November 2016 FROM THE DESK OF THE PASTOR. You Are Invited

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1 Dedicated to building a strong Christian family for all of God s children, working together for the purpose of putting our faith and love into practice. FROM THE DESK OF THE PASTOR You Are Invited November 2016 You are invited to be part of a celebration of the ministry of Grace United Methodist Church and share your ideas and questions as we make plans for the future. We will meet with the District Superintendent on Wednesday, November 9 th for our Annual Church Conference. We will begin with a covered dish supper at 6pm followed by a time for celebration of our accomplishments during the past year and discussion of plans for next year. Please join us for this major event in the life of our church. If you have something you want to make sure is included in our discussion, please feel free to contact me by phone or text at or at revdavid76@gmail.com. Yours in Christ s Service, David E. Smith, Pastor 1

2 NOVEMBER WORSHIP SERVICES 11/06 Pentecost 25 - Communion Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38 Theme: Christ Chooses Us for Abundant Life. Meditation: Chosen for Life Hymns: 374 Standing on the Promises 2088 Lord, I Lift Your Name on High 393 Spirit of the Living God 11/13 Pentecost 26 Scripture: Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 2:15-19 Responsive Reading: #734 Canticle of Hope Revelations 22 Theme: God is with Us in Midst of Turmoil. Meditation: Stand Firm Hymns: 707 Soon and Very Soon 426 Behold a Broken World 2036 Give Thanks 11/20 Christ the King Sunday Scripture: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:11-20 Responsive Reading: # 208 Luke 1:68-79 Theme: God Through Jesus Offers Redemption. Meditation: Saved by Grace Hymns: 327 Crown Him with Many Crowns 2236 Gather Us In 2145 I ve Got Peace Like a River 11/27 Advent 1 United Methodist Student Day Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44 Responsive Reading: # 789 Psalm 65 2

3 Theme: Christ s Coming is Predicted. Meditation: He is Coming Hymns: 196 Come Thou Long Expected Jesus 732 Come, We That Love the Lord 376 Dona Nobis Pacem 3

4 ANNUAL CONFERENCE CONNECTING LOCAL CHURCHES IN UPPER NEW YORK As an Annual Conference composed of over 900 churches, we adopted as our common mission the making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, with a vision for living that out by living the Gospel of Jesus Christ and being God s love with our neighbors in all places. That mission and vision are lived out on the local church level with the staff of Annual Conference seeing its purpose as equipping local churches for ministry and providing a connection for ministry beyond the local church; all to the glory of God. Its primary task in fulfilling that purpose is to increase the leadership capacity of pastor and laity. That task is lived out by providing training opportunities for pastors and laity, supervising and holding accountable pastors and Conference leadership, and recruiting effective lay and clergy leadership. One tool for providing training for lay leaders is the Lay Servant program which provides training in a variety of areas of ministry. In our congregation we have 11 who took the basic program and learned about Ministry as Calling of the Baptized, Spiritual Leadership, Caring Ministries, Communicating, 4 and Being in Ministry in the World. Five of those who took the basic course also completed an Advanced Course on Preaching. Starting January 2 nd we will be offering a Lay Servant course on Lay Pastoral Care. Watch future newsletters for more about Annual Conference and ways in which they are seeking to enhance the ability of Grace and the other local churches in Upper New York be in ministry. PARSONAGE UPDATE: Cleaning Crew Needed Work on the parsonage has reached the stage where we are ready for a cleaning crew. Tentative plans are for a crew of six or more to spend a Saturday from 10am-2pm giving the parsonage a thorough cleaning to get it ready to rent. If you are interested, contact the church office by or leave a message on the church answering machine. (Date to be announced.) SUNDAY SCHOOL NEWS Halloween Party a Success! This year we had big crowd at the Halloween party close to 100 people attended! Once again, the youth did a

5 fabulous job decorating and running the haunted hallway. They did both a friendly monster-be-nice version for the younger kids as well as a scary, reach-out-and-grab-you version for the older kids and adults. Many thanks go to James and Aaron June and their crew for leading the youth in the haunted hallway, and to Anne Coryell for organizing crafts and games. Mike Mattick generously spent his entire day at the church being the adult supervisor. We really appreciated the generous donations of food from the congregation and Christine and Blake Frazee were an incredible help in the kitchen, both prepping food ahead of time and cleaning up after. At the party we collected food donations and filled a tub to treat the food pantry as well. Thank you to everyone who contributed to make the evening a success! 5

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7 On October 9 th the children took a hayride around Ravena to trick or treat for UNICEF. The children collected $150 that afternoon towards our $500 goal. UNICEF is an organization that supports children world wide, promoting education, equal rights, health and nutrition. Please consider donating your spare change to our cause. Every little bit makes a difference. A special thank you to Mike Mattick, James June and Scotty VanWormer for obtaining the wagon and hay bales and for driving us around town. 7

