December. November. First Congregational. United Church of Christ. From the desk of Pastor Scott. ADVENT -

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1 First Congregational United Church of Christ December November From the desk of Pastor Scott. ADVENT - It is easy to get caught up in Christmas. Most of that I d argue is a good thing- holiday cheer, thinking of gifts to give people you love, coming together for celebrations, parties, caroling, decorating trees, and baking cookies. It all helps lift the season in a spirit of generosity and love. I find however, it is also easy to be too planned; to be so in tune with holiday sales and promotions and creating the perfect Christmas that the holiness of the season gets lost in the busyness of it. Advent pushes us into a season we don t like. Christmas- yes. Advent- no. Advent asks us to wait. Advent rests on the idea that God s kingdom has been set into motion by the birth of Jesus but, that it is still far from complete. The world is not the kingdom come we pray for, far from it. Advent asks us to look into the gloom around us, to seek out the Light of God. It dares to whisper peace in the face of the world s brutality and hope when often all seems lost. Page 6: PADS 1

2 Continued.. Advent speaks a calm into the storm, like large swirling snowflakes slowly falling before a heavy winter storm, almost like a dance they fall rhythmically to the ground. But that is the story of Advent and it becomes the story of Christmas; a God who speaks hope into a world that often seems cruel and unfair. It is a promise yet to fully take hold that God has not finished what God has begun in Christ. We have the tendency like an impatient shopper, we have the tendency to beg God, hurry up already, would you please? It is probably the most difficult thing Advent demands of us, to trust that in the end of all our waiting, God s kingdom will be fully realized once and for all- in the Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love of Christ. Blessed Advent to you and your family. May we wrestle with buying less this Christmas so that we might have more. In Giving Team Update 2019 Beyond the Building campaign On Sunday, November 18, we celebrated our annual Commitment Sunday by turning in our Giving Cards committing our time, talents and finances to our 2019 Beyond The Building campaign. Over the past month or so, Pastor Scott shared his thoughts from a biblical perspective, while the Giving Team has highlighted the campaign through a humorous skit (so we were told) on stalking the congregation at this time of the year. An excellent presentation by Steve Johnson on his and Mona's approach to increasing their giving and their goal of tithing. We also produced video vignettes featuring David Burke/Jill Aparo, Laurie & Mike Coletto and Marilyn Jelinek on what the church means to them, and their approaches to giving. Finally, we handed out our Giving Brochure and Cards (see attached) to members who attended church the first two Sundays of November, to personally get the word out along with an e-blast prior to the 18th. You can print off the Giving Cards at home to complete. If you couldn t join us Commitment Sunday, please be sure to return your Giving Cards as soon as possible so we have the best possible information to develop our 2019 budget and program plans. Turn the giving cards in at church or to bookkeeper@uccdg.org. We really need all Giving Cards turned in by Christmas, as we want to minimize follow up s and phone calls. If you want to discuss further or have questions, please feel free to contact Dave Williams at dwilli8253@gmail.com or call at Our 2018 budget called for pledges of $414,356 (58%) and unpledged contributions of $69,775 (10%) of our total budget of $709,508. As of October 31st, we are right on target, while at the same time, we have been able to control expenses, keeping us on target to make budget at year-end. However, a lot can happen between now and the end of the year, with $10,000 budgeted for the Christmas Offering as well as possible unanticipated snow removal expenses. To support next year s budget (still being worked on), we ask that you consider pledging if you aren t doing so. This helps stabilize the budget reducing reliance on unknown unpledged contributions, while helping you in your own budgeting process. Consider giving electronically on a pre-set schedule, as it provides stability to our income flow, but remember to allow for any processing fees. Finally, please consider how you can increase your giving in time and talents. Financially, look at either moving up in your current giving bracket or going to the next bracket as shown in our 2019 Giving Brochure. The more we give, the more we can go Beyond The Building. From Your Giving Team - Jill Aparo, Mike Coletto, Nick Costanzi, Steve Johnson & Dave Williams 2

