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I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E
Pastor’s Paragraphs
Calendar
Treasurer’s Report
A Lighter Moment
In and Around Church
Deacons
Birthdays and Anniversaries
Christmas Trolley Tour
Missions
Church Council
Trustees
Christian Education
Stewardship
P A S T O R : B R I A N B A E D E R
Keeping In Touch January 2020 Volume 256 Issue 3
The Official Newsletter of the Second Congregational Church of Stafford
The end of one year and the beginning of another
is usually a time to look back to what has been and to
look forward to what can be. I look back on a time of
great joy for me, as I was called to be your Pastor. I
look forward to a happy and blessed long term rela-
tionship with God’s people here in West Stafford.
The prophet Joel, inspired by God, spoke as fol-
lows: “I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind. Your
old people shall dream dreams and your young people
shall see visions”.
It is important to dream, to try to imagine how, for
example, we can help in some small way to make the
world a better world. “I have a dream”, these words
have been immortalized by Martin L. King. The dream
was a clear vision of where he wanted to take his peo-
ple: calling them from bondage to freedom. It was like
an Exodus event. Not all of us are called in this way to
be leaders. But all of us are called to make our own
contribution to its realization.
The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians,
writes about the mystery hidden for all ages in God and
which now has been made known to us in Christ. It is
the dream or vision of God’s plan for the world and the
mission of the Church in that plan: to unite all things in
Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.
Jesus, our Savior, became human to give us full
freedom as Children of God. In Jesus and with Jesus
we can realize all our dreams and hopes because he
said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are bur-
dened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart:
and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is
easy, and my burden light”.
On the threshold of the New Year 2020, Jan and I
extend our wishes that the New Year be one filled with
faith, hope, love, joy, and prosperity for us all. And let
us dream great dreams for our “Family of Faith”.
May our Lord Jesus always be someone to whom
we can turn in our weak, joyful and painful moments.
May He be our rock, our shelter and our strength.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Grace & Peace,
Brian
P a s t o r ’ s P a r a g r a p h s
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T r e a s u r e r ’ s R e p o r t
Through November 30:
Category Year-To-Date Budget-To-Date Percentage
R21—Freewill $ 1,344.00 $ 1,100.00 122%
R22—Pledges $ 29,659.00 $ 29,849.00 99%
R23—Contributions $ 1,794.00 $ 917.00 188%
R24—Fund Raising $ 14,349.00 $ 11,000.00 122%
Capital Campaign $ 6,265.00 $ 6,185.00 101%
Things you NEVER Hear in Church!
Hey! It's MY turn to sit on the front pew!
I was so enthralled, I never noticed your sermon
went over time 25 minutes.
I've decided to give our church the $500.00 a
month I used to send to TV evangelists.
I volunteer to be the permanent teacher for the Jun-
ior High Sunday School class.
Forget the denominational minimum salary: let's
pay our pastor so s/he can live like we do.
I love it when we sing hymns I've never heard be-
fore!
Since we're all here, let's start the worship service
early!
Pastor, we'd like to send you to this Bible seminar
in the Bahamas.
Nothing inspires me and strengthens my commit-
ment like our annual stewardship campaign!
* * * * *
The top ten reasons men should join the church
choir:
10. Rehearsals are every Wednesday night. Which
means that for those few hours, you will significantly
reduce your risk of contracting tendinitis from non-
stop operation of a television remote control or com-
puter mouse.
9. Because you wear a choir robe every Sunday,
you are liberated from a task many men find quite
challenging: finding clothes that match properly.
8. From your special vantage point every Sunday,
in which you look out at the entire congregation from
the choir seats, you will develop interesting new hob-
bies. Among these is a little guessing game called
"Who's Praying, Who's Sleeping?"
7. On the other hand, sitting in full view of 400-
500 people on a weekly basis makes it much less
likely that you yourself will give in to a chronic lack
of sleep. Although it has been known to happen.
