BETHEL LUTHERAN CHURCH A congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 79 Brooklyn Street PO Box 606 Portville, NY 14770 (716)-933-6699 e-mail:bethelportville@gmail.com Websites: (congregation)www.bethelportvilleny.org; (synod)www.upstatenysynod.org; (ELCA)www.elca.org Worship Service Sundays at 9:00am; Sunday School at 10:15am God s work. Our hands. In case of a pastoral emergency, please contact the church at: 716-933-6699 or Pastor Marie Meeks at 716-353-1610. Pastor Derek Cheek cell # 716-307-7963. NOVEMBER 2015 There is a sad story in the October issue Stewardship. It is about a man who did not want his dog anymore. Yet instead of trying to find someone to take the animal, one morning on his way to work, he stopped his car and let the dog out of the car. Then he drove off, thinking that some dog lover would stop and take the animal home with him or her. Sad to say, no one stopped. So there the dog was, sitting and waiting for his owner to return and take him home. It never happened. The writer of that story reported that the man felt somewhat remorseful, but he never went back for the poor animal even so. What does this sad event have to do with stewardship? Stewardship has to do with being responsible people. We are to be caretakers of our bodies, our minds, our spirits, our talents, our time, and of the earth. For if we are not very good stewards of Mother Earth, she will not be able to provide life sustaining resources for humanity. A quote from the poet John Oxenham challenges us all to be good stewards: Be clean in body and in mind! Think high, and live up to your thought! Let every thought word and deed be kind and honest, brave and true! Never refuse another s need, do as you d have him do to you! Against all evil set your face, And bravely do your Master s will. Prayer: Holy and loving God, help us to be such stewards that you will be able to say to each of us: Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master (Matthew 25:21). Amen. Pray First! - For all service men and women, and their families, especially Casey McCarthy, Tyler McCarthy and Kendra Linn. For Christ to be made known in our companion synods Zimbabwe and Zambia, and our partner synod Central/Southern Illinois Synod. For the Franciscan community at Mt. Irenaeus and the Burkhart Retreat Center for Life retreats in our local area. For our Bishops, Bishop Elizabeth Eaton (ELCA) and John Macholz Upstate New York Synod), Assistants to the Bishop Dave Preisinger, Mary Johnson, and Dean Daniel Rumfelt. For the mission congregations in our synod Organic Faith in Amherst and Todos los Hijos de Dios in Amsterdam. For the pastors and congregations in our Southwestern Conference and for our congregation council leaders President Bill Graves, Secretary Linda Scott, Treasurer Doug Ploetz, Vice President Ruth Brewer and members Caroline Miller, Donald Linn, Jerry Maerten and Bryan Hatch. For our sister congregation, Peace Lutheran and their ministry in Slidell, LA for the ministry of ELCMA Evangelical Lutheran Coalition for Mission in Appalachia. For area ministries: Genesis House, Portville Community Food Pantry, and Interfaith Caregivers.