3 Updates & Events Christmas Eve Services: 9:30 am: For those who might be heading out of town or having family over or who d like to come to services more than once! 4:30 pm: Family service (candlelight) 11:00 pm: Lessons and Carols (candlelight) Christmas Day with our PADS families: Ladies of the Morning and Evening Women s Fellowship : Women s Fellowship Annual Christmas Brunch --Friday, December 7, 9:30-12:30AM. Join Women's Fellowship at our annual Christmas Brunch. All are welcome! As usual, our lovely Jan Hibbeln will be our gracious hostess. We ll meet at her home at 1505 Gilbert in DG at 9:30am. Please bring a dish to share. Please RSVP to Jan H including what dish you will be bringing or her at janhibbeln@sbcglobal.net If you have any questions, please call Peggy Gutzke at 630/ or her at peggy.gutzke@gmail.com Advent Bible Study: Join Pastor Scott and Pastor Karen as we again travel the journey to Bethlehem and explore what it means for us today. We will meet on Tuesdays at 1pm and 6:30pm in the Parlor. Dec 4 (led by Pastor Karen) Preparing spiritually for the promises to be fulfilled. Zechariah's prophecy, Malachi's refiner's fire, and the prophetic voice of John the Baptist. Luke 1:57-79, Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 3:1-6. Dec 11 (led by Pastor Scott) Finding God in times of waiting and suffering and the impatient difficulty and challenge of anticipating something that has not come. And yet, there is always hope. How does it all relate to how we think about the Christmas Story what was Israel waiting for? Texts: Zephaniah 3:14-20, Psalm 27:14, Romans 5:1-5, Philippians 4:4-14 Dec 18 (led by Pastor Scott) Mary and Joseph: the story behind the story of family pain, struggle, love, and acceptance that Jesus parents had to deal with and that we often are reminded of and deal with at family gatherings like Christmas. Texts: Luke 1:46-58, Matthew 1:

4 Updates & Events YOUTH TEEN NEWS: Our teens spent much of the fall season enjoying service through the outdoors. This year, Crop Walk 2018 was a huge success. We had 30 participants and had the largest group participating. Thank you to everyone for your outstanding donations monetarily and for our Crop Walk food drive. Sleep Out Saturday for Bridge Communities was another well attended youth event. 20 teens attended and slept outside on the ground, in tents and in cars. We will continue supporting and building the Bridge program and look forward to our next event together. Thank you to all of our adult youth volunteers who slept out with us and who came to make a fabulous breakfast Sunday morning. Pastor Scott, Rodney Sandman, Michelle Rafacz, Paul Zimmerman, Dave Humphries, Paula Orsula, Dr. Rich and Sandy Toleikis Thank you to our Confirmands for including our high school teens in their Jesus Café on the Sunday following Sleep Out Saturday and we look forward to combining our Tower Hill retreat coming up November 30- December 2. Youth Giving Ministry: This is a new mentoring ministry for elementary, junior high and high school teens, sharing in service, mission, outreach, building community and play. Please sign up and join us for the following programs in December: December 7-8: Hopes Front Door Toy Drive In the Youth Room from 10 am- 1 pm. December 9th: Wizard of Oz field Trip to Paramount Theater December 17th and 24th: PADS Christmas Elves Families sign up to spread love and Christmas cheer Meet in Fellowship Hall from 5:30pm 7:00pm. December 18th: The Night Ministry We will meet in the church kitchen to prepare a meal and prepare Christmas gifts for our friends in Humboldt Park. Please meet in the church kitchen at 4:30 pm and we will begin serving in Humboldt Park at 8:00 pm. HIGH SCHOOL TEEN TALK: Will begin Tuesday evenings from 6:30-8:00 pm. We will meet in the Sanctuary and Youth Room. COMING SOON: New Year Lock-In Ice-skating in Chicago Polar Peace March in Chicago Wisconsin Winter Retreat 2019 Merry, Merry Christmas!! Love and blessings, Dena Provenzano 4

