Midweek Update: Thanksgiving/Christ the King Sunday

Dear friends in Christ,

I hope all of you are doing well and staying warn as the weather turns colder. We have a busy week coming up as we head towards Thanksgiving and Advent.

Thanksgiving & Consecration Sunday: 11/20

This Sunday 11/20, we’ll be having a special service of Thanksgiving and dedicate our pledges for 2023. We’ll sing some classic Thanksgiving hymns and have special music by our choir.

11/20: Fruit and Vegetable Donations for Middlebury Food Bank

Thanks and giving for the holiday:  During our regular pre-Thanksgiving Service on Sunday, November 20th, we will be inviting everyone to come forward (or place there before the service) gifts of fresh fruits and vegetables that will be shared with the Food Bank to go to those in need. Suggestions are apples, potatoes (sweet and regular), turnips, carrots, onions and celery. Please be as generous as you can in sharing such precious fresh food with those who may typically only get canned.

Middlebury Community Thanksgiving Service: Tuesday 11/22 @7pm

In the spirit of the ecumenical Thanksgiving services of years past, this year we are hosting a Community Thanksgiving Service on Tuesday 11/22 at 7pm here at MCC with St. George’s Episcopal Church. The offering will go to support the Middlebury Food and Fuel Banks and nonperishable food items brought for the service will be donated to GWIM. There will be childcare provided in the nursery.

Here’s a link to the Facebook event to help get the word out: https://fb.me/e/2M5MkxcLs

Mission Projects

  • Thanksgiving baskets
    • Sign up sheets for donations for Thanksgiving dinner baskets for three Middlebury families are up on the bulletin board outside the kitchen near the Social Hall. Those items will be due in the office by November 21. 
  • Star Tree
    • Stars for the Star Tree Children will be available Sunday, November 20.  They will be placed on the multiplication table in the front of the sanctuary.  Please print  your name and phone number next to the child you will be purchasing for and take their Star to affix to their wrapped package which will be due December 12th in the office.  Gift Range is  between $35.00 to $50.00.

11/27: First Sunday of Advent & Hanging of the Greens

11/27 is the first Sunday of Advent, and after worship, we’ll decorate the sanctuary for the coming Advent and Christmas season. Join us!

Advent and Christmas Readers Needed:

  • Advent Wreath Lighting
    • We’re looking for volunteers to light the Advent Wreath and lead the prayer during the Sundays of Advent: 12/4, 12/11, and 12/18. Families or groups of friends welcome!
  • Christmas Eve: 5pm &11pm
    • For our two Christmas Eve services we need a number of readers to read the scripture lessons plus people to light the Advent Wreath at 5pm and 11pm. Please email me if you’re interested in any of these opportunities: kmanzi@middleburyucc.org

Thank you!

This past Sunday we had our Advent Workshop, and it was a huge success! Thank you to our Faith Formation Board, our youth, our kids, and everyone who donated materials! I’ve attached some pictures from the event (thank you Valerie!).

I also want to thank our Mission Board and all those who volunteered and made donations towards the lunches for GWIM on Veterans Day. We made 200 lunches! I’ve attached some pictures of everything getting all assembled.

General Comments

There’s a poem by Robert Herrick I often see around online during the run up to Thanksgiving. Typically you’ll see the title as “Lord ‘tis Thy plenty-dropping hand.” I was looking up more about the poem to share it, and it turns out it’s actually part of a larger poem “A Thanksgiving to God, for his House,” which was written by Herrick as a thanksgiving for the country vicarage/parsonage he lived in. (Herrick was a priest in England during the 17th century.) As one who lives in a parsonage, but with more conveniences than Herrick’s seems to have had, I thought it was a lovely expression of thanksgiving for all the everyday blessings of life and home:

Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
         Wherein to dwell,
A little house, whose humble roof
         Is weather-proof:
Under the spars of which I lie
         Both soft, and dry;
Where Thou my chamber for to ward
         Hast set a guard
Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep
         Me, while I sleep.
Low is my porch, as is my fate,
         Both void of state;
And yet the threshold of my door
         Is worn by th’ poor,
Who thither come and freely get
         Good words, or meat.
Like as my parlour, so my hall
         And kitchen’s small;
A little buttery, and therein
         A little bin,
Which keeps my little loaf of bread
         Unchipp’d, unflead;
Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar
         Make me a fire,
Close by whose living coal I sit,
         And glow like it.
Lord, I confess too, when I dine,
         The pulse is Thine,
And all those other bits, that be
         There plac’d by Thee;
The worts, the purslain, and the mess
         Of water-cress,
Which of Thy kindness Thou hast sent;
         And my content
Makes those, and my beloved beet,
         To be more sweet.
‘Tis Thou that crown’st my glittering hearth
         With guiltless mirth;
And giv’st me wassail-bowls to drink,
         Spic’d to the brink.
Lord, ’tis Thy plenty-dropping hand
         That soils my land;
And giv’st me, for my bushel sown,
         Twice ten for one;
Thou mak’st my teeming hen to lay
         Her egg each day;
Besides my healthful ewes to bear
         Me twins each year;
The while the conduits of my kine
         Run cream, for wine.
All these, and better, Thou dost send
         Me, to this end,
That I should render, for my part,
         A thankful heart,
Which, fir’d with incense, I resign,
         As wholly Thine;
But the acceptance, that must be,
         My Christ, by Thee.

