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Come Walk With Us
January 2015
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors
Mark Your Calendar
www.faithunited.org
Www.facebook.com/FaithChurchWA
January 5 Preschool resumes
January 9 Movie Night
January 11 Tijuana Missions Meeting
January 18 Youth Compline at St. Mark’s
January 25 4th & 5th Grade Youth Begins
There are many great ways to support Faith Church throughout the year! All you need to do is list Faith Church as your charity for Amazon Smile and sign up for the rewards when you shop at Fred Meyer! It’s that easy. Thank You!
A Note from Pastor Elizabeth Dear friends,
Every year, I hear dozens of friends say, “I just want to have a simple Christmas this year. No more going overboard.” For some, this means cutting out holiday cards or putting up fewer decorations. For others, it means buying and wrapping fewer gifts, or cutting out some of the traditions that have, at times, been meaningful, but now are more habit than anything.
Our Christmas is always a little hectic simply because Steven and I are both working long hours and we often have family in town for the holiday. We decorate some and send out hundreds of holiday cards, but we keep ourselves from going crazy on the gift-giving front, which helps keep things from going out of control. For our immediate family, each of us gets three things each year: something to read, something to wear, and something to play with.
Still, on the day after Christmas, my house looks like the holiday hurricane came through. Parts of toys are scattered about, boxes and wrapping have eluded the recycle bin, and scrumptious goodies cover our kitchen counters. It’s enough to inspire even the sloppiest among us to turn over a new leaf in the new year, to do more than organize or tidy up: to simplify.
After Epiphany Sunday, when we celebrate the story of the wise men coming to worship Jesus under the star of Bethlehem, we will turn our focus in worship to starting 2015 in a new way: beating busy-ness. All of us have likely experienced this hurricane in our homes at one time or another, and most of us have also experienced it on our calendars: so many options, so many opportunities, so many obligations, so little time. God wants us to give back, to work hard, and to appreciate relationship with others, but God does not desire that we live hectic, harried lives. Of all the virtues mentioned in the Bible, busy-ness is not one.
How will you start 2015? What new habits will you establish this year? Sure, maybe you’ll resolve to get back to the gym or to eat a healthier diet. But what about your schedule? Your busy lifestyle? How might you change the way you live to more fully engage in the people around you, to more fully focus on God’s presence, to more fully honor the One who gave you life?
Join me on the journey. Peace and blessings, Pastor Elizabeth
Finance As we look ahead to 2015 it is important to share with you our financial position as we close 2014. We project to end the year in a healthy financial position such that our expenses will not exceed our income for the year. Our 2015 Pledge Giving campaign ended in late November and total pledge giving is 5% higher than in 2014. While the average pledge is up almost 10% over 2014, the number of pledges made is down by 5%. The Finance team continues to be encouraged by the generous growth in non-pledge or loose plate giving this year and project modest growth in 2015. On the expense side for 2015 team leaders put together an initial budget that was 7% over the 2014 budget. With a conservative yet optimistic approach to budgets for 2015, the Finance team projects total income to be about 5% less than budgeted in 2014. In early December the Coordinating Team worked to reduce their planned budgets for 2015 and agreed on a faith-based budget that is 6% greater than current projected income. A faith-based budget is where we believe God will provide for our needs but are uncertain how and when that will become true. Our apportionments to the larger church went down 7% for 2015 but with continued growth we expect that amount will grow in the years ahead. To arrive at a reduced budget team leaders removed some planned expenses from the budget such as a new street sign for the church, continued technology investments and leadership development training. They will consider other means to cover these expenses sometime after we begin the new year and have a better feel for our growth. The leaders felt strongly that it was necessary to create a future Building Maintenance Fund so we are able to keep up with necessary maintenance after our current resources from the recent refinancing are spent. Overall for 2014 we are current on our loans and apportionments, have an emergency fund over $64,000 and healthy cash flow. For 2015 we are conservative yet optimistic and have strong plans in place to support growth and if necessary, tighten on spending to maintain a balance of income and expense. If any members would like more information about our financial position, please feel free to contact me. My email address is [email protected] and my cell phone number is 206-769-3428. It is a privilege to serve as your Treasurer and I welcome your questions, suggestions or feedback.
