Nov 2014 Newsletter
The First Congregational Church of Leicester
November 2014 Issue
Strawberry Hill Fair
November 8 from 9-2 pm
Help Needed – Sign-Up Today
The final push is on and we will need all kinds of help setting up on Friday and in so many areas on Saturday. There is a sign-up sheet in Russell Hall outlining s
pecific tasks, so please take a look and see what block of time you might be able to give to an area. If you won’t be at the church before the fair, but would like to help out, please contact Marie Frascolla at 508-892-0038 and let her know when / how you can help. Here is a reminder of the areas that need coverage: Kitchen / Cafe, Farmer’s Market, Baked Goods, Holiday Decorations, Silent Auction, Busy Fingers, 
Tickets for Gift Baskets, Toys and Games. We need people to staff these tables and to provide breaks to others staffing them. We need helpers in the cafe. If you have items to donate, please contact Judy Ivel. Speak to Marie Frascolla about Gift Basket items. See you there!
Silent Auction: Please get items to the church by Sunday, November 2.
Church Fair Raffles: For those of you who took solicitation letters for the raffle table to various businesses, please turn in all donations to Judy Ivel as soon as you can. We wa
nt to cross those completed off the list and be ready to hand it all over to Sue Morowski in plenty of time for her to be organized for Fair Day. Thanks a bunch.
Farmer’s Market: Donations of jams, jellies, and winter-keeping vegetables are much appreciated. And let us help you out by taking out of your house (and tummies) all that leftover Halloween candy.
All donations for Holiday Decorations, Toys, Sewing and Knitting must be in by Friday, November 7. Baked goods can be brought in the day of the Fair. Please make sure all donations are in good condition.
Advent readers needed
The first Sunday in Advent is November 30. Each Sunday during Advent we light a candle in the Advent wreath and reflect on a particular theme. I am looking for volunteers for each of the 4 weeks of Advent to come forward as a family, individual, or friends to light the candle and say a few words about a particular theme. I warn you that it involves more than reading something pre-written, but I am excited to work with you in adding your own thoughts – a few sentences – to the ritual. Participants will be given a book of Advent devotionals by the Still Speaking writers to share (1 book for each week). Please contact me, Pastor Doreen, if you are interested.
Are You Ready To Be Challenged?
Last year it was green beans and canned hams. This year it is Chef Boyardee canned pasta. It’s needed to fill Thanksgiving baskets at the food bank. There are 150 families who are counting on us to meet the challenge. We have until Sunday November 16th to achieve our goal. Let’s all work together to fill the baskets and put the giving in THANKSGIVING!
Anyone who would like to would like me to purchase the pasta for them, just send a check made out to the church with “food challenge” on the memo and I will gladly purchase them for you. The cost of this item is usually under a dollar. Thank you for your help. WE CAN DO IT!
Christmas on the Common: December 6th
Tree Lighting: 6-6:30p.m. followed by a free Christmas Concert at 7p.m. here in our sanctuary.
The program will be “HOPE of the BROKEN WORLD” A Christmas Musical presented by the Christian Community Choir. Churches represented in the choir are: East Brookfield Baptist Church, Brookfield Congregational Church, First Congregational Churches of Leicester & North Brookfield & Spencer, Lowell Assembly of God, Mary Queen of the Rosary, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, St Anne’s & St. John the Baptist Catholic Churches & The First United Methodist Church of Spencer. A collation will follow the performance provided by the Women’s Association. Please contact Judy Ivel, Cindy Lapointe or Marie Frascolla to sign up to bake, work or contribute in any way.
*********************************
A Note From the Pastor
Grace and peace to you, my friends. In the rapidly approaching season of Thanksgiving, I want to express my gratitude to you, each and all of you who support the church with your prayers, with your time, with your financial gifts and with your presence. As you get busier and busier with holiday preparations, may God gently nudge you to take a breath, to take a moment, to remember that your value to God is not based on what you accomplish or what you give. Remember that God loves you because God is love, and you are part of that love – yours for the taking. I hope that you receive it with joy and share it with abandon.
There is a term used in the art world – pentimento – which refers to a painting which was altered by the artist. You can tell because there are traces of the original composition that show through the finished piece. There might be the faint lines of a hand or head in a different placement, or an object that was reconsidered and painted over. The word is Italian for “repentence.” This idea struck a chord for me when I first heard it, and I’ve been trying to fit it into a sermon since then, without success. But for this note, I think it works.
I have a character trait of which I have “repented,” but which continues to show traces of itself in the work of my living. We may all have something like that – an attitude or behavior we have worked to change, but that still crops up, and still faintly influences how we see the world and ourselves. They might be knee-jerk reactions that we seek to rein in immediately, or they may be subtle habits of thought that we barely notice, but that are leading us to a place we no longer wish to go. For me that trait is defensiveness. I choose to be, and often am, a person who is open to feedback, who does not expect herself to be perfect, who recognizes that others have insights and brilliant ideas that are better than mine or complement mine. But then sometimes this trait that I once thought might serve me shows through. I detect traces of resentment to feedback, or insecurity about my abilities, skills and worth in the face of it. I bumped up against this pentimento when the Pastoral Relations Committee decided to do a survey of opinion regarding my use of the newsletter to explore what I consider to be justice issues. My immediate reaction was to defend myself and to resent those who expressed discomfort with the series of articles. But I quickly remembered that I have changed my mind about those reactions, decided that they are not to be part of the work of my life. I can’t deny they are there, and have left their mark, but they are not the big picture.
