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| | Scott and Elmarie Parker (on the right) |
As we celebrate World Communion Sunday, we are invited to increase our realization that through Christ we belong to a global body. This week I invite you to explore the blog of Scott Parker, Presbyterian Church (USA) Associate Writer in Residence for Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and husband of Elmarie Parker, PCUSA Regional Liaison to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Many of you will remember the Parkers from their visit earlier this year to Westminster. On his blog entitled Findaworld, Scott writes about new friends he met a year and a half ago in the city of Erbil, which is in the Northern, Kurdish area of Iraq, and about his responsibility as a citizen of the United States of America. Read TWO FRIENDS IN ERBIL
 Update
We have 8 people interested in the South Africa trip next year late February/ early March 2016. On Monday night, October 5, Beth and I will have an informal gathering with supper at our house for all those interested. It is not too late to RSVP if you want learn more and see if it is possible for you to travel with Westminster to South Africa. To RSVP contact Dries by e-mail or phone.
See you in worship as we join in communion! Blessings, Dries P.S. I will be out of the office Wednesday through Saturday, October 7 - 10, attending the Kairos USA Leadership Summit in Colorado along with Don and Nahida Gordon. Kairos is dedicated to helping mobilize the U.S. church in response to the Palestinian Christian call for justice and human rights.
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| | Chef Linda Pattin getting her food ready in Mackey Hall |
Westminster thanks all of you who made Sunday's lunch for The College of Wooster Black & Gold weekend after worship such a success...by planning, setting up, bringing food, cleaning up, or just showing up! We had 91 in worship Sunday, a large percentage connected to the 22 students in attendance. As always, some people have commitments after worship, but the lunch was well attended (delicious!) and served as a good time for students and their families and congregation members to get acquainted. Our community of faith means so much to the families of students who attend here, as well as to our faithful students. Thank you for manifesting that welcoming spirit that makes them feel they belong. And speaking of our ministry of hospitality, if you haven't had the chance to meet Linda Pattin (our resident chef) and thank her, please do. Her culinary gifts as well as her warm, easy-going attitude greatly support Westminster's hospitality.
Submitted by Beth Coetzee
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Congregational Care Ministry
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There will be a meeting after church on Sunday, October 18th, for those interested in being part of a Congregational Care ministry, providing outreach to our members and friends in various capacities. If you are interested in visiting our homebound members, being a contact when a member has a need or concern, or just being available in general as a contact person, then please plan to attend. If you are already providing outreach in some way, please plan to attend so that we can begin the process of outreach to all in our church family. For more information contact Elaine Smith Snyder here.
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Display of caps knitted by Jeanne Bruce taken at her Memorial Service on Saturday, May 9, 2015
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Your Benevolences Committee would like to keep Jeanne Bruce's dream alive and provide knitted hats for all the children in Wooster who need a winter hat. We have spoken to quite a few in Westminster who would like to join in the effort and we would like to hear from any others who might be interested in joining us. If you know how to knit, like to knit, or would like to learn how to knit, this is for you. We have patterns available and a few pages of basic knitting instructions if you need them. Just call or send an e-mail to Sue Coleman or the Church Office. We will set up a time for us to get together. We can knit together and we can also knit on our own. Let's make Jeanne proud.
Submitted by Sue Coleman
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Make our Pictorial Directory Complete
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Earlier this year many of you indicated through our communications questionnaire that you would like a new pictorial directory. In response to your request, Barbara Tartir and Adrian Dryer have volunteered to take the lead in this project to celebrate our church family and strengthen the bond within our congregation. Now we need YOU to make our directory complete as we welcome you to be a part of our upcoming new directory.
For this important project, we are partnering with Lifetouch who is providing the directory at no cost to our church. Every family photographed receives a complimentary directory and an 8x10 portrait.
Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday, November 10, 11, 12, 2015
Each day from 2:00pm to 9:00pm
For your convenience, all photography and portrait viewing will take place at Westminster with NO sitting fee. You will have a variety of poses taken. One pose will be selected for the directory. In addition to your complimentary 8xl0, you will have the opportunity to purchase additional portraits on the day of your portrait session. Lifetouch's portrait price lists are available in the church office for those who would like them prior to photography.
This professional photography session is a great opportunity to invite your extended family and get portraits with everyone together. In addition, it's a great reason to invite friends and neighbors to our church. Each visiting family will receive their own complimentary 8x10 portrait.
Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to be professionally photographed. Lifetouch offers so many ways to capture the memories. Your portraits are sure to become valued family keepsakes.
We are looking forward to seeing you in our directory,
Barbara Tartir and Adrian Dryer
P.S. Watch for your Portrait Sitting Guide with tips on how to prepare for your portrait session. We ask that you allow one hour during which time you will check-in, be photographed, and select your portraits.
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Peace & Global Witness Offering
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While on a recent visit to church partners assisting Syrian refugees, staff of the Presbyterian Mission Agency watched the children closely. Violence in Syria has left 250,000 dead, and four million refugees. Such chaos and trauma erodes communities and places great stress on families, and the children often suffer. Even in such difficult circumstances, though, the children were seen laughing and playing, singing tunes they learned in their schools back home, but singing new words-"Yesterday, we lived in nice houses. Today, we live in tents.Tomorrow, we may go home." This is the hope for many of the Syrian children and families living as refugees. During recent weeks, images of Syrian families escaping violence and seeking refuge in neighboring countries and Europe have unsettled our peace and broken our hearts. Now in its third year, as the violence in the region continues, the conflict continues to cause deprivation and uncertainty. The world finds itself in need of a profound witness to thePrince of Peace.
