Sunday, March 4, 2007 – Sacrament of Holy Communion
Dear Centenary Church Family:
We will gather at 10:15 AM in our Sanctuary for Worship and Sunday School on March 4, The Second Sunday in Lent. I will share a word with the children before they and youth through 12th grade are invited to attend Sunday School classes. My morning Message, No Turning Back… will be based on the readings from the Gospel of Luke 13:31-35 and Epistle to the Philippians 3:17-4:1…as well as the traditional American folk hymn, I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, which we will sing following the Message. Our Chancel Choir will offer the anthem Just As I Am, Lord by Don Besig during the Offertory, and then Blessed by the Bread, Graced by the Wine by Mary Kay Beall as we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion together. Our Celebration of Found Coins for March will be designated for the “Nothing But Nets” anti-malaria campaign. Please see the information below…as well as information about an additional special offering for The Centenary Fund which is being requested for this Sunday.
WORLD DAY OF PRAYER is tomorrow…Friday, March 2, 2007. Church Women United of Metuchen-Edison will be celebrating this day with a program beginning at 1:00 P.M. in Centenary United Methodist Church. The women of First Presbyterian Church of Metuchen will present the program and the women from Centenary will provide the refreshments. Come and join with women of other faiths in our neighborhood and around the world. Come and join us.
TGIF Intergenerational Dinner and Lectionary Discussion and a lot of fun together will meet on Fridays, March 2 & 9 from 6:30-8:30 PM. A barrel offering is taken to defray the costs for the meal and materials. Persons of all ages are invited and encouraged to attend.
Adult Class Relives “The First Easter” Through Living Scripture: For its Lenten study this year, Centenary’s Adult Class will use “living Scripture” to bring to vivid life Luke’s account of The First Easter: Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension. Our six-week study will focus on the last six chapters of Luke’s Gospel (chapters 19 through 24), beginning with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and ending with his ascension into heaven at Bethany, following his resurrection and appearances to his disciples. We will be supplementing Luke’s written account of the Passion narrative with a filmed version of the events he describes, using the New Media Bible series of The Genesis Project. This series was filmed entirely against the timeless landscapes of the Holy Land and is faithful to Scripture in every detail. Join us as we relive the most important event in human history, starting this Sunday, March 4, from 9:00-10:00 AM in the Sunshine Room.
Acolyte Training—This Sunday, March 4, at 11:45 AM: Young persons in the Fourth Grade and above who are interested in serving as Acolytes in Worship are invited to remain after our Worship service this Sunday for a brief time of training. Pastor Painter and others from our Worship Committee will be available to assist our Acolytes to undertake their important responsibilities. Those who have served as Acolytes previously are also encouraged to attend.
Centenary will be serving dinner at the Ozanam Shelter on Monday, March 5. Please check the information on the bulletin board in the Narthex and sign up to assist with food preparation or serving. For further information, please contact Glenna Gundell (732-463-1431) or Mary Ellen Heim (732-548-2587). Thanks.
Lenten Wednesday Evening Bible Study: Pastor John Painter is leading a five-week Wednesday evening Lenten Bible Study from 7:30-8:30 PM on Wednesdays, continuing through Wednesday, March 28. The focus of the study is The Passion Narratives of the four Gospels. As part of your Lenten discipline, you are invited to bring your favorite translation of the Bible and participate in the reading and discussion.
Centenary Book Club will meet on Saturday, March 10 @ 9:30 AM in the Sunshine Room to discuss The Rapture of Canaan, a novel by Sheri Reynolds. All women and men (over 18) are invited to participate.
COMMUNION BREAKFAST for the women of Centenary, Wesley and New Dover Churches will be held on Saturday, March 17, 2007 at 9:30 A.M. at Centenary. The leader will be the Rev. Linda Humphries of Hamilton, NJ who will help us ‘stretch our faith’. We will need help with setting up tables and providing food for the group. If you can help in any way, please let Millie Pleuler, Giselle Esquivel-Cordero or Sylvia Woodfield know.
St. Patrick’s Day Roast Beef/Chicken Dinner
Saturday, March 17, 2007
6:00 to 8:00 PM
Tickets Are Now on Sale
$15.00 adults / $8.00 for children
See Cathy Jean Savoia
Sponsored by Centenary’s Children’s Ministries Program
The Art of Muriel Harris at Centenary During Lent: We are blessed during the 2007 Lenten Season to have a number of Muriel Harris’ collages adorning the walls of our Sanctuary. These smaller collages have served as the inspiration for a number of her larger paintings. You will want to take time to pause today and on the Sundays during Lent—or at other times you are in the building—to view these special works based on the indicated biblical passages, and reminding us of the themes of creation, liberation and justice. Muriel Harris, a long-time member of Centenary UMC, has received many awards and high recognition over the years for her artistry. Although in recent years she has endured the loss of much of her eyesight to age-related macular degeneration, Muriel Harris continues to create new art using a number of different media. We are grateful to Muriel Harris for sharing the gift of her art with us once again this year.
