November 9, 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
Wednesday, November 5, 2014 at 9:09AM Hands of the Angels November 8, 10:00 a.m.
The Hands of the Angels Knitting & Handicrafts group meets on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays 10:00 a.m. in the Parish Hall Living Room. Everyone is welcome to join and if you’d like, learn how to knit. The next meeting will be Saturday November 8 10:00 a.m. Parish Hall Living Room
Food For Thought: Video Version
Sundays, 9:00 a.m. Science & Religion DVD
We continue to look at the emergence of science in the 17th Century and the development of “Natural Theology” looking at its strengths and weaknesses.
Coffee Hour Sign Up
The Sign up Sheet for Coffee Hour for November and December will be on coffee table this Sunday. Please sign up to take a turn.
Dates Needed: 7:45 November November 23, & 30
10:15 November: November 16, 23, & 30
Dates Needed: 7:45 December: December 7, 21, 28
10:15 December All Sundays
You can sign up by emailing the Church Office as well as using the Sign Up Sheet on Sundays.
Information Updates:
On Sunday we’ll put out the current Parish Directory and Email list so you can make corrections to it. Each will be in a separate file folder. You need to check both and make any necessary corrections in both files because they are in different parts of the computer.
Year of Grace Calendars
The Year of Grace Calendars for the Christian Year which begins on the First Sunday of Advent, November 30, will be available for purchase on Sunday. They come in three sizes: Laminated Poster, which is great for hanging on your refrigerator door, Laminated Notebook size which is 11 x 17, and Paper Notebook size. An envelope will be available for checks and cash.
Altar Flowers for 2015
The Sign Up Sheet for Altar Flowers for Sundays in 2015 will be on the table outside Church on Sunday. Sign up for the Sundays you would like to give Flowers. The cost is $55.00 per Sunday.
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd
CGS Level I Atrium
November 9, 2014
I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly
John 10:10
Children of the Level I atrium experience Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
The gospel of John Chapter 10 tells of Jesus’ answer to “Who are you?” in the parable of the Good Shepherd. He declares, “I am the good shepherd” more than once.
Last week, we explored the work of a shepherd. We learned a shepherd takes care of herd animals, like sheep. The shepherd communicates with the herd by voice, calling to them. The sheep follow the only voice of their shepherd and no other. The shepherd makes sure the sheep are fed, have plenty of water to drink, a place to rest, and protects the sheep from harm. He would even lay down his life for them. The shepherd gives the sheep everything they need, everything the shepherd has.
We use this parable from the scriptures as the core work of Level I. It meets the one of the important needs of the 3-6 year old in knowing there is great love just for them, a love that never ends. Jesus came not just so we may have life, but have it abundantly! Everything we need.
This and the following weeks we will begin to lay the groundwork for Advent which begins Nov 30! We will explore the geography of the land of Israel, the regions where Jesus visited and where special events were recorded to have happened. We put into context where the children are located in the United States and where events of Jesus of Nazareth took place. They will then be introduced to a topographical map of Israel with land forms and water sources. They will be introduced to the cities of Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem; to the regions of Galilee, Samaria, Perea, and Judea.
I am very excited to have added a couple of geography books about the land of Israel which I saw when I was at the International Gathering of CGS! They bring a nice context to place.
One of the songs re-introduced this week is Like a Shepherd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSJXi_wXLi4 I hope you enjoy it.
Ms. Georgie
Outreach Committee
Mission Giving
On Sunday, the Outreach Committee plans to team up with the 12+ year olds to offer you a special treat. The boys are going to be “trying out” different jobs around the church. They are starting with pricing and selling “crafts” from a women’s group in Uganda.
The Suubi women crafts group was established in 2012 with 20 women some of whom have HIV/AIDS, are single mothers and grandmothers and their first crafts that included animal mobiles, coasters, book marks and head bands were sold through Come Together Trading Company in Texas. This encouraged the women to make more crafts which were of a better quality. One of the significant features is that 100% of the profit goes back to the group of HIV/AIDS women that Global Hands of Hope supports (Suubi Children Centre is also supported by Global Hands of Hope and you will be hearing more about them later). The income from the crafts helps the women to support their families and children attain education.
The group now has 30 members of which 5 are men.
Adam and Oliver will be putting prices on the items and selling them after the 10:15 service. Please support them and the women of Bukeka with your generosity.
Adam and Oliver sold $250 of crafts last week. They, or Adam, if Oliver can't come, will sell next week. Tracy will try to go to the early service to sell. We are hoping to send $600 to the crafts people at the end of next week. We will probably sell again Advent 1.
The picture below shows some of the women working on items to sell
Annual Giving for 2015
This week the Outreach Committee begins a project falling under the heading of Mission Giving which is one of the four fields of Christian giving.