In the letter to the Ephesians, we hear the words, "Peace be to the WHOLE community,"
a reminder that the peace of Christ is not fully realized in each of us until all of us work for
healing and wholeness in every place of violence. How appropriate, then, to hear these words
at a time when the effects of violence are so clearly seen. The Peace and Global Witness
Offering provides opportunities for Presbyterians to respond to cultures of violence, around
the corner and around the world, from our local neighborhood to the Syrian refugees.
Gifts to the 2015 Peace & Global Witness Offering will support Syrian refugees who who still
hope for an end to violence and a peaceful future for their children. Because of the work of
our church partners in Lebanon, the children of Syrians displaced by war and sheltering in
camps will be able to resume their education, disrupted when their families fled the conflict.
Your gift makes it possible for children to learn and teachers to teach: these are tools of hope
for people struggling to make a life in camps and nourish hope for a return to their homes.
Your gift helps these children sing a new song. A violent and broken world calls all of us to
play our part in creating and singing this song. Through our gifts, we join in God's mission of peace and reconciliation. Please give generously to the Peace & Global Witness Offering.
Copied form the Peace and Global Witness Offering Website
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Men's Breakfast is this coming Tuesday, October 6 (we meet the first Tuesday of every month) at the downtown Buehler's at 7:45 am. Sometimes we are many gathered and other times we are only two, but it is always a meaningful time of friendship, food, and conversation. Contact Bill Weiss for more information.
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Next Sunday, Oct. 11, Westminster will join First Presbyterian Church in worship at 10:45am at First Presbyterian Church, 621 College Ave. in celebration of their 200th anniversary. The bicentennial service will host the Rev. John M. Buchanan as guest preacher.
- Worship and Workshop with Professor Mark Denbeaux on Sunday, October 18
 Read about how Mark Denbeaux's participation in the Selma march in 1965 influenced his life in an article by Mark Di Ionno published this year in The Star-Ledger: "We showed up, that's what we did. We showed up to bear witness," said Mark Denbeaux, who plans to return to Selma later this month for the 50th anniversary. "I was just one guy walking over the bridge, being present and bearing witness."
It was the most formative experience of my life." Mark was 21 at the time, down from the College of Wooster (Ohio) with a group of buddies who made the 750-mile trip in a red Rambler station wagon, driving over backroads of Kentucky and Tennessee into the Deep South.
Denbeaux is now 71 and a law professor at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, best known for his extensive research into the detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
He and his students have published nearly 20 reports, examining hundreds of thousands of documents to detail abuse of detainees and unwarranted claims by the government. It is a search for truth, or at least finding true north in the national moral compass, as we are a country with a constitution that holds dear the rights of individuals. That sense of justice, instilled by his parents, brought him to the civil rights movement as a teenager. Make plans now to attend worship in the morning and the workshop in the afternoon.
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Worship is at 10:45 am on Sunday mornings in Mackey Hall
7:30 am - 8:30 am
Walking in Mindfulness at Oak Hill Park
Join us as we "Walk in Mindfulness," at Oak Hill Park, located on Oak Hill Road on the first Sunday of each month through November 1st at 7:30am.
10:45 am We will join Christians around the world in celebrating World Communion Sunday, meditating on Luke 24:13-35 as our text. World Communion Sunday is also a time when we receive the annual Peace & Global Witness Offering as a way of continuing the ancient Christian practice of sharing what we have with brothers and sisters in need.
10:45 am Westminster will join First Presbyterian Church in worship at 10:45 am at First Presbyterian Church, 621 College Ave. in celebration of their 200th anniversary. The bicentennial service will host the Rev. John M. Buchanan as guest preacher.
10:45 am
Professor Mark Denbeaux, one of Seton Hall's most senior faculty members, will be our Guest Speaker during worship as he talks about the intersectionality between Black Lives Matter and Islamaphobia.
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Worship at First Presbyterian Church
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 Westminster will join First Presbyterian Church in worship on Sunday, October 11 at 10:45 am at First Presbyterian Church, 621 College Ave. in celebration of their 200th anniversary. The bicentennial service will host the Rev. John M. Buchanan as guest preacher. For updates on this event visit Westminster's website here.
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What's happening at Westminster this week?
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7:30am: Walking in Mindfulness at Oak Hill Park
9:30am: Choir Rehearsal in Mackey Hall
10:45am: World Communion Sunday Worship in Mackey Hall, Pastor Dries preaching
12:00pm: Fellowship following Worship in Mackey Hall
6:30pm: Dance Group in Mackey Hall
Saturday, October 10
2:00pm - 4:00pm: Richard and Barbara Bell's 50th wedding anniversary reception in Mackey Hall.
Sunday, October 11
9:30am: Choir Rehearsal at First Presbyterian Church
10:45am: Worship at First Presbyterian Church, 621 College Ave. Wooster
For the latest and most up-to-date information visit Westminster's calendar here.
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