Looking Back on the Decade- 2006

2006

The year began with joint worship services between the Central and First Baptist Churches. We met for eight weeks in January and February alternating back and forth between the churches every two weeks. It was a lot of fun. The highlight of the services was the thirty voice combined choir. During the year we met with ABCCONN Associate Executive Minister Linda Snyder and talked about our ministry and what each church was doing. In the Fall we voted to worship with them again in 2007.

In February we began a new ministry. We started serving lunch for the hungry once a month at St. Mark's Lutheran Church. We averaged 50 -60 people each time. We also welcomed Daniel Martino and members of the Buenas Nuevas Hispanic Church into our building. They began meeting on April 1st at 4:00 p.m. In August Pastor Jorge Morales was called as their first pastor. Now we have our services at 10:30 a.m. The Korean Church meets at 12:30 p.m. and the Hispanic Church meets at 4:00 p.m. On Sundays our church is a place of worship nearly all day long now.

Kay Lautzenheiser left us in May and we called Amy Hollis, a student at Andover Newton Theological School, to serve us as a Student Minister in September. She began working with our Sunday School and Youth Groups. She also preached for us and helped lead worship. Her enthusiasm was contagious. Our basketball program expanded and we had four teams in the league. James Brown, Julio Sanchez, Leonard Miller, Jim Volpe and Jack Greenwood were our coaches. Our kids took lots of field trips this year but the highlight of the year was our trip to the Basketball Hall of Fame. We invited the kids from our youth group and the kids from our basketball program. We also received a beautiful display case from Doris Regets for all our sports trophies.

We celebrated Pentecost with a special service in which we read the scriptures in five languages and enjoyed a duet by Helen and Daniel Song. It was just one of many special services during the year. Because these services tended to run long, we officially changed the time of our weekly service to one hour and fifteen minutes on regular Sundays and an hour and a half on Communion Sundays going forward. We also received the gift of a beautiful new grand piano in memory of Len and Doris Royce by their family. It was played in our sanctuary for the first time at Easter. We added a set of pipes to the organ in August with a memorial gift from Dave Jordan.

We welcomed two new members in 2006. Mark Rogers and Margaret McFalls were both baptized. We said good bye to long time members Doris Royce and Janet Furbush. Doris was at the center of church life for many, many years. She was the smiling face so many of us saw when we entered the sanctuary. We also lost to death Paul Bray and Dorothy Lawson, two former members of the church. We sent out letters of transfer for Sean and Jackie Jones, Cheryl LaMothe and Harry and Betty Eisan. Bill Maynard and Lisa Valentine, Joanne Clubine and Francis Paulsen and Amy Brockway and Matthew Meyer were all married in 2006.

I traveled to Germany and Austria in the Fall and continued my weekly articles in the Norwich Bulletin. I also began my year as President of the American Baptist Churches of Connecticut. Our choir sang during the installation ceremony during the ABCCONN Annual Meeting and our Praise Team provided special music for the day. In the Fall I also began serving as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Pierce Memorial Baptist Home. At church Bob Walker became chair of the Reception Committee, June Pendleton became chair of the Flower Committee, Mark Kane the chair of the Budget Committee. We had pledges of $97,990 and took in a total of $190,550 for the year. Finances were in very good shape.

2006 was a very good year.