In His Service,
Cathy Anderson
Finance
Pledge information through November 30, 2014 Pledges received YTD $ 372,077 Pledges expected YTD 404,229 TYD difference in pledges (32,152) Income and Expense information through November 30, 2014 Actual Budget YTD cumulative income $ 526,686 $ 535,364 YTD cumulative expense $ 558,317 $ 593,261 YTD cumulative difference $ (31,631) $ (57,897)
The Girl Scouts of the Issaquah School District are hosting this workshop. Learning to code isn’t just about developing programming skills, but learning to think, reason, and problem-solve. Designing and developing compelling animations and games is FUN and HARD WORK – girls love it! Join us to learn about careers for women in tech and a hands-on intro to coding games. Who: Girls 6th - 12th grade Date: Saturday, January 31, 2015 Time: 10:00 AM-12:00 PM or 1:00 PM-3:00 PM Location: FUMC, Talbert Building Cost: $10 Registration: Contact Michele Brady at [email protected] or 425-281-2295 Registration is required and space is limited to 50 girls per session. This workshop is sponsored by local, woman-owned TechVenture Kids. Check out their website for more information about after-school coding clubs and summer camps! techventurekids.org
Girls Can Code Workshop
Adult Ministry Adult Sunday School. How do you grow in your discipleship and deepen your relationship with Christ. We currently offer a 9:00 a.m. class each Sunday in room S105 to review the scripture that Pastor Elizabeth will use in each of the 9:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Services. In worship or at this site, please check your interest in a new 10:30 a.m. class. We are currently considering a 10:30 a.m. Parenting Skills based lesson, or a review of the 9:00 a.m. sermon and questions we would like to pass to Pastor Elizabeth, or a study on several books of the Bible. We first seek to understand who may be interested in joining or leading a 10:30 a.m. class following the 9:00 a.m. Worship. Please prayerfully consider how this class could deepen your relationship with Christ, and how you may facilitate leadership of this new group.
Small groups are a another way to grow in your relationship with God. There are several small groups at Faith Church meeting at various times and locations. If you are interested in joining a group, please contact Elizabeth Coffey: [email protected]
Deeper Bible Study. Disciple III began, October 16, and meets Thursdays at 6:30pm in room S105. Karen Gladhill facilitates this 34-week long study.
Additional Study. Faith has a diverse, busy congregation. We can start numerous fruitful dialogues based upon reading books such as these:
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, by Donald Miller
What’s so Amazing about Grace? By Philip Yancey
The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henry, J.M. Nouwen
The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Thanks for persevering to the end –really, just the beginning – as we work together to make disciples of Jesus Christ, empowered and committed to the transformation of the world – on Earth as it is in Heaven.
In the Love of Christ, Bill
Men’s Ministry
Women’s Ministry Women’s Annual Retreat February 6-8, 2015 Rainbow Lodge, North Bend, WE Cost:$150. Scholarships are available. This is a great opportunity for women to un-wind, make new friends and grow closer to God. Pastor Elizabeth and Debbie Dimitri will be the featured speakers. Price includes 2 nights of lodging, 4 meals, speakers and FUN! All women 18 and older are welcome.
Faith Café, our weekly fellowship gathering, meets on Wednesday at 9:30am
in the Talbert kitchen. It will resume Jan. 7.
Men of Faith! We have an exciting opportunity coming up in January. On January 10th, we have been able to solidify spots just for us for a Habitat Build. Thank you Dick Gram. Please save a spot in your calendar for this event. If you have never participated in a Habitat build before, this is truly an awesome experience and a great mission to put our support into. Additional information will follow, so check out our monitors and bulletins for more information. I will also send out a Men's email but some of you might not be on that list. We really need to know by early January if the Men of Faith can work this mission. So get out there and commit! Send me a note ([email protected]) if you are interested. If you are not receiving our emails but would like to, please indicate this on the Connection Card or email the request to: [email protected]
Music Ministry
As we bring in a new year and wave goodbye to the old one, Emily and I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated in the music ministry during the extremely busy month of December. We had involvement from all ages- pre-school on up-and many hours of hard work went into the “Glorious Night” Christmas cantata, the Christmas Eve services, and our regular worship services throughout the month. A special thank you to Melissa Bortnick for her hard work bringing us the Faith Notes Children’s Chime Choir this past month! We look forward to wonderful things in 2015 and, as always, welcome anyone who would like to join us. We are always on the lookout for new talent, whether it be vocalists or instrumentalists. If you just like to sing, please consider joining our Faith Choir. Contact Pam Sloane ([email protected]) or Emily Cowgill ([email protected]) any time to discuss where and how you can serve in music ministry. There is something for everyone in Faith’s Music Ministry!
Safe Church Policy
Winter is here! A reminder that there are First Aid kits in the Sanctuary Building (Cry Room, with the AED; Kitchen, above the stove; Pre-School Office; Class-rooms), Upper Talbert (Great Room, with the AED; Storage Closet under the stairs in the Admin Office), and the Modular Building. Each building has maps showing the location of fire extinguishers and first aid kits. Be sure to notice these maps the next time you’re in church! Whenever the First Aid kits are used, be sure to notify a staff member, Trustee, or the Safe Church Policy Coordinator so that the kits can be restocked and an accident report (if needed) can be completed.
