Please enjoy our newsletter from March – April 2014.
Beyond the Green Doors – March/April 2014 Newsletter
Beyond the Green Doors
The newsletter of the Peterborough United Methodist Church
March – April 2014
WE ARE A CARING, DEPENDABLE FAMILY IN CHRIST, SHARING GOD’S LOVE WHILE SEEKING SPIRITUAL GROWTH.
Spread the good news!
Mark Your Calendars:
March 4th : Prayer Shawl Ministry (1PM)
March 5th : Ash Wednesday Service (7PM)
April 7th: UMW (Place to be determined)
April 13th : Palm Sunday Service (10AM)
April 17th : Maundy Thursday (7PM)
April 18th : Good Friday (Noon)
April 20th : Easter! He Is Risen! (10AM)
A MESSAGE FROM PASTOR LOUREY SAVICK:
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
It is so good to be back with you after traveling in the Holy Land! What a blessing to see with my own eyes where Jesus healed, preached the sermon on the mount, prayed in agony, and awaited his sentence, just as we begin our Lenten journey together. This story is real and alive to me now in a new way–I hope that I can share this feeling with you in the coming weeks, and that you will experience this pilgrimage for yourselves one day.
Lent comes to us in a season of slowly increasing light, while the world is still cold and hard. In Israel, the shrubs and grasses have receded to reveal the stony ground. Soon, our landscape and theirs will flower and burst open with new life, and we will have so much to see and do. We will be free from our houses, free for all kinds of activity and distraction. Until then, let us fill the long hours by the stove with thinking, study, and prayer. While we have ears to listen, let us wonder, sitting at the feet of Jesus, practicing patterns of devotion, and building our strength as servants of God.
I would like to introduce you to a resource for discipleship. The Jesus Creed is a group of materials digging deep into the meaning and consequences of loving God with everything you’ve got, and loving your neighbor as yourself. Though this sounds like a short statement, and a simple commandment, Lent gives us the gift of time to reexamine our assumptions, and focus on putting into practice the basics of our shared faith. The forty-day devotional will be my companion this season, and I invite you to join me in this daily practice. Copies can be ordered through the church office by emailing me, and the original Jesus Creed book and DVD will be available through the church library.
As my fellow travelers and I wandered down the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane, we took in the sight of thousands of graves crammed together on the steep hillside. All facing the same direction, piled so closely they resembled crowds along a parade route, they gave me a strong feeling of eagerness and anticipation. I heard in my mind the words of that old song, “I want to be ready, I want to be ready… to walk in Jerusalem just like John.” This season, let’s get ready together.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Lourey
SUNDAY SCHOOL HELPERS
Sunday School for children is now during the worship hour. Assistance is needed and appreciated so that more than one adult can be present with the children’s group. Are you willing to serve, either alternating with others on a regular basis, or as backup when needed? Curriculum provides activities and materials, and Laura Nerz is organizing and leading the classes. Please speak to Laura if you can help.
The Mission Tree
The Mission Tree focus for the month of March is the Annual Mission Trips. The goal is to raise about $250 to defray the cost of travel and living expenses for anyone traveling out of town to participate in a mission project.
MISSION MOMENT
In March, Missions will present an UMCOR global outreach project. The project is UMCOR’s Relief Supply Kits in which buckets are filled (by us) with specific items and then sent to UMCOR who sends them out globally. We want to start small and perhaps lead to leadership in the community for an ongoing project. We are considering the Cleaning buckets and the Hygiene buckets. Please visit the UMCOR site http://www.umcor.org/UMCOR/Relief-Supplies to learn more. This project developed with the desire to provide outreach to the Philippines after their disaster. UMCOR sends these buckets to all areas needing of relief including the US. Recently West Virginia was sent buckets because of the water disaster. Look forward to more information regarding this project as plan develops and we receive feed back from the church family. More specific plans will be presented at the March church council meeting.
Pastor Lourey’s Office Hours
Did you know you can reach Pastor Lourey any time by calling 603-892-3682? If you would like an in-person visit, all you need to do is call! Most often, Pastor Lourey is around town on Sundays and Thursdays, but an appointment can be scheduled for any day of the week.
Prayer Shawl Ministry
The next two gatherings of the prayer shawl ministry will be Tuesday March 4th at 1PM and Tuesday April 1st at 1PM. Both gatherings will be at the church. These have been wonderful times of fellowship with about 8 regular participants. Please call Barb MacInnes with questions. She can be reached at 603-924-1952
.
