A A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR JILL

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1 Vol. 50 No. 6 Rooted in Christ, Reaching in Love June, 2018 A A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR JILL Dearest Northminster family, It continues to be such a joy to serve alongside you in ministry. In April and May, I invited everyone to be thinking about a word or two they might use to describe Northminster Presbyterian Church. It may be a word that describes us, a word that we strive for, words that embody our ministry and mission and more. I LOVED the opportunity to talk with so many of you about the words you chose and why. Even more so, I loved putting all of the words together into a program that generated a word cloud, a visual representation of all of the words gathered together, with bigger words being used more frequently. Each word in the cloud plays a part in who we are and how we seek to live out God's call on our life. Our new challenge is to examine these words and allow

2 them to inform our ministry. Every single thing we offer, everything we say and do, every decision that is made is a reflection of this collection of words, an embodiment of our vision for ministry, seeking to serve our community with intelligence, creativity, imagination, energy and love, through the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray for God's continued wisdom and discernment in this endeavor, and give thanks for the joy of sharing in life and ministry with this wonderful Northminster family. May God's love, peace and grace strengthen, uphold and surround you, this and every day. Peace, Jill Church Finances We are one-third through the year and at the end April we are pretty much on budget for both revenue and expenses. Year to date, expenses have exceeded revenues by $5,000. The Northminster Preschool continues to post positive results. Enrollment has increased to 27. The school year will end in May and summer session will begin in June. Yard Sale! August 18 If you are doing some spring cleaning please remember to save your "extra" things for the Northminster yard sale. We will begin taking items at the church on August 12. The past several years we have raised over $2,000 at each sale and used this money for local community outreach. The items that do not sell go to CCM and Habitat for Humanity. Please clean out your closets, basements... And help to make this year's yard sale another success! 2

3 Thank you to NPC's youth group for leading us in a powerful youth Sunday service where we learned about the fruit of the spirit! Children and youth gathered after the service to plant "The Spirit Tree," a Japanese red maple tree to remind us that we are rooted in God's love and guided by the Holy Spirit! NPC's End-of-Year Bash was a ton of fun! The rain kept us inside but a competitive game of bingo kept the fun rolling. 3

4 Come Get Messy! The Beloved Community of Crafters is continuing to meet this summer, and welcome anyone who would like to join us for some great creative fun and fellowship. We meet on the second Saturday of each month, at 11:00 in the Small Meeting Room. Our Beloved Community is a group of individuals with a variety of crafting interests, who enjoy each other's company while exploring different crafting methods together. Baptism Shadowbox Carolina Snowflakes In the last couple of meetings we ve tackled Carolina Snowflakes and prepared shadowboxes to have ready for newly baptized Children of the Covenant. Our next meeting is June 9 th, and we plan to make concrete garden stepping stones! Come get messy with us! Julie Luppino We truly did tackle the Carolina Snowflakes sometimes they fought back!! A MAY WORSHIP ATTENDANCE May 6 61 May May May

5 Northminster s Ninth Garden Season Begins Tilling the soil, marking off plots, planting rows of corn, green beans, squash, tomatoes and peppers marked the beginning of our ninth vegetable garden ministry at Northminster. And then the rains came! This slows the progress in the garden, but we have faith that our growing season will be successful. Again, we anticipate having quite a lot of produce to offer the Hickory Soup Kitchen. In addition to the row crop side of the garden we have a dozen or so enthusiastic growers who have started their individual plots in the garden. They look forward to tasty vegetables and beautiful flowers to harvest. So far, we have much needed help with the phases of planting. We are especially grateful to Dr. George Place, Director of the Catawba County Cooperative Extension Services, who personally tilled the garden space in April. When we have a work day, George also sends the word out to all Master Gardeners in Catawba County inviting them to earn volunteer hours by helping us in the Northminster garden. And many do come! We have help from church members, neighbors and friends of Northminster. We were blessed on our first work day with almost two dozen people adults and youth who helped us. We had a very successful morning. Come join us in the garden. We guarantee fun, fellowship, and lots to do. If you have any questions, speak to Roger VanSkike, John Lundeen or Gene Rice and they will be glad to fill you in on what we are doing. 5

6 The Northminster Community Garden is conducting a raffle consisting of 3 sets of 2 tickets to the "Local Farm Feast". Raffle tickets cost $10 each and may be purchased from John Lundeen. Drawing will be held on June 17th after worship sevice. Proceeds to benefit the Northminster Community Garden and the general fund. JUNE BIRTHDAYS 1 Rachel Ring 1 - Tom St. Clair 3 Susan Pabst 3 - Barbara Walter 8 - Rebecca Inglefield 9 - Carol Lundeen 10 Greg King VanBenschoten 11 - Kurt Sigmon 18 - Kim Dixon 20 Sally Ring 21 Lauren Cekada 26 Ray LaBoy 27 - Ruth Sperring 28 Josh Ring Please keep in prayer... Our Northminster family members who serve in the military: Graham Auten, Michael Auten, Sean Bolick, Kirkland LaBoy, Maj. Mike Dumas (family of the Isolas), Air Force chaplain Lt. Col. Christopher Otten and others. Northminster family members who are homebound: A.L. and Doris Lutz, Faye Perkins, Brenda Saunders and others Prayers of safety and peace of mind for teachers, administrators and students If you would like to add a name to our prayer list, please contact the church office by phone or ( or 6

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8 NORTHMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Staff Directory Pastor......Rev. Jill V. Isola Music Director...Nathan Crabtree Director of Christian Education & Youth...Jackie Putnam Office Administrator.... Patty Williams Financial Secretary...Sheila Young Organist.Ruth Sperring Director of the Child Development Center......Mary Ann Crozier Northminster Presbyterian Church 3730 North Center Street Hickory, NC Phone: (828) Fax: (828)