Save the Date. June 2013 Window

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1 Warm evening baseball games; picnics with fresh strawberries, tri-tip and potato salad; hikes with trail mix; teenagers sleeping in until noon, there are many things that come to our mind when we think of the summertime. At our church events seem to take on a different pace-- Sunday school goes on break, committees take a month off, dress becomes more comfortable and casual. Some years things seem to slow to a crawl. We relax. While restoration is great, and taking a break can be good. Should we adopt an attitude of summer laziness? No, shouldn't we instead go into a more productive pace? I am hoping to convince some with this thought-- think of all the things that grow during the summer. Vegetables and fruits in the garden go into overdrive in production: zucchini squash seems to grow an inch or more each day sometimes, tomatoes ripen by the bushel, peach trees are heavy laden producing all at once. Many farmers harvest their crops round the clock in the summer. Well watered lawns need to be mowed often. The summer can be an incredible time for growth. How many of us returned to school one autumn to find that our friend we had not seen all summer had grown 3 inches? This summer will be a summer of growth for this church so get ready, get set, grow. Ports game tickets Save the Date available for August 10th. We ll go as a group. Signups will be posted in June. More details to follow. This summer we will offer a recommended reading book, Red Letter Revolution by Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo. Every adult in the church is encouraged to read this book and to discuss it with someone. Form a group meet with your family, spend time reading and contemplating these important topics in your life today. Many people have expressed the desire to get baptized or to baptize their children. The weekend of July 6 th and 7 th will be the time for adults to be baptized, July 14 th will be the date to have children baptized. Membership booklets will be available for self-study starting in June in preparation for meeting with the session on June 26 th and joining the church on the 7 th of July. If more than 5 people are able to attend, a Monday evening class will be formed. Beginning June 23rd after our worship services, we will have a group that will meet in the Parlor to discuss prayer. Gus Wright will facilitate the time. We will be using the resource, Jesus Blueprint For Prayer, by Hannon Robinson. This offering will be for about 6 weeks. Both men and women are encouraged to attend. The church will continue to engage in the Acts 16:5 initiative and is utilizing Word-Share-Prayer format in beginning its meeting times together. A summer Deacon project will ensure that women and children are cared for and the baby shower will be a fun way to engage in helps. Students will be attending summer camps at Calvin Crest. Family Choir will be an opportunity to sing together.

2 Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat Reminder: Summer time begins June 2! 1 10:00 a.m. James Yost Memorial PW Bible Study Cir 1 Cir 2 11:30 a.m. 5 5:30 p.m. Basketball 6:30 p.m. Christian Education Meeting Kendra Vaughn Bridal Shower 10 10:30 a.m. FB&G Meeting 11 Pastor Prayer Retreat Calvin Crest 12 5:00 p.m. Committee Meeting 5:30 p.m. Basketball :00 a.m. Bible Reading Marathon 9:00 a.m. Town Hall Meeting-- Manteca :00 p.m. PW Luncheon 19 5:30 p.m. Basketball 20 3:00 p.m. Readers R Home of Cheryl Hunt Deadline: July Window Articles Deacons Meeting :30 p.m. Basketball 6:30 p.m. Session Meeting Family Choir Pg 2

3 Photos from the Clean Water for Colombia Mission Team s most recent trip. The finished clean water room - Water from the Rock The system is complete with this last connection to the tank. A proud Presbyterian Woman with her first batch of bread. Kids taking a break from clean water classes. Silvio s first glass of clean water from the tap - in his life. Pg 3

4 The Mission of GCRM is to minister to the needs of the homeless of Stockton and San Joaquin County including individuals suffering from addictions, without regard to race, gender, nationality or origin. Anna says, I d like to say thank you to the donors. Everything is much appreciated and very useful to the women and the children here. It touches my heart to have received from a person/company; to know they cared and didn t even know who I am. Thank you! For more info, check out the GCRM Newsletter on the bulletin board! Your faithful giving is helping Mission guests like Anna--who you helped to move from homelessness on the streets to living in her own apartment for the first time in her life! For nearly 4 decades Barbara and Frank Beasley have led the Children's choirs at the church. Their energy and enthusiasm has been warmly received. Children and adults alike, have been able to worship God through their gift of music. Though the hairstyles, fashions, organists, pastors and music may have changed over the years, the consistency of honoring Christ has remained. Thank you Frank and Barbara for your work with the Cherub and Angelus Choirs. Pg 4

