December THE OPEN DOOR. Friends, Visitors, Guests. First Presbyterian Church 150 North Broadway, PO Box 787. South Amboy, NJ 08879

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1 Friends, Visitors, Guests South Amboy, NJ P.O. Box 787, 150 N. Broadway First Presbyterian Church of South Amboy THE OPEN DOOR First Presbyterian Church 150 North Broadway, PO Box 787 South Amboy, NJ Office Web Site: Facebook page: fpcsamboy Phone : Fax: Sunday Worship 10:30 am Sunday School Oct June PUBLISHED MONTHLY 9:00am December 2018 December ISSUE 261

2 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 2 1st Sunday of Advent 9am Sunday School 10:30am Worship 11:30am Coffee Hour 9 2nd Sunday of Advent 10:30am Worship/ Children s Program 11:30 am Happy Birthday Jesus / Breakfast with Santa 16 3rd Sunday of Advent 10:30am Worship 23 4th Sunday of Advent 10:30am Worship/ Christmas Joy Offering 30 10:30am Worship pm Scouts 6pm Scouts 24 Christmas Eve 25 Christmas pm Scouts leader meeting 7pm Blue Christmas Service 13 9:30am Bagging st Day of Winter Office Closed 26 Office Closed 1 12 noon Missions 2 pm Decorating the Sanctuary am Food Pantry 3pm Private Party 22 4pm Private Party

3 ~Schedules~ PLEASE GET A SUBSTITUTE FOR YOURSELF IF YOU CANNOT BE THERE ON YOUR ASSIGNED DATE. RECORD CHANGES IN SCHEDULE ON MASTER COPY LOCATED IN OFFICE, ROOM 2. READER SCHEDULE DEC. 2nd Anthony V. Jr. 9th Ruth B. 16th Jennifer H. 23rd Sherry K. 30th Joan D. GREETERS & USHERS SCHEDULE DEC. 2nd Mary P, Elaine L. 9th George S, Joan D. 16th Arvid H, Gail H. 23rd Megan J, Norma M. 30th Shirley W, Cara W. NURSERY SCHEDULE DEC. 2nd Betty P. 9th Jennifer B. 16th Elaine L. 23rd Christmas No Nursery 30th New Year s No Nursery COMMUNION SET-UP SCHEDULE DEC. None COMMUNION SERVING SCHEDULE DEC. None COFFEE HOUR SCHEDULE DEC. 2nd Elaine L, Joan D, Norma M.. ATTENTION: Schedules for 2019 will be done soon and put into the mailboxes and on the Bulletin boards. Please note we still need volunteers to fill many spots. If you would like to volunteer please let Shirley or Elaine know ASAP! Prayers for Our Homebound Members & Friends Beverly Mezger 250 South Broadway, Apt 511, So. Amboy, NJ Ervant Mansfield 8 Anne Terrace, South Amboy, NJ Virginia Porter at Care One Somerset Valley 1621 Rt. 22, W. Bound Brook, NJ Debbie Sargeant Sr Bordentown Ave, Parlin, NJ Agnes Schaefer at Madison Center 625 State Rt. 34, Matawan, NJ Please remember our homebound with a card and prayer INTERIM PASTOR Suzanne Schafer-Coates CLERK OF SESSION - Joan Downes TREASURER - Elaine Lopez SECRETARY - Shirley Weaver ORGANIST - Kevin Shoemaker OFFICER NOMINATING COMMITTEE George Schaefer, Megan Jarvis, Molly Solanki, Jill Berwick, Ken Gibson, Gail Hawkins, Dorothy Rhodes YOUR ELDERS / THE SESSION (Responsible for Governing our Church Affairs) Joan Downes Elaine Lopez Gerald Ring YOUR DEACONS Gail Hawkins Dorothy Rhodes Christine Vella (Responsible for Assisting our Church and Community in Times of Need) Jennifer Harmsen Ken Gibson Elizabeth Pinella Sherry Kuo Stephanie McAleer Shirley Weaver

