small groups

Communities of Care

a 94 year-old man helps a 6 year-old and 7 year-old clean up

Everybody cleans

Greetings!

Potlucks give us a great chance to share our individual gifts and come together in mutual labor to clean up afterwards!

Tonight’s theme is pasta. As always, we haven’t run out of food yet, so if you don’t have anything, come anyway, particularly if the weather makes it unsafe to hurry. We’ll be discussing communities of care and wondering what it means to care for different people and populations that are part of our church family.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written in response to some aid the church in Philippi gave to Paul while he was in prison. This act itself provides us a model for care, but Paul’s response reminds us how to think about one another in community:

Philippians 2:3–5 (CEB)
Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others. Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

So, how do we watch out for others in our community? We talk often of people who are no longer able to get out of their homes, but we also have our children and high school students, people busy with their work lives, struggling to keep up with family activities, and facing personal demons. How can we live such that we show care for all these and more? Come tonight to talk about it.

And come this Sunday not only for our annual meeting, but also to hear the children of the church sing in worship with us!

Blessings,
Nathan

[email protected]

Faith Formation

Greetings!

Can you believe Daylight Savings Time is here already? Get ready to fall back this weekend.

In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, we see his hope for our faith.

2 Corinthians 10:15–16 (CEB)
We don’t take pride in what other people do outside of our boundaries. We hope that our work will be extended even more by you as your faith grows, until it expands fully (within the boundaries, of course). We hope that our work grows even to the point of the gospel being preached in places beyond Corinth, without bragging about what has already been done in another person’s work area.

Tonight, we gather for our second potluck of the year. We’ll be talking about Faith Formation. I’ll have another presentation and some more talking about different ways churches help people to grow in faith, and then we can talk in small groups. Potluck starts at 5:30. Bring a pie! Any kind will do! Or just eat some. We’ll have some activities for the kids, too. Come and join us as we continue our imagining journey and figure out what it would mean to grow in faith.

This Sunday is All Saints Day. We’ll turn the paraments to white and remember all those we have lost in the past year. If you have a name you’d like remembered, just send an email to me at [email protected] .

Blessings,
Nathan