Volume 12/17 December 2017 Ascension & Holy Trinity, Episcopal Church 334 Burns Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45215 WORSHIP SCHEDULE - 8:00am & 10am in the Church Children's Formation Classes at 10am. Child care in the Nursery. On Wednesdays Holy Eucharist is celebrated at 10am (in the Memorial Chapel of Ascension & Holy Trinity) Contact the church: (513) 821-5341 | [email protected]“LIKE” US ON FACEBOOK! “FOLLOW” US ON TWITTER! Rev. Eric’s Blog: http://ascensionholytrinity.com/blog/ WWW.ASCENSIONHOLYTRINITY.COM A&HT WYOMING PRESCHOOL: 2YRS – PRE-K [email protected]Mission : Ascension & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church lives to put God's love into action! The Vision of Ascension & Holy Trinity : A vital and growing faith community, with overflowing worship services and Christian growth opportunities. A church with compassion-centered ministries through which all find a place and take God's love into the world. DECEMBER CONNECTIONS CONNECTIONS PAGE 2 VOLUME 12/17 News from the Pews Birthdays Manna List focus for December: Cereal ....and a few items we always need... Crackers, Soup, Ramen Noodles, Canned Spinach, Peanut Butter, Canned Fruit, Cereal; toilet paper, Empty cottage cheese/yogurt containers (used to fill with laundry soap etc.) Remember, we bless the 1st Sunday of the Month! 2 Riley DeWitt, Andrew Finke 4 Mary Corley, Maude Haeger 6 Jacob Brumbaugh 8 Paul Fisher, Nancy Melville, Rosemary Miller, Caitlin O’Neill 9 Elliott Moore 10 Katie Munneke 13 Susan Hopple Anniversaries December 4-Joshua & Sara Reynoso December 15-Jeff & Elizabeth Graham December 18-John & Christina Brandewie December 29-Glenn & Kathleen Schaaf 17 Ralph Corley 20 Jim Getgey 21 Marty Neumeister 22 Andrew Gómez 22 Russell Smith 25 Mary Bowes, Cliff Moore 28 Bennett Miller 30 Bryant Davis, Calumn McCullumsmith Chuck Neumeister 31 Nadine Munneke, Christie Murphy
Transcript
Volume 12/17
December 2017
Ascension & Holy Tr in ity , Episcopal Church
334 Burns Ave., Cincinnat i , OH 45215
WORSHIP SCHEDULE - 8:00am & 10am in the Church
Children's Formation Classes at 10am.
Child care in the Nursery. On Wednesdays Holy Eucharist is celebrated at 10am
(in the Memorial Chapel of Ascension & Holy Trinity)
cheese/yogurt containers (used to fill with laundry soap etc.)
Remember, we bless the 1st Sunday of the Month!
2 Riley DeWitt,
Andrew Finke
4 Mary Corley,
Maude Haeger
6 Jacob Brumbaugh
8 Paul Fisher,
Nancy Melville,
Rosemary Miller,
Caitlin O’Neill
9 Elliott Moore
10 Katie Munneke
13 Susan Hopple
Anniversaries December 4-Joshua & Sara Reynoso
December 15-Jeff & Elizabeth Graham
December 18-John & Christina Brandewie
December 29-Glenn & Kathleen Schaaf
17 Ralph Corley
20 Jim Getgey
21 Marty Neumeister
22 Andrew Gómez
22 Russell Smith
25 Mary Bowes, Cliff Moore
28 Bennett Miller
30 Bryant Davis,
Calumn McCullumsmith
Chuck Neumeister
31 Nadine Munneke,
Christie Murphy
PAGE 3 CONNECTIONS VOLUME 12/17
RECTOR’S REFLECTIONS
(Continued on page 4)
This Thanksgiving I connected with close family members. I took time away from the church office, home office, computer and phone, and I used that time to be present with family. I hope you were able to do the same, and if you were unable to do so, then I hope you give yourself some measure of grace. It was great connecting with family over Thanksgiving, and it is great connecting with you as part of God's greater community of faith.
And now, it’s time for our new year. For Episcopalians, the "new year" begins with the First Sunday of Advent, which happens to fall on December 3rd this year.
My fervent hope is that our church will be full at the 10am service this Sunday during the Advent Lessons and Carols service. Our interim Minister of Music, David Vanderpool, will direct our gifted and dedicated Chancel Choir as they lead us and sing. Dr. Ted Gibboney will play organ as our new Minister of Music. Both Ted and David have shown their love of God, their love of music, and their flexibility in agreeing to collaborate this Sunday. We'll have the opportunity to offer our thanks and gratitude to David for his time of interim ministry and to welcome Ted to our faith family, too.
