THE RED DOOR FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BIG FLATS, NY JULY / AUGUST 2010

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1 THE RED DOOR FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BIG FLATS, NY JULY / AUGUST 2010 (607) / Founded Pride In Our Past Faith In Our Future Dear Friends, I need to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support for my Sabbatical Leave has been overwhelming. My heart is always with you, whether I am physically or spiritually present. My hope is that I can let go for a time and be renewed in spirit. Peace to All,

2 JUANITA FITZSIMMONS (3/27/20-6/07/10) Juanita Fitzsimmons passed away on Monday, June 7, She had been a member of our congregation for many years. Juanita and husband George Fitzsimmons had been married nearly seventy-three years at the time of her passing. Juanita was a retired inspector at Westinghouse Corporation in Horseheads, NY. In addition to membership in our church, Juanita was very active in the Big Flats Historical Society and also served as a 4-H Leader for many years. She leaves a large extended family and many caring friends. We are grateful for Juanita's presence among us, and we mourn her passing. JOYS AND CONCERNS June was another active month for our church family. Children/Youth Sunday and our annual picnic highlighted a wonderful month of worship and fellowship.. On June 13, we celebrated our young people. Their enthusiastic joy reminded us of where the future of our church lies! Thank you Debbie French, and all our Christian Education teachers and helpers for your hard work and commitment to these wonderful youngsters. Debbie is stepping down as Christian Education Director after many years of service to our youngsters -- we really appreciate all she has done to enrich the lives of these special children! Speaking of young people, congratulations to our three graduating seniors: Skyler Harwood, Alissa Jolley, and Phillip Manual. Rev. Rick presented copies of the book, Oh, the Places You'll Go!, by Dr. Seuss, to our trio of graduates during Youth Sunday. Best wishes for continued success from our entire church family! Congratulations, also, to our Garden Club paraders! Their participation in the Big Flats Community Days Parade earned a third place award for our church. More importantly, the parade provided some wonderful fellowship and a chance to reinforce our church's role as a positive force in our community. Thank you to all who took part. On Father's Day, June 20, we met to worship, eat, and socialize at our annual church picnic, held at our church's Welles Land property. The morning started with a special worship service in our sanctuary, highlighted by a very inspiring slide show! A special thank you goes to Gigi Price, who prepared this show -- we loved sharing these memories of a terrific church year! We then traveled across the street to our picnic. Over eighty enthusiastic diners enjoyed a wonderful array of delicious picnic fare. Masters of the grill, Rocky Peters, Mark Slowik, and Christopher Kimball kept the burgers and hot dogs coming, and the legendary "Big Flats Bakers" provided an amazing variety of delicious side dishes and desserts Thanks go to Duane Welch, event coordinator, and to all our volunteers. The sympathy of our church family is extended to the Fitzsimmons family on the passing of Juanita, on June 7, and to the Farr family, on the death of John's step-father. We pray for continued healing for Peg Halm, who has finished chemotherapy, and for Sam Dean, who will undergo his last treatment in late June. We also ask for prayers for: Lydia Middaugh, Debbie French (auto accident), Gigi Price (continuing to recover from injuries sustained in a bad fall), Ann Slowik's mother, Flora Berke (soon to relocate to Arkansas), Charles and Lucile Easterbrook, Manfred and Florence Luppold, Dick and Peg Shockner, and others who are dealing with ill health, loss, or life changes. Please continue to pray for our servicemen and women and their families and for peace in our troubled world. Do you have a special joy or concern that you would like to share with our Big Flats Presbyterian Church community? See Rev. Rick or Bill Howells, and we will include your news in our Joys/Concerns column. As Rev. Rick prepares to begin his sabbatical leave, we ask for prayers for Rick and his family. We pray for safe travels, and for a peaceful, refreshing, and enlightening time of leave for him. May God guide Rev. Rick and protect him on his continued journey of faith.

3 There are no great things, only small things done with great love. ~Mother Teresa~ Dear Church Family and Friends, I am blessed with the care, prayers, and love of such a great group of people. In my healing I was blanketed with many feelings of being protected. I so gratefully thank you for all of your presences to me and my family during a difficult time. Blessings to all Love and Peace, Gigi SUPER SUMMER SERVICES SCHEDULED Our summer worship hours started June 27, and will continue through Sunday, September 5. The special summer starting time of 9:30 will allow us to experience the joy of worshiping together and still leave time for other summer activities. Note: there will be "Summer Sunday School each week. In Rev. Rick's absence, our pulpit will be filled by a variety of stimulating speakers. Our Sabbatical Team has called upon a number of talented men and women from our congregation to share messages that are sure to provide us with inspiration and much food for thought as we continue together on our journey of faith. In addition, two ordained pastors (Rev. Hanson and Rev. Davis) will lead us in worship and will celebrate Holy Communion with us in August and September. A complete roster of speakers is listed on the calendar page (PAGE 7) of this edition of THE RED DOOR. In addition to wonderful speakers, we will be blessed with special music throughout the summer. A tentative list of guest artists includes: Karen Paul, Paul Holland, Mary Swan, Nancy Curren, Sue Kramer, Scott Frye, Jose Gomez and Randy Cornell. Come and join us at 9:30 each Sunday morning and your spirits will soar as you are touched by the beauty of their music! Experience summer worship with us you won t be sorry! GARDEN CLUB NEWS The Garden Club is growing! In our second year, the garden club had a 50% increase in sign up. We now have fifteen active family plots, and we will be planting three more plots with late summer vegetables that can go directly to the food pantry. It was fun showing our stuff at the annual picnic. We also got some excellent publicity at the Big Flats Community Days Parade where our float won a third place prize. Thanks to Sam and Joyce Dean and Pat Silvernail for donning straw hats on the float and to the old 1946 Farmall tractor for pulling the float through. It only stalled once (just before the judges stand!) but fired right up and completed the haul! VBS PLANS A "HIGH SEAS EXPEDITION" AUGUST 2-5 Don't miss VBS this summer because we're going on the Voyage of a Lifetime! Get ready to set sail and take an exciting High Seas adventure! Feel sea spray on your face as sails snap overhead. Your crew will plunge through rugged waves and experience the deep, rolling waters of God's love. Join us as we sail the deep blue sea on our HIGH SEAS EXPEDITION each evening, Monday through Thursday, August 2 through August 5,, from 6:30-8:30 PM. Get ready for a great time! We are still looking for volunteers to help with the program -- talk to Jennifer Minier or Debbie French if you can lend a hand.

4 WANTED: Bereavement Coordinator (2) When the Pastor receives a call to perform a funeral, he will ask speak with the family to ascertain whether or not they wish the church to prepare refreshments following the service. If so, he will then contact one of the Bereavement Coordinators who will then contact the family to determine its needs. If the family wishes refreshments, the Coordinator will then contact the people on the list of people willing to provide this service asking them to prepare whatever is needed (determine the menu, ask for dishes to be donated, etc.) If you would like more information or would like to take on this work, please contact Peg Halm at or thalm@stny.rr.com. MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE NEWS NOTES Care posters are well received. We ve received some excellent reports on how well our care posters are being received. It s like getting 50 get-well cards all at once. We ve had reports of posters proudly hung for all to see by hospital beds, in nursing homes, and even in the cab of a truck. And please, don t wait for someone else to start one around at coffee hour. If you know of someone in need of a special pick-me-up, there is a supply of posters ready to go currently on top of the coat rack at church. Just fill in the person's name, sign your greeting and pass it around. It s easy to do. Watch for an updated church brochure. Through the excellent work of Dottie Hoos, we ve been able to update the church brochure with current phone numbers, meeting times, and an updated map to our location. We ve included the URL of our fabulous Website, and the picture of Pastor Rick no longer shows someone looking younger than his son Zachary. We will be printing them in smaller numbers so the supply doesn t last longer than the Dead Sea Scrolls this time. Take a few with you. Hand them to your friends. Invite them to attend church with you. That s what they are for. This is too important to leave to a committee! We need a go-to person to coordinate the afterfuneral receptions for bereaved church families. This person must be highly organized and willing to call on members of the congregation who have already volunteered to help when called. The committee has updated the procedure manual, and now we need an angel to carry on this important task.. Hi Folks, As some of you may be aware, Pastor Rick has requested and been granted sabbatical leave for this summer. The dates for Rick s leave will be July 1 st October 5 th. During this time we ask that Rick not be contacted directly for any reason. What we have in place during Ricks leave is a small team of folks who will run the day-to-day business of the Church and respond to any needs. If anything develops that needs to be dealt with by the Church/Minister, your first point of contact will be David Stafford, or, if he is not available, Hank Schurr or Joyce Dean. They will decide the appropriate action, and if Rick needs to be informed or not, the main objective being to remove the day-to-day burden from Rick, and afford him the quality time to rest and refresh. Also, we ask that if any of the Church elders are approached with any requirements of this nature, that the people named below be contacted and informed of the need, so that the appropriate action can be taken. Contact details are as follows. David Stafford: Tel: Cell: (607) Hank Schurr: Tel: Cell: (607) Joyce Dean: Tel: Thank you for your kind consideration in this matter. On behalf of the sabbatical team, David J Stafford

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6 Dear Church Family, 1996 Someone once compared a minister s life with that of a taxi leaving an airport. It is so loaded down with passengers, suitcases and other items that the car has a hard time even moving. It is strained to the point of breaking, yet the taxi may be only a few years old. So it is with clergy. They bear the burdens, the anguish, the pain, and hurt of their parishioners As a result, many, if not all, experience to one degree or another burnout adversely affecting the minister s personal, family, and parish life, and greatly diminishing his effectiveness and well-being. For too long, this situation has been accepted, even tolerated as an inevitable part of the job. A viable solution to the peculiar stresses and strains that clergy encounter is the Sabbath Leave, sometimes referred to as a Sabbatical. ~From the Presbyterian Church USA site~ You may have heard that I will be taking a Sabbatical this summer July 1 st to October 5 th. Sabbatical is a scriptural mandata. For the past 5 years or so the Presbytery and the Session of our church have been encouraging me to take sabbatical time to renew and refresh my spirit. In general Ministers who are at one parish for more than 15 years are encouraged to do so. I have put off Sabbatical because, honestly, I am not one to rest my heart, mind and soul easily. But the time has come and I have worked up a Sabbatical that will include study, travel through biblical sites in Europe, spending time with family, centering prayer, and participation in CREDO. This precious time will help me to rejuvinate my commitment to my ministry and to the church. It is with humility that I ask for your full support in this endeavor. Truly after 29 years working in the human services 10 years with the developmentally disabled and 19 years in ministry, I am blessed with this opportunity. I need to explain what my journey of faith has been thus far. Somewhere back in my distant youth I experienced significant diabetic health issues. At the time I was working with the Developmentally Disabled at Letchworth Developmental Center in NY. Most notably, I lost my sight to diabetic retinopathy and I experienced blindness for two years shortly after marrying Gigi. Miraculously, just when we had been told there was nothing that could be done, I was led to Dr. Ron Michels at Johns Hopkins University Hospital who partially restored my sight. Somewhere in that dark time I heard God s victorious laughter and a faint whisper, Will you be an instrument of God s Good news? We breathed a deep sigh, packed our bags, and headed for Princeton Theological Seminary. I was energized with a knowledge that I had acquired while blind a clarity of vision in those dark times. I came to Big Flats Presbyterian in 1992 fresh out of Seminary with a family in tow. Here I have stayed for 18+ years. I have built relationships in the community, the church and elsewhere. I have seen many Ministers come and go being the Senior Pastor in the Big Flats community. The mission challenge has meted out in the Community Food Pantry in our church, Pennies from Heaven (Habitat for Humanity), the Saint Pauly Clothing Shed, and the Community Garden on our grounds. Learning how to be an effective and inspiring leader created numerous opportunities for personal growth for me and our church community. My health has remained fairly stable, yet with aging, I have found new consequences of chronic disease. These new developments are 2010 manageable, but I feel more fragile. I have painfully experienced the loss of some church family and friends. Intimately going through the life cycle birth, baptism, marriage, death, with all of you has left me emotionally vulnerable yet inextricably and joyously connected. I strive to restore my soul during this sabbatical process so that I may remain effective and joyous in my pastoral care and ministry to you. Finally, I must recognize that I have been supported in pursuing this spiritual retreat by the Sabbatical Committee Joyce Dean, Sheila French, Barb Horn, Hank Schurr, and Dave Stafford. The loving care with which this committee has addressed this time for me is a blessing. Peace and God s Blessings be with you

7 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BIG FLATS, NY JULY AUGUST 2010 EVENTS SUNDAY 9:30 10:30 AM Morning Worship (Pennies From Heaven will not be collected until Rev. Rick's return in October) TUESDAY 12:00 2:00 PM Food Pantry is open AUGUST 2-5 'HIGH SEAS EXPEDITION' Vacation Bible School each evening (Mon.-Thurs.) 6:30-8:30 PM GUEST SPEAKERS DURING REV. RICK'S SABBATICAL July 4 July 11 July 18 July 25 August 1 August 8 August 15 August 22 August 29 September 5 September 12 September 19 September 26 October 3 Hank Schurr Bill Powell David Stafford Bill Howells Rev. Roy Hanson (Holy Communion) Nancy Compton Sheila French Janet Stafford Tom Seem Bill Howells Mark Slowik Sylvie & Benjamin Farr Rev. Joelle Davis (Holy Communion) David Stafford