BEYOND THE GREEN DOORS
The newsletter of the
Peterborough United Methodist Church
43 Concord Street, Peterborough, NH
September 2019
MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Weekly
Sun Worship Service 10a
Sun Adult Bible Study 11:30a
Mon Confidential Meeting 6-8p
Tue Office Hours 9-12
Wed Office Hours 9-12
Wed Choir Rehearsal 11a
Wed Life Groups 6:30p
Thu Office Hours 9-12
Sep 8 Free Community Breakfast 8a
Sep 10 Church/Ad Council meeting 6:30p
Sep 12 Supper Church Planning 6p
Sep 13 SPRC Meeting w/DS @West Rindge 7p
Sep 20 Open Mic Night 7p
Sep 22 Free Community Breakfast 8a
Sep 24 Newsletter submissions due
Sep 26 Supper Church Worship Service 6p
Sep 28 Men’s Monthly Breakfast 8a
Oct 1 UMW 12p
CHURCH FAMILY CELEBRATIONS
Birthdays:
Shannon Dunning Morris
Bob Johnson
David Ladeau
Jace Southwick
Membership Anniversaries:
Rosamond Hoffay
PRAYER CORNER
Prayer is not monologue but dialogue; God’s voice in response to mine is its most essential part. Listening to God’s voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine. —Andrew Murray
Lord, here is my Bible,
Here is this quiet room, here is this quiet time, and here am I.
Open my eyes; open my mind; open my heart; and speak.
“Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.” —1 Samuel 3:9
UNITED METHODIST WOMEN
The UMW will meet October 1st at 12:00 noon at the church. Bring a bag lunch.
Dessert and beverage will be provided. Christine Robidoux, our speaker, will be telling us about her work with Friends Forever International. We have met a couple of the young women she has brought here from Cypress so it will be interesting to learn about this special mission.
Susan Lindquist has been promoting our mission project of providing exit bags for women and children who have had to quickly leave a domestic violence situation. We will be making the drawstring bags and filling them with the needed items. The lists of needed items will be posted so that the whole congregation can help us. Watch for Susan’s information and updates!
Our Christmas meeting is December 3rd at 2 PM. If you would be able to host this meeting in your home, please let me know. Also, I would appreciate a volunteer to provide the dessert and beverage for the October meeting.
All women are invited to join us. See you October 1st for our first fall meeting.
Carol Owen
DID YOU NOT KNOW?? By Kathleene Card
Luke 2:41-52
41 Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
42 and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.
43 After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.
44 Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
45 but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions,
47 and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.
48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
49 And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
50 But they did not understand what he said to them.
51 He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
52 And Jesus advanced (in) wisdom and age and favor before God and man.
It is difficult, at times, to imagine that Mary and Joseph traveled for an entire day before missing their son, Jesus. The scripture gives us evidence that they “thought he was in their company” and when “they could not find him” among their relatives, “they went back.” Luke seems to want us to know that this is unusual, that the obedient son of Mary and Joseph, who is entering the first stages of adulthood, will not be content to stay wrapped in the safety of his immediate family.
So, this “pre-teenager,” who we have been told is both fully human and fully divine, is venturing into adult relationships in a way that “astonished” his mother. Jesus is displaying characteristics of pre-teens that we know well. They have a sense of curiosity that beckons them away from the familiar and into the unknown. Parents, on the other hand, cannot understand why children want to leave. I think we tend to overlook the ordinary move toward independence that Jesus may have been feeling and we go too quickly into his “divine knowing.” If we can stop long enough to examine the natural curiosity of the pre-adult, we can begin to connect more fully with our own adolescent children. We can be less “astonished” and more responsive. Mary’s initial response to her son accuses him of “treating” Joseph and her poorly and causing them “to search anxiously” for him. When Jesus corrects his mother and asks, “Did you not know?” her response is to “treasure all these things in her heart.”
If we believe that God’s intention for us and for our children is good, we can be less reactive and more proactive—especially within our churches. We are probably no more ready to have our children grow up and enter in difficult conversations than Mary and Joseph were. But the “hot” topics are out there, and our children are being challenged to “know” about things that need to be explained in ways they can understand. While no one has the wisdom of Jesus, all need to feel welcomed into God’s house. What is happening in your church community? Are the young people invited to “sit among the teachers listening to them and asking questions?” “Did you not know,” they need to feel welcomed? “Did you not know,” their questions can move our hearts into deeper understandings?
