This is a link to a pdf file with our February calendar. If you click on it and open it, you will have a one page calendar of church activities for the month and can check meeting times and program plans! You will have to rotate it to get it the right direction or you can just print it out!
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Who would think we would have to cancel church for snow at the end of October?! But we did. Our regional minister, the RevMichael Ciba, was to join us that day to preach and to offer a lunch workshop on “Habits of Vital Churches.” We have rescheduled his visit and workshop for Sunday, March 18! Please plan to join us for this important time together as we learn what other churches are doing to thrive!
The Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ is offering a special day of workshops for church leaders and members on Saturday, March 24 from 9-4. Save the date! Carpools will be going from our church! More information coming soon!
In the earliest days of the Christian church, the season of Lent was originally a special time of preparation and fasting for people preparing to be baptized on Easter morning and to become Christians. The preparation was rigorous! Over time, other Christians felt that a special season of preparation made Easter celebrations more joyous and meaningful. Overtime, Lent was observed church wide.
Lent is more of a journey than an event. It is a time to allow us to be guided to new insight and transformation. People choose all sorts of special ways to make the season meaningful. Some “give up something” for Lent – a form of fasting meant to help us understand more deeply Christ’s sacrifice. Other people “take on something” in Lent – a special devotional time each day, a new volunteer opportunity, reading or class.
At theChurchofChrist, we want to offer resources to make your Lent a time of spiritual deepening and growth. We will be offering a special weekly dinner program and special worship services. Watch for a Lenten brochure later this month.
The Season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday which this year falls on February 22. We will gather for Ash Wednesday Worship that evening at 7 pm for reflection about our Lenten journeys. Ashes will be available for those who would like to be anointed.
The Christian Education Committee will be offering a Lenten Luncheon after church on February 26 with activities for all ages. The event will be part Mardi Gras and part Lenten preparations with stations to help enrich the season of Lent and home and at church. All are welcome!
The Habitat Chapter for Northwest Connecticutis busy with several projects including building a new home for a family! Volunteers are needed almost every Saturday morning. A group of volunteers will be going from our church on Feb 25. We will gather in the church parking lot at 7:30 am to carpool. Sign up after worship or with the church office if you would like to join us! More information on the NWCT chapter can be found here: http://www.habitatnwct.org/
Mission Trip registrations due by January 30! If you are interested in the National Youth Event and DOOR Chicago this summer, we need to know! See Pastor Paige for more information.
Your Pastor wasn’t paying attention to the Superbowl date when she set the schedule for youth activities for February! Here is a revised schedule:
February 11 –GoshenTown Ice skating event atHotchkissSchoolfrom 5-7 pm – (if we can find drivers!)
February 12 – 4-5:30 pm Jr PF – Claymation! Come help us make a claymation movie!
February 26 – 4-6 pm – Sr PF Dinner Club
March 4 – Giv2 Workday – Noon – 5 pm – more details coming soon!
Confirmation Schedule
February 5: No class
February 12: 6-7:30 pm – “Guided by the Spirit”
February 19: 6-7:30 pm – “Bound by the Spirit”
February 26: 6-7:30 pm – “The Church: Body of Christ”
Join us following worship on Feb 5 for a special lunch to raise money for FISH. There will be lots of different soups to try, bread, and desert! And we promise to get you home in plenty of time for the Superbowl! Tickets are $5 each or $15/max per family. There will also be opportunity to make more extensive donations to support FISH. We will be joined by the Executive Director of FISH to share a little information about their work.
When the doors opened in 1972, FISH was a volunteer program providing transportation and neighborly assistance to people in the community. In the decades following, FISH launched emergency food, shelter and related programs. Today FISH is one of the largest independent social service agencies, providing a full array of in-house or associated services to needy citizens ofLitchfieldCountyand surrounding areas.
The Soup-er Bowl of Caring is a movement that was started by a church youth group a number of years ago. The youth were considering the amount spent on Superbowl tv ads (up to $3 million for 30 seconds of air time) and thinking about that money relative to the hunger needs of so many American. They began to stand in the back of the sanctuary each year on Superbowl Sunday with pots and bowls for donations to local food programs. The movement has grown and now involves groups all over the country and the NFL.
Blanket+ Sunday – February 12
Blankets+ is a special mission opportunity for all ages. Some 8,000 congregations and groups across the U.S.hold CWS Blankets+ events, providing funds to help people in need around the world, including the U.S.
For over 60 years, Church World Service has worked in partnership with local communities to identify their needs and access the resources they need to build the foundation for a more viable future, including:
- Blankets, tents, food and other emergency supplies in the wake of a disaster
- Tools and seeds for refugees returning home to replant their fields
- Wells for families living in drought prone areas to provide clean, safe water to drink and to irrigate crops and gardens
- Literacy training and microcredit for women struggling to realize their potential.
On February 12, we will take our annual offering to support this work of Church World Service. Remember: just $5 will get a blanket to a disaster victim!
What is God calling our church to focus on in 2012? What would help you grow in your faith in the year ahead? What would excite you? The Church Cabinet has been facilitating conversations about our vision for our church along with strategizing and goal setting, but we need you to be part of the conversation!
In November, we chose two goals: enhancing our worship and spiritual life and getting everyone in the church involved in mission and outreach in some way. Also in the November, the Congregation formed a task force to propose strategies for closing the gap between income and expenses in the budget. The next steps include refining these goals, brainstorming and choosing strategies to move towards these goals and creating a plan.
On Tuesday, February 7 from 6-9 pm, we will gather for dinner and discussion and a time of prayer for our church. Please join us! Childcare will be available and dinner provided with an offering to cover the expense. Please RSVP to the office at goshenchurch06756@sbcglobal.net or 860-491-2793 so we can have enough food.
“Full-Contact Sports & Faith”
So I am usually oblivious to what is going on in the football world, but this time of year, it is pretty hard! Everyone is sneaking peaks at scores and talking about their favorite teams. Even with pads and helmets, football is rough and tumble – a full-contact sport. I was surprised to read a seminary professor I read regularly compare faith to such activities!
David Lose writes: “To know God, you have to go with God. Faith is a full contact, participation sport. You just can’t sit back and expect to really know God, you have to get up off the couch and get in the game, take a risk, try something marvelous, reach for something you thought unachievable, step out onto the winding road the end of which you can’t see from your doorstep.”
Lose’s reflection reminded me of something Annie Dillard wrote years ago about worship: “Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.” [Teaching a Stone to Talk, 1982].
These are provocative thoughts about what faith is really all about! And yet, it is easy to feel that faith, church life and worship are ho-hum and boring. We have all been to services that fit that description! It is a challenge, then, to offer something different – a church life that is exciting, vital, provocative, and energizing.
This is in my mind as we work on our church vision at “Eat, Pray, Talk” on Feb 7, as our Budget gap task force begins working, and as we prepare for a visit from RevMichael Cibawith his workshop on Habits of Vital Churches (March 18). It is on my mind as I prepare worship and go to committee meetings and teach youth and adults.
When along your faith journey have you found opportunities for provocative faith? How do we increasingly transform our church’s ministries in this direction?
May God bless us with new insights in this Epiphany season!
Pastor Paige Besse-Rankin
