Wise Maiden Heading
Thursday Reminder April 9, 2015
An Online Ezine
Easter 2015


Greetings from your church! 
In This Reminder
This Week
Items for Consideration
Coming Up
Your Stewardship
Housekeeping
Extras!
This Week




Saturday, April 11th, 2015
Rite-13 Ceremony Rehearsal in the church at 5 p.m.

Nine6teen Rehearsal at 7 p.m.

Second Sunday of Easter, April 12th, 2015
8 a.m. H.E. Rite 1
9:00 Choir Rehearsal
9:15 Rectory School Chapel with Nine6teen and Chaplain Will Whitmore
10:15 Contemporary Eucharist & Rite-13 Ceremony with Nine6teen; Coffee Hour with Yellow Team; Church School and Teen Programs as scheduled 

Leaflet can be found here
The Celebration of Manhood and Womanhood is found here

The April Courier can be found Here
May Courier deadline is April 20th 

Coffee Hour Team Schedule from February 1st to June 2015 can be found Here ..... Important note, on May 10th Parish Life is again doing the Mother's Day Breakfast so there is no 10:15 Coffee Hour after the service!

Pastoral Emergencies... please call the office.. 860-928-7026 or Dave's Cell Phone, 860-608-7632. You can also call the office to place a person on our Prayer Chain. 


In the Church School:


 

Many thanks to everyone who supported our recent Church School endeavors; the Easter Eggstravaganza and Heifer Living Market.  Both were great fun for all ages, and not possible without the help of many!  To date we have raised $2,320.00 in support of Heifer's international efforts.  These funds will be matched by a private grant, dollar for dollar! Note Rev. Dave's "feather" hat that "we" all decorated. He'll be wearing it again this Sunday.


 

This Sunday our Easter Season rotational workshop begins ("Jesus and Discipleship") for grades 1-4 with Nature and Art workshops. This is our final workshop for the year.  Godly Play will be wondering about "The Crosses" with storyteller Kris Folsom.  Grades 5 & 6 meet with Chris Carter, Peter Battye and Philippa Paquette, and are encouraged to come together in preparation for beginning Rite 13 next year!


 

here is the information for the Heifer Overlook Farm Fieldtrip (May 24). Thanks.


Photos from the Eggstravaganza on Holy Saturday!










Christ Church School Co-directors, Amy Landis & Nicole Nichols
 
Teen Program Notes:

We will have our last Rite 13 Ceremony for the season this Sunday April 12. The rehearsal will be on Saturday April 11 at 5 pm. Celebrants are Natalie Paul, Paloma Flath, Yvie Bessette, Meg Ritzau, Tristan Monahan, Melissa Wishart, Blake Zahansky & Charlotte Nichols.

We are having our 30 Famine starting Friday April 24th. The kids will spend the night at church that night and we will end our fast around 6 pm, Saturday April 25th with 

dinner at church.  This is a fundraiser for World Vision, and we are asking each participate to ask at least 5 sponsors, to donate. HINT... ask Pastor Dave at Coffee Hour for a little help!


 

Looking ahead, on May 31st, the Rite 13 will run the service at church, so please have your children come as often as they can between now and then.

 

To all J2A parents, you should be paid in full at this time and your child's release form should be turned in to me or the church office, for our Pilgrimage.

One last fundraiser, our biggest, 10th Annual Rummage sale, May 2nd, all hands on board! 

We will start taking Rummage sale items on Sunday April 19th for smaller items, and Sunday April 26 for larger items.


 

Rite-13 & J2A meet on Sundays regularly (though not on Easter Sunday)

YAC meets as scheduled.

Pilgrimage 2015, August 6-12th: The Leaders continue to receive updates from our trip providers, Wonder Voyage. It's shaping up to be a fabulous event!

Dee Dee Markes 
79 Mashamoquet Road
Pomfret Center, CT 06259
860.963.0846 860.617.7996
deedeespa@charter.net
 
Items for Consideration
The Labyrinth

 








First Take
Second Sunday of Easter, there will be homilies at both the 8 and the 10:15 services.

