Newark Central 6-27-12

Newark Central – Notes From My Knapsack 6-27-12

Travel and vacation time is all around us, and we see seats around us on Sunday fill and empty from week to week, with it hard to tell sometimes who's home and who's away.

 

It's an interesting pastoral challenge, because the elders don't want to assume someone's on vacation when they may be ill, and we can't imagine that every summertime absence is due to health or other problems because usually they aren't: so we have to keep our ears so close to the ground grass grows out the other side!

 

And then some of us are gone; your friendly neighborhood preaching & teaching elder (that's me) is off to Zion National Park for some canyon rambles and scrambles with my wife and son, and other elders have already been to Florida and even further abroad. Add in some family weddings and reunions and such, and you really do need a program for the Sunday service, even if we don't have big numbers on our backs . . . speaking of a summer trip we need to take to go see the Clippers . . .

 

Next week begins our alternating week schedule for the newsletter. Since Wednesday is July the Fourth, that's an obvious week to leave "blank." The following week, our office "elder," Lisa, needs to be with family and a sister-in-law who just had brain surgery, so we will be working ahead, she and I, to have the newsletter ready, but the office staffing will be a friendly assortment of fellow parishioners from July 9^th to the 13^th, with hours trimmed to 8:00 am to Noon.

 

And as you can tell from the rolling "Month of Sundays" preview article in our newsletter, we will have old friends Bob Boyte on July 8^th preaching, and Ken Coy July 15^th, with Mark Katrick at St. John's UCC here in town available for pastoral emergencies. God and the airlines willing, I'll be back July 16^th as will Lisa!

 

Then we have the summer special treat of an outdoor service at the Cedar St. Lodge for the 10:30 worship on July 22^nd, with our Vacation Bible School picking up that evening and rolling through Thursday night (see elsewhere in this newsletter).

 

So keep in touch, and come back with stories of how you saw Jesus out on the road, because he likes to show up out there in unexpected encounters!

 

In grace & peace, Pastor Jeff

 

 

p.s. – Route 66, our Wednesday Bible study at 6:00 pm, is on break for the month of July; we're on the road again in August!