THE TIE February 22, 2016

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1 THE TIE February 22, between church and home Community United Church of Christ Worship Service - Sundays at 9:00am C.O.R.E. - Wednesdays at 6:00pm 300 N. Main Street Rev. Jeff Johnston Morton, Illinois Julie Fanta, Secretary cucc@mtco.com The focus of our life together is to love God and our neighbors, with Jesus leading our service, worship, and relationships. Pancake Day The 64th annual CUCC Pancake Day is approaching with the community eagerly anticipating the taste of pancakes and sausage. This year s event is being held on Saturday March 5 beginning at 6:00 am and ending at 4:00 pm. As in years past we will be offering gluten free pancakes and prepackaged sausage for sale. There will also be a bake sale for the sweet tooth in all of us. This event is an opportunity for those in the community and outside of the community to come together for a great meal and fellowship. And to make this a worthwhile event, volunteers are greatly encouraged. Please consider offering some of your time to make this year s Pancake Day a success. If you would like to volunteer your time or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Ryan Jones ( ),Mark Gingerich ( ) or Brandon Emlen ( ). Thank you very much for your help. Tickets are available through the Church office or you may contact Ryan. Lenten Wednesday Evenings Our five week Lenten series of Soup/Salads/Sandwiches carry in (6 PM), followed by worship (7 PM) has begun and continues through March 16. This year we are using the framework of Marty Haugen s Holden Evening Prayer Service to reflect upon some of Jesus I AM sayings from the Gospel of John. Our worship is brief, but meaningful. The service ends by 7:30 PM. All are encouraged to attend for the sake of fellowship and for reflection and spiritual growth during this Holy Season of preparation.

2 John Wimberly, an experienced pastor and consultant with the Congregational Consulting Group writes: Time and time again in congregations, I encounter either-or thinking. In so doing, we pit things against each other that should be working together for the glory of God and shared purpose of the congregation. Of course, with an either-or approach to reality, we also reflect our culture. Either-or thinking is ripping apart our nation and crippling a lot of congregations. But there is usually another way: both-and (Living Into a Both-And World). Unfortunately both-and thinking is sadly absent not only from most corners of our culture and many congregations, it is also lacking in our historic experience. A few exceptional individuals have broken though our innate human tendency toward dualistic, either-or thinking. Among these are: the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Jesus, the Apostle Paul, the early desert monastics of the second and third centuries, the Cappadocian Church fathers/mothers of the fourth century (Basil of Cesearea, and Gregory of Nyssa, their sister Macrina, and their friend Gregory Nazinazus), Buddha, Lao-Tzu, St. Francis and his heirs, John and Charles Wesley, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. Typically, however, most who followed each of these innovators reverted quickly to the human default of dualistic thinking. To remedy this in our own time we might attend to the thoughts of another non-dualistic thinker, Richard Rohr, who suggest that: The deepest questions are not those of rights and power, and whether or not I m getting everything that society owes me. The deepest questions are those of how can love be expanded and increased. How can we defer to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21)? (Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety). Rohr adds that This is a third way, a new something wonderful, but that it is often difficult for many to discern: The dualistic and merely political mind will never understand it. It reads everything in terms of win/lose, right/wrong, good/bad, either/or, top/bottom. Only the contemplative mind, the new consciousness made possible by Godexperience and prayer, can read reality in a panoramic and truly wisdom fashion (see 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 in this regard). The calculating mind, the egocentric vision, is all that the [current] system has. We have a new mind made possible by God. [see Rom. 12:2] The key to this non-dualistic mind is love. Perhaps we can turn again to Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, and be reminded that when we are children, childish ways of thinking and perception are appropriate. And that, in fact, it remains proper for us to continue to teach our children and youth in these more concrete ways so that they themselves have a foundation from which to launch. But that by the time we grow to adulthood, these more simplistic, either-or forms of thinking are no longer fitting, and ought to be cast off for the sake of a more mature and complete ethic of love which more often than not will include both-and thinking. Yours in Christ s love, Pastor Jeff

