OCTOBER NEWSLETTER
Dear First Presbyterian Family,
“The Golden Rod is Yellow; the corn is turning brown; the trees in apple orchards with fruit are bending down. By all these lovely tokens, September days are here, with summer’s best of weather, and autumn’s best of cheer”. My pastoral colleague and friend Joshua Long shares this poem just about every fall. He learned it from his grandmother. While September can seem like August Part Two in Texas, we have begun a new season. School-and Football-have returned in full force. Our minds have turned to Fall Festivals and Halloween, Thanksgiving, and yes, even now, to Christmas. We have many days to enjoy. However, this is the “Harvest” phase of the year. It is a time to reap the work of what has gone before, to celebrate the present, and to begin to build for 2022.
October 3 we will officially begin our 2022 Stewardship Campaign. “‘The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former’ says the Lord of hosts.” These words come from the Prophet Haggai. The Hebrew people had returned in successive waves from Babylon. The people had spent 70 years in exile. Most of those who came to the Promised Land were born in captivity. The people began to rebuild the Temple during those early days of the Return. However, they did not complete the job. Eighteen years later Haggai encouraged the people to get on with the task. It took some doing, however, in the end they built a new temple.
We began 2021 inspired with such words as: recalculate, renew, and rebuild. We had hope with the vaccines. We had the confidence to return to two services and to add some trappings of worship from before. We had set backs-“Snowmaggedon” and the Delta Variant are just two of them. We make progress, we have challenges, and then we get back to work. 2021 is a year to recalculate, renew, and rebuild. It is a year to lay the foundation. We can look to 2022 as a time to complete the work-and a time to see something new take place. As always some things will remain the same. Yet, what we create in a post-Pandemic world will be different. We will not go back to February 2020. During the next several weeks we will hear about new opportunities for 2022. I invite you to listen, to ponder, to pray, and then to respond as we seek to build a new church in a new world.
Worship: We continue to gather at 8:45 and 11 AM on Sunday. We are also making a few steps back to a more recognizable pattern. Sunday, October 3 we will celebrate World Wide Communion Sunday. We will offer Traditional Communion as well as the Miracle Meal Communion kits. Also, as of September 26 the Bibles, Hymnals, and Attendance Pads are back in the pews. Special thanks goes to Renee and Edie who made the hymns and scriptures available to us over the past eighteen months.
Mission: We continue to exceed the 100 Can Challenge. Address Mesquite will take place October 2. Once again FPC Mesquite will be present. We will host another Blood Mobile on October 17. The Mission Committee met September 22 to dream big dreams for 2022. Despite the many challenges of the pandemic, we have continued to serve our community.
Christian Education: The Faith Builders and the L.I.F.E Youth met again this month. Both groups will begin to meet on a regular basis. Sunday School continues to operate. Adults have their online option with Steve Leake as well. Though it is September-we are already looking to 2022 and what could take place then.
Fellowship and Congregational Care: Fellowship Gatherings will return!!! Saturday, October 2 we will gather at 4 PM at Town Center Park. This year the church will provide box meals and canned/bottled drinks. Games will be available. Ben Clifton will help lead us in our Vespers Service.
Mission Support: Slowly but surely the Wilbanks Hall Repair Project is nearing completion. I hope to report in November that it is finished. See the pictures of the latest progress.
Sermons:
October 3: The Church at Thyatira, Revelation 2:18-29
October 10: The Church at Sardis, Revelation 3:1-6
October 17: The Church at Philadelphia, Revelation 3:7-13
October 24: The Church Laodicea, Revelation 3:14-22
October 31: The Church at the Crossroads, Ephesians 2:8-9
November 7: The Glory of the Second Temple, Haggai 2:6-9
Thank you all for your prayers, support, and encouragement.
Jones Doughton
AUGUST NEWSLETTER
Dear First Presbyterian Family,
Greetings!!! After a July sabbatical (hence a June-July issue), our newsletter returns.
We began “Back to Church 2.0” on July 4. We returned to two services. We offer Summer Sunday School. We are mask optional. During the weeks to come we will, if the way be clear, relax the precautions we have used now for just over a year. During the next several weeks we will begin again in so many ways.
In the meantime-reflect on this: August can be more like a suburb of September rather than a summer month. It is easy to get caught up in back-to-school and the start of related activities. It will take effort to enjoy the gift of this month. I encourage you to take some moments to use August as a summer month. To take time to rest. Take time to remember the past, to re-evaluate your present, and to reflect on the future.
From The Prayers of Peter Marshall:
“Thanksgiving-on a Summer’s Day”
“We give Thee thanks, Lord of heaven and earth, for the promise of summer, for the beauty of this day
-a day that shall ripen grain, that shall provide good things for the table,
that shall make all growing things rejoice, that shall make more sweet the music of the birds,
that shall make more beautiful the gardens which Thou has planted and watered.
We thank Thee for the fertility of the land that encourages us to sow and to plant.
We thank Thee for the dependence of the seasons, for all Thy sustaining providence by which men (and women)
work today and harvest tomorrow. We well know, our Father, that we are not worthy of Thy bounty, but help us to be good stewards of that bounty. We thank Thee for the endless delight of our lives on this lovely earth. Amen.”
Thank you all for your prayers, support, and encouragement.
Jones Doughton
