C C C C R Sunday Sunday Sunday Wedns. Sunday Rossmoor Community Church Newsletter - February , 2015 1 Village Mall, Monroe Twp., NJ 08831 - Rev. Dr. Dierdre L. Thomson, Pastor 1 8 15 18 22 11 a.m. Services F O UR TH SUN D AY AF TER EPI PH AN Y Communion The Rev. Dr. Dierdre L. Thomson will be preaching. 11 a.m. The Rev. Dr. Dierdre L. Thomson will preach, with music by the Choristers. 11 a.m. The Rev. Joanne Petto will be guest preacher. Gloria Montlack will direct the Rossmoor Chorus. Please stay for Fellowship Hour. 1 p.m. ASH WED N ESD AY SER VI C E 11 a.m. The Rev. Dr. Dierdre L. Thomson will preach. The Delaware River Consort Quartet will be our guests. BOOKLETS AVAILABLE: “Information for Obituary, Death Notice & Funeral/Memorial Services” There are copies for each of you on the round table in the narthex. Please pick one up and fill it out! I have completed one and have it placed with all my “other” important papers. My family is aware of where it is and just how it should be used. I find it an invaluable source of information that will help loved ones when we are no longer with them. ― Sallie Rowland Prayer Concerns: Kim Alexander; Carole; Ben Collier; Flo Cramer; Karen Lee Curdie; Debbie; DeHart family; Barbara Dennis; Florence Haygood; Timothy Haynes; Susan Espenhart; Eileen Harding; Janette; Dina Leonard & family; Pat Leonard; Tristan Meiselbach; Linda and Richard Montalbano; Frank Palmanteri; Bobby Sargent; Gary Strague & family; Christine Whitehill; Luke Zufall. CHOIR START-UP JOIN US ON FEB. 4 AT 10 AM doing well, having fun. I have just returned from a National Sacred Music Association Conference in San Antonio which included organ workshops and classes on “working with aging voices.” I am really excited and want to try starting a real church choir here in Rossmoor Community Church! Do we stop using our voices to praise God because we are getting old? I am hoping to launch a trial period (Feb-March-April) using YOUR voices! The plan is to rehearse one Wednesday a month from 10-11 a.m. and to sing on the second Sunday of each month. On that Sunday, we will rehearse at 9:30 a.m. before we sing at the 11 o’clock service. A little over a decade ago, our church had a music budget that covered soloists on three Sundays each month, with an additional financial commitment for special music events at Christmas and Easter. Do you remember the “Messiah Sing-a-long” and the “Cantatas” during the Christmas and Easter seasons? With our decrease in membership over the past few years, we no longer have the funds for a great deal of this professional music. In an effort to promote lovely sacred music, we re-started the Chimers. Considering the physical stamina required for rehearsals (90 minutes standing, reading music in the spring and fall) and the actual Sunday morning performance (90 minutes), it would seem an impossibility. But this is a small dedicated group that is Please see me if you are willing to be a part of the group! We need your commitment of only one Wednesday and one Sunday a month. I hope to see you at our first meeting on February 4th in the Meeting House, at 10 a.m. ― Cecile Thank you ― from the Deacons It’s hard to believe that after 6 years of collecting Warm Coats for the Needy, there are still any left in our closets to donate. But the fact is, thanks to donations by our members as well as other caring folks in Rossmoor, our Church, once again this year, collected many hundreds of coats and other pieces of warm clothing. Two totally packed car loads of a few hundred items of warm clothing were picked up by a volunteer from “Your Grandmother’s Cupboard” for distribution to those living in dire poverty within our state. This Christian outreach organization, based in Toms River, collects and provides food, clothing and other necessities of life to over 1,200 people - the homeless, the hungry, and other “invisible” children and adults living in our midst (2) with special needs. They serve 20 different “gathering places” located from one end of N.J. to the other. Our Mission Committee thanks the entire Rossmoor community for joining us in this endeavor to help others who are so much less fortunate than ourselves. This is truly God’s love at work and we hope that all who contributed will know that the recipients of their warm clothing feel that someone loves and cares about them. As we travel on the train of life, the mystery is ... at which station will we be stepping down and leaving our seat empty? We should plan now to leave behind beautiful memories. So, we must live in the best way we can, with love and forgiveness, offering the best of who we are. ―Alyce Owens FROM YOUR PASTOR “And I will make of thee a great nation ...” ― Genesis 12:2 For those of you who read Guideposts, Prosperity can come by way of a gift of John Sherrill is a name that you will recognize. Recently, John wrote a brief article about the question, “Are You Good News?” Here is what he had to say: “The Gospel is supposed to be good news. How much of the time do we come across as good news to those around us? This idea of good news came to mind when reading the Old Testament: ‘And I will make of thee a great nation ... and thou shalt be a blessing ... and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.’ So God’s promise to Abraham was that his descendants would be the carriers of blessings to the world. You and I are supposed to be channels of God’s good news in three areas: 1. Material Blessings ― Are we acting as channels of God’s material blessings? money, in terms of encouragement or a suggestion, words of acceptance or expression of confidence. 2. Physical Blessings ― Have we as a modern ‘good-ness people’ been bringing physical blessings to those around us? Perhaps it will be through sustained intercessory prayer, a special healing service or ministry, visiting the sick person, a get-well card, a phone call or simply a cheerful note, 3. Spiritual Blessings ― We are ‘goodnews people’ when we pass on to others God’s spiritual blessings of love, kindness, generosity, faith.” Sherrill’s words cause me to ask myself, “Am I good news?” Are you good news? Is Rossmoor Community Church good news? “Show kindness and mercy to one another.” ― Zechariah 7:9 Something to think about ~ If it is sometimes hard to follow through on being “Good News” to others, perhaps the following poem will help. It describes us as we hesitate, and then reminds us that turning to God will help us be the “Good News” to others. Why is it, God, that the only decision I seem to make with ease is the decision not to make a decision? I’m tired of hesitancy, of living in the limbo of doubt and thin excuses like: “It makes no difference.” or “Why don’t you decide?” Give me a dash of courage, God, and start me on my way to being firm in simple things like: What to have for dinner or which clothes to wear today. Then, moving on to tougher tasks, let me discover with gladness that the spirit, like the body, grows strong with exercise. (3) Lift Every Voice and Sing Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty; let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies, let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has tought us, sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; facing the rising sun of our new day begun, let us march on till victory is won. Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, felt in the days when hope unborn had died; yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet come to the place for which our people sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, out from the gloomy past, til now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; thou who hast, by thy might, led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee; shadowed beneath they hand, may we forever stand, true to our God, true to our native land. HYMN OF THE MONTH for February ― “Lift Every Voice and Sing” Many people are surprised to learn that Lift Every Voice and Sing was first written as a poem. Created by James Weldon Johnson, it was performed for the first time by 500 school children in celebration of President Lincoln’s birthday on February 12, 1900 in Jacksonville, Florida, at the segregated Stanton School when Booker T. Washington was its honored guest. The poem was set to music by Johnson’s brother, John Rosamond Johnson, and soon adopted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as its official song. Today “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is one of the most cherished songs of the African American Civil Rights Movement and is often referred to as the Black National Anthem. ( From Online – Black Culture Connection) (4)
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