On Sunday, October 5th, from 2-4pm, the doors of the church will stand open, welcoming neighbors to stop in and see our beautiful building. Please join us for this chance to get to know our neighbors! Come as you are, and kids are welcome.
The Youth Group will be starting the year with a campaign small group. Edwin Uber has agreed to lead this group with assistance from other young adults. Know someone in grades 7 through 12 who might be interested? Contact Amos Glenn.
At our regular September meeting, the Executive Committed enacted several pieces of business. After opening the meeting with a reading from the Word and a prayer, the minutes from the July 2008 meeting was approved and the meeting’s agenda was finalized. We then spent the majority of our time hearing a report from Bob Glenn as Chairman of the Building Committee on the progress that committee has made recently and what the next steps are.
By the end of September, we should have an estimated cost for the basic scope of the work. In the Executive Committee’s regular October meeting, there will be a “Go/No Go” vote—the final decision to be made before a contract is approved. During this time, the Building Committee will be meeting to start making recommendations for refinements and finishes for the new construction. Architect David Freeman will finish construction drawings, get city permits, and collect bids from contractors. If all goes well, we should be able to accept one of the bids in November.
In other business, the committee authorized Bob Glenn as Head of Buildings and Grounds to spend up to $5,000 on various repairs needed on the roof. We also placed items on the agenda for our November meeting: a report from the Investments Subcommittee on changes in the church’s investment policy, and a proposal for a new fund raising policy.
The Pastor’s Council spent the majority of our September meeting on three topics: the Church Open House, the progress of preparations for the building addition, and possible changes to the Sunday worship booklets. Caroline talked to the council about her idea for hosting a simple open house at the church and the idea was well received. We discussed many possibilities for dates, time, refreshments, and other factors, but in the end decided that simpler was better. The council was more cautiously positive about making adjustments to the worship service to make the beginning of the service more child-friendly. We spent some time talking about the pros and cons of keeping and removing various pieces. The council will also review the new orders of service before they are used Sunday morning.
I’ve enjoyed delivering the recent series of sermons on our spiritual enemies represented by the enemies of the Children of Israel in the Old Testament. I heard a lot of good comments during and after the series and I appreciate all of them. We may get back to that series again sometime, but we’ve got a full calendar for a little while. Starting October 5, I’ll be delivering a series of sermons on the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount as part of our fall campaign. That will end on November 16, after which we’ll start a holiday season series.
In synch with the campaign, I will be using a new set of worship booklets. Part of the reason is the decaying state of our current booklets, but they will also feature a somewhat different order of service. The forms and atmospheres of the service will remain the same; this is not a contemporization of our service. But I believe that we can serve one important group of regular attendees better: our children.
Parents regularly comment on their children’s ability to stay focused through the fifteen or twenty minutes it takes to get from the beginning of the service through the children’s talk and the second hymn. My observations from the chancel confirm this. To address this, we’ll be shortening the opening sections of the regular worship service and rewriting other parts to be more child-friendly. I don’t think we’ll be leaving out any major portions of the service; some of you may not have even noticed that the service was changed. As always, I will appreciate any and all comments on how our community worship can best serve you.
Our General Church-wide spiritual growth campaign is almost underway. The theme this year is “Building Healthy Relationships.” We’ll be reading portions of the New Testament surrounding the Sermon on the Mount and learning how the Lord blesses us, and how we can become blessings to the people around us. As always, we are forming several groups to get together in homes around the community and talk about what we can learn from this part of the Lord’s Word.
On another front, the Executive Committee is moving into the final stages of preparations for the construction of an addition to the building. The agenda for the October meeting includes a presentation from the Building Committee. We’re planning to have all the information we need to make a final decision about going forward with the project. If the vote is in favor, we hope to be able to sign a contract in early November. With our Middle School classroom bursting at the seams, we are hoping to occupy the new room in July 2009.
Before the October 8 Executive Committee meeting, the Building Committee will be displaying drawings and other information in the front hall of the church. We’ll be keeping that information station updated throughout the process from that point on. Please take a look to find out more about what’s happening.
Our regional pastor, Lawson Smith (pastor of the Kempton New Church) will be visiting Pittsburgh over the weekend of October 18-19 for my annual evaluation. Anyone who would like to meet with Lawson should contact him directly. The Pastor’s Council and the Executive Committee will be meeting with Lawson on Saturday afternoon. I will be preaching on Sunday, October 19 since that is one of the fall campaign weekends and so Lawson can hear one of my sermons.