5 Updates & Events FCC BOOK CLUB: As we celebrate the Christmas season, we will once again meet for a shared dinner at Trudi Connick's home. Our dinner will be Thursday, December 13th at 6:30 PM. Trudi's address is th Street. Trudi will supply a meat dish and some sides, so please contact her at to let her know what you can contribute to the meal. Instead of reading a book this month, please come to the meeting prepared to share with the group what your favorite book is and why. Music Ministry: Greetings from the Music Ministry team! Our groups have been hard at work preparing music for the upcoming Christmas season. Our annual Christmas Concert will be held on Sunday, December 16th at 7pm in the Sanctuary with a cookie reception to follow. The concert is free but we will be collecting a free will offering at the door. We hope you can join us for a beautiful evening of music! If you or your child is interested in performing a solo for the concert, please send an to kcalpin@uccdg.org by Dec. 2nd. We have a few spots left! As always, we are looking for more members for our musical ensembles, specifically Chancel Choir and Alleluia Ringers. No experience necessary, we welcome all ages! Please consider lending your time and talents to our Music Ministry! Thank you and wishing you a blessed holiday season, Kelley Calpin Director of Music Ministry JAM Orchestra: The JAM Orchestra is a new and exciting ensemble that strives to present music at the highest quality to a broad audience. The orchestra is the brainchild of three friends, Justin Kono, Aaron Kaplan, and Michael Goldman, who after years of performing together, decided to take the music they were passionate about into their own hands, vowing that the days of playing music meant for twenty with a barebones crew of 7 were over! The JAM Orchestra aims to perform works, from classical to Broadway to film scores, with original orchestrations, full instrumentation, and played with the utmost musical integrity, the way they were meant to be heard. JAMO is performing an inaugural concert on December 1st at The Skokie Theater. We are setting ourselves apart from other freshman ensembles by paying every member of our orchestra and creative team a fair wage. This does NOT come cheap! We re asking YOU, our ever-important audience, to help make this ambitious project flourish, giving Chicago a unique, much needed musical infusion. Thank you and we hope to see you at The Skokie Theater on December 1st! Meal Express: We are looking for volunteers who will prepare (or purchase a prepared meal) and deliver meals to members of our church who would appreciate this gesture. This service could be for sickness, new baby, hospitalization, etc. Please sign up after church in Fellowship Hall. Contact April Prescott at , amprescott@sbcglobal.net, or Gail Jaroski at , jarosk19@comcast.net The Sunday morning service is now being re-broadcast on Cable Channel 19 at 4:30pm every Sunday to 35 Greater Chicago area networks! Thank you Len Potter for making this possible! 5

6 PADS Fundraiser: On December 26, exchange your gifts, shop the clearance sales, AND enjoy lunch or dinner at City Barbeque at Main and Ogden in Downers Grove to help support our PADS Ministry. Dine-in or carryout all day long. Please bring a copy of the flyer to show your support. Thank you and have a prosperous New Year! [12/26 FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH] Attention Night Owls: One of our local churches is closing their doors and thus unable to provide for our PADS guests on the first three Mondays in December. Gloria Dei, DGS Football and our Church Staff have volunteered to provide the food and staffing for the dinners and cleanup. Lisa Raisin and friends are providing the three breakfasts on Tuesday mornings. But, we need your help to staff the three shifts of overnight supervision on December 3, 10, and 17. Need two volunteers from 8:30-11 pm, 11-3 am, and 3-7 am each night. Please contact Tom Williams at if you are able to take a shift. We would also accept donated desserts for any of these nights. Christmas Season: Christmas Eve falls on a Monday this year meaning our PADS guests will awake on Christmas morning sleeping on the floor in a church basement. We will again collect gift ideas from each regular guest in hopes to provide gift cards for the adults and presents for the children. Each card/gift will be about $50. Please contact Tom Williams at or see Laurie Olsen at the Manna table if you are able to participate. If you purchase gift cards directly through Manna and wish to get credit for your donation on your contribution statement, you will need to let Tom know to inform the bookkeeper. Santa and Mrs. Claus will be visiting our PADS kids on the evening of Monday December 17. They may resemble former Ministers at our church. Additional details to follow. 6