In the Beginning Preschool
Our Preschool would like to extend a wish
to Faith Church, for a Joyous and Peace filled 2015!
We are back after a long Christmas break and start with a very busy month in our Specials – Sing, Swing & Sway, Jump, Jiggle & Jog, Chapel Time, Hand Writing Without Tears and Art from the Heart, along with our creative and fun curriculum: winter, favorite fairy tales and nursery rhymes, growing crystals, estimating jars and the like, to keep our students engaged and developing the way they need too. There will also be many potential new families taking tours with the director, Kathryn, as we gear up for our 2015-2016 registration.
Registration Information for the 2015-2016 School Year
On Tuesday, January 13 our In-house registration will be at 9:45 am – in the Lobby Alumni and Church members registration is Thursday, January 15 at 9:45 -
10:30am- in the Lobby * Wait-List registration is Thursday. January 15 from 10:30 – 11:30am
– in the Lobby.
Public Registration Tours begin on Tuesday, January 20 in the Sanctuary lobby. Please con-tact us ahead of time to reserve a spot on a tour.
A non-refundable fee of $200 per child and $95 per sibling is required at regis-tration for new students who are placed in one of our 7 classes.
If you are interested in our program or know of someone who might be, please call our office to schedule a tour. For more information regarding this ministry, please pick up a brochure and monthly newsletter, which are located next to the Preschool office or visit our website at www.inthebeginningpreschool.org.
Thank you and Blessings, Kathryn, the Preschool Staff & the Preschool Advisory Team
ITBS Fund Raiser
Clothes for the Cause – Fundraiser for In the Beginning Preschool. Why: The Preschool is raising money to help offset the cost of a fence for the playground with the Trustees. This is easy, no dollar cost to you and you get to clean out some unwanted items from you home while saving the environment! When: Sunday March 1, 2015
Collecting at both Services If you have items you would like to get rid of now, please drop them off during preschool hours
9:30am – 1pm on M, T, Th & F. What’s the Benefit? We will pay the Preschool per pound for all the clothes and shoes that you collect. The more you collect, the more you get paid. A good visual is if every family brought in 3 -5 bags of textiles we would reach our goal of 10,000 pounds PLUS!!! Or 15 cents per pound. The bag is the Costco white trash bag size which approximately holds 10 – 12 pounds of textiles. There is NO LIMIT to how much we can take. You can keep filling the truck or in our case the Annex until March 1. Unlike other fundraisers which require people to write checks or donate time, this event costs the community nothing. EVERYONE has old clothes, shoes, towels, sheets, or bedspreads that they want to get rid of. You just bring you bags to church on March 1. More details in February. As textile recyclers, Clothes for the Cause can take almost any household textile as long as it is clean and dry 98% of all clothes and shoes can be recycled. The EPA has found that textile recycling has the same impact on the environment as aluminum recycling. The impact of textile recycling last year was equal to removing 1 million cars from the road. Not only does your Preschool benefit, the environment does too! What Do We Take? • ALL household textiles* – in any condition • Paired Shoes – in any condition • Towels • Gloves & Hats • Sheets • Blankets, quilts and bedspreads • Drapes • Purses & Belts • Stuffed animals All items must be kept dry, so please put them in tightly tied plastic bags. Please mark your bag with the Preschool initials – ITBP so we can readily identify it.
*We cannot take glass, breakables, electronics, pet beds, bed pillows, uniforms, carpeting, hotel linens or items previously for sale at a thrift store. *Clothes for the Cause is for household textiles only. If you have a large quantity of industrial textiles, i.e. uniforms, aprons, lab coats, logo wear, or access to hotel linens or thrift store items, etc. please contact Kathryn (425-392-0123 x3) for more information.
