Dear Friends:
This Sunday, November 20, All Saints will worship with Holy Eucharist at 8:30 and 10:30a.m. Hymns appropriate to Thanksgiving will be sung, and special prayers offered.
Also at 10:30a.m.Church School, led by Vicky Beall, will be held in the rector’s office and child-care will be offered by Cherri Bijan in the Pre-K classroom.
Carolyn Barr will be the coffee hour host.
This Sunday is All Saints’ Annual Stewardship Sunday. You are asked to place your signed Stewardship Pledge Card in the collection plate or mail it to the church office. Ruth Dougherty will offer a Stewardship Reflection this Sunday. Roy Morrison, Juanita Barrow and Annie Byerly have already offered Stewardship Reflections from the head and heart.
The season of Advent begins on Sunday, November 27. No Church School will be offered, but child care will be available with Cheri Bijan. A calendar of Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas events is at the end of this message.
Bill McColl will again portray St. Nicholas to young and old at the end of the 10:30a.m. Service on December 11.
Lana Guidetti would like to thanks All Saints and its Shawl Ministry for the lovely knitted shawl given to her mother, Ella Zerga, for her 98th birthday.
Austin Ashley, son of Terrie McColl, a three-term warden, is continuing the family tradition of public service. Austin was elected to the New Milford Borough Council last Tuesday. Congratulations, Austin!
Andrea Pieper will be on vacation from the end of business this Thursday, November 17 until Monday, November 28.
You’re invited to the Child Care Center’s Thanksgiving Show and Potluck which will be on Wednesday, November 23 at 12noon in Davidson Hall.
You’re also invited to the Community Thanksgiving Service at 8:00p.m, also on Wednesday, November 23, at the Leonia United Methodist Church. Rabbi Barry Schwartz of Congregation Adas Emuno will preach on the topic of “Finding Joy!”
One place where joy can be found is in the presence of God. Annie Byerly proposed a new ministry in her Stewardship Reflection – inviting neighbors to church. The purpose would secondarily be to create new members, and primarily to share hospitality and the joy that is to be found at All Saints. It reminded me of Hymn 304, versus 2 and 3, words by Brian Wren (b. 1936):
Verse 2
I come with Christians far and near
To find, as all are fed,
The new community of love
In Christ’s communion bread.
Verse 3
As Christ breaks bread and bids us share,
Each proud division ends.
That love that made us makes us one,
And strangers now are friends.
Remember that each of us was once a stranger to All Saints. Come break bread this Sunday and feel “that love … makes us one”.
May God bless you and all whom you love.
Dean
