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