7 DuPage United: Our church welcomed Adrienne McCauley, Leader Organizer, for DuPage United on Oct. 28, 2018, after the church service, to give a presentation on the organization. Having heard the programs Our church is considering whether to join this organization and support its initiatives. In light of that, if you were unable to attend that presentation, we wanted to share some information about the organization. "Dupage United is a local affiliate of the Industrialized Areas Foundation (IAF), a Congregation-based Community Organizing Network recognized by the UCC. DuPage United is an inclusive, non-profit, non-partisan organization whose members are civil society institutions: churches, mosques, synagogues, non-profit agencies, and associations. This mix of institutions have come together to form public relationships and to act together to improve the quality of life for individuals, families and communities. The secret to DuPage United s success lies in its commitment to identify and develop leaders in every community where DuPage United works. We rely on a radical tactic: We meet people face-to-face and build relationships that help to re-knit the frayed social fabric of our life. Out of this deliberate, painstaking work of building relationships, DuPage United is creating a vibrant and healthy political culture. We don t seek justice and social change for people, we seek change with people. We tackle big problems by breaking them down into issues that can be addressed. We build power by building community. DuPage United engages in democratic action in the public arena. DuPage United is affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation - an alliance of 65 organizations throughout the US, UK, Germany, Canada, and Australia - with a proven track record in organizing for 75 years." For more information about DuPage United - visit or contact David Burke, Chair of Mission and Justice Ministry. davidburke1029@gmail.com 7

8 2019 Dance Lessons For those who d like to hit the dance floor in style at the Christian Fellowship dinner gala or some other event, but need to dust off their dancin shoes a bit, we will be offering six weeks of group dance lessons on Friday evenings in the Fellowship Hall starting January 11th from 7-8 p.m. Cost is $80 per couple for the six weeks. Sign-up on the lower half of the Dinner Gala form. Checks can be made out to the church with Dance Lessons in memo section. Deadline for sign-up is December 31st. If you have questions, please see Lynn Niemi Fellowship Dinner Gala Christian Fellowship is hosting a dinner gala on Saturday, February 23rd from 6-10 p.m. The event will be held at Carriage Greens Country Club in Darien. Dinner will be family style, and a cash bar will be available. The cost will be $50 per person. Please obtain a sign-up form from the Pilgrim or any of your friendly Fellowship Ministry Members. Checks can be made out to the church with Dinner Gala in memo section. Friends from outside the church are also welcome to attend. 8

9 Green Christmas: The holiday season can be an occasion to show care for creation, and give more meaningful gifts to your family and friends while reducing the environmental impact. Giving your time, talents, and treasures isn t just limited to church stewardship; there are many ways this can be applied to your gift list. Give Your Time, Energy, or Expertise - Make a coupon book, and offer hours of childcare, garden or lawn care, housework, or cooking. - Got computer skills? Give someone a few hours of computer, internet, or smart phone lessons. - Tutoring - Treat someone to a monthly lunch, coffee, or dinner. Experiences - Give tickets to a concert, play, or sports event. There are plenty of local, relatively inexpensive options besides the Loop theaters or major league teams, such as the Kane County Cougars or other minor league teams, the MAC Arts Center at the College of DuPage, Western Springs Theater, or the Paramount Theater in Aurora. - Give a membership to a car or bike sharing organization. Family Heirlooms - Pass on a treasured antique serving dish, crystal, or china. - Local antique stores have great gifts: beautiful old jewelry, dishes, crystal, figurines, and furniture. - Old garden tools make great gifts for gardeners, because they are well-made and much sturdier than the ones sold in the big box hardware stores. Homemade Edibles - Jams, jellies, baked or canned goods - Make a booklet of your favorite recipes soups, desserts, Christmas cookies, family recipes. - If you know an elderly cook who is struggling to read small print in cookbooks or hand-written recipes, transcribe these recipes into a large print Word document. Donate to Charitable Organizations in Someone s Name - Think of a family member or friend s passion wildlife, historical preservation, hunger, national parks, alleviating poverty, and make a donation in their name to an organization that promotes those passions. Go to charitynavigator.org to find a list of charities that will make the best use of your monetary gifts. Other Ways to Have a Green Christmas - Use LED lights for your outdoor decorations, and set timers to turn off the lights late at night. - Avoid glossy foil or metallic wrapping paper; this is difficult to recycle. - Re-use and recycle gift wrap and packing materials - Buy a real Christmas tree, and after Christmas cut off the branches and spread them over garden beds as a winter decoration. Later in the year, chip the branches and use as mulch. Laurel Carlson, for the Caring for Creation Team 9