Peace,

Pastor Katrina

Midweek Update: 23rd Sunday after Pentecost

Dear friends in Christ,

I hope you’re all doing well. We’ve got a lot of things going on here at MCC as we approach Thanksgiving and Advent:

November Mission Projects

  • Sandwiches for Veterans’ Day
    • Thank you to everyone who has made donations for us to make sandwiches/bagged lunches! If you would like to help assemble the lunches, please be at the church at 5pm on Thursday 11/10. If you would like to help deliver the lunches to Greater Waterbury interfaith Ministries (GWIM), be at the church 10am, Friday, November 11th . These lunches help ensure people receive a meal, even when the kitchen at GWIM is closed for the holiday.
  • Thanksgiving Baskets
    • Sign up sheets for donations for Thanksgiving dinner baskets for three Middlebury families are up on the bulletin board outside the kitchen near the Social Hall. Those items will be due in the office by November 21. 

Advent Workshop: 11/13

This Sunday, we will host an Advent craft for all ages!  After church, we will be making advent wreaths.  Everyone is invited to join!  Some of our older Sunday School children and youth will be leading this craft. We have plenty of supplies, and our Church School students have been hard at work getting everything ready. I’ve attached a photo of everyone hard at work this past Sunday. Thank you to all those who donated materials for the workshop!

11/13 Pulpit Exchange: First Congregational Church of Washington

As part of our Open and Affirming process, we’re doing a pulpit exchange with the First Congregational Church of Washington, one of our sister churches in the Litchfield South Association that has been Open and Affirming since November 2017. This Sunday, Washington’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Robyn Gray, will be joining us here at MCC, and I will be at the Washington church. Some of you may have met Pastor Robyn this summer when she provided pastoral coverage when I was on vacation. Also this Sunday, our Cherub Choir will be singing!

11/20: Fruit and Vegetable Donations for Middlebury Food Bank

Thanks and giving for the holiday:  During our regular pre-Thanksgiving Service on Sunday, November 20th, we will be inviting everyone to come forward (or place there before the service) gifts of fresh fruits and vegetables that will be shared with the Food Bank to go to those in need. Suggestions are apples, potatoes (sweet and regular), turnips, carrots, onions and celery. Please be as generous as you can in sharing such precious fresh food with those who may typically only get canned.

Thanksgiving & Consecration Sunday: 11/20

Next Sunday 11/20, we’ll be having a special service of Thanksgiving and dedicate our pledges for 2023. If you need the Stewardship materials for this year, there are extra copies in the Narthex (entrance area) in the back of the sanctuary. Every pledge, no matter the amount, enables us to carry out our mission here in Middlebury.

Middlebury Community Thanksgiving Service: Tuesday 11/22 @7pm

In the spirit of the ecumenical Thanksgiving services of years past, this year we are hosting a Community Thanksgiving Service on Tuesday 11/22 at 7pm here at MCC with St. George’s Episcopal Church. The offering will go to support the Middlebury Food and Fuel Banks and nonperishable food items brought for the service will be donated to GWIM.

Here’s a link to the Facebook event to help get the word out: https://fb.me/e/2M5MkxcLs

Reverse Advent Calendars

Use the Advent seasons as a time to give back! Advent calendars with daily asks to support the work of GWIM will be available starting this Sunday at the Advent Workshop.

General Comments

There’s anonymous quote I see each fall going around social media that says “The trees are about to show up how lovely it is to let dead things go.” At this point in the fall, nearly all the trees have let their leaves go. I’ve attached a couple pictures from last week right before the tree in my front yard let all its leaves go. Advent and Lent are both traditional seasons in the church for being intentional about our spiritual lives. One of my favorite prayers for Lent has a line asking God for discernment about what we must take up and what we must lay down. As we approach Thanksgiving and the often added stresses of the holiday season on top of whatever stress we’re already feeling about the nation and life in general, that quote about fall is a good reminder that sometimes there is holiness in letting things go that we don’t need to hold on to. It’s the same message as the beginning of the Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

While I won’t be at MCC for worship this Sunday, I hope to see many of you later on at the Advent Workshop.

Peace,

Pastor Katrina