The readings are Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35 (which is a powerful but brief description of how the presence of the Resurrected One changed the disciples community), Psalm 133, and our Gospel is John 20: 19-31 (the story of Jesus' appearing at supper to the disciples, first without Thomas and then when Thomas is there... "doubting" Thomas).
The full text of the readings can be found Here at the Lectionary Website.

This is one of the seminal stories of the resurrection. Jesus stands among them in both comfort and confrontation. He comforts them, "Peace be with you" and breathes the Holy Spirit into them (think "dead" men coming "alive" again!). At the same time he is "confronting" the fear that "holds" them "captive" in that upper room where they have gathered secretly to avoid the authorities. It's hard to imagine the kind of transformative power that "took hold" of that group of fearful men and women in the weeks and months to follow without a "real" presence doing something exactly like this! Dave

Poem by Merrill Ann Gonzalez

Special Mission Outreach 
The Vestry has approved a somewhat different kind of "mission" work that has come out of our hosting of the Spirituality and Health Workshops this winter. We are actually subsidizing the Rev. Oscar Brockmeyer who was the convener of 3 of the 4 workshops to continue offering Group Spiritual Direction to anyone in the community. The participants will be asked to help contribute about half of the cost.

It's that time again: Relay for Life (Woodstock)
The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life at the Woodstock Fairgrounds is 11am on 5/16 to 11am on 5/17.
Registration is free but if participants raise $100 in donations by 4/5  they will get a t-shirt. 
Here is the link to Register. Our team name is
Christ Church Family and Friends. 
Contact Ginger Lusa with questions: gingerlusa@gmail.com or 860-428-5351.
Coming Up









April- May:

Saturday, April 11th, 5 p.m. Rite-13 Rehearsal

Sunday, April 12th, 8 a.m.(Hymns with Dennis and Jim), 9:15 Rectory Sunday Chapel and 10:15 Service, Rite-13 Ceremony and Contemporary Music

Thursday, April 16th, 7:30 a.m. Healing Eucharist

Sunday, April 19th, 8, 9:15 and 10:15 Services

Wednesday, April 22-27,
Dave away at a CREDO Conference in North Carolina

Thursday, April 23: NO Eucharist

Sunday, April 26, All Services, the Rev. Jim Kellaway, guest preacher and celebrant. Start bringing in the Rummage Sale items.

Thursday, April 30th, 7:30 a.m. Healing Eucharist

Saturday, May 2, Rummage Sale starts at 7:15 a.m.!

Sunday, May 3rd, 8 and 10:15 Services only. The 10:15 is a Church First Sunday. Everyone in church followed by Church School, Teen Program and Adult Forum. Jon and Judy Busse will be leading our Adult group.

Thursday, May 7th, 7:30 a.m. Healing Eucharist

Saturday, May 9th, Spirituality & Health with Quiet Corner Community Health Care @ 9:30 a.m.

Sunday, May 10th, 8, 9:15 and 10:15 services, Mother's Day Breakfast starts at 9 a.m.; Vestry Meeting for May with Bishop Ian Douglas who is visiting the parish all morning, at 11:30 a.m. in the Library.

Link to the Readers/Acolyte Schedule

Link to the Google Calendar 
Your Stewardship!















How your gifts are "invested"!
A number of us might remember a few years ago at Stewardship time when our Treasurer, Mike Mahoney, reminded us how it costs about $5000 a week to support our church. Gradually the number has slid up to about $5700 a week, and for good reason, much of it Fuel, Electricity, Repairs, etc. Here are other key investments that we make:

The Church School has a line item of about $2000 for supplies, trips and materials, and the Co-Directors are paid about $6500 each to decorate and organize our classrooms, prep curriculum, communicate weekly and monthly, arrange, recruit, teach and lead this essential part of our ministry for about 44 Sundays and some Saturdays (Pageant Prep and Practice, Eggstravaganza) all through the year. NOTE: As of the close of this academic year in June one of the Co-Director's spots will be open (Amy Landis is stepping down). Are you interested?