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13 Christmas is Christmas is not about gifts and toys. It s the time when people rejoice. Christmas is not about food and drinks. It s not about this world as everybody thinks. Christmas is about everlasting love. FCLC wishes everyone a happy and blessed holiday season. 13

14 IYC WARRENVILLE 2018 CHRISTMAS WISH LIST HYGIENE PRODUCTS SHAMPOO & CONDITIONER: Dove * Pantene * Herbal Essence BAR SOAP: BODY WASH (women/men): LOTION (full size): DEODORANT(Solids/full size): OTHER ITEMS: Dove * Irish Spring * Dial Dove * Suave * Nivea * Dial * Axe Dove * Vaseline* Jergen s * Aveeno * Cocoa Butter Dove * Suave * Degree * Secret Disposable Shaving Razors * Shaving Cream *CHAPSTICK* *NAIL POLISH & NAIL POLISH REMOVER *EARBUD HEADPHONES (Dollar Tree) *NAIL POLISH REMOVER COTTON BALLS *SANITARY PADS W/ WINGS *FACIAL ACNE CLEANSER *PRO SYTLE HAIR GEL (Dark in color) *DARK & LOVELY PERMS *PRO STYLE CLEAR HAIR GEL *CARMEX COLD WEATHER BALM (Tube) *HARD BRUSHES, VENTED BRUSHES *EYE LINER & MASCARA *FLAT IRONS (Small/Medium/Large) *CURLING IRONS *TOOTHPASTE (Family Size) *PINK OIL HAIR LOTION *SOAP DISHES *HAIR COMBS (No Sharp Tips) *COLORFUL TOWELS *EYE SHADOW (Without Mirrors) *HAND HELD HAIR DRYERS *BLACK RUBBER BANDS FOR BRAIDING IN TUBS (500 Count) Sports Bra: White T-Shirts: Sweat Pants: Panties: Socks: Hats & Gloves: Pajamas: Men s Sleepwear: Boxers: Socks: Hats & Gloves: CLOTHING FOR GIRLS Small Extra Large Small Extra Large, (2X), (3X) Small Extra Large, (2X), (3X) (Gray or Navy Elastic Band Only NO STRING TIES) Colorful Bikini Colorful Ankle Socks Black or Blue Colorful Flannel Pajamas(Small-Extra Large) CLOTHING FOR BOYS Men s Sleep Pants (Medium-Extra Large), (2X), (3X) (NO STRING TIES) Boxers or Boxer Briefs (Small Extra Large) (2X), (3X) Men s Socks Black or Blue Eric Crockrell/Travis McLain Volunteer Coordinator/Donation Coordinator Contact Phone Number (630)

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16 December First Congregational UCC * 1047 Curtiss Street Downers Grove, IL Phone: (630) office@uccdg.org Website: Broadcast: Other Communications: FCC Learning Center: 16