4 CHRISTMAS JOY OFFERING To my church family, Every Christmas I drive myself crazy trying to find "perfect" gifts for my beloved family members. Sometimes I get lucky and chose things they are thrilled to receive, and other times I know that I've missed the mark and my gifts will be tucked away to be regifted or donated at an appropriate time. But one gift I can be confident that will be well received is the monetary gift I give to the Christmas Joy Offering. Christmas Gift Suggestions: **************************** To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. The Christmas Joy Offering is an offering that our Presbyterian Church USA uses in two ways, divided 50/50. Half of the monies received goes to supplement the pensions and/or provide emergency grants to retired church workers who gave their working lives to the Gospel Ministry but who never earned enough to receive a pension which, together with social security, would see them (or their widowed spouse) through the rest of their lives. The other 50% of the offering goes to support Presbyterian related schools for native Americans in New Mexico and Texas, and the historically black Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, AL, equipping communities of color by providing education and leadership development skills. Our Church has not participated in the Christmas Joy Offering in past years, but your Session decided that we would begin to do so this year. I encourage you to join me in giving at least one gift this year that we can be sure is the "perfect" gift. We will receive the Christmas Joy Offering on Sunday, December 23rd. Envelopes will be provided. Thanks! and God bless you. Pastor Suzanne At Coffee Hour on Nov. 4th we Celebrated Rev. Suzanne s and her Husband David s birthdays!

5 FINANCIAL REPORT October 2018 Offerings $ 20,700 Covenant Income + 2,840 Total Income $ 23,540* Disbursements $ - 12,078 *If you read the Open Door you see that we were blessed by Amboy Bank s Foundation for the second time. They gifted us with a $10,000 check to help replace the floors in Fellowship Hall, Rooms 3 & 4, kitchen and halls. Praise God. DID YOU KNOW: There are copies of detailed Treasurer s Report in the Mail Room. Take it home, study it, please ask questions and give me input. Elaine Lopez, Treasurer CHRISTMAS HUMOR A guy goes to a Christmas party. He seldom attends church. He never attended a Sunday school. He is selected for a quiz contest. MODERTOR Where was Jesus born? GUY In Philadelphia MODERATOR Incorrect, try again. GUY Pittsburgh? MODERATOR No, the correct answer is Bethlehem. (frustrated man leaves the stage mumbling.) GUY I knew it. It was somewhere in Pennsylvania. Recycled by: Madhu Solanki TIME TO ORDER YOUR CHRISTMAS POINSETTIAS Christmas Poinsettias will be $7.50 each. Orders will be taken until December 16 th. You can also order flowers In Honor of or In Memory of a loved one for Sunday worship. Sunday worship flowers are $25.00 for both urns. Please make all checks out to CASH. Thank you. Jean Greene Deacon s Monthly Update Happy Birthday, Jesus! Breakfast with Santa The Deacons along with the Missions Committee are excited to be sponsoring our annual Christmas celebration! However, this year we are calling it Happy Birthday, Jesus/Breakfast with Santa! We want you to register your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, who will receive a meaningful gift for the holiday season and an advent calendar to countdown the days until Christmas. (Registration forms have been inserted into the bulletins, or you can call the office and register your children with Shirley.) Of course, everyone is invited to attend the celebration on Sunday, December 9th, right after the service. Come celebrate Christmas with friends and watch the children open their gifts! ~ Jennifer Harmsen Food Pantry News We are truly thankfully for all those that come out to help us. Thanks to the Board of Deacons for their financial assistance in providing needed necessities and help with the Food Pantry. Thanks to all of our volunteers who turn up faithfully to make our pantry a success. This month we were able to serve 80+ families of which were here for the first time. We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! God bless. ~ Megan Jarvis

6 Please Donate to our Organ Fund Our Organ Fund (for repairs) is growing due to memorial gifts. When you make a donation in memory of someone. The family of the loved ones and the givers are both given a certificate recording these gifts of love. This is a special way of remembrance. Flowers are short lived. This is a forever gift. ~ Elaine Lopez Happy Birthday Jesus Breakfast with Santa Dec. 9th The Deacons and Missions Committees will be hosting a Happy Birthday Jesus/Breakfast with Santa after service on Dec. 9th. Please register your child by Nov. 25. If you would like them to participate. We need to make sure Santa knows who s coming. Registration forms are in the weekly bulletins and mailroom on the bench. - Deacons & Missions Sunday School In November our children learnt about Noah s Ark and made salt dough ornaments for our Christmas tree. The Sunday School Christmas Program will be on Dec. 9th during service. Please come out to see them. Please note there will be no Sunday School on Dec. 16, Dec. 23, or Dec. 30. Classes will resume on Jan. 6th. We hope you all have a Wonderful Christmas Holiday and a Happy New Year! ~ Shirley Weaver INK CARTRIDGES RECYCLE Thank you Sharon Kurtz for two sacks full of used ink cartridges, each one worth $2.00 in credit towards our Staples purchases. Team work always meets our goals. ~ Elaine Lopez Upcoming Church Events ANGEL TREE In the spirit of sharing the blessing the Lord has bestowed upon us, we are sponsoring an Angel Tree, to share His blessings with those less fortunate. Anyone wishing to help a child for Christmas can take an angel card off the tree and buy an age appropriate gift for that age child and return the gift under the tree. Please return the angel card with the gift. Gifts will be picked up weekly. When all the angels are adopted, the tree will have all crosses on it as a reminder of The Lords Christmas Present to us, His Son. Please have all gifts back by Dec. 15th. So we may get them to their families. ~Shirley Weaver Decorating the Sanctuary Sat. Dec. 1st at 3 pm Children's Program Sun. Dec. 9th at 10:30 am Breakfast with Santa Sun. Dec. 9th at 11:45 am Walk to Bethlehem Sun. Dec. 9th at 2pm Blue Christmas Service Wed. Dec. 12th at 7 pm Christmas Eve Candle Light Service Sun. Dec. 24th time TBD