5 The long, hot days of summer are quickly approaching! This year we will once again move our Sunday worship service start time to in order to take advantage of the cooler mornings. The service time change will take effect on June 2nd and continue through August 25th. We will be having a light luncheon and other fun stuff to celebrate the upcoming marriage of Kendra Vaughn to David Green on June 9th immediately following worship. Please join us in wishing Kendra well as she embarks on this next phase of her life. Well wishes and prayers are all that are required. If you would like to help with the festivities, please contact Tami Buckley at (209) Some ideas for reading this book Read with your friend and discuss over tea. Get a group together and meet semiweekly. Get to know someone new at the church and invite them to read with you. Ask your adult son or daughter to give it a try and connect. Dates are available in July. Contact Gus for more information. Pg 5

6 DAY 14 The May 18 Bible Reading began with prayer at 8:00 a.m. and commenced reading Jeremiah where we had left off in April, with chapter 5. We finished Jeremiah at 12:02, and the five readers (we even had one listener for an hour or so) stayed for a fellowship lunch of lasagna, French bread, apples, and tomato-basil hummus with crackers. All (spiritual food and physical food) very satisfying. Jeremiah has much to say about obedience to God's word and repentance. Yes, he was speaking to Israel, Judah and Jerusalem specifically, at a certain time for a certain purpose, and reading this now is somewhat of a history lesson. But we can apply Jeremiah's -- God's -- words to ourselves at this time as well. Warnings and calls for obedience and repentance are just as pertinent now as then. For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13 Behold, I will enter into judgment with you because you say, "I have not sinned." Jeremiah 2:35 Even though we agree with Paul that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), are we sometimes tempted to downplay our sin, even to the point of redefining sin to keep up with changing norms of society, perhaps even to the point of conforming to the world instead of being transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2)? Jeremiah warns that...you will no longer remember the oracle of the LORD, because every man's own word will become the oracle, and you have perverted the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God (Jeremiah 23:36). Is this happening now? Do we dilute the Gospel so much that precious little living water is left? The LORD speaks through Jeremiah of a new covenant He will make, saying, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it" (Jeremiah 31:33), which took place on the Day of Pentecost, which we have just celebrated, when the Holy Spirit came to live within the disciples, giving them the power to speak the word of God boldly (Acts 4:31b). May we say, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the LORD our God (Jeremiah 42:6), because blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD and whose trust is the LORD. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends it roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8). I found Jeremiah to be at the same time convicting and encouraging and would commend its reading. May we all hunger for the word of God. Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:16 Next month we will continue with Lamentations. Although the writer is anonymous, ancient Jewish and Christian tradition ascribe the book to Jeremiah. It is short, will only take 15 or 20 minutes to read, so if you are late, you may miss it! Then on to Ezekiel, who was among the more than 3,000 Jews exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC, which happened at the end of Jeremiah. NEXT BIBLE READING MARATHON DAY IS SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 8:00 A.M. - NOON Remember: You don't have to stay the whole time, and you don't have to read at all or even as long as ten minutes. You can just read one chapter, if you like. Hope to see you next time! Pg 6

7 The deadline for submission of articles for the July Window The book club will meet at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 20 at the home of Cheryl Hunt to discuss the book The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. is JUNE 20th! Next Session Meeting Wednesday June 26th at 6:30 pm. On the last Sunday of June, July and August we will be having Family Choir Sundays. We will assemble all who would like to sing and put together pieces for that service. We will meet at 8:15 a.m. on June 30th, July 28th and August 25th. I hope that we can have everyone attend and share the joy of participating in serving our church by singing. For more information please contact John Vaughn. We will be collecting the Cents-Ability Offering on Sunday, June 30th. Make sure to bring those pennies! To all who helped make the Mother s Day Brunch such a great success. Items of particular importance: Portable baby beds Diapers (sizes 4,5,6) Clothing (24 mo. and older) Formula (regular and soy) Hygiene items (wipes, baby shampoo, desitin, etc.) We will celebrate with a baby shower at a fellowship brunch following church on July 14th. Beginning in June, items can be dropped off at a designated area in Westminster hall or you can donate money by marking Baby Shower on your offering envelope. Or simply bring your gift to the shower. Pg 7

8 Summer time begins June 2!