6. If you think your singing in the shower sounds
good now, just wait till you've been singing with us
for a few weeks.
5. Singing in a choir is one of the few activities for
men that does not require electronics equipment or
expensive power tools. This could be good for the
family budget.
4. For the fitness buffs, singing in the Choir is not
only heart healthy, it's soul healthy. But there are no
monthly membership fees, and it's a lot easier on the
knees than jogging.
3. If you think you've done everything there is to
do, and there are no great challenges left in life, try
singing with us guys and staying on pitch.
2. Choir rehearsal lasts half as long as a profes-
sional football game, but is at least twice as satisfying.
This is especially true if you are a long-suffering fan
of the Miami Dolphins. (Don't worry, though, the re-
hearsals are on Wednesday, not Monday Nights.)
And the number 1 reason men should join the
choir:
1. When people ask you whether you've been be-
having yourself, you can say with the utmost sincer-
ity, "Hey, I'm a Choir Boy."
A L i g h t e r M o m e n t
B i r t h d a y s a n d A n n i v e r s a r i e s
January Birthdays
January 3 Caroline Burke
3 Michael Gowdy
6 Flo Demars
6 Deanna Hirsch
10 Cindy Meyer
11 Diane Shackway
15 Amy Lingley
16 Isabella Ostrowski
24 Samantha DelBene
24 Aidan Ladr
27 Ruthanne Talamini
29 Dorraine Parker
January Anniversaries
January None
I n a n d A r o u n d T h e C h u r c h
Our Hearts and Prayers reach out to our Brothers
and Sisters who have various needs and struggles: Jan,
Scott and Tina … Shirley and Cindy … John, Judy,
Andy, the Kellems, Yelfkos and Roger … my em-
ployer and his employees … Steve and the choir …
strength for those recovering from addiction and their
families … the Bruzzi family … Alice O’Donovan …
Lisa Banach … my mother … good health for Dan …
safe holiday travel ...Jennifer Holmes … family of
Thomas Magill … healing for son John … Jeff strug-
gling with nicitune addiction … Claire … Samantha,
Desiree, Robin and Jan … Roseanne Gowdy who lost
her grandmother … Maureen Sweeney who broke her
knee … sister Joanne … children and grandchildren
son John and Kyle … joy of the season … Eleanor
Gladding … Judy Baeder … Ava, John and
Sheila ...Matthew … Burt and Claire … family during
the holidays … those who do not have a roof over
their heads in the cold … Pauline Chesley and her
family … Mike, Katie and Asher … healing for Xa-
vier and his family … the Lenz family … the Sunday
school students and teachers.
Celebrations: Tracy and Kelley visiting us today.
D e a c o n s
Happy New Year!
We had a busy month with several special services.
The Christmas concert presented by the Stafford High
School Madrigals was very enjoyable. Thank you to
everyone who made sandwiches, baked, set up, and
cleaned up. The Madrigals and their families were
very appreciative and impressed!
The Christmas Sunday Christmas pageant was a
very well attended service. Thanks to Judy DelBene
and the Sunday School for a very inspiring message. It
was great to see the young people (and young at
heart) participate in the service. The annual Christmas
Eve Service featured many familiar carols, readings,
and special music and was very moving as well.
Sunday, January 5, right after the service, we will
take down the Christmas decorations. Please consider
taking a few minutes to help “de-green” the church.
I would like everyone to consider donating to our
Deacon’s Fund. This offering is collected the first
Sunday of every month and it helps our members and
friends who made have a need. See any deacon to
learn more about this fund. Thanks!
You may notice a change in the order of worship
during the service in the upcoming months. The dea-
cons and Brian are working on enhancing everyone’s
experience during the Sunday Morning Service.
Looking forward to seeing everyone in 2020. Let’s
make it a great year for our church!