I consider this survey to be a gift and a blessing in my ministry and in my life. As I write this, the Pastoral Relations Committee has not looked at them, so I do not know the results. And regardless of the results, I am thankful to the PRC for providing me the chance to hear from you, and you the chance to share your thoughts. It is another opportunity to live into a vision of the community I hope we can be – loving and respectful through differences. This was my intention with the justice series – to share about topics where differences of opinion were likely, and demonstrate that respectful – even loving – dialogue was possible. My fear about the survey was similar to the fear of starting the newsletter series – that disagreement would lead to conflict, which would break down a sense of community. What gave me the courage to go ahead with the series was the belief that true community is not built by avoiding disagreement, but by working through it. I believed it when I did the justice series, and I believe it now, as we wrestle with questions about the role of the church in society, the role of the pastor in a church, and our practices of serving God, church and community.
Dr. M. Scott Peck, a spiritual psychologist and writer, wrote about building community. According to him, any group of strangers coming together to create a community goes through four distinct and predictable phases. And though the congregation of FCC has been a community for many decades, each time there is a new pastor or a significant shift in membership and focus, it is, in a way, a new community. Between the turnover in pastors and the significant decline in membership, attendance and participation, we are, in many ways, starting anew, if not today, then surely in the past few years. The four stages are pseudocommunity (getting along, conflict avoidance), chaos (differences surface and there is struggle to cope with them), emptiness (letting go of the need to “have it all together”), and true community (embracing not only the light but the shadows, truly joyful and realistic, peaceful). To reach the point of true community, we must go through periods of chaos and emptiness. I believe churches, if they are to serve the living God effectively, must be true and deep communities.
We have been through a lot of changes. We are worried about our future. It is tempting to look for people or situations to blame. But the cause of our decline in numbers is very complex, with a number of factors. It is not about some people’s questions, or one pastor’s experiment. I am quite certain that judging someone who sees things differently than you do is not going to build up this body of Christ, not in numbers and not in spirit. So let us look inward for our own pentimeni, those things about us as individuals and as a community that do not truly portray the vision we have of ourselves as the Body of Christ. Let us forgive ourselves and each other and move forward. Let us honor each others questions and doubts and even the chaos they produce. Let us support and encourage one another to enter into the emptiness of not knowing what will happen to FCC in the future. In that way we open to the blessings of true community. And let us all remember that I am here to serve God and ALL of you – those who loved the justice series and those who hated it, those who believe politics and church don’t mix, and those who can’t see the point of one without the other. I pray you all find room in your hearts for everyone here, to love not just in spite of our differences, but honoring them as bringing more wholeness to the body. May it be so.
*********************************
Women’s Association:
November 5 at 12:00 noon
The Woman’s Association meeting will be held at the church. After a brief meeting we will be setting up for the fair. Please bring with you any finished products you have for the fair. Only baked goods will be accepted the day of the fair. Pizza & dessert will be provided. Please bring an ornament for the tree – handmade, new, heirloom, whatever – as long as it is in good condition.
December 3
We will attend the Holiday Brown Bag Concert at Mechanics Hall in Worcester. We have 3 tables of 8 reserved on the floor. Performing will be the New England Conservatory Symphonic Winds & Concert Choir. The concert is free. Lunch is being arranged by Judy Ivel and costs $5.00 – please bring your own drink though. We understand that drinks are available for purchase at the back of the hall if you forget. Make your reservation and pay Judy as soon as possible.(508-892-3321) We will car pool from the Church parking lot leaving at 11a.m. that day. Concert begins at 12 noon sharp. It may be possible to bring a guest – last year we had 3 fellas fill in for last minute cancellations. All guests will pay the same fee.
Collector’s Report
Loose Offerings Envelopes/Pledges Special-NIN Totals
09-28 $ 115.51 $ 673.00 $ 788.51
10-05 $ 23.00 $1,248.00 $1,271.00
10-12 $ 29.00 $ 248.00 $ 10.00 $ 287.00
10-19 $ 82.00 $ 743.00 $ 825.00
10-26 $ 57.00 $ 458.00 $ 60.00 $ 575.00
Totals $ 306.51 $3,370.00 $ 70.00 $3,746.51
In Our Prayers
Never underestimate the power of prayer. You are invited, as you read this, to add your prayers for those listed. Take a moment to breathe in God’s Spirit, and channel your good will and hopes to each person or situation named. You might imagine them surrounded by a healing light, or held in God’s hand. May this simple practice fill you with peace and hope.
− For Quentin’s cousin Jim, who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
− For Marie, who’s 101 years old and ready to be released to God. May she feel the peace that comes from knowing Him.
− For Anna, as she confronts a health crisis.
− For all who need comforting and healing in these uncertain times.
− Scott Jubinville, a medic in the US Army leaving 10/27 for deployment to Afghanistan. Please pray for his safety, as well as the safety of other US service members deployed abroad, and that Scott keep a sound spirit and mind during a time that could be very difficult for a young man.
− For Lynn, a close friend of Pam Jubinville, who is recovering from thyroid cancer, and for Lynn’s daughter Rachel who has been struggling with devastating symptoms of Lyme disease for over a year.
− For Beth, Pam’s step-mother still grieving the death of her husband / Pam’s father, who passed last year.
− For Richard Cook, who will be having ankle surgery/reconstruction on Oct. 28th, prayers for a complete recovery.