Youth Ministry/ Missions
In my junior year of high school, my best friend went on a trip that changed his life. When he came back from this Christian camp, he begged me to go on it the next year. Knowing me as well as he did, he saw I needed that adventure, a week away that changes everything. — And he was right. There’s not a day I don’t think about what I experienced and learned about God and the gospel ten years ago. That week away affects every decision, thought, and belief I have in this world. In June of last year, I went along with Sammamish Presbyterian Church to Tijuana to help build houses for a week. It was another trip that I think about every day. I had never been to Mexico before, only seeing the massive concrete and barbed wire border wall from afar during trips to San Diego. However after driving over, you enter another world, language, and altogether different set of issues than we’d ever face in our little suburb. I was instantly stunned by another reality hidden by that wall. — Hundreds of tents and tarps fill the Tijuana River aqueduct, surrounded by trash and outlined by concrete banks. As we traveled deeper into the city, I saw varying degrees of social class and status. Some houses were three, four stories. Some were made of plywood scraps and tin. Sometimes they were beside one another. We spent a week there helping a few people move out from those plywood shacks by building little two bedroom shacks in just a few days. We stayed at an orphanage and took showers by dumping buckets of cold water overhead to wash all the Mexicali dust off. I slept in a hammock. If you think about the opposite of Tijuana, it’s probably something like Sammamish. The houses are all big and expensive. Mostly everyone has/had jobs and not many want the homeless around, as we found out last year. There’s grass, evergreen trees, and nice SUV’s everywhere. I take a hot shower (almost) everyday.
We don’t have much to worry about here but since we’re a worrying species we find things to stress about that are really blessings like school, work, and family. When we were down there, I began to think about how much I cuss in traffic, whine about the student loan debt I have, and all the other silly things that fill my day outside of working hours. I thought a lot about how I often forget to remember God in my life whereas many in Tijuana are relying on God for every single little thing like where the next meal is coming from, how they’re going to get medicine to get better, or worried about the safety of their family tonight because there’s been a lot of gunfire lately; things you would never think about in Sammamish. We’re going to Tijuana this June with SPC not to rescue a few “lost” souls or change the world but to help a few people and rescue our own worlds. In one week, Tijuana will change you more than we’ll be able to change Tijuana. Somehow going there affects how we live here. This will be the trip that changes your life. A week away that will affect every decision, thought, and word you say. Crossing that giant concrete and barbed wire wall to see the hidden reality of dynamic and systematic poverty so different than our culture allows God to put living Sammamish into proper perspective. My worries, my busyness, and all those other silly little things that weigh our spirits seem small when we see the bigger problems in our world happening to our neighbors. — As my best friend said to me years ago, I say to you now- I want you to go. We have an interest meeting on January 11th, immediately after the 10:30 service with more info and Q&A.
Youth Ministry, continued
01/01 Shamus McBride Erica Case Danica Fitzpatrick 01/02 Charles Kaetzel 01/03 Ian Engelbeck 01/04 Michael Hand Phillip Falco 01/05 Bertha Christopherson 01/06 Gabrielle Barnes 01/07 Kyler Przybylski 01/09 Hannah Andres Kenyon Andres 01/11 DJ Dyer, III 01/12 Devin Sloane Kendra Campbell 01/14 Kandi McLachlan Eric Candaux 01/15 Nancy Upton 01/17 Haley McCuen 01/18 Ava Raschko Lucas Timmerman
01/19 Grant Bortnick 01/20 Amielia Stevens Carter Schindler Les Nielsen 01/21 Brian Ittig Ryan Meinhardt 01/22 Jillian Stika 01/23 Blake Wilcox Ellen Callahan Roberta Wherritt 01/24 Emily Vivian 01/25 Justin Scott 01/26 Dorcas Brolin 01/27 Clay Stika Laura Scott 01/28 Carol Sumners 01/28 Olivia Timmerman 01/29 Emma Kleinknecht Jenny Quinn Lucy Galicia 01/31 Carolyn Sullivan
01/02 Geoffrey & Megg Joosten 01/05 Jeff & Elizabeth Coffey 01/06 Dave & Deneall Owens 01/11 Donald & Gladys Myers 01/19 Richard & Sue Vossler
We don’t want anyone forgotten on their special day, so if you don’t see your name when it is your birthday, please be sure to fill out a Con-nection Card and let the office know.
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Pastor Elizabeth Ingram Schindler [email protected]
Music Pam Sloane [email protected]
Pianist Emily Cowgill [email protected]
Dir. Youth Ministry Cody Ray Charland [email protected]
Children’s Ministry Lisa Peters [email protected]
Children’s Assistant Megg Joosten [email protected]
Bookkeeper Laura Meinhardt [email protected]
Preschool Director Kathryn Aitcheson [email protected]
Preschool Treasurer Tara Johnson [email protected]
Office Administrator Pam Zajac [email protected]
Faith Staff
Sunday’s At Faith UMC
9:00 a.m.
Worship Service
Adult Sunday School
Child-Care Provided
10:00 a.m.
Fellowship in Lobby
Children’s Choir Practice
10:30 a.m.
Worship Service
Children’s Sunday School
Child-Care Provided
4:30 p.m.
Confirmation
6:00 p.m.
Youth Breakfast for Dinner
Office Hours: Monday through Thursday: 8a—4p.
