December 2022
AGreetings church, from your servant leader, Bro. Don VanVoorhis. We have had some great and joyous moments in November. We have completed another successful Bazaar, had a great community Veteran’s Celebration and community Thanksgiving Service. We will have been blessed with a great “Hanging of the Green” and hopefully the Spirit of the season will have permeated us all, through Christ.
A Church Conference for Somerville First UMC has been scheduled on Sunday January 8, 2023, at 2:00 pm. There will be more information about this as we get closer to that date. The only business of this meeting will be to vote on the “disaffiliation” question. Every member is invited and will receive a letter from the District Office between now and then with an explanation of the meeting and a sample ballot. Be sure to save the date and time.
This is a busy time for our church. The kids have decorated a tree for the “Festival of Trees”, displayed at the 360 Church in their education building. We have gathered toys for Fayette Cares, and filled 98 shoeboxes for Samaritan Purse. (See more about all of this further down in the newsletter.)
We hosted this year’s Community Thanksgiving Service which was a wonderful event. We heard some great preaching from Brother Ken Culver and took up an offering for Fayette Cares that amounted to over $600. It was great worshiping and thanking God as a community for all that we have received and continue to receive. May we never lose sight of the fact that we are called to share from those many blessings. As Brother Culver said we are certainly blessed by and through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As I write this note to you there have been other senseless shootings. One of them in a Walmart in Virginia. Friends, our country continues to suffer from our attempt to turn away from God and all that is good. The answer to all of this is to return to God with not only our personal lives but as communities and countries we must recognize that there is a higher power. There are moral rights and wrongs and only by a reemphasis in this fact will peace be restored. This must begin one person at a time, may it start here at Somerville First UMC.
May God’s grace and peace continually be with you, now, throughout the holiday season and into God’s forever!
Bro Don VanVoorhis