The Teen Program is also funded with about $1000 in supplies and the Coordinator's part-time salary is $6000 a year. The Coordinator's job is to manage the program details, fundraisers and the Pilgrimage as well as be one of the leaders. Additionally, the church sets aside about $3-4,000 a year for the Pilgrimage as well as Scholarship money from the Von Conta-Koerner Fund of about $1000- $3500 a year depending on the number of active graduates. It's the end of the 2-year leadership cycle and besides sending our current J2Aer's off on Pilgrimage in August we'll be talking to a number of possible new volunteer leaders for the Rite-13 and J2A groups starting up in the fall! Are you interested?
Thank you for your generosity!

Stewardship: Visions and Ventures
Your pledge remains the most important source of income for us to continue our ministries, by far. Thanks! See to the right, both pledge materials and a pledge card download. Right now our Pledged Income is $190,000. Thank you!

How about Pledging and Donating by eCheck, Credit Card, etc.? And more, keeping track of your own donations in the same secure way? You now can with our direct on-line option:

(Note: when you wish to access the Christ Church easytithe donation site you will need to go through this button, here on the Reminder, or on the website. It will not work on the easytithe site directly. That log in is for account managers.)

Amazon Smile: Amazon.com will donate .5 percent of eligible purchases to Christ Church. Amazon pays these donations. You can still shop through your own account but Christ Church will benefit. Link is Here Thanks! 
Housekeeping









Flowers
Sign Up Master List is posted to the left of the office door. You can sign up there, call the office (928-7026) or respond to this email to Make a Memorial or a Thanksgiving for a loved one ($30/Sunday). We are in the Easter Season: Flower donations are welcome. There are always applications for flowers in the back of the church ($30).

Vestry Notes
Next Vestry meeting is May 10th with Bishop Ian Douglas.

Buildings and Grounds
Our current plan is to repair the floor in the kitchen around the dishwasher over the summer as a volunteer initiative (Rich DiBonaventura). We have some roofing work to do where there was winter damage on the church roof outside the Sacristy. The organ will also need some attention as the seasons change.

Spirituality & Health Workshops 
There is a conversation going on with the Rev. Oscar Brockmeyer and several of the participants to provide an on-going forum for spirituality and health with small group work, possibly at the church. More to come in mid-April.
Original Flyer is found: 

Shawl Ministry:
 Blessed shawls on the back table in church (fill out the log book). We have had a number of folks respond with thanks after receiving one of the shawls. Rebecca Patenaude, Coordinator
Sunday Gifts for Access.. Suggested Sunday morning donations: canned vegetables, canned protein (chicken, tuna, ham, beans and etc.), pasta, deodorant and 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner. List? Click Here

Outreach....  Next cooking for Community Kitchen on April 27th at the 1st Congregational Church of Woodstock (the Hill Church). Contact Pauline Phillips at Christ Church. CSO Committee will be meeting soon to look at the next of our 2015 Grants. Craig Tiffany is the new Vestry Liaison for CSO.
Extras!
Some Youtube Videos/Music: In the first our Choir is singing an anthem on Easter Sunday. The second is Nine6teen doing their anthem, Hands, a few weeks ago.

Christ is Risen, As He Said
Christ is Risen, As He Said

Hands by Jewel Nine6teen 3 22 15
Hands by Jewel,  Nine6teen 3 22 15
Dave Carter
Christ Church Pomfret
(Box 21) 527 Pomfret Street 
Pomfret, Ct. 06258

Feel free to contact us: christchurchpomfret@gmail.com

 
Welcome to your church!
Steeple
Mission Statement

To seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, welcoming all who come through our doors to participate in worship, education, service and fellowship on a journey in Christ, a journey that we believe not only has power to heal and change us but also has potential to transform the world.

(Vestry 2003)


 

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