Sunday School News

We are so blessed in our church to have so many children as part of our family! They are such a precious and vital part of our congregation. We are missing several of our families, and know that schedules can make it difficult to make it to church consistently. Please know that you are always welcome, and if there is ever anything you would like to discuss, please let us know!

Your children are in wonderfully loving care during their time in Sunday school. We are blessed with dedicated and loving teachers. We hope you have had a chance to look at the leaflets that your children bring home each week, so that you can get a flavor of what they experienced, and ideas for continuing the conversation.

Advent is a wonderful time to incorporate spiritual rituals into your family's daily life. We will have crafts for them to do during coffee hour for the weeks of Advent: November 29 we will have supplies for making Advent Wreaths, on December 6 we will make paper chains, on December 13 we will make nativity scenes, and on December 20 we will make angel ornaments to give away. We are looking for parent volunteers to prep the supplies and assist the kids. Please let us know if you can help!

November 29 is Pledge Sunday. Special pledge cards will be given to the children during Sunday school, and their teachers will be exploring some ways that they can give to the church. If they are not present to turn in their pledge card on the 29th, they can put it in the offering plate the next time they are at church. The children will also be singing “Give me oil in my lamp” that morning in worship.

Please note that this year's Christmas Pageant will be on Sunday, December 13, during morning worship. Children and youth of all ages are encouraged to participate. Elementary school-aged children and younger will rehearse the Wednesday prior, from 3:00-4:30. This is an early dismissal day for the public schools. If your child(ren) will be needing a ride to church, please notify us by the prior Sunday.

Thanks to Denise Melton-Todd who hosted a fun movie and pizza night for the EHCC kids and their friends in the youth room. They had a great evening, and the parents who were able to get out for a couple of hours surely had a great evening as well! We would love to continue monthly Saturday early evening gatherings if we have enough parents who are able to rotate hosting. If you can help, please let us know!

Many blessings!

Pastor Emily

Welcome back to Sunday school!

This Summer has meant travel for many families, and we have missed you! We are really looking forward to seeing you and your children in church and Sunday school! We are kicking off an exciting year of Sunday school with a special brunch following worship on September 13. We hope everyone can make it! Our Sunday school teachers will be invited to come forward to receive a blessing during the service, and the kids preschool-fourth grade will be excused for Sunday school following Children's Time. Our nursery is open each week for our youngest children.

We have a couple of changes this year for the younger classes. The Curriculum we will be using for the preschool through fourth-graders is called Spark. Spark is designed with the understanding that kids have many different learning styles. It incorporates a variety of experiences, such as music, such as through stories, art projects, and interactive activities and games. Faith is explored using the Bible as the primary resource. Emphasis is put on faith formation, on children building a lifelong friendship with God and the Bible. Your children will be given a take-home sheet each week for you to explore as a family. Another change we are planning is for them to join the children in the nursery for a large group time of singing and storytelling before going into the classroom wing.

Our middle school class will be using Seasons of the Spirit curriculum as they have for the past few years. This Curriculum is a rich resource that connects youth to the Scripture text through the arts, discussion, and interactive activities. This class will meet in the Singer Room. Both Spark and Seasons are based on the Revised Common Lectionary, which means that the same theme is often used for both the worship service and Sunday school. Our Senior high class takes the form of a discussion group following the sermon. This class meets in Dee's office, and will be facilitated by an adult from the congregation.

We would love to have some additional volunteers for help with Sunday school, whether teaching or assisting in other supportive roles. Please contact me or Denise Melton-Todd if you are able to serve.

May God bless our teachers, children and their families. May we grow in faith and love together!

Gratitude

Lately it feels like parenting is squeezing every ounce of energy out of me. Parenting my two-year-old boy is stretching my patience to the outermost limit. What did I do before I had kids, I wonder? I know, I read for hours at a time. I could go grocery shopping whenever I wanted. I could SLEEP. Now I spend time cleaning up broken glass from the latest dish that my toddler has hurled from the table, or picking up toys over and over. I whine to my kids to please stop whining. Having some blessed time to myself this morning, I read one of the devotions that I have sent to my email inbox. This one was written by Martin B. Copenhaver, called "God does not like whiners," a meditation on Numbers 20:1-13. His words breathed thanksgiving into my whining soul:

One of the messages from this passage from the Book of Numbers is easily summarized: God does not like whiners. God had just led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt when they started whining about where they ended up, in a land where there was little vegetation and no visible source of water. In response, God told Moses to strike a rock and water poured out of it, but God was not too happy about it and said, in essence, “This group of whiners is never going to make it to the Promised Land.”

God doesn’t always expect us to be cheery. In fact, it is evident from scripture that God welcomes lament and even complaint as legitimate responses to the hardships of life. The difference is that whiners always find a way to whine, regardless of circumstances.

They tell a story in Vermont about a farmer who always moaned about his crop yields. Every harvest seemed to fall short. Then, one year, after a spectacular bumper crop, a fellow farmer said, “Well, even you will have to admit that this was a good year.” To which the whining farmer replied, “Yes, but terribly hard on the soil.”

Whiners always fine reason to whine. And those whose lives are marked by gratitude always find reason to give thanks. It is clear which kind of person God expects us to be.

The candles I set on the table yesterday are broken pieces today. I'm only awake right now because I have had my coffee. Yet I have these amazing kids that are such a gift. One is learning to read and the other is learning to be a friend. They are both trying to figure out who they are in the world. Aren't we all? Copenhaver ends his devotion with the following prayer. God, please hear my complaints when life is difficult, but, dear God, please don’t let me become a whiner. Instead, trace my heart with gratitude. Amen.

For more excellent daily devotions please visit http://i.ucc.org

Even as we Hope

I am really looking forward to the women's retreat of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ at the end of this month. I will be co-leading with another UCC minister, Tara Barber, and it will be held at Pilgrim Firs in Port Orchard. The title is Even as we Hope: Blooming in Uncertain Times. The title is from Psalm 33:20-22, which reads, "Our soul waits for God; God is our help and shield. Our heart is glad in God, because we trust in God's holy name. Let your steadfast love, O God, be upon us, even as we hope in you." We will have time to rest, walk in the woods, connect with other women and have fun. We'll also explore how to hold onto hope in an anxious time. We'll use poetry, origami, collage, meditation, music and movement to deepen our hope and faith in God. We will begin at 7:00 on Friday evening, February 27, and will close at noon on Sunday, March 1.

For more information and to register, please go to http://www.pilgrimfirs.org/Women.html