Zucchini Bread

It wasn’t the best year for our garden, but we were bountifully blessed with lots of squash. 
This is one way I use prolific zucchini.

Ingredients
3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 tablespoons vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Instructions
Beat eggs until foamy.  Add oil, sugar, zucchini, and vanilla.  Mix well; sift flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and add to first mixture.  Mix well.  Add nuts.  Bake in greased loaf pans at 325 degrees F. for 1 hour or until done.  Makes 2 loaves.

– Provided by Cheryl Beck

Zucchini Bread

Click here to download a printable version.

-Provided by Cheryl Beck

Dining for Jackson to Aid United Christian Ministries

NEXT Tuesday, September 3

On Tuesday, September 3, at 11:30 a.m. in the Mission and Fellowship Center of Sylva First Baptist Church, Dining for Jackson will work to support United Christian Ministries. We hope you will come, bring a covered dish and learn more about this amazing organization. 

United Christian Ministries of Jackson County, Inc., was founded in 1989 by a consortium of local churches. The purpose of United Christian Ministries is to help the people with urgent physical, economic, social, or spiritual needs so that they can move toward relative independence. We provide a food pantry, personal items, and household items, as well as assistance with necessities (temporary shelter, utilities, heat, rent, medical copays) to residents of Jackson County. We collaborate with many local supportive agencies in order to help our neighbors. We are staffed by two employees and over 40 volunteers. 

We serve about 10,000 clients per year and distribute thousands of bags of food each year. The need for help has been growing each year. For example, in 2023 we gave out 152,000 pounds of food which is a three-fold increase from 2019 when we distributed 40,000 pounds of food. To illustrate how the needs have grown, in 2020 we gave out 70,000 pounds of food, in 2021 it was 76,000 pounds, and in 2022 we gave 128,000 pounds of food. The needs of our community have grown significantly! 

UCM is fully funded through the generosity of donors—churches, businesses, individuals, and grants. We receive donations of money as well as pantry items. Grantors include Jackson County, Dogwood Health Trust, Great Smokies Health Foundation, Nantahala Health Foundation, North Carolina Community Foundation, WNC Bridge Foundation, Rotary Club of Sylva, Church of the Good Shepherd (Cashiers), Food Lion Charitable Foundation, WNC Community Foundation, Balsam Mountain Trust, and more. 

Many local businesses, civic groups, and churches support UCM in two ways: with monetary support, and by collecting donations of items to give to clients, such as canned food, shampoo, etc. Additional funding comes from local businesses such as NAPA, Peoples Golf, and more. The support of our community is crucial to our success. 

So please open your heart and your wallet and help us give much needed support to United Christian Ministries. 

Hurray for Our Nursery Workers of the Week!

Many thanks to the Ellenburg family— Jeremy, Heather, Zoe, and Abby—
for filling the nursery with lots of fun on Sunday.  The little boys enjoyed having them there.  

On September 1, Dana Ayers will be in charge of the nursery. 
Thank you, Dana, for helping with our little ones!

GAs/RAs/Mission Friends to Begin on September 4

Our children in 1st Explorers and the children of the church who aren’t in the after school program have a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the work of missionaries around the world and how they can be missionaries right where they are. The groups will meet on Wednesdays when school is in session from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.  

Sandi Allen will again lead the GAs (Girls in Action) for 2nd through 5th graders. Beverly Duncan-Midgett is in her second year as Mission Friends leader for children kindergarten through 1st grade. Right now, we are without an RA leader. 

RA (Royal Ambassador) Leader Needed

Job Description: Would meet with the young men in grades two to six on Wednesday afternoons from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Work on character building, missions education, teamwork. Build in fun and active play, too! Requires someone with a love for children, has lots of patience, and likes having fun. Materials are provided by WMU. Start date: September 4. Please see Gaye Buchanan for more information. 

Invitation to Families & Children/Youth

(First Through Twelfth Grades and College)
Wednesday Evening, September 4 at 6:00 p.m.

