A new advocate for the hungry

My daughter, Rachel, is competing in Miss Connecticut's Outstanding Teen Pageant this summer as Miss Norwich's Outstanding Teen and her area of concern is feeding the hungry. So she came to me to ask if she can get involved in some of our efforts and take a leadership role.

She immediately took on the role of co-chair of our CROP Walk committee with George Strouse and she passed out sponsor forms to walkers. She is also working on a basket to receive food for our Pantry at church. She will be reminding us to bring in non-perishables on the third Sunday of each month and then sort them out and stock the shelves. Her third area of involvement at church will be at the Interfaith Luncheon. She will be serving and getting some of her friends to help as well.

So look for Rachel to keep you updated on what is needed at church in our efforts to feed the hungry.

Cal

A faith filled worship service

You could feel the Holy Spirit moving through the sanctuary. As the music played, the people swayed and the Pastor spoke there was a sense that we were standing on hallowed ground. I wish more people from our congregation could have been there to experience it. Of course there weren't too many empty seats. With an Easter type crowd of over two hundred people on hand, Iglesia Buenas Nuevas celebrated their second anniversary.

The congregation began on April 1, 2006 with Pastor Daniel Martino of Primera Iglesia Hispana de New London blessing the church and claiming it as a sacred space for the new congregation. That was a great day with over sixty people present. In June of 2006 the congregation called Pastor Jorge Morales to lead them and he was installed in October of 2006. Last April the congregation celebrated their 1st anniersary and it was a nice day. In this last year the congregation has grown and now averages around eighty people each week.

A lot of us think of Buenas Nuevas as using space at the church and don't really make the connection as to what God is doing. During the service tonight they played a slide show showing some of the activities and events that took place over the last year and a half. I was moved to tears as I saw the photos of families, of an active youth ministry, of a pot-luck suppers and Christmas programs. This is church that is alive and bringing people to Christ week after week.

I thank God that he is allowing us to be a part of this ministry. This week a group from our congregation is traveling across the country to reach out to a community in Mexico with God's love. It struck me that week after week that same thing happens in our building through the members of Buenas Nuevas. This congregation is "good news" for Norwich.

Tonight the Pastor and Deacons of the congregation thanked me for allowing them to do ministry out of our building. I thank you for your generosity in making this building available for God to use in this way. Every single week there are now three languages spoken at 239 West West Main Street. A whole generation of young families are learning about the love of God and the salvation offered through Jesus Christ in English, Korean and Spanish. If you ever have the opportunity I hope you can stop in to worship with these two vital and growing congregations. And you don't need to know the language in order to feel the power of the Holy Spirit.

Here a few pictures from today's anniversary service.

Cal

A night of hoop fun

I am sore today. Last night we wrapped up our 2007-08 Basketball Outreach ministry with a Coaches/Parents vs. Kids basketball game. Yes. I played. I even scored a basket. I am paying for it today. If you look at the first few photos you may see me. I am the one that is always a little (chubby) blurry because I am on the move.

We had a great time and I think although the kids wanted to win, they gained new respect for their coaches and dads. We met at Bishop School and played for about an hour and then came back to church for pizza and soda. I handed out booklets with a lot of photos of the kids and gave them a short devotion and led them in prayer.

I've included some pictures from last night's action. Enjoy.

Cal.

PS This song made me think of how God loves us and that is why we have this special ministry to kids.

Next year we will be looking for more involvement from the congregation. This year we had a number of people stop in to pray with the kids and share their testimonies. We will build on it next season. So stay tuned.

Learning together

C. S. Lewis was a deep thinker. He really thought about his faith and what it meant to be a Christian. I don't think many of us do that nowadays. We go to church. We have a nominal understanding of Scripture and tradition and we are off. We let the culture tell us what to believe and often decide that what seems good is probably what God would want us to do.

At the Bible Study tonight we talked about forgiveness and what it means to love our neighbor as ourself. It was a great discussion. We also affirmed that we grow in faith when we are able to talk about it with people who are like minded. Everyone should be in a Bible study of some sort if they want to develop a vital faith.

This study of C S Lewis is good and newcomers are always welcome. The group meets at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday nights at the home of Steve and Patricia Ohlund.

Cal

Next week we will be in Mexico

I can't believe that we are one week away from our mission trip. By this time next week there will be a plane heading to San Diego with fourteen of us aboard. The team includes the following people: Carol Calkins, June Deptulski, Amanda Duntz, Sharon Fishkin, Nancy Janco, Connie Jensen, Mark D. Kane, Mark A. Kane, Lisa Lapointe, Cal Lord, Michelle Madesen-Bibeau, George Rezendes, Merlynda Sol and Carol Wojcik. We will be working at the El Buen Samaritano Church with Alma and Ramon. It is a brand new church building with lots of work to do including painting and prep work. We will also be hosting Vacation Bible school for the kids each night.

We met Alma last year when they were still dreaming about the church building. they had purchased land and were hoping to get the building up this year. It appears that they did it. so it should be a lot of fun. I can't wait. It is also fairly close to the seminary so that will be very convenient. Think of us next week when we leave. I will be doing updates from the field but Internet access is hard to come by.

cal

Tuesday chatter and plans for the future

We had choir rehearsal tonight and began planning out the music from now until the end of the spring. It was exciting tonight because we always get to choose a couple of our favorites to do for the last two weeks in June. Most of us in the choir enjoy the music that Cynthia and Adel choose, but we all have our favorites. Sometimes our favorites become legendary. For example Fred Green always mentions "Shine, Jesus Shine" when we mention favorites. Of course some favorites attributed to people may not be their own choice. A good example of that is the fact that we used to kid Geri Diehl about "Wings of the Dawn" being her favorite. I think she finally accepted it but it definitely was NOT her favorite the first time we sang it.

This morning I also began planning out my sermons from now until the end of June. I will be using the lectionary so it means choosing my text and writing up a one paragraph synopsis that I can use to help pick the right anthems and hymns and special music to use in the services.

Tonight I got a couple of emails from Mercy and Rick Barnes in Mexico. It dawned on me as I was reading them that we leave a week from today. Yikes, it is almost here.

Cal

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Did you know that you can subscribe to this blog and have it emailed to you every time there is a new entry? That's kind of cool.

Once you subscribe, you don't need to remember the address and keep checking in to see if the lazy guy who makes the journal entries has written anything witty or not. You can just open up your email and find the latest.

When you subscribe it is just like getting a magazine or newspaper delivery. It just shows up for you to read or ignore. To do it all you need to do is highlight the R)) symbol in your location bar and it will give you instructions on what to do. So give it a try and if it works, you can e-mail me and tell me how you like it.

Cal