Wise Maiden Heading
Thursday Reminder April 23, 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





Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 26th, 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 Family Eucharist; Coffee Hour with Orange Team; Church School and Teen Programs as scheduled.
The Rev. Jim Kellaway, guest at 8 and 10:15.

Leaflet can be found here
Announcements can be found here

The April Courier can be found Here
May Courier Draft can be found here

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! The Vestry will be meeting with Bishop Douglas at that time in the Library as he will be doing a visit with us.

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:


 

Updated Heifer International fundraising total: $2,433.55, and these funds will be matched by a private grant, dollar for dollar!  Thank you for your support and generosity.


 

This Sunday our rotational workshop "Jesus and Discipleship" continues for grades 1-4. Godly Play will be wondering about the meaning of Easter.  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!

It's not too late to sign up for the Heifer Farm trip to Rutland MA on Sunday, May 24th!  See one of us for more info or below.....


 

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


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

Congratulations to our Rite-13 Young People:

From left to right.... Meg, Ivie, Nathalie, Blake, Charlotte, Melissa & Paloma (and that's less than half the whole group that are completing Rite-13 this year and heading to J2A next year!)

Rite-13ers: We are having our 30 Famine starting this 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.  See emails from Dee Dee! 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. (This is also the final Contemporary Service for the season)

 

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.


 

YACers: Active Graduating Seniors: It's that time for making an application for the Von Conta-Koerner Scholarship. Pat McCarthy will gather with interested Seniors in the Library during church on May 3rd. Remember that applying for a scholarship includes a commitment to address the church by giving a CREDO on a Sunday in June. App can be found here


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
Fourth Sunday of Easter, there will be homilies at both the 8 and the 10:15 services by the Rev. Jim Kellaway.

The readings are Acts of the Apostles 4:5-12 (the reading includes testimony of Peter before the High Priest explaining that the healing earlier in the day was through Christ), Psalm 23 (of course, one of the old time favorites and worth memorizing if you have not already), I John 3:16-24 (in which the writer continues to expound on the command to love within the community) and our Gospel is John 10:11-18 (which highlights Jesus description of the "Good Shepherd")
The full text of the readings can be found here at the Lectionary Website.

Another translation of the word in Greek used for "Good" in the Good Shepherd description for our Gospel this week is "model". Jesus describes himself as the "model shepherd". This is very much in John's understanding of the resurrection community, that it should be modeled not after our own predilections and feelings but after the behavior, example and surprising love of God/Christ. We might ask where we see this "model" in action. That takes a little discernment, some intuition and sometimes earnest conversation. Other times we "know" what God is already doing in the world, in our world, and we often have a good sense of how we can "join in". Dave

Adult Forum Experiments!
Thank you for positive and negative feedback. There are folks who would like to go "deeper", more conversation on the readings, or on current national or international issues and how they relate to who were are as Christians, or local issues like "parenting teenagers"! Guest speakers? Anyone interested in helping with this? :>) I hope to have 4-5 sessions next year starting in September or October.

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. We are actually subsidizing the Rev. Oscar Brockmeyer who was the convener of 3 of the 4 workshops to continue offering Group Spiritual Direction as well as One on One work to anyone in the community within and beyond the church. Here is an overview of what he is planning. Looks exciting.

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:

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

Thursday, April 23: NO morning Eucharist

Friday, April 24.... Rite-13 30-Hour Famine Begins!

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.

Thursday, May 14th, 7:30 a.m. Healing Eucharist

Saturday-Sunday, May 16-17th Relay for Life

Sunday, May 17th, All Services, Ellsworth Baptism at the 10:15 service

Link to the Readers/Acolyte Schedule



Link to the Google Calendar 
Your Stewardship!











How your gifts are "invested"!
Here are a few: 

One of the highlights of our budget is Christian Social Outreach. Every year we try to set aside at least $20,000 as grant money to local, national and international organizations that do both direct aid & development. It is not easy to do this. It's not always "guaranteed" when we come to the next budget approximations that folks will want to donate that much. So far we've been able to prioritize this work. We're now trying to expand it in a way. The Diocese has allowed us to keep 2.5% of our usual assessment to use for special mission. The Vestry, the Rector and your input is helping us in this new venture (it's about $7,000 and we'll have to account for it at convention next year).

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?

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 encouraged. 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 after the 10:15 in the Library. We'll try to include some snack items from the Mom's Day Breakfast as well as Coffee for the meeting time.

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 (hopefully the Roofing Store). The organ will also need some attention as the seasons change; Dennis Patton is addressing this.

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 meets periodically to recommend grants.
Extras!
Youtube: The first is the Processional, Recessional & Postlude for Easter Sunday at CCPomfret. The second is another something I brewed up over the winter. The third is a video on Heifer Project International.

Easter 2015 Processional Recessional Postlude
Easter 2015 Processional Recessional Postlude


Unfreezing the 5 Thousand
Unfreezing the 5 Thousand


What We Do - Heifer International
What We Do - Heifer International
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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