8 send to our troops in care packages. Our Sunday School will be collecting candy donations from Halloween until November 10 th. Please consider sharing some of your loot with those who are selflessly serving our country. If you don t have any candy but would like to help, Operation Gratitude would welcome monetary donations as well. It costs 15 dollars to ship each care package. Thanks again for supporting the efforts of our Sunday School children. BARGAIN SHED NEWS The Shed has been blessed with an abundance of donations this year. Our last day for donations was Saturday, October 22 nd. If you have items for us, please hold them until next spring as our storeroom is full. If your child collects an incredible amount of candy between trick or treating and Halloween parties, or if having it in your house is a temptation for you, or if you are afraid your child will still be eating it come December DONATE IT! Operation Gratitude is collecting excess Halloween candy to Since we do have a "chock full" shop, we will be closing out the year with a $3/Bag Sale beginning on Saturday, November 12 th. The sale will continue until Saturday, November 19 th, our closing day for this year. Everything in the shed is included. Through October 20 th, receipts for 2016 (including $732 on Fall Fair day) total $5,433 with 3 weeks to go! 8

9 BOOK NOOK The 13 th Annual HUGE Book Sale will be held for 3 days: Thursday, December 1 (9am-3pm) and (6-8pm) Friday, December 2 (9am-3pm) and (6-8pm) Saturday, December 3 (9am-3pm) We will be setting up Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, November 28, 29 and 30 all day (9am-3pm) and (6-8pm) until finished. We would welcome your help for any amount of time you can give us. After November 19 th, when the Bargain Shed closes for the season, the Book Nook will remain open on Tuesday and Saturday mornings throughout the winter (weather permitting) and be closed on Thursday evenings. Book sales to date total $14,366! MARK YOUR CALENDAR December 11 th will be our annual Christmas Concert at 4pm followed by a pot luck dinner. More details to come. 9 Happy birthday to all those celebrating a birthday in the month of November! 3 Devonna Quinn 3 William Haslett 4 JoAnne Burrill 8 Andrew Ginder 9 Liz Spence 10 Lisa Maurer 11 Cindy Bliss 11 Jessica Ingraham 14 JoAnna Cochenet- Gallastegui 16 Alice Ross 16 Pastor Judi 18 Jay Ingraham 20 Chris Ingraham COFFEE HOUSE RETURNING IN DECEMBER Please start planning what talent you may want to share at our December 9 th event. Grace s Coffee House brings our community out to meet us and it is a wonderful, safe environment for nonprofessional talent to hone their skills and become comfortable and confident

10 before a crowd, or to just have some old-fashioned fun. Sign-up begins at 6:30pm and the show at 7pm. Hope to see you there! REACHING OUT AS A CARE GIVER Do you have a desire to reach out with Christian care to a shut-in or a troubled acquaintance? If this is you, you will want to attend a Lay Servant Course being offered in January called Lay Pastoral Care Giving. The course will be held Monday evenings for five weeks beginning January 2 nd. Taking the course doesn t commit you to being part of a Lay Pastoral Care Giving team but gives you skills to do so. To sign up for the course or for more information, contact the pastor by phone or text at or revdavid76@gmail.com. EVANGELISM COMMITTEE The Evangelism Committee recently met to plan our events through May of next year. We are adopting three families for Christmas, as is our custom. But this year, in addition to providing Christmas gifts, we thought 10 it would be a great idea to provide Thanksgiving dinners for these families as well. As usual, we have asked CHOICES to provide us with all the family information, including number of children and their ages. Look for a big "Turkey" poster on the lounge window. You will also find a sign-up sheet and "turkey feathers" marked with non-perishable food items for a Thanksgiving dinner. As the items are brought in and placed in the basket, we invite you to add the corresponding "turkey feather" to our poster. When all items have been collected, our turkey will be complete! Other upcoming events include: December 9 th Grace Coffee House February 5 th Chili Cook-Off February 24 th The Jesus Video Children's Version with pizza, beverages and popcorn March 17 th (St. Patrick's Day) Grace Coffee House May 7 th invite-a-friend" Friendship Sunday. Our next meeting will be December 6 th at 7pm. All are invited. We plan to discuss ways to help visitors feel welcome and faith sharing. Please note, our November 29 th meeting has been cancelled due to date conflicts.

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12 UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 16 Hillcrest Drive Ravena, NY JOIN US ON FACEBOOK If you are on Facebook, please join the church page by liking us at Grace United Methodist Church, Ravena, NY. Find out what s happening each week from Sunday's Service sermon title and hymns to meetings and special events. OR VISIT US ON THE WEB: 12 Deadline for articles for the December issue of The Messenger is November 20 th. Please or fax articles to Barb Bullock at: bbullock812@gmail.com or fax to: