t this season of Thanksgiving and Ad- vent, our souls need to take advantage of the themes for which both these names stand. In November, our nation pauses to give thanks for freedom, for the great land we live in, and for those who sacrificed so much to create the United States of America. We have received so many additional blessings, that our gratitude may easily spill over into praise for gifts of faith, family, nature, and knowl- edge. However, there is a back door by which one can also choose to enter Thanksgiving. If our children or our grandchildren have a warm home, good food to eat, and clean water to drink, they are wealthy beyond the dreams of most of earth’s children. If we enjoy employment or a regular retirement income, we know that many others do not. If we have reasonable health we are still grateful, but with the understanding that many among us struggle daily with chronic discomfort, waning energy, and debilitating physical conditions. Our praises may just as easily overflow with active compassion. I know we cannot solve this world’s problems by ourselves, yet we should never consider it enough to sim- ply say, “Go in peace; be warm and well fed,” while we turn away from helping address the suffering of people we encounter. Sometimes all we can do is be a compassionate presence to others as they pass through their trials. That is what Jesus is all about. The word Advent literally means “coming”. Christians believe that God came to us in Je- sus of Nazareth to be an active, compassion- ate presence with people in the brokenness of their lives. He blazed a new path toward wholeness. Dressed up in our own too famil- iar human garb, God’s creative Word of wis- dom came to live among us full of grace and truth. They called him “Emmanuel”, which means “God with us”. As a popular song from years back asked, “What if God was one of us, just a stranger on a bus trying to make His way home?” At Advent, we focus our thoughts on a divine human Savior who comes, like one of us, knocking on our door seeking a place at our table. We are overcome with thanksgiving at Christ’s Advent. So, whatever the good gift in your life is today, let us keep in mind that it is from God. The life we cherish now on this planet came to us long ago, wrapped in a mortal face familiar to outcast women, unsuccessful fishermen, lepers, children, and also to every seeker of righteousness of every age. Today, he comes to you and me, and will come again at the consummation of all things, bearing in his nature the full understanding of our humanness and God’s mercy toward us. For this we give eternal thanks! Your family member in the fellowship of Jesus, Pastor Lee PASTORAL MEANDERINGS by Pastor Lee FOREST LARGER PARISH Lakewood Wabeno Laona PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 1 CONTACT INFO OFFICE PHONE (715) 473-3603 WEBSITE www.forestlargerparish.com EMAIL forlarpar @centurylink.net CHURCH STAFF PASTOR Rev. R. Lee Jennings, Jr. ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT/ NEWSLETTER EDITOR Lori Brooks AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM (ASP) Cindy Hart, Pam Schroeder AWESOME CHRISTIAN YOUTH (ACY) — Pastor Lee & Becky CHILDREN’S MINISTRIES Pamela Schroeder CHURCH TREASURER Alison Shepard CLERK OF SESSION Patty Earnest NEWSLETTER LAYOUT Krystal Statezny PRESBYTERY LIAISON Lin Wittmann If you would like to submit something for the website or have a suggestion, email Cheri Kuske at [email protected]. All submissions are subject to Communications Committee approval. A
Transcript
t this season of Thanksgiving and Ad-vent, our souls need to take advantage of the themes for which both these names stand. In November, our nation pauses to give thanks for freedom, for the great land we live in, and for those who sacrificed so much to create the United States of America. We have received so many additional blessings, that our gratitude may easily spill over into praise for gifts of faith, family, nature, and knowl-edge.
However, there is a back door by which one can also choose to enter Thanksgiving. If our children or our grandchildren have a warm home, good food to eat, and clean water to drink, they are wealthy beyond the dreams of most of earth’s children. If we enjoy employment or a regular retirement income, we know that many others do not. If we have reasonable health we are still grateful, but with the understanding that many among us struggle daily with chronic discomfort, waning energy, and debilitating physical conditions.
Our praises may just as easily overflow with active compassion. I know we cannot solve this world’s problems by ourselves, yet we should never consider it enough to sim-ply say, “Go in peace; be warm and well fed,” while we turn away from helping address the suffering of people we encounter. Sometimes all we can do is be a compassionate presence to others as they pass through their trials.
That is what Jesus is all about. The word Advent literally means “coming”. Christians believe that God came to us in Je-sus of Nazareth to be an active, compassion-ate presence with people in the brokenness of their lives. He blazed a new path toward wholeness. Dressed up in our own too famil-iar human garb, God’s creative Word of wis-dom came to live among us full of grace and truth. They called him “Emmanuel”, which means “God with us”. As a popular song from years back asked, “What if God was one of us, just a stranger on a bus trying to make His way home?” At Advent, we focus our thoughts on a divine human Savior who comes, like one of us, knocking on our door seeking a place at our table. We are overcome with thanksgiving at Christ’s Advent.
So, whatever the good gift in your life is today, let us keep in mind that it is from God. The life we cherish now on this planet came to us long ago, wrapped in a mortal face familiar to outcast women, unsuccessful fishermen, lepers, children, and also to every seeker of righteousness of every age. Today, he comes to you and me, and will come again at the consummation of all things, bearing in his nature the full understanding of our humanness and God’s mercy toward us. For this we give eternal thanks!
Your family member in the fellowship of Jesus,
Pastor Lee
PASTORAL MEANDERINGSby Pastor Lee
FOREST LARGER PARISHL a k e w o o d Wa b e n o L a o n aP R E S B Y T E R I A N C H U R C H
AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM (ASP) Cindy Hart, Pam Schroeder
AWESOME CHRISTIAN YOUTH (ACY) — Pastor Lee & Becky
CHILDREN’S MINISTRIESPamela Schroeder
CHURCH TREASURERAlison Shepard
CLERK OF SESSIONPatty Earnest
NEWSLETTER LAYOUTKrystal Statezny
PRESBYTERY LIAISONLin Wittmann
If you would like to submit something for the website or have a suggestion, email Cheri Kuske [email protected]. All submissions are subject toCommunications Committee approval.
A
CHURCH COMMUNITY
Clara Koskella, Anders Olsen, Jane Albers, Rita Pierce, Nancy Volk, Cannon Henry Tarman, MavisVanselow, Roy Moore, Franny Sturzl, Missy Marvin, Kolton Ouellette, Tristan McKutcheon,Kathy Marvin, Clarice Ritchie, Terry Feezor, Winda Collins, Austin Ginter, Jim Lentz, Mattie, Roland Kortbein Jr., Kevin Swanson, Patty Connors, Jim Lentz, Scott Dallmen, Carey Ginter, Pat Rasmussen, Joe Peterson, Cory Schjoth, Tucson Olson, Kay & Gary Petts, Elena Rennes, Allison Gagnon, Orville Lee, Greg Cook, Mary Reigle, Samuel Dewing, Nadine Crowley & family, the family of Shirley Truttman, Bob & Shirley Rohe
Nu-Roc Residents: Jeanne Haskins, Phyllis QuinnServing in the Military: Michael Schmitt,Eric Peterson, Doug Smith, Scott Swann,Nick Swanda, Zack Ashbeck, Dakota Reynolds,Nicholas Pichotta, Clark Spaniol, Troy Graham,Mitchel Albert, Zach Derfus, Jerry Jeppson,Beau Gagnon, Ben Baker, Jesse Cotherman
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the Federal Privacy Regulations, we encourage you to seek an individual’s permission before submitting their name to our printed prayer list. *If you would like to add a family member serving in the military to the prayer list, please fill out a prayer card and note “military” and give it to the pastors or call the church office.
COMMUNION DATESNov. 1 – Traditional Nov. 25 – Joint Thanksgiving Eve Service – Intinction Dec. 6 – Traditional Dec. 24 – Christmas Eve – Intinction
Parents of baptized children:Baptized children who are being nurtured and instructed in the significance of the invitation to the Table and the meaning of their response are invited to receive the Lord’s Supper, recognizing that their understanding of participation will vary according to their maturity.
PRAYER REQUESTS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 2
BIRTHDAYS & ANNIVERSARIESThe following are birthdays and anniversaries of our members and friends. If your birthday or anniversary has never been listed and you would like it to be, please write it in on the Birthday Calendar posted at your church.
FLPPC will again be filling shoebox-es during this Christmas sea-son with appro-priate presents
to send to needy children around the world. Pick up your shoebox and all the directions at your church build-ing. Boxes must be returned filled no later than Nov. 15, as they begin their (long) journey to their intended recipients. Don’t forget to include a check for $7 in the top of the box (payable to Operation Christmas Child — NOT FLPPC!) for shipping costs (or follow the directions to do-nate on-line at the OCC website.)
If you prefer NOT to shop your-self, a $20 donation can be made to any Mission/Evangelism committee member before Nov. 15 and the shop-ping will be done for you.
The annual Craft Fair Luncheon will be held on the Saturday, Nov. 28, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Lakewood Presbyterian Church. Lunch items will include sandwiches, barbeques, a choice of homemade soups, beverages and an incredible as-sortment of homemade pies! Hunters are also welcome to come in from the hunt to have a hot meal and the pie of their dreams.
“Gramma’s Attic” will also offer for sale crafts and Christmas items as well as some collectibles. As in years past, trays of assorted home-baked Christmas cookies will be available to take home. Come get a start on your Christmas season planning!
Our stewardship campaign for this year finished Oct. 18 with the collection of our letters of commitment to Forest Larger Parish. The stewardship commit-tee would like to thank all of you who participated in this important facet of our church life. We are thankful for the strong show of support that you demon-strated by completing and returning your estimate of giving cards. We had 46 replies as of this writing, which represents a 25 percent increase in the number of cards returned as compared to last year.
Some people have indicated an interest making electronic payments as we continue to transition to a paperless world. If you are ready to make that transition, please let Lori Brooks know and we will be in touch to assist you.
The work of the Stewardship committee is not done. We continue to meet to develop a budget and a financial plan that will sustain our church and its missions well into the future. Thanks be to God for His guidance in all these matters!
LAKEWOOD CHURCH LUNCHEONOffering A Quiet Place To Have Lunch After The Craft Fair
STEWARDSHIPBy Stewardship Committee
OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD
What Is the Christmas Joy Offering? A Presbyterian tradition for almost 70 years, the Christmas Joy Offering is one of the four special offerings designated by the Gener-al Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to provide congregations direct ways of supporting specific causes that help those in need.
You are encouraged to support the Christmas Joy Offering through gifts to your congregation’s offering. If for some reason that is not convenient, feel free to support the offering directly.
ABOUT THE OFFERINGHistory of the Christmas Joy Offering
Presbyterians have long celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ by giving generously to an Advent offering. The Christmas Joy Offering dates back to the 1930s when the former
Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) began an offering to supplement inadequate retirement income and provide supplemental medical insurance for former ministers, missionaries, church workers, and their families. It was first officially called the Joy Gift in 1949.
In the former United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UP-CUSA), a Christmas offering was first taken in 1960. Called the White Gift, its funds were used for general mission and world relief. In 1964 the name was changed to the Christ-mas Offering, and receipts provided support for health and welfare concerns related to children. The emphasis on global work with children continued until 1973, when the offering was used to assist former servants of the church who were living on inadequate
pensions. In 1974 racial ethnic education was added, and in 1979 nursing home care assistance was also included. Funds were distributed evenly between the Board of Pen-sions and racial ethnic education.
In 1988, the PCUS and the UPCUSA offerings were joined into one offering, the Christmas Offering Joy Gift. It was agreed that neither the Board of Pensions nor the racial ethnic schools would suffer in the merger of the Joy Gift and the Christmas Offering. In 1989, the offering was renamed the Christmas Joy Offering, and in 1991, the 203rd General Assembly changed the distri-bution of funds to 50 percent to the Board of Pensions and 50 percent to the Presbyterian racial ethnic schools and colleges.
For the last several weeks, we have been collecting the Peace and Global Witness Offering, which is one of our four major Presbyterian of-fering every year. To date, we have collected $841. Twen-ty-five percent of what we col-lect stays local and is admin-istered through the Mission/Evangelism (M/E) Committee. For 2015, M/E has voted to donate the local portion to the Rainbow House, which is a domestic abuse shelter that operates in Northeast Wiscon-sin. Many of the PW ladies will remember Jessica Honish, the director at Rainbow House, who came and spoke to our spring gathering earlier this year — and many of us learned that domestic abuse is something that does happen in our area. Rainbow House runs on donations and grants (it receives no government
support), so they are definite-ly appreciative of any help we can offer. From the local portion of the offering, we will give them gift cards for Walmart for general supplies and for Menards to help with needed repairs at the shelter.
Of the remainder of the Peace and Global Witness Offering, 25 percent goes to promote peacemaking at the Presbytery and Synod levels of PCUSA and 50 percent goes to the peacemaking ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
If you missed the oppor-tunity to donate to the Peace and Global Witness offering, you may still turn in your contribution — either use the Peace envelope available at all church buildings or clearly label your donation as being for PEACE.
The holidays (Thanksgiv-ing and Christmas) are soon approaching.
Hams have been ordered for distribution to the food pantries in Townsend and in Crandon.
Operation Christmas Child is in full swing (see details else-where in this newsletter) and the filled boxes will be delivered the week of November 16.
We received a generous do-nation of hand-crafted hats from FLPPC friend Gail Dersnah to be distributed by NEWCAP along with the coats we provided them earlier in 2015.
Supplies of toe warmers (those little covers for naked toes that need protecting when they are stuck in an open toed cast) have been replenished at the hospital in Rhinelander. And, we received a report from someone — not from FLPPC —who was the recipient of a pair of toe warmers to go with her dual soft casts after foot
surgery. She was delighted to get them and was told by the hospital in question just where they came from!
Advent will begin the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and M/E will begin distributing Christmas lapel buttons for all in FLPPC and at various other locations in our area! This year’s button says: “Jesus…the Greatest Gift.” Look for your (free) button in church starting November 29! What a wonderful time of year!
OUR COMMUNITYNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 4
The Christmas Joy Offering, the last of the major PCUSA offerings of 2015 will be collected in December at FLPPC. It provides support for past, present and future leaders of the church
PEACE AND GLOBAL WITNESS OFFERINGBy Mission/Evangelism
MISSION/EVANGELISM UPDATE By Mission/Evangelism
SESSION MINUTESNOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 5
>>>SEPTEMBER 2015Regular Meeting - Wabeno• The meeting opened with a
devotion and prayer.• Motion to approve the agenda.
M/S/A • Motion to give voice to all present. M/S/A
• Motion to accept Treasurer’s Report. M/S/A
• Treasurer Alison Shepard has asked to be relieved of her treasurer’s duties, citing lack of time to do this job. Since no written request has been received the Session will delay a motion on this issue until later. Mary Scheuer-man will take over these duties tem-porarily. Tina Flannery is considering taking on this job.
• Motion to accept Pastor’s Report. M/S/A Pastor’s Report.
• Motion to approve the Clerk’s Report for August 2015. M/S/A
COMMITTEE REPORTSWorship:• Copies of the Aug. 24 Worship
Committee minutes were distributed and reviewed.
Stewardship:• Copies of the Aug. 21 and Sept. 4
Stewardship minutes were distributed. Pam Schroeder gave a recap of these meetings.
Mission/Evangelism:• Copies of the August 18 M/E
minutes were distributed and reviewed.Christian Education:• VBS went very well and was well
attended (30+ children) with plenty of adult and teen leaders. After school program at Wabeno has been discon-tinued. A Tuesday a.m. Bible study at Lakewood will begin on Sept. 29. • Motion to accept committee reports. M/S/A
NEW BUSINESS• Pastor Lee reminded the group
that it is time for the Nominating Com-mittee to begin.
• The Deacon’s will meet with the Session at their meeting in October. Lori will put a reminder of this on the power point.
• No one is able to attend the Sep-tember Presbytery meeting.
• Motion to approve the re-commis-sioning of Suzanne Bell, Linda Mentz and Louis Spaude as communion serv-ers. M/S/A
• A letter from Don and Deb Kempf asked that their names be removed from membership. Motion to accept this letter and remove these names from membership M/S/A
Discussion followed regarding this issue.
• The meeting adjourned with prayer.
Your question answered:
WHAT ABOUT THE MONEY THAT THE FLEA-ZAAR BRINGS IN?by Suzanne Bell
Having just come off another financially successful Flea-zaar, many of you are won-dering exactly what happens to that money. It would be fair to say that the money could go to support FLPPC in keeping our doors open, our pulpit filled and doing good works for those in need. All of those things would constitute promoting the mission of FLPPC; but in reality where the money goes is a little more complicated than that.
First, some history of the Flea-zaar: the idea for the Flea-zaar first came up at a leader-ship retreat of the Elders and Deacons in response to a need to raise money. The big issue at that time was finding support to keep our Laona church open (we were three churches back in that day) since they were losing their funding through a PCUSA Small Church grant. Session felt that it was important to do whatever we could to preserve
a place of worship at the far northern end of our Parish. Certainly, keeping a church open constitutes mission! (At that same retreat, we rejected the idea of a “Bike Blessing” as being more Catholic than Pres-byterian in nature!)
The structure of the Flea-zaar was borrowed from a Pres-byterian church in Manitowish Waters (even more “up north” than FLPPC). As the reve-nues grew, we re-worked our Parish budget to reflect a more mission-minded church. Since any good works done with the money needed someone to over-see its use (especially when we are working locally and there is no agency that we can just write a big check to) we used existing committees to administer the additional funds. The bulk of the money went (and still goes) to Mission/Evangelism (M/E) and Christian Education which are certainly mission-minded.
Before the Flea-zaar, Mission/Evangelism was funded by whatever was the loose offering one Sunday a month (and that wasn’t much at all — a couple of hundred dollars a year.) Now, we have a robust M/E budget that enables us to respond to all kinds of local needs (refer to the annual report for details of what we do in any given year.)
Part of the budget which was dramatically increased be-cause of the Flea-zaar is the Pas-tor’s Contingency Fund which empowers our pastor to respond to local emergency needs espe-cially when privacy is an issue. That is true mission work! Christian Ed also benefits from an expanded budget thanks to the Flea-zaar so that we are able to put on a truly high quality Sunday School program and a VBS program that reaches far beyond the doors of our church. We don’t have to ask for money to fund it-- hoping to get enough
and we don’t have to charge admission (like some churches do, actually!) so all can come regardless of ability to pay.
By having the Flea-zaar revenue, we can boldly book professional talent to perform at our annual Evangelism Concert (open to the public at no charge) not having to worry if we will be able to cover the cost with donations. There are some gray areas where budgets were modestly increased (like Communication) to accommo-date the cost of advertising we do for VBS, Alpha courses –and the Flea-zaar itself.
It is very difficult to say where mission work stops when looking at a church because EV-ERYTHING we do is supposed to be for the mission of serving Jesus Christ. Be assured that FLPPC is being a good steward of the Flea-zaar money!