Nothing But Nets
Anti-Malaria Campaign
March Celebration of Found Coins
Every 30 seconds, a child in Africa dies of malaria. Malaria kills more than a million kids every year. Now, if you knew that by contributing just $10 (ten dollars), you could save the life of one of those children…and perhaps that child’s whole family…would you consider sharing that much?
Well, that’s what our Mission Committee is asking all of us to do during our Celebration of Found Coins in the month of March, as we join with millions of other United Methodists who are working to stamp out malaria, one community at a time through the “Nothing But Nets” campaign. The money raised through this campaign will be used to purchase bed nets that will be distributed throughout the countries and communities in greatest need.
A $10 bed net can protect a family of four for up to four years, reducing the incidence of nocturnal mosquito bites—the primary means of transmitting the disease. Malaria infects more than 500 million people each year, and more than a million die from the disease, yet fewer than 5 percent of African children sleep under a mosquito net, according to the campaign.
Our Mission Committee will be sharing more information about the Nothing But Nets campaign with you during the month of March, and you can learn much more by going to www.umc.org on the Internet and clicking on the “NothingButNets.net” link on the left, or to http://www.nothingbutnets.net/.
You can save a family. Our church can possibly save a village. And we can also help spread the word to many others beyond Centenary about the Nothing But Nets campaign, and how easy it is to protect children from malaria with a $10 insecticide-treated bed net. Together, let’s join with millions of folk to cover Africa with life-saving bed nets!
MARCH 4 IS CENTENARY FUND SUNDAY!
This Sunday is Centenary Fund Sunday, that day set aside by our Annual Conference in each year to give recognition to the continuing fine work of this Fund and to request financial support for its worthy endeavors.
Since 1857, the Centenary Fund and Preachers Aid Society has provided generous financial support to our Annual Conference and its predecessors in meeting the financial needs and health concerns of our retired clergy and their dependents. This has been accomplished through the gifts that it has received from a broad base of donors, as well as its sound and conservative investment program. Since its inception almost 150 years ago, it has been true to its boast that a gift to the Fund is a gift that keeps on giving. Not so much as a single principal distribution has been made to date!
On this day, all who are included in the United Methodist fellowship of our Annual Conference are encouraged to make a donation to the Fund. You may contribute in either of two ways:
1. Place your gift in an offering plate at Worship (make checks payable to “Centenary UM Church,” and put CFPAS in the Memo section; put cash in an envelope marked CFPAS); or,
2. Mail your check, payable to “CFPAS”, to: Centenary Fund & Preacher’s Aid Society, Greater NJ Annual Conference, 1001 Wickapecko Drive, Ocean, NJ 07712-4733.
Thank you for your prayers and your gifts as we continue to deal with the challenges posed by ever-increasing health care costs.
Some Thoughts for This Week:
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. – Elisabeth Foley
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends. – Abraham Lincoln
The value of a relationship is in direct proportion to the time that you invest in the relationship. – Brian Tracy
First keep the peace within yourself, then you can bring peace to others. – Thomas à Kempis
I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. – Booker T. Washington
Prayer is an effort of will. – Oswald Chambers
We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. – Thomas Merton
People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes. – Abigail Van Buren
Prayer for the Week of March 4: Even as we trail behind the fullness of your life, Jesus Christ, we still celebrate our calling as your people. We give thanks that life with you is never dull, but vibrates with the determination to make a difference. We thank you that we can see your example before us, one that never lets us settle for things as they are and that invites us into places where we have never been before. Thanks be to you, O God, for the grandeur of the journey of faith. Amen.
Next Sunday, March 11, 2007:
9:00 AM – Adult Class (The First Easter)
10:15 AM – Worship and Sunday School (Pre-K thru 12th Grade)
The Third Sunday in Lent
Preacher: John D. Painter Theme: Another Year…
Lectionary Readings: Isaiah 55:1-9 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Psalm 63:1-8 Luke 13:1-9
11:30 AM – Fellowship Time (Room 20)
5:30 PM – Junior Choir Rehearsal (Music Room)
6:30 PM – United Methodist Youth Fellowship (Youth Room)
Daylight Saving Time returns at 2:00 AM on Sunday, March 11, 2007. Don’t forget to turn your clocks and watches ahead one hour before you go to sleep Saturday evening, or you will arrive an hour late for Church School and Worship on Sunday morning. You may also consider changing the batteries in your residential smoke and carbon dioxide detectors at this time, as recommended by safety personnel.
I look forward to sharing with many of you in Study, Worship and Christian Fellowship this Sunday at Centenary.
Shalom, John