PLEASE SEE BULLETIN BOARD outside the sanctuary for a COMPLETE SECRETARY S REPORT. Prayer Chain: If you have need of prayer, we have an e-mail prayer chain. Just call Bev Robinson phone number 814-225-3341 or e-mail at grandmagee7@verizon.net. Council Member Bill Graves Ruth Brewer Linda Scott Doug Ploetz Ruth Brewer Caroline Miller Jerry Maerten Bryan Hatch Don Linn Committee Assignment Council President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Worship and Music & Christian Education Stewardship Outreach/Evangelism Fellowship Property We NEED people to sign up as worship servants. We are in need of Lectors, Prayer Leaders, Ushers, Communion assistants and Altar Guild. There are sign-up sheets on the table in Fellowship Hall. Please sign up for one or more of these positions as you feel led. Thank you. FOR YOUR UPDATE AND INFORMATION ATTENTION MEMBERS!!! There will be a budget meeting Sunday, Nov.15 th immediately following our worship service. Please plan to attend to receive an update on how we are doing financially. Thank you. Fundraiser Funds are divided as follows: 10% Charity of our choice 10% Benevolence Rest in general fund Notice: When you call the church phone number it will be automatically forwarded to church secretary-nannette Giberson and she will direct your questions or inquiries to the proper people. Thank you. Our next church breakfast will be on Saturday November 7th. Breakfast will be held from 8:00am until 11:00am. Please help if you can but make sure you come to eat and bring your family and friends with you. Also remember that ---- Pre-sales tickets are available for your use. Please see Linda Scott for these. Thanks. Choir practice is held Sunday mornings at 7:45am. All are welcome to join. No audition necessary Notice: Deadline for newsletter articles is the third Sunday of each month. Please send them to me at my home e-mail at Junebug44@frontiernet.net or you can leave written ones in the top basket on the secretary s desk in the office. If you have questions you can call me at 814-698-2648 June
Please keep these members in your prayers and send them a card if you are able. Mel MacGill % Anna Johnson P. O. Box 8233 Charlottesville, VA 22906 CONGRATULATIONS!!! Congratulations Hudson Christopher Miller on your baptism October 4 th. We are so happy to have you and your family a part of our church family. Bill Brooks P. O. Box 382 Portville, NY 14770 Jo An Brooks c/o Toby and Lisa Miller 112 Rt. 44 Shinglehouse, Pa 16748 Rita Lengvarsky 14 Ocean Street Riviera Beach, FL 33404 A huge thank you goes out to the Giberson family-- --- Rick, Nannette, Skip, April, Grace, Adam and Katie for all the many hours they worked to redo the basement in preparation for Sunday School. It looks amazing!!!!! Thank you from Portville Food Pantry Dear Friends, We recently picked up 17 cases of spaghetti sauce at the Olean Service Store---thanks to you folks! You know we give out a lot of spaghetti and sauce so this is a tremendous help to us. Stephanie
ATTENTION!!! On Sunday, November 15, 2015 The United States celebrates America Recycles Day. The EPA estimates that the average person in our country throws away 70 lbs of clothing per year. That adds up to over 2 billion pounds of unnecessary waste added to our landfills yearly. Most of that clothing thrown away is perfectly wearable. As a fundraiser Bethel Lutheran joined St. Pauly Textile Inc. approximately a year ago in a joint effort to keep as much clothing out of the landfill as possible as well as getting clothing to people in need who can use it. St. Pauly has contacted us to ask if we could get the word out about the America Recycles Day event and at the same time promote our own clothing shed. This is the plan we have come up with for Bethel: On Sunday, November 15 th bring as many bags of wearable clothing to church with you as you can, and following the worship service there will be someone to count and register how many bags you brought. The person or family bringing the most bags will receive two (free) tickets to one of our monthly breakfasts. We all have excess clothing in our closets that we no longer need or wear and are just taking up space. Let s use this as a time to clean out our closets and help others in need at the same time. This will also help to make this clothing shed a successful fundraiser for our church.