HOMECOMING PLANNING
Homecoming 2019 Planning will begin on September 4th @ 6:30 PM. Many hands make light work! There’s a church service to plan, music to consider, a potluck luncheon to plan for, decorations and such to dither over. Please consider coming to the meeting in the fellowship room to help get the ball rolling on this year’s event!
HOMECOMING AT PUMC
Head on back to the nest, that place where your spiritual life rested safe in a nest of caring folk, inspirational music, and meaningful activity.
Head on back to the PUMC Homecoming Service and Luncheon on Sunday, September 15th.
10 AM – Service and Sunday School
11:30 AM – 1 PM – Potluck Luncheon
Mark the Facebook Event as Interested or Going and Facebook will remind you! https://www.facebook.com/events/720211598424497/
PUMC BOOK GROUP
A way to share titles and discussion in a relaxed setting.
Want an easy-going chance to socialize and get to know each other around a book and a cup of tea or coffee? Check us out.
Not always Christian books, but we tend to read books that we can discuss in a somewhat spiritual way or that have a spiritual or social justice component to them, a moral question, a theme that can be looked at from several points of view, a story that makes one re-think history, etc.
EVERYONE is welcome!
Monthly meetings announced on Facebook, PUMC blog and website, and What’s Happenin’ emails.
Where the Crawdads Sing
PUMC Book Group has started back up! The September read will be Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens’ debut novel about the survival and intellectual and artistic awakening of a young North Carolina outcast. The death of a man in her community brings the world crashing in on her reclusive life and threatens her carefully crafted existence.
Crawdads has been wildly popular on the book group circuit.
We’ll get together on September 24th @ 1 PM to talk it up.
The group has been meeting around Ken and Charlene Schultz’s dining room table and its been a wonderfully comfortable and welcoming spot! If you’d like to join the group, let one of the book group members know and we’ll help you get a copy of the book, give directions to the Schultz home, or arrange for the monthly carpool from the church parking lot.
PUMC Book Group members are: Cindy Faust, Ken and Laura Constantine, Cassandra Cross, Ann Hampson, Ellen Derby, Carol Owen, Ken and Charlene Schultz, Kathleene Card, and Susan Lindquist. There’s room around the table!
SUMMER MUSIC SERIES
The Summer Music Series here at PUMC is winding down for the year. The worship team would like to thank everyone who helped, by referring names and talents to the worship team! Recapping, we have had fiddle player, Judy Terwilliger and and her cellist friend, Richard Wharton, classical guitarist, Andrew Wyndham, classical pianist, Vladimir Odinokikh, and folk duo, The Solar Sisters provide music over the course of five Sunday services. The music has been rich and has given us a different perspective. A couple of our groups have waived their fees and instead have asked that the church send their fee amount to charities that they support. The Sustainability Project in Gilsum, NH (Solar Sisters) and “Operation Christmas Child”/Samaritan’s Purse (Judy Terwilliger/Richard Wharton) have each received a donation from PUMC. If you would personally like to support these charities, check out their websites for ways to donate time or dollars.
The Sustainability Project – http://www.emersonbrookforest.org
HUNDRED NIGHTS TAILGATE DINNER
The next Hundred Nights Weekend Dinner will be coming up on Saturday, September 28th. Please consider helping to provide one home-cooked dish or some of the paper goods needed to feed the 30 or so guests at the Hundred Nights Drop-In Center weekend meal. Look for a sign-up sheet in the fellowship room at church. If you would like to come and help serve the meal, see Susan Lindquist. Many thanks!
BEYOND THE GREEN DOORS
Want to contact someone and don’t see their info listed? They should be in the church directory, or contact the church office at 924-4294 or email info@PeterboroughUMC.org and we’ll point you in the right direction.
Everyone is invited to contribute to the newsletter! Send in your thank yous, birthdays, photos, events, testimonials, prayer submissions…
Please submit all materials for the next newsletter (September) to our editors by the LAST TUESDAY, September 24. This is the newsletter that will be released October 1 and cover until Sunday November 3. Send to Melissa French at 924-4294 or email info@PeterboroughUMC.org, with the subject “Newsletter submission.” Thanks!
PETERBOROUGH UMC COMMUNICATIONS
In addition to “Beyond the Green Doors,” Peterborough UMC offers the following ways you can keep in touch.
We are at the church. Come visit us, Sunday at 10 am!
We are on the web: http://www.PeterboroughUMC.org
We are on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/peterboroughunitedmethodist/
This newsletter was compiled by Melissa French. Any concerns with content can be addressed with Reverend Card.