Happy Day to you, Church!
Yesterday I found myself listening to Christmas music and I laughed. “O, the weather outside is….” well, it’s not frightful outside, is it? What mild temps we’ve been having lately!
Do you think we might actually get snow for Christmas this year? I’m not so sure we will. Hopefully some of us are wearing our snowflake pajamas to bed at night. What are other “tricks” for bringing on snow?
Here’s the news for this week:
This Sunday, December 11th is a Busy One!
*Wear your favorite, festive red and green attire to church this Sunday to celebrate the season.
*We will be celebrating communion together this week.
*Christmas Joy Offering: This week we will be collecting the Christmas Joy offering, which goes to support struggling ministers and church workers in our denomination. If you plan to contribute, please make your check out to our church, with Christmas Joy on the memo line.
*After the service, during coffee hour, Ivette Herryman-Rodriguez will be leading a Christmas hymn sing along. If you love singing Christmas carols, this is your chance to fill your Christmas cup to overflowing!
Pledge Cards
If you’ve received your pledge card this week, will you be prayerfully considering what you might be able to contribute next year for your giving?
Vernice Church is Home
After being gone for 2 months, Vernice Church has finally made it back to the North Country! She’s currently recovering from surgery at Maplewood and would love to receive cards from us, but isn’t quite up to having visitors yet.
If you’d like to send her a note in the mail, send it to:
Vernice Church
205 Canton-Madrid Road
Canton, NY 13617
Moving into the Center for Sunday Worship in January
Given the spike in heating costs, Session has decided that we will once again move our Sunday worship to the Center for the coldest winter months. Beginning in January, you can shed your winter coat and hat for worship, as the Center will be comfortably warm!
Advent Tidings
We’re about halfway through our Advent season and I wonder how you’re faring. Have you been able to quiet your spirit and listen deeply?
This can be a difficult time for some. The sorrows we carry silently with us in our everyday lives seem to magnify during the darkest days of the year. Our grief for loved ones lost feels heavier, our feelings of disconnection and depression intensify, and it’s easy to become overwhelmed by all there is to do to prepare for Christmas.
As you quiet your spirit this week, I invite you to consider that the comfort and joy that the Baby Jesus brings into the world is also meant for you. This is certainly a time of year to think of others, but our giving needs to live in balance with caring for our own aching souls. What is it that brings comfort to your sadness? What compassion might soothe your despair? What tenderness can speak to your sense of hopelessness?
This coming Sunday we will be sitting with Matthew 11:2-6. In it, John the Baptist wants to know if Jesus is really the Messiah that everyone has been waiting for, or if they should keep looking elsewhere. Jesus responds in the affirmative, but indirectly. All he says is that “The blind can see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the lepers are cured.”
Dear Hearts, Jesus has come to bring healing into the world– into your world too!
Let us remember to pray for our own healing, even as we work to create wholeness for others. God’s tender compassion is meant to reach our own broken places and offer a soothing balm.
May you find God’s peace and tenderness amidst these darkening days,
Pastor Katrina