NOVEMBER 2015 Worship Servants Lectors: Nov. 1 Ruth Brewer Nov. 8...Bev Robinson Nov. 15..Jo Kile Nov. 22..Pen Yunghans Nov. 29 Connie Smith-Matteson Prayer Leaders: Nov. 1 Bev Robinson Nov. 8...Linda Scott Nov. 15.Bev Robinson Nov. 22.June Murray Nov. 29.. Judy Graves 3 Cheryl Warner 14 Joan Rosell, Kurt Miller 19 Victoria Rice 21 Joey Blicharz 24 Kendra Linn 25 Eric MacPherson 28 Leah Doty 29 Carly Keenan, Terri Ploetz Connie Smith-Matteson Worship Servants (For the entire month) Acolyte. Dakota Brewer Communion Assistants... Nannette Giberson &. June Murray Usher/s....Rick Giberson Altar Guild Nannette Giberson Mail Greeter Caroline Miller 10 Bob & Cheryl Warner 26 Cliff & Marge Nix Bread Bakers..Ron Kile
BETHEL LUTHERAN CHURCH CALENDAR NOVEMBER 2015 Sunday, Nov 1 ALL SAINTS DAY 7:45am-Choir rehearsal 9:00am- Worship with Fellowship following 10.15am Sunday school 10:30am Adult Bible Study Sunday, Nov. 8 Sunday, Nov 15 Thurs. Nov. 18 TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 7:45am- Choir rehearsal 9:00am Worship with Fellowship following 10:15am Sunday school 10:30am Adult Bible Study TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 7:45am- Choir rehearsal 9:00am Worship with Budget Meeting & Fellowship following 10:15am Sunday school 10:30am Adult Bible Study 7:00pm Church Council Sunday, Nov. 22 Sunday, Nov 29 CHRIST THE KING 7:45am-Choir rehearsal 9:00am- Worship with Fellowship following 10:15am Sunday school 10:30am Adult Bible Study THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT 7:45am-Choir rehearsal 9:00am- Worship with Fellowship Following 10:15am Sunday school 10:30am Adult Bible Study
HYMN HISTORY COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS (1897) Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:17 It s impossible to be thankful and, at the same time, grumpy, cantankerous, critical, or ill-tempered. That s a lesson Johnson Oatman wanted to teach young people in his song, Count Your Blessings. Johnson was born in New Jersey just before the Civil War. His father had a powerful voice which some people claimed was the best singing voice in the East. That s why, as a boy, Johnson, Jr., always wanted to stand beside his father in church. When Johnson was a young man he stood alongside his father in another way. He became a partner in Johnson Oatman & Son, his dad s mercantile business. At age 19, Johnson joined the Methodist Episcopal Church and was ordained into the ministry. He often preached, but Johnson never entered the fulltime pastorate, for he enjoyed the business world and found it paid his bills, giving him the freedom to minister without cost. In 1892, with his father s voice undoubtedly ringing in his memory, Johnson began writing hymns. He averaged 200 hymns and gospel songs a year-----5,000 during the course of his lifetime, among them: Higher Ground, No, Not One, The Last Mile of the Way, and this one, Count Your Blessings, which was published in a song book for young people in 1897. It reflected Johnson s optimistic faith, and has been a lesson to many ever since. Martin Luther wrote in his book, Table Talk: The greater God s gifts and works, the less they are regarded. We tend to exhibit a degree of thanksgiving in reverse proportion to the amount of blessings we ve received. A hungry man is more thankful for his morsel than a rich man for his heavily-laden table. A lonely woman in a nursing home will appreciate a visit more than a popular woman with a party thrown in her honor. If the birds only burst into song once a year, we d all pay close attention. But because they are singing every morning, we scarcely bother to listen. Now is a good time to lay this book aside and deliberately thank God for something you ve never before mentioned in thanksgiving. Count your blessings. Name them one by one. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done. Taken from Robert J. Morgan s book Then Sings My Soul. Copyright 2003
Live Your Prayers The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. Psalm 34:15 I want my life to be a prayer. I cannot save my prayers for an appointed hour or certain day. Instead, I must practice praying with each and everything I do. Washing dishes? I can sing. At the gym? I will pray on the treadmill. Playing with my children? I can emulate the way Jesus loved the little children and called them to Himself. Talking with friends? I will allow only good, compassionate and generous words to come from my mouth. When dealing with strangers, I will be particularly kind and thoughtful, even though I will never see them again. When I m feeling lonely, I will remind myself that I am never alone. I am always in Christ s presence. I will keep this in mind when I am tempted not to return a neighbor s borrowed book or tell a white lie that I assume will not hurt anyone. It s the small things that need better housekeeping in my life. After all, nothing is small to the Lord, Who cares about it all. He sees what I do in the dark as well as the light. He hears the thoughts I wouldn t dare utter. The sinful desires that pulse through me are clear to Him. I will pray that He helps me never to act on the sin that goads me. I do not want to grieve Him by doing something wrong even when there are no other witnesses to my actions. Faith Step: Live today as if Jesus is physically beside you, hearing and seeing everything you do. This devotion is excerpted from Mornings with Jesus. By Judy Baer
