With a new year comes a new schedule for nursery workers. We appreciate all those who helped last year. A new schedule is being devised and will be sent out soon.
If you would like to volunteer in the nursery during worship service or Sunday School, please contact Cheryl Beck.
United Christian Ministries is in need of pasta sauce, ramen, pancake syrup, applesauce (6-pack individual cups), and laundry detergent. To donate items, please drop them off at UCM’s building at 191 Skyland Drive. Thank you!
“Hibernation” was the theme for 1st Explorers last week. Rob Hawk, County Extension Director with NC Cooperative Extension, visited on Tuesday and took the children on a bird watching tour around the church campus. He installed 2 bird feeders and talked about the types of bird feed for different birds.
Curtis Collins with the Health Department shared the benefits of children and adults slowing down, relaxing, having a consistent nighttime routine, and getting plenty of sleep each night for healthy minds and bodies.
Chapel devotions centered around this topic also.
The children enjoyed some new items in the 1st Explorers room including a puzzle and STEM kit. The hyacinth bulb experiment provided by Diane and Charlie White concluded last week. The staff and students enjoyed watching the flowers grow and the fragrance was amazing!! Several of the staff and students took them home to plant.
(Left) Makai Allen loves the new puzzle of the United States; (Right) Damon Krenek spends a lot of time with the new science and technology (STEM) kit.
Click HERE to view the spring youth newsletter!
In a Slovak Baptist context, anything which hints of Catholicism seems dubious. The fear of the straw man of liturgy, sadly, robs the church of countless historical riches. We are faithful in attending a local church as much as our travels allow. Too often though, much of the rhetoric of worship includes refrains of how “we are not like them.”
Several years ago, during what St. John of the Cross refers to as a “darkness of the soul,” I found that I desperately longed for a structure—handles by which I could know that I was not being tossed about or abandoned. Was this darkness depression? Perhaps. Was it incapacitating? Definitely. Although I could never let that worry show— reports have deadlines, sermons must be written, meetings must be attended. Worship should have been a balm for my weary soul. It was then, when I was already weak, that the rhetoric against “them” battered me. I found myself repeating the model prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, again and again during worship both as an act of liturgical defiance and spiritual desperation.
Because I have the privilege of also leading various congregations—both majority Slovak and Roma—I began my own campaign to include the Lord’s Prayer in corporate worship. As I shared my experience through my sermons, I confessed that in dark times sometimes the soul finds solace in structure or order, in liturgy. Like Jeremiah writing his lament or many of the psalmists who depended on the structure afforded them by the Hebrew alphabet, the structure of the Lord’s Prayer became for me a way to not fall apart, to not fall away. Embracing and sharing my journey with those I serve here has been freeing. Most of all, it is the healing balm of humility and hope found in the prayer that begins, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”
Pray. . .Give. . .Go.
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!
Thank you to Ally Lima and Jan Snotherly, 1st Explorers staff members, for working in the nursery during Sunday School and worship last week. We appreciate your assistance!
On February 12, Melanie Joiner has charge of the nursery.
Thank you, Melanie!
There is still room on the schedule to serve “the least of these”
on Sunday mornings. It is a blessing to see their smiles and enthusiasm as you spend
time with our infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
Please contact Cheryl Beck (cabeck@ncsu.edu) if you would like to help.
FBC’s Ash Wednesday service will be held on Wednesday, February 22 at 5:30 p.m. in the sanctuary.
The Fellas youth guys will meet February 12 after church to grab a fast-food lunch (bring up to $10) followed by an outdoor activity together.