Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
December
2014
Issue
An Epistle from Ed
By Ed Cadwallader, Pastor
By the time you read this the Thanksgiving dinner leftovers will be running out and we will officially
be inside the season of Advent. Black Friday will have passed and the mad rush toward the merriment
of Christmas will have begun in full force. By the time you read this you will already have begun
planning holiday strategies to allow for the completing of decorating, shopping, baking, card sending
and cleaning - all prior to the must finish date & time associated with each of these categories of
frustration and delight. Sleep will be shortened, emotions may become raw, moods could become
cranky and our patience will tend to falter as we join in the mad rush toward the merriment of
Christmas in full force.
As I was considering our participation, as the people of God, in this seasonal test of both endurance
and tenacity, I was thrilled to discover something that might just be a positive about what is usually
painted as a kind of end of the year rat-race that ruins the holiday for many people. It occurred to me
that all the cleaning, mailing, cooking and wrapping are just various acts of getting ourselves ready
for the coming of Christmas. Similar to getting ourselves ready for the day ahead or a trip to a friends
home for dinner, the extra activities of November and December are merely a larger scale of getting
things ready.
This season of the Church, Advent, takes it name from a Latin word that is usually translated as
approach, or come near. There is, however, an aspect to the ancient word that is related to
anticipation. That is, not just waiting and expecting something, but anticipating, preparing for and
even taking events into hand ahead of time to ensure success in the coming event.
It pleased me to consider that all the flurry of the season is NOT a bad thing depending on why
were doing it. Keeping up with the lighting display of the neighbors across the street, outdoing our
baking rivals by creating the most cutting edge cookies, posted on Pinterest, seeking out the gaudiest
of holiday sweaters to feign a complete lack of concern for the holidays, and spending to prove the
depth of our emotions are NOT the work of anticipation to which I was referring. Rather than
struggling to do everything for a rat-race that will leave us feeling empty, we can be about the happy
work of preparing for the advent of our Lord. Rather than arriving at 12/25 bitter and burned out, we
can feel the joy of having planned and prepared for a festival celebrating a child that we welcome and
love. Like the fun we have planning and preparing for someones surprise birthday party, that fills us
with anticipation and glee, Advent can be a time that fills us with joy, peace and wonder while we
do all the things we decide we want to do to welcome the birth of our Lord in our hearts anew!
Think about it.
Live Nativity
By John Liebenguth
Please join us on Sunday, Dec. 14 for our annual
Live Nativity. Continuous programs run from
6:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. Stop by the front lawn
for five minutes, or the entire two hours! Cookies
and hot chocolate will be served, free of charge,
in between the shows.
Im pleased to say that without any phone calling, the cast is mostly filled-up! We still need two kings
for the late show and singers for both shows. Please give me a call at (724) 934-0731 if you can
participate.
Crche Construction
By John Liebenguth, Property Chair
The crche and sanctuary tree will be constructed on Saturday, December 6 at
10:00 a.m. Any helpers are welcome.
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"And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ~ 1 John 5:11
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2015 Pledges
By Jane Siefers, Assistant Treasurer
The pledges are coming in for 2015! If you have not yet dropped off your pledge slip, please
consider making a pledge and submitting it by the end of the month. Your slip may be placed in a
regular offering envelope and left in the plate, dropped off in my church mail box, mailed to or
dropped off at the church office in an envelope labeled Attn: Assistant Treasurer, you can also
email: djsiefers@consolidated.net or phone 724-935-4028 me with your pledge. OR you may (like
one of our trustees) accost me on the street and hand over a slip of paper. The method and amount are up to you, and no
one but you and I will know! The trustees are hoping to reach a goal of at least 40 pledges for 2015.
Cookies!
By Jane Siefers, Hospitality Committee
Cookie baking is a part of almost every familys Christmas traditions, and we have several
opportunities to share that tradition with others.
Franklin Park police officer, Kim Boucek has been sending homemade cookies and other
goodies to our overseas troops since 2008. Womens Club has been supporting Bouceks
Battalion for several years. Jane Siefers will be delivering cookies to the drop off site on Sunday,
December 7 and has offered the church kitchen as a drop-off location. If you would like to
support this project, please drop off your donated cookies before 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7.
For complete details of types of cookies and proper packaging, please check out the website at:
http://www.bouceksbattalion.org.
And, of course, we also need plenty of festive Christmas cookies for our appreciative audience at the Live Nativity on
December 14. You can drop off your cookies in Kehew Hall at church Sunday morning, or leave them in the church
fridge earlier in the week. FYI, this year we will not be selling cookies at the Live Nativity, but we will follow our
tradition of free cookies and cocoa after each performance!
Missions
By Jean Hipwell, Missions Committee
I would like to thank everyone for our big undertaking of helping to give shut-ins a homemade
Thanksgiving dinner. A big thank you to all who helped by calling, baking pies, cooking turkeys
and delivering the meals on Thanksgiving. Everyone was very appreciative and thankful.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ~
John 3:16
Pledge
Plate
YTD
Actual
$24,789
$25,800
YTD
Budget
$45,833
$18,333
TOTAL:
$50,589
$64,166
$70,000
November Happenings
Chloe, Mac & Ben finish wrapping things up with Beth at a Youth
GRAPE meeting. The group worked to learn about how being
covered in sin makes it difficult to get around as we would like!
December
6 Crche and Sanctuary Tree Set-Up, 10:00 a.m.
7 Mens Advent Pancake Breakfast, 12:00 p.m.
10 Trustees Meeting, 6:15 p.m.
10 Church Council Meeting, 7:00 p.m.
14 Live Nativity, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
21 Childrens Christmas Pageant, 11 a.m.
24 Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, 7:30 p.m.
24 Christmas Eve Candlelight Service with
Communion, 11 p.m.
Ongoing:
Advent Sunday School Series: Every Sunday, 10 a.m.
Morning Worship Service: Every Sunday, 11 a.m.
Youth GRAPE: Every Sunday, 7 p.m.
Choir Practice: Every Monday, 7 p.m.
AA/NA: Every Thursday, 7:00 p.m.
Coffee Hour
Please sign up to handle the duties of
coffee hour any Sunday. Preparing coffee,
a cold drink and an (optional) refreshment
is all thats needed. And, its appreciated!
If you are new to our congregation, please pass your information to Caitalyn Kowal in the church office, regarding your
address, phone number, email address, etc. so we can keep our records up to date and keep you up to date. Thank you.
Please help us with our mailing list costs. If you could view this newsletter via email or online, please
contact us at 724.935.3135 or bwcc@consolidated.net.
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