First Presby’s Weekly News
November 26, 2017
Sunday Worship 10:30 a.m.
Worship is broadcast at 11:00 a.m. on WCHS-580AM
304-343-8961
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Decorating for Christmas!
The Worship Division invites you to stay for a few minutes after worship today to help assemble the Christmas trees that adorn our chancel during Christmas and Advent. You’re also invited to help decorate the rest of the sanctuary after church supper on Wednesday evening, November 29 at 6:45pm. Everyone is welcome!
Cents-Ability Offering is received today
As we gather for our Thanksgiving feast and Christmas celebration, let us be ever grateful for all of our blessings. Let us also be mindful of those who struggle just to put food on their tables. Daily, the hall of the fourth floor of our own building is lined up with people waiting to shop the food pantry for necessities. Whatever life situation that has brought them to the food pantry-homelessness, financial crisis, working poor-we are not to judge, only to help. Your gift to the cents-ability offering feeds those in our own community and beyond. Please give graciously.
WHAT’S COMING UP?
It’s beginning to look a lot like Advent! You are invited to our annual Advent Workshop, November 29, 2017 at 5:00 p.m.! While Advent Workshop is not a LOGOS night, we encourage all LOGOS attendees to come as there is Lessons and Carols rehearsal for the LOGOS groups. We are also accepting donations of quart size mason jars for the craft activity. If you plan to attend Advent Workshop, please make reservations for dinner by calling the church office at 304-343-8961 or emailing vannessa@firstpresby.com.
Light Up the Levee will take place on Friday, December 1 at 6:30 p.m. at Haddad River Front Park. Bring your friends and family for a night of caroling, hot chocolate, a lighted boat parade and an appearance by Santa as we light up the levee for the Christmas season! Please bring cereal, peanut butter, canned chicken or tuna, spaghetti noodles or canned spaghetti sauce for the Covenant House Food Pantry & help spread the spirit of Christmas!
Lessons and Carols 2017! Two weeks from today, on Sunday, December 10, singers, readers, ringers, and instrumentalists will tell the Christmas story in Word and music during 10:30 Sunday morning worship. Lessons and Carols comes around only once a year–don’t miss it!
Bring a Friend Sunday! On Sunday, December 10, everyone is encouraged to put on their Christmas sweater and bring a friend to church as we celebrate Advent with our Lessons and Carols service followed by carols and cookies in the Dining Room! Let’s show our neighbors the love of Christ by inviting them to experience the spirit of Christmas at First Presby!
Christmas Cookies? Yes please! Following Lessons and Carols on December 10 we are continuing the fun with a time of Christmas cookies and carols in the Dining Room. Our new Communications Director, Laura Hedrick, will be playing the piano for us to sing along. What do we need from you? We need donations of Christmas cookies for a “Cookie Table.” As you plan your holiday baking, please consider making a batch to share. All leftover cookies will be given out by our youth and children as they participate in various missions of the church in the Advent Season.
Preschool Christmas Worship Service: The Preschool Weekday School children cordially invite you to their Christmas Worship service in the Sanctuary on Wednesday, December 13 at 12:00 p.m. Come and enjoy wonderful sounds of the season from the children of the Preschool.
Christmas Eve Services: This year’s Christmas Eve services will be held at 4:00 p.m. (Tableau Service) and 7:00 p.m. (Candlelight Service) in the Sanctuary. For more information, call the church office at 304-343-8961.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Left over candy? If you have any leftover candy please bring it to Payne’s office, right across from the elevator on the second floor of the Education Building. We will be using it for care packages to college students.
Godly Play Training: The Godly Play method of Sunday School teaching welcomes children into the stories and mysteries of the Bible through story-telling using simple objects for illumination. The stories leave room for “Wondering Questions” through which students explore the possibilities found in God’s Word. Students develop Biblical knowledge and expand their faith in the Godly Play room – a sacred space where they can pray, play, create, learn and simply be children of God. For both the students and the teachers, the experience is transformational! If the teacher in you is longing to come out or if you simply want to explore the possibilities for yourself found in the powerful act of sharing God’s Word through the ancient art of story-telling, training is being offered:
Saturday December 2, 2017
8:30 AM to 5:30 PM
Tuition is $45 – Thanks to a special gift this fee is waived for First Presby members.
Christ Episcopal Church
200 Duhring Street
Bluefield, WV 24701
For more information and to register, call Janet Chambers, Director of Child & Family Ministry at 304- 343-8961 or email janet@firstpresby.com
Help us Help Houston flood victims: First Presby has adopted a “Sister Church’, 1st Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, Texas, which was completely devastated by Hurricane Harvey. After much prayer and discernment, we are blessed with the opportunity to help them rebuild and refurbish! Currently, they are in need of new chairs for their sanctuary, and you have the opportunity to help by “sponsoring a chair”. See the bulletin board in the church hallway and/or make a donation to this outreach ministry by writing a check out to First Presby (notate Dickinson Chairs).
St. Marks United Methodist Church’s Clothing Closet needs:
• Men’s pants and jeans – all sizes
• Men’s underwear – sizes 28-40
• Men’s socks both white and dark
• Men’s shoes sizes 9-13
• Women’s socks both white and dark
• Women’s underwear sizes 5-10
• Children’s socks and underwear for boys and girls
• Blankets, large towels and coats for all ages
There’s room in the choir for you! Music literacy and perfect attendance are not required, but a sense of humor is certainly helpful. We’re working on Christmas music now, so if you’ve ever thought of singing in Lessons and Carols, now’s the time! Come to rehearsal this Thursday at 7:30pm in the Choir Room and join your voice with ours as often as you are able.