There will not be a homily offered at the 10:00 Advent Lessons and Carols on December 3rd. As much as I love to preach, to ponder ways I can facilitate God’s living word to become even more alive to us, we will use the time for additional Scripture readings and music. I have to remember that God's love and grace and transformation can and does occur in liturgical offerings other than the sermon. Let us look for ways to be in awe and reverence of our Maker through nature, family relationships, all sorts
CONNECTIONS PAGE 4 VOLUME 12/17
and varieties of music, all sorts of written word, and on and on my own list could go.
I encourage you to attend our 10:00 worship this Sunday the 3rd. Invite your family and friends. We will encounter God through beautiful readings from Holy Scripture. Our ears will delight in the music created by our chancel choir and their leadership in song. And, of course, we will encounter the Risen Lord as we celebrate together God's sacred meal. All of us celebrate Holy Communion as we remember we are God's beloved and as we engage our hearts, minds, and souls on the remembering and the renewal and the transformation unfolding before us and within us as we lift our hearts together to the Lord.
Join us in worship this Sunday and remember that we are part of something so much deeper than ourselves. We are part of God's beloved community, and as such our hearts need us to gather again and again that we may remember that just as a new year dawns with the first Sunday of Advent, so too do our lives begin anew as we reconnect with our Lord through our listening, our seeing, our tasting and touching, and through our words and actions.
I look forward to seeing you on the streets and in the pews (especially, on Dec. 3rd!)!
In God's Grace,
PAGE 5 CONNECTIONS VOLUME 12/17
PRAYER CONCERNS: Nancy McCue, Ann, Terry Kessler, Maria Luisa Macias, Rick Meyers, Beth Carroll, Malcolm & Pauline Perella; John, Renee, and Robert Kuyath; Steven & Family, the Bartel Family, Yvette, Anthony Armbruster, Mitchell Cody, Otis Mekoleske, Rick Voegele, Ken Fiehrer, Paul & Sherry, Lisa Kessler, Teo Coffman, Dan Albright, Janet Mitchell, Charlie Streeter, Jeff Hansee, Meredith Glover, Bill Zeck, Jonathan Boerner, Andy Curtis, Kitty Schaaf, Mark Kessler, Jon Pratt, Margie Armbruster, Rod Fightmaster. Trey Baker, Aleah Smith.
PRAYER LIST—Please call the Parish Office to add, remove or update a
name. Names remain on the list for three months.
Prayers are offered verbally during Sunday services for those added
within the last month, and for all on the list at staff Morning Prayer and
Wednesday Eucharist.
December 10 ~ Advent 2.
Isaiah 40:1-11
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
December 17 ~ Advent 3
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8,19-28
Psalm 126
December 24
~ Advent 4 in the am
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38
Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26
~ Christmas Eve in the pm.
Isaiah 62:6-12
Titus 3:4-7
Luke 2:(1-7)8-20
Psalm 97
December 31
~ 1st after Christmas Day
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
John 1:1-18
Psalm 147 or 147:13-21
The Lectionary for Dec.: Year b
http://www.lectionarypage.net
Click on the reference to go to reading.
This month’s Meeting ~ 7:30am ~
Friday, December 15 At Frisch’s 8383 Vine St.,
Hartwell location.
CONNECTIONS PAGE 6 VOLUME 12/17
N MUSIC NOTES 0
It is with excitement and gratitude
that I greet you as the new
Minister of Music at Ascension &
Holy Trinity. Excitement because I
am resuming a vocation directing
music and worship that has
brought joy and meaning to me
most of my adult life. Gratitude to
God for bringing a degree of
direction and purpose to what has been a new adventure in
Cincinnati for my wife Robyn and me.
I look forward to meeting each of you, and invite you to join
us in worship as we anticipate the Coming of God’s
Presence in our world. What beautiful music, both old and
new, for us to experience! And already I sense enthusiasm in
the Adult Choir for finding the best music, and the best in
themselves, to lead worship.
I invite you to SING with us! Our friend Martin Luther
wrote that the person that sings prays twice. The church is
still a safe haven for engaged community singing. Is there
any better way to celebrate God Among Us?
Dr. Ted Gibboney
Please check cloakroom in the hall to see if your coat is one
of the ones that’s been hanging wistfully there for many months.
We will take the remaining coats to Goodwill after Dec. 10 so
Your pledge now can transform young lives next year.
As Maggie prepares to conclude her internship with us, it’s time for us to ensure our youths’ continued spiritual growth by adding one to two part-time youth ministers. I have the vision (described below). Your Vestry is on board. I am inviting you to join us on this adventure and commitment to our youth. If you have not yet pledged, your commitment now will combine with others to provide love and encourage-ment to the amazing youth of this parish. Our goal is to raise $20,00-$25,000 for this work.
Outside of outreach, our most important ministry in the Church is ministering to and with our youth. We have invested dollars for many years with all sorts of ministries, and I’m thankful we have done so; however; historically, the reality is that our youth ministries have been underfunded. Maggie’s time with us was funded by the Diocese. Now is the time for us to invest our money and time for our youth to know God’s love more and more and to become better equipped for transformation.
I want to have one college aged adult to lead our youth activities, to meet with the youth at least twice a month for planned activities, whether those activities be ministries like outreach, formation, music, or simply connecting with one another for a fun event. I know adults today who did this sort of youth ministry while they were in their college years. The youth they served had a college student leader who loved them as they were, related to them a way that older adults cannot, and was a healthy example of a disciple of Jesus’.
I would love to have the other part-time youth minister to be older than college age with more stability in their lives. This other youth minister would schedule the Sunday School teachers, assist in writing lesson plans, implementing lesson plans if teachers are unavailable, maintain the supplies, snacks, balance the youth ministry budget, train the teachers, plan and implement the Christmas Pageant, lead Confirma-tion classes, and various other tasks. Clearly, this second
CONNECTIONS PAGE 8 VOLUME 12/17
youth minister would be covering more ground than the first, and we might balance the ministry load differently.
Please take this opportunity to transform the lives of our youth, to make a difference in the lives of our youth today and for their lives for years to come from the solid foundation we foster.
How can you help? You can pledge. Pledge cards are available in the narthex and parish office, or you can email our Stewardship chairs Amy Getgey and Laura Bence. However, this isn’t all about money. Talk with Bridget Glover about serving as a Sunday School teacher (even as a sub) so the children and youth in our parish will discover they have a wide circle of people in our congregation supporting and believing in them.
How else can you help? Pray. We are people of prayer. Stop reading this article right now, and offer God a prayer. Go ahead, I’ll give you a minute. . . . Good, now that you’ve prayed for our youth and our church today, go ahead and pray again tomorrow and the next day. What else? Interact with our youth? They acolyte, they read Scripture (love to have more of them doing that), they often assist in serving as Eucharistic Minister when we are short on adults serving, they sing in the youth choir, they love coffee hour, we see them at school events and so forth. Please, let them know you care about them.
You see, I want for our high school and college graduates to walk away from Ascension & Holy Trinity Church knowing that their parish loves them. I want them to know of God’s unconditional love in their lives because of how we loved them, how we gave them our very best.
In God’s Grace,
Eric+
PAGE 9 CONNECTIONS VOLUME 12/17
New year, new nursery, and organ renewed!
Glorious music pealed through
the church the last week of November
as our new music director, Ted Gib-
boney, put the restored organ through
its paces. Down the hall, John Fitz-
water was putting the final touches on
the trim of the renovated nursery.
You’ll get to hear Ted play and tour
the nursery on the first Sunday of Ad-
vent, the start of our new church year.
The organ’s delicate electronics
were fried by a lightening strike in
July, and Fitz has put in countless
hours of work over the ensuing months
to identify the needed repairs. In mid-
November a technician from Phoenix Organ came down from Canada
and worked over two days with Fitz, David Vanderpool, and Ted to
restore the organ. The repairs were covered by our insurance, with our
claim paid just as the enormous wave of hurricane damage hit
churches in the Caribbean, Texas, and Florida.
The nursery renovation was designed by Senior Warden Rich
Gómez, treasurer Carol Gómez, John Fitzwater, Mary Melville, Mary
Allardyce, Carolyn Bruckmann, and Julia Madison and implemented
by Fitz and our longtime HVAC contractor Peck, Hannaford. It cor-
rects the moldy air and dismal appearance that the room had fallen
into. The original AC unit died this year. Working with Peck, Carol
requested a new AC system which cools and circulates the air in the
hallway as well as the nursery. This is a much more efficient use of
the unit and the air quality in both spaces is much fresher.
Fitz added windows to bring light and air into the room, and he
and his assistant Noah painted the room in a cheerful blue suggested
by Julia. Carolyn, Mary M, and Mary A are teaming up to make sure
the toys and play equipment are age-appropriate and fun.