"Our group trip to the Trolley Museum was a lot of
fun! Thank you to those who went along and braved
the cold with us! "
C h r i s t m a s T r o l l e y R i d e
T r u s t e e s
Happy Holidays everyone!! The end of the year is
here and I must say we had a busy but productive
year. We thank everyone who was a part of making
the church look and feel more pleasing. This month
our wire for the bell going from the church to the par-
ish house was pulled by a box truck laying it across
the driveway. In the process the wire snapped our
sewage drain pipe off the church building. Tom and
Ryan Hoefle so graciously hung the wire on a messen-
ger hook attached to our church. First Choice Home
Services will then tape the wire to the drain pipe after
being fixed. He will have to saw the pipe off from the
elbow behind the men's bathroom and then work on it
from the outside. All costs will be covered by the in-
surance company of the company that hit the wire.
That is it for now. Thank you and Happy New Year!!
M i s s i o n s
The missions committee would like to thank every-
one in our church family for your generosity during
the Christmas season. We were able to provide meals
for 8 families, gave gifts to 20 "angels", distributed 29
pairs of mittens, gloves, hats, scarves and socks to
Stafford Human Services and also donated numerous
winter coats. Thank you again from the bottom or our
hearts! We are indeed blessed to have such a compas-
sionate congregation.
In the new year we will be taking monthly food do-
nations to the Community United Methodist Church in
Crystal Lake for distribution to families in both El-
lington and Stafford. We will still be collecting money
on fifth Sundays for Safenet. If you have any ques-
tions or concerns about this change please contact one
of the committee members. Thank you!
2019 has been a very busy and eventful year. The
members of the Church Council along with members
of the various committees and boards and individuals
have been working very hard on many projects for our
church. These include our participation in Stafford’s
300th Anniversary Celebration, Pumpkin Festival, Fall
Tag Sale, the Holly Bazaar, and the re-writing of the
church Constitution to name but a few. I would like to
thank each and every one of those people for their
dedication and for the work they do for our church.
2019 also was a year of change. After numerous
years of music from CD’s we hired an organist / musi-
cian, Steve Fowler joined us in that capacity in March
and has recently revived the Senior Choir so thank you
Steve.
2019 also saw the retirement of our Pastor, Carl
Reynolds, and the hiring of a designated (interim) Pas-
tor and we welcomed Brian Baeder in June. In No-
vember we as a congregation decided to call Brian as
our settled Pastor and he accepted that position.
As mentioned earlier members of the Church
Council have been working on our Church Constitu-
tion in order to make it less burdensome and to facili-
tate changes that a committee must make to stay cur-
rent and viable. The job descriptions and duties of the
Boards and committees are currently in the Constitu-
tion so any time anyone has to make a change we have
to call a congregational meeting. The constitution has
been rewritten to remove all those items and each
committee has or is writing an SOP or Standard Oper-
ating Procedure which states the duties and size etc. of
all those groups. This will eliminate the need to have
special meetings. The amended Constitution will be
voted on at the annual meeting in February.
The church council will be meeting in January date
is TBD at this point. We will ensure that the Constitu-
tion is ready for the Annual Meeting and vote. As al-
ways if you have concerns or question feel free to ask.
C h u r c h C o u n c i l
S t e w a r d s h i p
The Stewardship Campaign for 2020 resulted in
twenty-five pledges. To support the current expenses
of the church #33, 409 was pledged. To support worl-
wide missions $834 was pledged. To support the capi-
tal campaign $7,952 was pledged.
This is a slight increase from the amount pledged
for 2019. The Committee would like to thank the con-
gregation for their support.
Lisa Ostrowski and Kim Dickson
C h r i s t i a n E d u c a t i o n
The children presented their Christmas pageant on
December 22. It was titled, 'twas the night before
Christmas and told the story of Jesus' birth in a
slightly different way. The children enjoyed present-
ing it to the congregation and they hope you all en-
joyed it. Our regular classes will resume and we will
continue learning about the books of Exodus.
P i c t u r e s f r o m T r o l l e y R i d e
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