Community to present a program of anthems and carols. Church member and Springmoor resident Karen Fletcher helped arrange the visit. And PS—choir member and former director Mike Warren is in the Oakwood Waits, Raleigh’s Victorian carolers, and he sang with the group in the White House this week!!! Yes, we take our music seriously and have great fun, too.

Sunday, December 10, is the second Sunday of Advent, which means we will be halfway through our Reverse Advent food drive in partnership with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC. We have goals for Advent of 2000 pounds of non-perishable food and and $4000 in financial donations. After last Sunday, we had 360 pounds and $800! Think about bringing a box or can of food for each day of the week when you come to worship or dropping a check in the offering plate made payable to Raleigh Moravian with “Food Bank” in the “for” line. Put food donations in the wooden cupboard near the kitchen, in the bin in the narthex or under the Giving Tree in the sanctuary. See you in church!

What a wonderful day at Christmas Candle Tea! We have more music to come, lots of crafts and cookies—but the sugar cake is such a hit that we’re about to run out!! Thanks to everyone for supporting our work in the community! See you until 6 pm!!

Time for the finishing touches on setup for Candle Tea—and WTVD is in the house! Come see us from 2 to 6 pm TODAY for our annual open house, holiday concert and sale! Yes, we are definitely baby, child and family friendly. This is a drop-by celebration, not a worship service. And yes, we are easily accessible to wheelchairs. Admission is free, and everyone is welcome.

It’s finally here—Christmas Candle Tea at Raleigh Moravian Church is TODAY! Join us from 2 to 6 this afternoon for beautiful music, great shopping and a chance to learn about Moravian traditions. Our church is at 1816 Ridge Road in west Raleigh. Candle Tea is open to the public admission free, and everyone is welcome. We also welcome your contributions to our food drive for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. See you soon!

Have you made your shopping list for Christmas Candle Tea at Raleigh Moravian Church? Time to get it done, because the tea is THIS Saturday, December 2, 2-6 pm! Look for beautiful notecards on the crafts table, including these from Raleigh photographer Cindy McEnery. Pick out your favorite flavor of paper-thin Moravian cookies from Mrs. Hanes. And that’s just a start—sugar cake, stars, candles and much more! Candle Tea is open to the public admission free. Everyone is welcome—and that means children, too!

Christmas Candle Tea is almost here! It’s THIS Saturday, December 2, from 2 to 6 p.m. at the church at 1816 Ridge Road in west Raleigh. It’s a drop-in—come by whenever works for you, admire the putz (nativity scene), listen to some music, shop for cookies, sugar cake, candles and stars, and learn about the Moravian Church, a Protestant denomination that pre-dates Luther by a century. Admission is free, and everyone is welcome. See you there! PS—consider bringing a box or can of food to put under our Giving Tree for the Food Bank.

Here’s what disassembling, cleaning, enhancing and restoring a historic pipe organ looks like. The work is done, the new bench just got here, and the organ sounds wonderful. Come hear it during Christmas Candle Tea THIS Saturday, December 2. Raleigh Moravian organist/music director Sara Montgomery will present an organ concert as part of the musical offerings in the sanctuary. We will also have high school and community choirs and instrumentalists. Candle Tea is designed so you can move between music and shopping all day—and we are VERY child-friendly. The Tea is from 2-6 pm, admission free. Here’s the music schedule:
2:00 Broughton High School Festival Choir
2:30 Sanderson High School A Ca****la Ensemble
3:00 Cary High School Concert Chorus
3:30 Organ Concert, Sara Montgomery
4:00 Capital City Girls Choir
4:30 Raleigh Moravian Church Bass Quintet

Our worship service today featured our newly restored and enhanced Adam Stein pipe organ, which dates from 1902. Church members Joan Burri and Hubert Fort described the restoration process, which involved many volunteers, while organist/music director Sara Montgomery showed off the new pipes and stops (plus her blinged-out organ playing shoes!). The service was full of wonderful music. Tune in via Youtube at: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm4d2jGOLJQ

Many hands make light work in preparing for Advent and Christmas at Raleigh Moravian Church. Today, children and adults gathered after worship to help prepare materials for the putz (nativity scene) and assist putzmeister Keith Kapp in placing the figurines in the scene. With help from Chancy Kapp, they made Advent wreaths to take home. A great start to the holidays!

Join us for worship at 11am!

Sunday Worship Service -26 November 2023 Sunday Morning Worship Service of Raleigh Moravian Church.For more information about Raleigh Moravian Church and to help support our mission and programs ple...

Moravian congregations celebrate Advent, the season of anticipation that encompasses four Sundays before Christmas. Our churches and homes feature Advent wreaths, usually with red-trimmed beeswax candles. Look closely at some wreaths, and you will see small decorative picks amidst the greenery, often featuring distinctly Moravian symbols. We will have some of Lynn Waggoner’s wreath picks for sale at Christmas Candle Tea on Saturday, December 2, from 2-6 p.m. along with many other Moravian-themed and other crafts. Candle Tea is open to the public admission free. Please join us!