3 BAKING UP A STORM... Our annual Pancake Day will be here on March 5th! Our youth will once again be hosting a Bake Sale during the day. This is our biggest annual fundraiser, so we need LOTS of goodies to be successful! Please consider helping us by making some treats: brownies, puppy chow, cupcakes, rice krispie treats, cake pops, cinnamon rolls, cookies, ANYTHING with sprinkles, etc! Please have item packaged in individual servings and to the church on Friday, March 4th by 5pm. Thank you!! If you have any questions, please contact Amy Jones. One Great Hour of Sharing, as part of Our Churche s Wider Mission, is the special mission offering of the United Church of Christ that carries God s message of love and hope to people in crisis. The UCC works with international partners to provide sources of clean water, food, education and health care, small business micro-credit, advocacy and resettlement for refugees and displaced persons, and emergency relief and rehabilitation. OGHS also supports domestic and international ministries for disaster preparedness and response. Almost 60 percent of the UCC's offering supports international development initiatives, including annual support for missionaries. Currently there are 4 OGHS supported missionaries and 2 Global Mission Interns working in disaster relief, health care, education, sustainable agricultural development, and refugee support. Since the beginning of civil war in 2011, More than 12 million Syrians--more than half of the country's population--have been displaced inside Syria or are refugees in neighboring countries. The need for food, medicine, clothing, heating, and shelter are immediate for refugees who have recently been forced from their homes, and for those who have been there longer. The United Church of Christ continues to offer support for the work of many partners in the region to provide humanitarian response to the needs of Syrian refugees in part through OGHS offerings. The offering also funds disaster preparedness and response, and disaster related volunteer initiatives in the U.S. In 2014, the OGHS offering received just over $2.2 million. Nearly seventy-five percent of UCC congregations participate annually. On average, of every dollar given to One Great Hour of Sharing, 92 cents is used directly for mission programming; 6.5 cents for interpretation materials and 1 cent for administrative costs and.5 cents for program monitoring and evaluation (accountability). Most administrative costs are paid by gifts to Our Church's Wider Mission National Basic Support. This special offering will be taken on Sunday, March 6 th. Advent Lutheran is inviting us to take part in a Passover Seder presented by Jews for Jesus. It will take place on Monday evening, March 14 at their facility. It will be instructive as to the Jewish roots of our own faith, especially as they pertain to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Communion. The exact time is yet to be determined. Look to future bulletins for details.

4 The Lenten soup and sandwich suppers will run thru March 16th at 6:00pm. Please bring a pot of soup, a plate of sandwiches, or a pan of bars to share each week. We will not have a sign up sheet this year. Worship Board will be purchasing three large pots of lilies to decorate the sanctuary for Easter Sunday. These lilies will be distributed to local nursing homes after the Easter service. Anyone wishing to contribute toward the cost of the lilies can give your donation to any Worship Board member: Sharon Farney, Lori Harding, Mike McCallister, Dave Uhlman, or Paul Grant. Note from Worship Board The Worship Board would like to ask that those ushering each Sunday please check the pews after the service is over and remove papers and trash, check attendance pads, place hymnals facing front, straighten offering envelopes, etc. There will be additional attendance pads in the desk outside the sanctuary. If you need supplies or have any concerns, please see a member of the Worship Board. Thank you for helping keep the pews in order. The next TIE article deadline is Thursday, March 10 th at 12:00 noon. Sunday bulletin articles need to be ed or on Julie's desk no later than 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday mornings. Our sympathy and prayers to Paul and Lynn Grant on the death of Paul s mother, Cecilia Meeker on Sunday, February 14 th. Gary and Peggy Evans and Tracey Greenwood became members of Community UCC on Sunday, February 14, 2016.

5 Remember Our Members & Friends in Nursing Homes Dorothy Jibben, AC Skyline Home in Peoria John Noonan, AC Skyline Home, Peoria Room 141 Salem Nancy Leavitt, Restmor Spruce 71 Mary Rein, Hopedale Nursing Home, Room 206 Jeannette Gray, Restmor Alberta Majors, Rosewood Care Center, East Peoria, Room 305 June Rugaard, Restmor Chestnut 310B Date/Occasion Scriptures Sermon Title Other 2/28/16 Third Sunday of Lent Isaiah 55:1-9 Psalm 63:1-8 Heavenly Health Coach 3/6/16 Fourth Sunday of Lent 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 The Return of the Prodigal Holy Communion 3/13/16 Fifth Sunday of Lent Isaiah 43:16-21 Psalm 119:9-16 The End of Memory 3/20/16 Palm Sunday Psalm 118:1-2,19-29 Luke 19:28-40 Teaching a Stone to Talk March Coffee Fellowship Bill Koepnick, Javier Martinez Please Sign Up March Ushers 06 Andreas & Julie Heim, Phil & Brenda Heppard 13 LaVern Harper, Roni Hucker, Ben & Erin Hunsley 20 Dave & Sharon Key, David Johnson, Ryan Jones 27 Tom and Mary Hunsley, Tom and Diann Krieg

6 Treasurer s Report Month End and Year to Date January 31, 2016 Income/Expense January 2016 YTD 2016 Income $38,254 $38,254 Expense $20,438 $20,438 Balance $17,816 $17,816 Rental Income $38,500 $38,500 Rental Expense $ 1,055 $ 1,055 Net Balance $37,445 $37,445 January and February Mission Giving Our Church s Wider Mission We Care Friendship House Common Place Christian Civic Outreach

7 01 Ryan Jones 02 Greg Geiger 06 Greg & Melissa Gardner Bob & Sara Hornsby 07 Mary Hunsley Leonard Stewart 08 Jay Hall 09 Brenna Gardner 10 Carter Jones Brittany Uhlman 11 Dax Dirkse David Johnson 14 Mark Moore 16 Elizabeth LaMere Kaiah Dirkse Jeff Teel March 18 Jeff Gardner Ryan Spradlin 19 Zackary Dahmm 20 Sara Schmidgall 21 Andreas & Julie Heim 23 Katie Heppard 24 Roni Hucker Ryleigh Kercheval 27 Jacob Hahn 29 Tim Schmidgall Laura Spradlin 31 Paula Schmidgall