I hope you're staying cool through this heat wave! We're keeping it cool at CPC through the heat, and hope you'll be here Sunday morning for a cool time of worship.

This weekend we will celebrate our ministry of the table as we gather for communion, and we receive a food offering for AFAC.

Please bring a non-perishable food offering for AFAC. They are particularly interested in dried beans.

In addition, we'll bless some early harvest from our Plot Against Hunger as part of our food offering for AFAC.

On this Sunday of the 4th of July week, we'll also share in gratitude for the incredible abundance of our nation, and celebrate our freedom to worship as we wish.

Come and worship!
 
peace,

David

PS: Thanks to everyone who helped make the bagmeals for A-SPAN. Remember, we are NOT distributing them this Saturday.

PPS: Please let me know if you can serve at AFAC on Saturday morning, July 21.

As you know, AFAC ended its bagging program in May and, with the change, CPC ended more than a decade of faithful third Mondays.

We've been invited to a new mission effort at AFAC helping them distribute food to clients on Saturday mornings.

Our (second chance for a) first opportunity comes Saturday, July 21, 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. at the South Nelson Street warehouse and distribution center. The attached instruction sheet from AFAC describes the way the morning works.

It takes ten volunteers to meet AFAC's needs, and the sooner we get our commitments the better it is for AFAC's plans. Please let me know if you can be part of this exciting new opportunity to share in our mission of feeding our neighbors.

Over the next few months you're invited to join the congregation in reading a few books, and in getting together to talk about them over a simple meal. The details on the gatherings will come a bit later, but here's an introduction to the books.

We'll begin with a light but engaging and provocative read for early summer: Christopher Moore's Lamb, The Gospel According to Bif, Christ's Childhood Pal. Jesus' best friend from childhood, Bif, tells us about life with the young messiah, and between the laugh-out-loud misadventures Moore offers a compelling look at a very human Jesus. This is a PG-13 account of the gospel. Pick it up now, and we'll talk about it next month.

Our second read will be Wendel Berry's novel, Jayber Crow. An orphan and seminary dropout, Jayber was the barber, undertaker and church sexton in Berry's created town of Port William, Ky., through the middle years of the 20th century. His keen-eyed observation of the town and its people provide a beautiful and compelling take on community, faithfulness and love.

Early in the fall we'll read Timothy Beal's The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book. As you would guess from the title, this one is a work of nonfiction. The author, a professor at Case Western University in Cleveland, is a friend from our days in Ohio, and he's crafted a deeply personal and also deeply researched account of the history of the Bible both as sacred scripture and as hot commodity. His previous book, Roadside Religion, was named best religion book of the year by the New York Times.

We'll get together sometime in late July to talk about Lamb. In early September we'll get to Jayber Crow, and then tackle The Rise and Fall of the Bible in October.