Baskets needed to create beautiful Christmas gifts for Presbyterian Coffee Project goodies. Repurpose your gift size baskets for a good cause! Please bring baskets to the front office so Linda Elliot can pick them up.
IN OTHER NEWS
This week’s food pantry needs: Spaghetti noodles and sauce
Youth Group will meet at 6:00 in the Dining Room to create care packages for college students.
Three Big “Gs” = Grace, Generosity and Gratitude Only through God’s grace are we able to come together as a church family. Only through God’s generosity do we have an abundance of gifts to share with each other. We show our gratitude in what we share through our church family in ministry and mission. Please prayerfully consider what you will commit to give to further First Presby’s ministry in 2018 and return a pledge card today. Recurring and/or one-time gifts may also be made at http://firstpresby.com/giving-to-first-presbyterian-church/ .
Hope Village has gotten off to a tremendous start! Our own congregation and the community at large have enjoyed the beauty of the handcrafted items in the shop and have made wonderful purchases-so much so that we have already reorded most products. New merchandise is arriving daily! If you haven’t been into Hope Village, please make your way to enjoy and be awed by this wonderful outreach ministry of our church. Hope Village is open every Sunday after worship service.
There’s an app for that! Did you know you can access our hymnal from your mobile device using the free mobile edition? Versions of Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal are available from Google Play and also from the App Store for your Apple device. The free versions will give you all the public domain hymns, including favorites such as “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” and “Take My Life and Let It Be.” In-app purchases will give you copyrighted as well as public domain hymns. There are powerful search capabilities, sample piano recordings of hymns, interesting information about hymns and their authors, and the ability to access several different versions of hymns including pew, accompaniment, large print, lead sheet, and instrumental (strings, brass, and woodwinds). Check it out!
The Preschool Program is asking each of our Church families to bring a new pair of mittens or gloves, of any size (especially bright colorful ones!). We will be hanging these gifts of love on a Christmas tree outside the Preschool Office so that everyone can share in the warmth of giving. All of the mittens, gloves, hats and scarves will benefit local children. We thank you for your participation in this project. It is our hope that through this cooperative venture between the preschool and church, the concept of sharing through giving will be modeled to our youngest children. Help us fill the tree this month…with love!
More about the music: Below is an excerpt from “Glory to God: A Companion” about this morning’s middle hymn, “We Gather Together”: “While this text has always been a song of thanksgiving, its origins are significantly different from the associations it has for most people who connect it with the annual Thanksgiving Day in the United States. The original context was the eighty-year war between the Netherlands and Spain. That assumption of a wartime context is especially evident in 2.3: ‘so from the beginning the fight we were winning.’ It was considerably more evident in Theodore Baker’s original working ‘leader in battle,’ in 3.1. Even before Baker’s translation appeared, discomfort with the militaristic language in the Dutch text led to the writing of ‘We Praise You, O God’ (no. 612) in order to have an alternative text to sing to the same tune.” For more tidbits about our music and hymn texts, visit a church copy of “Glory to God: A Companion” by Reverend Carl P. Daw, Jr. M.A., M.Div., Ph.D in our church library, or look through the copy on the piano at the front of the sanctuary after worship.
What’s Going on This Week?
Sunday 11/26
Cents-ability
Trees up in Sanctuary
9:15 Sunday School
10:30 WORSHIP
11:30-12:30 Hope Village Open
11:45 Service of Healing; Chapel (Christian)
1:00-3:00 Elementary Girls B-Ball; Gym
3:00-5:00 Girl Scouts (Ann Grishaber); Rec. Rm.
3:00-5:00 MS Boys B-Ball; Gym
4:00 Lay Academy, Comparative Religions; Dining Room
6:00-8:30 Youth Group; Dining Room Monday 11/27
8:30-10:00 Aerobics Class; Rec. Room
9:00-12:00 PEO Meeting; Ruffner Room Tuesday 11/28
9:30-11:00 Bible Study Group; A-203
5:30 Fellowship & Rec. Div.; Library
5:30-6:30 FPC Lyres Club; Ruffner Room
6:00 AdHoc –Church Playground Planning Mtg.; A-203 (Ann Grishaber) Wednesday 11/29
8:00 Wednesday Work Crew
8:30-10:00 Aerobics; Rec. Room
10:00-2:00 Hope Village Open
3:00-5:00 Brotherhood of Senior Basketball; Gym
5:00-7:30 Advent Workshop; Rec. Room, Dining Room, Ruffner Room, Sanctuary
6:00 Church Fellowship Dinner; Dining Room
6:30 Lessons & Carols; Rehearsal Sanctuary
6:45 Decorating the Sanctuary
7:30 Worship Music Team; Sanctuary Thursday 11/30
7:30 Bible Study; Downtown Shoney’s
10:00-2:00 Hope Village Open
4:00-5:15 Trustee Meeting; E-406
5:30-7:00 Capella Bells Rehearsal; Choir Room
7:30-9:00 Geneva Choir; Choir Rm. Friday 12/1
7:00-8:00 Men’s Group; Dining Room
8:30-10:00 Aerobics; Rec. Room
3:00-5:00 Brotherhood of Senior Basketball, Gym
5:00-6:00 K-2 Basketball
Practice, Gym
6:30 Light Up the Levee