When God Says 'No' My mother was hospitalized with breast cancer the summer of my 14th year. Day after day that summer, I knelt at a crude altar at a church camp in Missouri, praying for her healing, begging God not to let my mother die. God answered my prayer. The answer was "no." She died on September 29 that year. Maybe you can remember similar moments when you prayed, and God answered...with a "no." And no matter how many testimonies of answers to prayer you may hear, no matter how many books you read extolling the power of prayer, it s the times when the answer has been no that stick in your mind and in your throat. But you are not alone. In fact, the Bible records instances when the prayers of even the greatest saints of God were answered with a "no." And they can teach us a thing or two to help us adjust our prayers at such times. 1) Make sure your heart is right. Moses was a man of great faith. But after leading his people out of slavery in Egypt right to the very threshold of the land of promise, he prayed, Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan (Deuteronomy 3:25, NIV). And God said "no." Why? Because the children of Israel and Moses himself, in fact had disobeyed God, and that disobedience blocked the answer to Moses prayer. When the answer is "no," ask yourself if your prayers are being hindered because your heart is not right. 2) Consider whether the time is right. Few names in the Bible shine as brightly as the prophet Elijah's. After he routed the prophets of the false god Baal on Mt. Carmel, he took off for the By Bob Hostetler desert and, after a full day s journey, came to rest under a tree. There, Elijah the great champion of God, the great man of faith and prophet of Israel prayed, Let me die. God said "no." Why? Apparently God still had things for Elijah to do (1 Kings 19:15-17). And God did eventually answer Elijah s prayer, in a manner of speaking, by suddenly taking him up to heaven in chariots of fire (2 Kings 2:11, NIV). Sometimes, when the answer is no, you might consider whether God said no because the timing wasn t right...and find hope and encouragement in knowing that He knows best. Ponder whether the prayer is right. More than anyone else, the Apostle Paul was responsible for the rapid and effective spread of Christianity throughout the civilized world of the first century. His inspired writings form the foundation of the doctrine of the church. But he got a no from God, too. He asked three times for God to take away a thorn in the flesh, something that caused Paul much trouble and frustration. But God said "no." Why? Paul answered the question himself. Because the prayer was not right. Paul did not see until God pointed it out to him somehow that his thorn in the flesh was being used by God for a purpose. Sometimes the answer is "no" because the prayer itself is not right. Such instances call for surrender and revision. There may be a different prayer we need to pray instead. The solution to unanswered prayers lies not in changing God s mind (for He is wise and always doing what is best) but in adjusting how we pray.
The Parable of the Fork There was a woman who had been diagnosed with a deadly illness and had been given three months to live. Her doctor told her to start making preparations to die, so she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what she wanted to be wearing. The woman also told her pastor that she wanted to be buried with her favorite Bible. Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her: There s one more thing! she said excitedly. What s that? came the pastor s reply. This is very important, the woman continued, I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand. The pastor stood looking at the woman not knowing quite what to say, That shocks you doesn t it? the woman asked. Well to be honest, I m puzzled by the request said the pastor. The woman explained: In all my years of attending church socials and functions where food was involved, my favorite part was when whoever was clearing away the dishes of the main course would lean over and say you can keep your fork. It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming. When they told me to keep my fork I knew that something great was about to be given to me. It wasn t Jell-O or pudding. It was cake or pie. Something with substance. So I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder What s with the fork? Then I want you to tell them: Something better is coming so keep your fork too. The pastor s eyes were welled up with tears of joy as he hugged the woman good-bye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. But he also knew that that woman had a better grasp of heaven than he did. She knew that something better was coming. At the funeral people were walking by the woman s casket and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favorite Bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over the pastor heard the question What s with the fork? And over and over he smiled. During his message the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her. The pastor told the people how he could not stop thinking about the fork and told them that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either. He was right. So the next time you reach down for your fork, let it remind you oh so gently that there is something better coming. Note: Thanks to Bill and Judy Graves for this story.