7 The Mission Committee Our next meeting will be on Dec. 1st at 12noon. Please come out and join us, all are welcome. MISSION HARVEST COOK BOOK Save the Date Warm Hearts, Warm Hands $12 Each fundraiser dinner on 2/16/19 Fellowship Hall. Phone: Attention All Committees December Anniversaries Wishing a very happy anniversary to: Dec. 29th Rev. Jeffrey & Rev. Cynthia Carney & Dec. 29th Laszlo & Kathleen Budavari December Birthdays Wishing a very Happy Birthday to: Dec. 8 Jean Chubway Dec. 8 Joan Travisano Dec. 21 Phil Van Horn Dec. 29 Christine Vella Want to see your special date listed? Give the office your info. We still have a lot of shirts left. Please consider buying one to support our Food Pantry T-shirts $15 each Sizes Available: S, M, L, XL, 2XL Phone: All reports for the Annual Congregational Meeting on January 27, 2019, must be given to the office by January 6, Please have all reports typed, clearly written, or clearly printed on 8 1/12 x 11 unlined paper, on one page if possible. ~ Shirley Weaver South Amboy 100 North Broadway South Amboy, NJ (732)

8 December Thoughts by Pastor Suzanne It s the most wonderful time of the year! Well, maybe not for everybody. Let s face it, some years the Christmas season is more wonderful than others. We all hope that our children experience a magical Christmas, one that blends the joy of the birth of our Savior, Jesus, with the excitement of Santa Claus coming to town, and for many of us adults, we look back with nostalgia to Christmases past, when we were small, or when our children were rocking around the Christmas tree. But for each of us, some years Christmas is just not joyful. Maybe for some a chair/s will be empty at our table for Christmas dinner, beloved family members have died or moved far away and are not coming home for Christmas, and we are feeling the loss of them keenly. Maybe we are unemployed and are wondering how we are going to afford Christmas gifts for our children. Maybe we have begun to feel our age and aren t able to do as much at Christmas as we are used to doing, everything seems to take so much effort and we re just not up to it. Maybe we are just not feeling well and wonder how many more Christmases we ll see. Maybe we re depressed, and we just hope that Christmas will soon be over. Well, I have good news. Christmas does not have to be happy, happy, joy, joy to be meaningful, because what Christmas is about is Emmanuel, God with us. Christmas reminds us that there is not a moment, not a second, in our lives when we are not in the presence of Jesus Christ, God-made-human, and that we are always and forever surrounded by his love. When we re depressed, when we re anxious, when we re lonely, when we re sad and grieving, when we re old and hurting, when we feel that we are living our last days, Jesus Christ is with us, just as surely as he is when we are full of joy and singing Gloria in Excelsis Deo. I hope you will come to worship with your church family this month of December, every service will be different, but every service will be alike, in that we will explore the wonder and the mystery of our God who loves us so much that he came to live with us. Sunday, December 2 nd O Come, Let us Adore Him. Hanging of the Greens Our worship will center around the meaning of the symbols with which we decorate our sanctuary for Christmas. Sunday, December 9 th The children of our church family will present their Christmas program, the 12 symbols of Christmas followed by our annual Christmas party (to which we are all invited) in Fellowship Hall. Wednesday, December 12 th Blue Christmas Are you feeling sad or blue this Christmas? The theme of this service focuses on the prophecy of Isaiah who writes, Comfort, Comfort my people, says the Lord. Sunday, December 16 th Sunday, December 23 rd Monday, Christmas Eve Sunday, December 30 th Telling the Story in Scripture, Poetry and Song Christmas Sunday A Service of Lessons and Carols (time to be determined) We will ring out the Old Year, Ring in the New!