Dear Centenary Church Family:

We will gather at 9:30 AM this Sunday, July 2nd, in our air-conditioned Sanctuary for Worship and to share in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. (Please note: Because of the holiday weekend and vacation plans for Cathy & Michael Savoia, there will be no Summer Sunday School/Children’s Worship this weekend.) The service will begin with a Prayer for Independence Day and the singing of America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee) as a Time of Centering. Assistant Pastor Terrilisa Durham Bauknight will share a word with the children. Her morning Message, The Right Equation: Faith + Grace = Amazing Results, will be based on the Lectionary readings from 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 and Mark 5:21-43. Soprano soloist, Shirley Mosteller, will sing Antonin Dvorak’s I Will Sing New Songs of Gladness from his “Biblical Songs.” Our Celebration of Found Coins for July is designated for the Aldersgate Center Capital Campaign, which will assist the center with the reconstruction of Asbury Village and Wesley Lodge, both of which were destroyed by fire in the past few years. Please note: The Church Office will be closed on Tuesday, July 4th, in observance of Independence Day.

Painters Away Until July 15: Tina and I will be leaving tomorrow (Friday) morning for some vacation time. We will be in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware, this weekend and will travel on Tuesday to Washington, D.C., and on Friday to Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, before returning to Metuchen sometime on the evening of Saturday, July 15th. During Pastor John’s absence, our Assistant Pastor, Terrilisa Durham Bauknight, is “on-call” for pastoral care emergencies. Please contact the Centenary Church Office if you have need of pastoral care. Or when our Church Office is closed, you may contact Pastor Bauknight at 908-419-4101 (cellular) or 908-245-1529.

“FIESTA”—Vacation Bible School—July 31 to August 4, 2006
WANTED: Caring and loving people who enjoy working and having fun with children. Also to help guide children on their Christian Journey through Vacation Bible School. We are in need of teachers and youth workers who speak English and/or Spanish. This year’s VBS will be a dual language program that models God’s love in all our friends and neighbors in all that we say and do. “FIESTA” will be held Monday, July 31 through Friday, August 4, from 9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon and includes Hot Bible Adventures, Chadder’s Drive-in Theater, Cactus Crafts and Missions, Maraca Munchies, Grande Games, and Sing and Play Ole’. Our FIESTA Finale will be on Friday, August 4th at Noon. Child Care will be provided for younger children, age 1 through 3 years old. Registration is $12.00 per child; $30 per family of 3 or more. For more information and registration please call the Church Office at 732-548-7622 or Cathy Savoia at 732-826-1921.

THE CLOTHESLINE
August is almost here again—Centenary’s opportunity to assist some very needy mean, women and children of our community by giving our clothing and our time. On August 13th we will be at Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen in New Brunswick distributing clothing from The ClothesLine, our old school bus/mobile closet.

During the month of July please bring your clean, gently used summer clothing (no stains, holes, missing buttons, broken zippers, ring-around-the collar, etc.) for all shapes and sizes of men, women and children. Place your bags at the end of the hallway across from the Counting Room. On Sunday, July 30th, immediately following Worship and Fellowship Time, we need volunteers in the Youth Room to sort and size each item so that they can be loaded onto the bus for an orderly distribution.

The following is a list of things our clients need (please remember: no winter clothing—we’ll ask for that in October or November—storage space and volunteers to sort continue to be our major obstacles):

Shorts, jeans and casual pants t-shirts and tank tops
Blouses and polo shirts baseball caps
Sneakers, sandals, casual shoes sheets (please mark sizes), pillowcases, towels
Children’s summer clothing—infant through teen (at the moment we have none!)
It is an enormous help if you either stick a piece of masking tape, with size, on each item or write size and gender on outside of bags (e.g. men’s t-shirts, size medium; girl’s summer clothes, size 5/6).

The barrel offerings during June will be used to purchase new socks and underwear for which the clients are extremely grateful.
Sunday, August 13th (2:00-4:00 PM): Distribution at Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen, 18 Neilson Street, New Brunswick.
Sign-up sheets are in the Narthex for both the July 30th sorting time and August 13th distribution at the Soup Kitchen. PLEASE! PLEASE!! Many, many people are depending on us… Thank you, Tookie Bacon

Refreshments: Persons are invited to sponsor the time of coffee and refreshments following our Sunday Worship services. Please consider sponsoring a refreshment time and signing up for one of the available weeks in late July and August on the 2006 Refreshment Chart in the Narthex. Information on what you need to provide is available from Pastor Painter or by speaking with Millie Pleuler (732-750-4434). Thank you for providing hospitality on a Sunday morning.

Some Thoughts for This Week:
Compromise is always wrong when it means sacrificing integrity.

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. – Pablo Picasso

The heart, like the grape, is prone to delivering its harvest in the same moment it appears to be crushed. – Roger Houseden

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness. – William Blake

Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it. – Cullen Hightower

The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation. – Corrie Ten Boom

There has never been an age that did not applaud the past and lament the present. – Lillian Eichler Watson

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length. – Robert Frost

Christ came to heal the sick, not the well or self-sufficient. – Professor Paul Krishna, a former Hindu

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life. – William A. Ward

Sermons “Podcast” on Our Web Site: In addition to being available in print, the Pastors’ weekly sermons are now available as a “podcast” on our Web site. You may listen to each Message as it was delivered in Worship Service. Go to www.CentenaryUMCnj.org to explore this and other new features and links. Our thanks to Web servant Ernie Agtarap for providing this on-line ministry of Centenary.

You will be in Tina’s and my thoughts and prayers this weekend as you gather for Worship and Holy Communion at Centenary.

Shalom, John