Month: July 2021

Hello everyone,

I hope that this bright balmy day finds you all well.  It may be hot and steamy but, Yay the sun is out.  I don’t know about you but that definitely lifts my spirits.

I’m really excited and pleased that the kitchen backsplash is almost completed and looks fabulous.  It really brightens up the room.  Thank you Ellen and Shari for your choice in tile.  We are looking so classy!  We will look and feel even better when the restoration and painting of the front of the church building is finished.  Since I look at it just about every day of the week I hadn’t realized how sad it was beginning to look until a couple of weeks ago.  I was quite shocked.  It goes to show you what happens when time elapses and you become complacent and just don’t notice things anymore.  The church will soon have a new face.  And, what a happy and energetic face it will be.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just slap a coat of paint on ourselves.  At this point in my life I need way more than that.  Oh well, such is life.

This is shaping up to be a great service this Sunday.  We have Anna Kwashnak singing for us.  We also have a guest preacher who I can’t wait to meet.  From what Katrina has said about him he sounds like a really nice person.  We could all use more of those in our lives.

Don’t forget the GWIM food pantry and School supplies for Wellmore (I believe Staples has begun their sales).  Also, save your books to donate.  You will find it all in your Crier which is attached.  For those of you who will be joining us online the bulletin is there too.

Have a good weekend.  Partly sunny and Sunday especially is supposed to be cooler.  They are predicting possible thunderstorms both days but I love thunderstorms.  God’s work in action!

Take care and stay safe! Jeanine

Dear friends in Christ,

I hope you’re all doing well and hopefully getting a chance to enjoy some sunshine today after so many gray days. I have a few updates to share for this week:

Worship This Sunday

This Sunday there is a baptism, and we’re going to have a guest preacher, Robbie Laughton. Robbie is one of my best friends from seminary. He has some time off between finishing up as the Associate for Youth and Families at Trinity Episcopal Church in Southport and starting a new call at a church in Virginia, so I asked him to preach for us this Sunday. He read the Old Testament lesson at my ordination, so some of you might have met him then. I’ve attached a picture of us from my ordination.

I’ll still be in worship on Sunday, but Robbie preaching is enabling me to go on retreat this Friday and Saturday with some other young adults from the Southern New England Conference.

Renovation Updates

Bob and Bill continue work on the parsonage garage, and once that’s finished, they will shift to repainting the front of the meetinghouse. Additionally, the tile is starting to go up in the kitchen! I’ve attached some pictures of the work in progress.

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General Comments

One of the values we talk about in church is the concept of stewardship, faithfully caring for the gifts and resources God has entrusted us with. Often we talk about stewardship in terms of faithfully administering our financial resources, but one of the other ways we’re stewards here at MCC is through the care and investment we’ve put into and continue to put into our physical infrastructure. When I interviewed with the search committee here, one of the very first things I noticed was how much care had been put into maintaining and upgrading important aspects of the church building and the parsonage. The other feature of good stewardship of our physical infrastructure is sharing it with our community, and with conditions improving with the pandemic, AA, Scouts, etc. are able to use our building again (and have been for months now.)

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve had the opportunity to catch up on fixing, repainting, and restoring things that would have taken us years to do in more normal times. Thanks to Bob and Bill and also everyone contributing to the church, we’ve taken care of or will take care of all the major aspects of the building in need of repair, which sets us up well for the future. It also enables us to continue to serve our community.

I hope you all have a good week!

Peace,

Pastor Katrina