So how do we come up with all the sugar cake we sell at Christmas Candle Tea at Raleigh Moravian Church? We bake it ourselves! This fall, our Candle Tea Committee sent out a call for volunteers, and eager folks in every generation converged on the church kitchen to mix, knead, shape and bake several hundred delicious cakes, coated with brown sugar and cinnamon and drenched in butter. Venturing into church on a baking day is a feast of sights and scents, with a bit of tasting, too! You can taste sugar cake and buy some to take home at Candle Tea from 2 to 6 pm on Saturday, December 2. We are open to the public admission free. Please join us!

Great News!
Missions Council has agreed to start off our Reverse Advent Food Drive with an $800 donation!
Reverse Advent Food Drive will begin December2 during Candle Tea and continue thru Christmas Eve, with a goal of 2000 pounds of food and $4000. This leaves $3200 for the congregation to raise. Monetary donations should be made out to Raleigh Moravian Church with FOOD BANK on the memo line. Making donations in this way makes it much easier to count RMC's contribution, since the Food Bank does not release direct contribution information until after the end of the year, even if your check shows that the donation is from RMC.
There are green bags in the Fellowship Hall for transporting food donations. Take one home as a reminder to donate! You can place your food donation in the Narthex bin, under the Giving Tree in the Sanctuary, or in the Food Bank cabinet in the Fellowship Hall. Thank you Mary Kelley for making that beautiful cabinet available to the Food Bank Drive.
Ken and Lois Crawley, RMC Food Bank volunteers
PS—if you’re planning to visit Christmas Candle Tea, consider bringing non-perishable food to put under our Giving Tree!

People visit Christmas Candle Tea at Raleigh Moravian Church for all kinds of reasons. Music? We have plenty, Holiday traditions? Lots of chances to learn about Christmas the Moravian way! Peaceful reflections? A few minutes in front of the elaborate nativity scene – the putz – do the trick for many visitors. And of course – ONE-STOP SHOPPING for hostess gifts, family presents, home décor and desserts! If that’s your goal, you can zip in and out and check off lots of boxes on your to-do list. Check out the sales tables packed with candles, stars, crafts, artwork and plenty of Moravian cookies and sugar cake. The Women’s Ministry of Raleigh Moravian Church organizes Candle Tea, with plenty of help from the men, too! Proceeds support the ministries of the church, so the more we sell, the more good we can do! This year’s Christmas Candle Tea is Saturday, December 2, from 2 – 6 p.m. As always, it is open to the public admission free. Join us!

Visitors to Christmas Candle Tea at Raleigh Moravian Church this year will enjoy a treat – the magnificent sound of the fully restored Adam Stein pipe organ. Built in 1902, the organ came to Raleigh Moravian from First Presbyterian Church in downtown Raleigh. It found a home in our original sanctuary, now the Fellowship Hall, and was built into the current sanctuary in the 1980s. During the past year, members of the church volunteered to help professional restorer John Johnson through several months of taking the organ apart, washing pipes, cleaning leather workings, tuning and many more tasks. The result is a wonderful combination of lush tone and brilliant clarity. Raleigh Moravian’s music director Sara Montgomery will offer an organ concert at 3:30 in the sanctuary during the Candle Tea on Saturday, December 2. The tea runs from 2 to 6 p.m. that day. As always, it is open to the public admission free. Join us!

Beautiful singing will be part of Christmas Candle Tea at Raleigh Moravian Church on Saturday, December 2, as some of our area's best ensembles perform in our sanctuary--a favorite for great acoustics!--at 1816 Ridge Road in west Raleigh. High school and community choirs will alternate with our brass musicians, organist and piano in a continuing concert of holiday music. Here's the schedule:
2:00 Broughton High School Festival Choir
2:30 Sanderson High School A Ca****la Ensemble
3:00 Cary High School Concert Chorus
3:30 Organ Concert, Sara Montgomery
4:00 Capital City Girls Choir
4:30 Raleigh Moravian Church Bass Quintet
The music concludes at 5 p.m. Candle Tea runs from 2 until 6 p.m. As always, Candle Tea is open to the public, admission free, and everyone is welcome! Please join us!

Music is a vital part of worship at Raleigh Moravian Church, and Christmas Candle Tea is no exception. Some of that music will come from members of the Raleigh Moravian Band. Moravian churches have a long tradition of band music. Early ensembles were trombone choirs, made up entirely of trombones covering all the "voices." Bands expanded to include other brass instruments and today often include woodwinds. At Raleigh Moravian Church, our band plays a prelude of chorales and familiar hymns before every Sunday service, provided enough players are on hand! We accompany Easter Dawn service and graveside funerals in our Moravian God's Acre in Historic Oakwood Cemetery - Raleigh. At Candle Tea, we play outside for our visitors awaiting entrance, and small ensembles offer special music in the sanctuary. This year's Candle Tea is Saturday, December 2, from 2 - 6 p.m. at the church on 1816 Ridge Road. Admission is free, and everyone is welcome. Come see-- and hear! -- us!