Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
It’s Friday and we have survived the week, have a bulletin for Sunday where all the pages go the right way and have successfully fielded most of the phone calls to the office. Which most weeks would be a given but Cathy has been away this week on vacation, so there were moments where we wondered. A big thank you goes out to Cathy who sent this out to you despite being on vacation and to Debbie Allison, Alma Bidlake and Colleen Hanna who helped to cover the phones. It is great to have people willing to offer their gifts and skills in service to the church.
Speaking of service, both Spirit Sisters and the Men’s Conversation Group engaged chapter 4 of the Bullseye book this week and the marker of Christian faith we explored was service. We can always use more people using their skills for God’s glory in the church, we always have space for you to serve. However, too often people get involved with service to the church because they feel guilt, are coerced or feel nobody else will do it so we just get it done. Unfortunately these reasons for serving often leave people tired, cranky and dis-satisfied. Which is never fun, is it? What if you could feel renewed Spirit through your work and energized for what you are doing? This is exactly what the writers of Bullseye describe happening at their church and is a sign that you are serving in the right area. Each of us have been given at least one spiritual gift to use in God’s service and when we are using our gifts and serving in ways we find life giving amazing things. Which shouldn’t be a surprise after all we follow Jesus, the Lord, when we are serving in God’s name. So are you wondering what your spiritual gifts are? Retired United Church Minister David Ewart has put together a questionnaire to help you figure it out you can access this free resource at http://www.spiritgivengifts.com/SGGQuestionnaire2008.pdf
Thank you also to everyone who came out for our covenanting service last Sunday. It was a blessing to see so many members of the congregation in attendance. It means a lot for us as ministry staff when we can join together to mark the beginning of the relationship and invite God to continue to be present with us in our work together. As we continue to live into this pastoral relationship and new ministry team, we ask that you pray for us, the work that we do here at St. Paul’s, and the various committees and outreach programs of our church.
This Sunday you might be wondering if we jumped a few weeks ahead into advent. The angel tree will be up and ready for you to pick a tag to help, don’t delay getting your gift tag for a child in need, and the scripture we will hear (Isaiah 9:1-7) is one typically heard in Advent. This is all about getting ready, which is what the season of Advent is all about, preparing for Christ in our midst, preparing for God to show up often in unexpected places. The reading from Isaiah this week reminds us that God’s promises are true and that however long we may have to wait for it, the dawn will come.
This week we have our ongoing groups meeting, It is not too late to join the Spirit Sisters or Men’s conversation groups which meet Monday nights and Wednesday respectively. The drop in Prayers in the Parlor happens on Wednesday Morning at 10 for about a half hour, everyone is welcome. Inserted into this week’s bulletins you will find a list of the board members, email, phone numbers and the committee in which they lesion. Should you ever have questions about the board, concerns or celebrations about the congregation, or ideas for our church, any members of the board would be glad to hear from you.
Also the bulletin for this Sunday is available for download from here here.
Blessings this week, Rev. Michelle and Rev. Richard