Over the years we’ve offered a program for high school and college age young people we’ve entitled The Young Person’s Guide to Love and Wealth Management. It has been a team effort involving Fr. Bob, and Bill and Rebecca Woods. As Bill said a couple of Sundays ago, Rebecca does the “love” part. Bill is the financial person. We work to impart good values in each of these dimensions of life.
Before thinking about budgeting, Bill asks the young people to first consider the question, “What do you want from your money?” He’s seeking to help them identify their values and once they’ve done that, they can figure how to enact them in the way they use their money.
Coming at that are a couple of principles about money that are as real as the law of gravity. There are two things you absolutely cannot do with your money, and there are two things you absolutely must do with your money. The two things you absolutely cannot do are 1. Keep all your money and 2. Spend all your money. The two things you absolutely must do are: 1. Save some, and 2, Give some away.
This all falls under the concept called Stewardship, for Christians means, the proper use of all the gifts God bestows upon us.
There is a new book out entitled: The Paradox of Generosity.: Giving We Receive, Grasping We lose. Below is a description of what the research shows, which conforms with Christian teaching for 2014 years.
The Paradox of Generosity is the first study to make use of the cutting-edge empirical data collected in Smith's groundbreaking, multidisciplinary, five-year Science of Generosity Initiative. It draws on an extensive survey of 2,000 Americans, more than sixty in-depth interviews with individuals across twelve states, and analysis of over 1,000 photographs and other visual materials. This wealth of evidence reveals a consistent link between demonstrating generosity and leading a better life: more generous people are happier, suffer fewer illnesses and injuries, live with a greater sense of purpose, and experience less depression. Smith and Davidson also show, however, that to achieve a better life a person must practice generosity regularly-random acts of kindness are not enough.
For Christians, living “Giving We Receive, Grasping We Lose is enacted in what we call the The Four Fields of Christian Giving.
Annual Giving: Financial Support for the life and work of the local parish.
Mission Giving: Financial Support for the spread of the Gospel and the relief for human need For us this usually means sponsored by the Outreach Committee, funded by 10% of income from movie locations
Capital Giving Occasional Financial Support for building new or upkeep of Church infrastructure. This is funded by income realized from the Church being used as a movie location, and endowment income from gifts left by the Campbell Johnston family and other benefactors. Which leads to…
Legacy Giving: Making a provision for the Church out of your estate so that your support continues beyond your lifetime so that future generations may enjoy what we’ve all come to value.
The Annual Giving Letter and Pledge Cards have been mailed out. We ask your participation and to please return them to us as soon as possible.
Emmaus Road Monday, November 10, 7:00 p.m.
Reading through Chapter 16. It’s a quick read and holds one’s attention
Emmaus Road goes from one end of the spectrum, having concluded Fr. James Martin’s book Jesus, to the other, or maybe we should say, “dark side.” We will be reading Tosca Lee’s novel, Demon: a Memoir. It is a portrayal of Lucifer. And through this novel we will encounter much of the thinking on the nature of evil in the Christian Tradition. Emmaus Road read Ms. Lee’s novel, Iscariot, earlier in the year. This fictionalized portrayal of Judas captured all of the current biblical scholarship about him, in a very engaging way. Just in case you think we’ve gone off the deep end, we did read some years ago The Screwtape Letters. So we’ve met this guy before. The book is available from Amazon. Everyone is welcome to join the discussion. Below is description of it from Amazon.
Recently divorced and mired in a meaningless existence, Clay drifts from his drab apartment to his equally lusterless job as an editor for a small Boston press--until the night Lucian finds him and everything changes with the simple words, "I'm going to tell you my story, and you're going to write it down and publish it. "What begins as a mystery soon spirals into chaotic obsession as Clay struggles to piece together Lucian's dark tale of love, ambition, and grace--only to discover that the demon's story has become his own. And then only one thing matters: learning how the story ends.
Food For Thought
We ran out of the article s from the current issue of Pacific Standard, entitled, We Are All Confident Idiots.. We will have more on the Food For Thought Table this Sunday. A description of the article is below.
As the author writes, “The trouble with ignorance is that if feels so much like expertise. A leading researcher on the psychology of human wrongness sets us straight.” What really does make it so hard to admit, “I don’t know?” I guess I’ll have to turn in the T-shirt Leigh Torgerson found in an airline magazine. On the front of the T-shirt it says, “Of course I’m right. I’m Bob!”
On the Food For Thought table this Sunday we will also have the second of two articles, from The New York Review of Books, on Near Death Experiences. This article is called Back from Heaven—The Science. Like the last article it covers a large selections of books on the subject. While the writer is not a “believer,” his article is probing and respectful of an experience widely shared by millions of people.
The last article for Sunday is again from The New York Review of Books, and is entitled, What Scientists Do. It dovetails nicely with the Science and Religion DVD on Sunday morning, and explains limits of what can be known for sure at any given time, and why some scientific issues ie climate change, earthquakes, are spoken of in terms of probability rather than certainty.