We are looking forward to hiring a student ministry associate for our church to guide and support our children and youth. We invite you to an interactive session on Wednesday evening, September 4, at 6:00 p.m. in the MFC. The purpose of the meeting is to gain your input and feedback on what is needed/wanted in the student ministry associate role. 

We are planning to serve pizza at 6:00 p.m. Please let us know if you and family members will attend so we can be sure to have enough pizza on hand. Please send an email to Nancy McConnell at mcconnell_s@icloud.com with that info. Thank you!

Mission Moment 8.28.24

Hannah Turner 
Global Service Corps, North Carolina

This past year has brought to me a collection of simple, but radical truths. The more I grow, the more I reckon with the reality that I fall short, that I get distracted easily and that I can’t do everything right. Prayer for me has been a surrender that doesn’t always want to surrender. In the naked loneliness, I am met with the truth: “You are beloved,” says the One who orchestrates the rhythm of my breath. I have been coming to God, not always with something to say, but to just be with God. And that is hard. It is in this human natured resistance of wanting to work to be enough that the beautiful irony of the gospel is revealed to me. A perfect God would send God’s son to die for me. The more I sit with the realization that I always come empty-handed and wordless, whether I believe it or not, the more I crave to come back to that place. When you grip something, it creates tension and after a while you begin to ache and strain. It feels good to not hold anything. Besides, we need empty hands to be able to continue tending to God’s Kingdom on Earth. 

Recipes Appreciated!

Each week we include a recipe in the Church Chimes and we hope that you are enjoying reading and trying them. You can add your favorite recipes to the Chimes by sending them to Cheryl Beck at cabeck@ncsu.edu. This is an ongoing WMU project.

Thanks for participating!

Pastor Joe out of the Office

TODAY, Wednesday, August 28

Pastor Joe will not be in the office TODAY, Wednesday, August 28, as he will be attending an out-of-state funeral for his cousin. However, Janice will be in the church office from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Mission Moment 8.21.24

Meg Rooney
CBF Leadership Scholar, Georgia

African-American womanist novelist, short story writer, poet and social activist, Alice Walker is not a believer. She does not attend church. She doesn’t partake in any of the religious related practices that we hold dear. But she is a theologian and I have felt closer to God through her than anything I have encountered in my recent seminary classes. 

This semester, I decided to take an undergraduate course that met my passion for writing and rhetoric. It was within this class that I was assigned to read and write a rhetorical analysis on Walker’s Pulitzer-winning novel, The Color Purple. Of course, like any other seminary student, I was most intrigued by Walker’s depiction of and relationship with God. 

“Here’s the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it” (Walker, The Color Purple, p. 194). 

Walker presents a very spiritual, inclusive God that is with every person all of the time. She pursues an agape kind of love. Not too far from Christianity, is she? Regardless of who we are and what we do, God has made a home in us. God loves us in a way that we can’t understand and calls us to do the same to others. To love without reason. Sometimes it is easy to get wrapped up in the religious technicalities. We go so far in trying to make the church perfect that we lose the holiness of why we are gathered in the first place. 

As I continue to deconstruct and reconstruct my faith while in seminary, I am anchored to two truths: God is with me and loves me. This is the foundation upon which I will continue to build my faith. I hope it provides some comfort and relief knowing that you do not need to do anything to be worthy of God’s love and presence. It has already been given. We just have to receive it.

Pray...Give...Go.

Slow Cooker Beef Sandwiches Au Jus

Ingredients
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
3 pound eye of round roast
Swiss or Provolone cheese slices
Ciabatta rolls

Instructions
Whisk first 6 ingredients in a slow cooker large enough for roast.  Add roast and turn to coat with spice mixture.  Add one cup water and the bay leaf.  Cook on LOW for 5-7 hours, turning occasionally if possible.  At the end of cooking time, shred the meat.  Skim fat off remaining juice and strain the juice into ramekins.  Toast rolls lightly, top with beef and cheese.  Return to oven until cheese is melted.  Serve with juice.  

– Provided by Sarah Davis

Slow Cooker Beef Sandwiches Au Jus

Click here to download a printable version.

-Provided by Sarah Davis