GIFTS TO THE CONGREGATION
PUMC has received some gifts from friends of the congregation. At the start of the year, Jill Middlecamp gave us a box of new, wrinkle resistant, off-white tablecloths suitable for memorial dinners and other events. After her visit in January (with her son Cillian), Dao Middlecamp donated a gently used Pack ‘n’ Play convertible playpen for use with babies and toddlers. And Bates Wilder, a friend from MA, hand-made us a Christmas present of a birdhouse from reclaimed wood, in the shape of a church. Many thanks to these friends for their generosity and sign of love to our community. It is good to remember all the loving hearts behind our daily life as a congregation.
Finance Secretary Report
as of February 16, 2014
We are at 13.2% of the year and have received 11.8% toward our budget of $72,775 or $8,577. We have received 13.7% of the pledges or $4,946. The software evaluation process has been completed and we have purchased a package entitled DONARIUS. Implementation is going smoothly and the 2014 Finance Secretary records are being completed using Donarius. There will be more information as we move forward with the implementation. Please feel free to talk to Ken Schultz if you have questions.
Watch for Easter Lily Order Forms
Order forms for Easter Lily’s are available at the church or by emailing
. Orders are due by April 6th.
United Methodist Women
The April meeting of the United Methodist Women will be held on Monday April 7th. Phyllis Porter will present the book Killing Jesus: A History by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. Place to be determined, please stay tuned! For questions, please speak to Barb MacInnes or Karen Keenan.
Board of Trustees
We are pleased to welcome three new members to the board of trustees: Bill Owen, Patrick Troy and Greg Nerz (who stepped right in to take over the treasurer’s role on the board). It should be noted that each of these individuals volunteered when the call went out, versus being nominated into duty.
The reason we have these new members is that three previous members had their terms expire: Carol Owen, Dwight Williams and Bob Johnson (who served as our treasurer for countless number of years). Please join me in expressing our sincere appreciation for all that they have done for our church, on or off the board, and thank them the next time you see them.
And filling out the rest of the current board are; Wendy Dunning, Mark Welty, Ron Crowe, along with the re-‐elected officers; Pat Woodward – secretary, Steve Gatcombe – vice chairman, and me!
Thank you to all the trustees, past and present, for your dedicated service.
Our work has continued as you hopefully have seen and many have already commented upon. We had the tin ceiling in the sanctuary painted a new bright white in January. It made such a difference that it accentuated how badly the walls looked! So we took advantage of available funding and the painters’ schedule to have the walls painted in February. We were very pleased with the efforts of the painters to clean up any evidence each weekend so our worship services were not disrupted (although unfortunately it meant some parishioners were not able to be in church due to the lingering new paint odors).
Painting of the pews, woodwork and floor are next on the priority list, but we are not planning to tackle those until summer when we can open windows, and possibly coordinate an outdoor service.
Finally, we added the capability of making audio recordings of our weekly messages and they are being posted on our web site for the enjoyment of those who miss a service or otherwise can’t come. Check them out at: www.peterboroughumc.org/Worship.
We are looking for one or two volunteers who would be willing to share in the responsibility for making sure the services are recorded each week. Complete training is provided – no prior experience is necessary (it is really very easy). Please see me if you can help.
Submitted by: Matt Keenan – Chairman
www.peterboroughumc.org
Over the last six months, work has been ongoing on the church email structure and website. Our church email,
is now active and being monitored several times a week by Karen Keenan. This email is also now being used to generate our weekly “What’s Happening at PUMC?” emails, which we hope you have been receiving (if you use email and wish to receive these emails, but have not been receiving them, please talk with Karen).
The website has received a facelift with new text and pictures, please check it out! As Matt noted in the Trustees Report, sermons are now being posted on the website, but help is needed in order for this to continue consistently. Please see Matt for a brief tutorial on recording the sermons.
Additionally, the weekly bulletin is posted to the website. Karen aims to have this uploaded either Wednesday or Thursday evenings.
The one area that we are not currently keeping up to date is the calendar section. This would require a different level of commitment to the website, so we need your input as to whether it will be used for the amount of work it would take to keep this up to date. Please let us know!
As all of this represents all of us at PUMC, your input is needed. You may talk with either Pastor Lourey or Karen about any input, comments or concerns you may have.
A last note of request: Karen is looking for someone to help do the mailing of approximately 20 newsletter every other month. Please talk with Karen if you can do this step of the newsletter process.
This newsletter is compiled by Karen Keenan. Any concerns with content can be addressed with Karen or with Pastor Lourey.