Thank you all, and happy new year!
Ariel Miller, Junior Warden
CONNECTIONS PAGE 10 VOLUME 12/17
Dear STUPENDOUS HOPE Coalition VOLUNTEERS!!
On Thursday, December 14 at 6.30 pm at Ascension & Holy Trinity
we will be having our Celebration Party for another successful build
season with the HOPE Coalition. Everyone - and we mean Everyone -
especially all of the volunteer builders and feeders - are encouraged to
attend. We will be saying 'thanks' over a light supper (pizza?) and iden-
tifying hopes and dreams (fixes?) for the future of HOPE Coalition.
PAGE 11 CONNECTIONS VOLUME 12/17
PARISH HEALTH MINISTRYPARISH HEALTH MINISTRY
Contributed by Bev Cody. "Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that
all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well." 3 John 1:2 (NIV)
Surviving the Holidays When You Don’t Feel Like It (Marilyn Morgan Helleberg, Daily Guideposts 7/27/00)
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ! This is usually accompanied with lights, music, parties, tinsel, and glitter. NOT EVERYONE FEELS LIKE THIS during the holidays and some even want to hide from it all. There are many reason for this: death of a loved one, loss of a job and income, chronic illness including addic-tions and depression, memories of past hurtful holidays and unrealistic expectations of ourselves and those around us. We feel the darkness growing deeper around us. We need encouragement to live the days ahead of us. Are we “not normal” if we can’t join in the festivities and be joyful and merry? No! However you are feeling and however you are dealing with holidays may be the best you can do at this time. Take a deep breath, close your eyes for a few seconds and accept your current situation. Then take inventory of your situation and your feelings and your re-sources for coping. You may need to make a list so that you can refer back to it and add to it as necessary. Re-evaluate what you can handle comfortably even if this means mak-ing changes in traditions and rituals. Maybe the shopping will have to curtailed, the cards not sent this year – or sending a short note instead explaining why you aren’t up to the usual. Baking and decorating may not happen at all or be reduced in quantity. The lights and the added sugars may contribute to the depression and loneliness rather than lift your spirits. Some ideas that have helped others: 1. Plan ahead - consider ahead of time what may be expected of you
both socially and emotionally and how you can adjust these expec-tations.
2. Trim down to essentials - limit social and family commitments to suit your available energy. Re-evaluate priorities and forego unneces-sary activities and obligations.
3. Accept your limitations - holidays place additional demands on time and emotions. Plan to lower your expectations to accommodate cur-
CONNECTIONS PAGE 12 VOLUME 12/17
rent needs. 4. Make changes - alterations in surroundings, rituals and traditions
will diminish stress. 5. Ask for and accept help - allow those who care about you to offer
their support in concrete ways. Be specific about your preferences and desires.
6. Build in flexibility - you are the foremost authority on what is best for you and your needs and these may change from day to day. Take each moment as it comes.
7. Give yourself permission "to be" - allow breathing space and ex-pect fluctuations in mood and perspective. Not only is life more complicated, but all energy is siphoned into mental and emotional resolution.
Some churches have a "Dark Christmas" or "Blue Christmas" service during Advent to support people who are having a hard time coping with the holidays, depression and grief. An evening of prayer, scrip-ture, communion, and music that acknowledges that God's presence is for those who mourn, for those who struggle, for those who grieve - and that God's Word comes to shine light into our darkness. This is very healing and there are several resources for developing this ser-vice, including Episcopal Health Ministries and other Internet ser-vices.
Remember - "our capacity to love holds hands with our capacity to cry. There's something sacred about sorrow, about loss, about the fact that joy is always braided with a certain quiet sadness. It's there to remind us of our true home, which is and always has been within the heart of God. It's a home from which we can never be separated.
CONTINUING MINISTRIES: CARD MINISTRY Each month cards are sent to parishioners who might appreciate a caring message from their church family. Also cards are sent regu-larly to shut ins who cannot attend church. Betsy Cooper heads this ministry. We are delighted to announce that Nikki DeWitt has stepped forward to the ministry of sending cards to shut ins. Please contact Betsy [[email protected]] if you or someone you know would like to receive a card for any reason .
PHM members - Maurice Bason, Beverly Cody (Co-chair), Betsy Cooper, Nikki De Witt, Melissa Erikson, Lynn Fitzwater, Angela Horne, Jo Irvine,
Kathy Kessler (Co-chair), Terry Kessler, Nancy Melville, Rosemary Miller, Jean Panos, Mary Lynn Roca, and Brittany Rosen.
