Category: Adults

2024 Advent Workshop

Cheri Simonet
Advent Workshop

Sunday, December 1st

“Advent” means coming or arrival. Rather than just waiting for Christmas to get here, we use the season of Advent to prepare for Christ’s coming. Advent begins this year on Sunday, December 1st and we will kick off the season with our annual Advent workshop following worship.

Open to all ages, this event will feature crafts, activities, and Kevin’s famous chili lunch. Brenda has designed some great crafts once again, including reindeer ornaments and Loni has an aroma therapy potpourri project for us to create. And of course, as always, we’ll have Loni’s cut-out cookies to decorate (and eat!).

New this year is a reverse Advent calendar. With this project we’ll provide you with a list of items and a box. For each day of Advent you’ll place an item from the list in the box and by Christmas you’ll have a full box of items that include dried and canned goods, hygiene items and cleaning supplies that you can then donate to a local pantry, homeless shelter or other organization that helps members of the community that are in need and less fortunate than ourselves. We believe that it’ll prove to be a very enriching experience for everyone.

Please join us for this all-church celebration.

2024 Blue Christmas

Cheri Simonet
Blue Christmas

Thursday, December 12th at 6pm

For any of us who have experienced loss or are in the midst of struggles, the holidays can be a particularly painful time, stirring up grief in acute ways. As a result, churches of every denomination and style have adopted the practice of a “Blue Christmas” service. We continue this tradition with a Blue Christmas service on Thursday, December 12th at 6:00pm in the sanctuary.

This time of worship is designed to provide space for prayer, reflection, and remembrance in the midst of the holiday hustle and bustle. It will include special music, candle lighting, and the sacrament of holy communion.

All are welcome to join us for this contemplative service of worship. A dessert reception will follow in the Fellowship Room. Invite a friend or neighbor!

December 2024 Fourth Sunday Forum

Cheri Simonet
Christmas Around The World Fourth Sunday Forum

Sunday, December 22nd

Please join us on Sunday, December 22nd before worship at 9am in the Fellowship Room for our monthly Fourth Sunday Forum!

For the month of December our featured speaker will be Loni McCormick and her presentation will focus on Christmas Characters Around the World.

During the Forum you’ll learn how different cultures and countries celebrate Christmas Characters. So many rich traditions and the stories behind how the tradition came about will be just some of what you’ll learn during Loni’s presentation. You may even walk away with some thoughts on new traditions to include in your own Christmas celebrations.

And, the forum wouldn’t be complete without festive Christmas treats and coffee to enjoy!

We hope to see you there!

Annual 2025 Ski Trip

Cheri Simonet
Annual Ski Trip

The calendar is about to turn to December, the cold air is beginning to sink in and snow’s even flurrying which means our Christian Education Committee has plans well underway for our annual Ski Trip!

Although the event is primarily coordinated with Youth Group, the ski trip is considered a family event so all are welcome to join!

Mark your calendars for fun on the slopes January 31st. Our ski destination is Ski Brule and we’ll be checking in on Friday the 31st, checking out Saturday, February 1st at the Chicaugon Lake Inn https://chicaugonlakeinn.com/. 

Registration forms with more details will be coming in our January Newsletter. We will need a minimum of 20 skiers to take advantage of the Ski Brule group discount so spread the word to family, friends and neighbors. The more the merrier!

We hope to see you on the slopes!

2024 Annual Pajamas and Carols Worship Service

Cheri Simonet
Christmas Pajamas Carol Sing & Worship Service

Sunday, December 29th

Ugly Sweater Christmas Carols Worship Service

Break out your favorite Christmas pajamas or ugly Christmas sweater or even just a festive tie—it has become our tradition to celebrate the Sunday between Christmas and the New Year by encouraging folks of all ages to wear pajamas or other seasonal garb to our 10am worship service!

The Worship committee will serve hot chocolate and donut holes BEFORE worship in the back of the Sanctuary. Our service will feature all the Christmas carols you want to sing one more time, and Bruce Deadman and friends on brass will add to our festivities.

Please join us!

In need of a meal or a ride?

Cheri Simonet
Deacon Carpool

If you are temporarily in need of a meal or a ride to church, the Deacons have a network in place to help you get through your difficult time.

Please let us know if you are recovering from an illness or surgery and are in need of a few meals to help you get by until you are recovered. You can call the church office at 920-437-8121 and we can get that arranged for you.

If you are in need of a ride to church the Deacons also have a network in place for you to be picked up and brought to church. Again, you can just call the church office and arrangements can be made.

As Deacons of First Presbyterian Church our primary goal is taking care of our members when difficult situations arise. If you are in need of a helpful meal or a ride to church please call the church office at 920-437-8121 or the Deacon Moderator, Linda Michael at 920-347-0261.

World Communion Sunday and International Food Potluck

Cheri Simonet
World Communion Sunday

Sunday – October 6, 2024

World Communion Sunday began way back in 1930. The PC(USA) has long promoted this occasion with encouragement to its churches to not just offer “communion as usual”, but to explore the use of different breads, global music, and creative liturgy to enter into the spirit of the celebration and allow congregations a taste of the sacrament from our sisters and brothers around the world.

We will celebrate this year with Christian churches around the world as we share the sacrament together on Sunday, October 6th. Each tray passed will offer several different kinds of bread from which to choose, symbolizing different communities around the world who share the sacrament with us. We look forward to a special message in this service from Taylor Wittman, currently serving in the Peace Corps in Albania.

International Food Potluck

Following our celebration of World Communion on Sunday October 6th, the congregation is invited to a very special potluck lunch in Fellowship Room.

We will continue the global community emphasis by inviting your international food contributions for the potluck—plan to try out a new recipe or bring a favorite from your own ethnic background, but the point is to have a wide variety of foods from around the world as our lunch together. We first tried this last year and had a great time tasting Swedish meatballs, Greek lasagna, Indian curry and more.

Bring a label for your item with ingredients listed or make one with blanks provided here as you drop it off that morning. We want to inform everyone about what they can expect as we enjoy fellowship around the tables and sample foods we may have never tasted before!

Imagine: Picture the Possibilities

Cheri Simonet
Generosity Campaign

The Generosity Team is hard at work designing a creative way to consider the future of our church and the responsibility the whole church has to contribute to that future.

Sundays in our Generosity campaign this year will be October 27th, November 3rd and November 10th. We are grateful to everyone who has answered our request for large empty picture frames—watch for how those will be used in the Sanctuary and Fellowship Room in the coming weeks!

For now, you are simply invited to begin to imagine: imagine what God wants us to look like, imagine what our mission outreach could become, imagine what we could do as a congregation if we had the resources needed to move into our future with faith.

Hope: A User’s Manual – New Bible Study

Cheri Simonet
Bible Study

October 23rd & 24th

When it comes to hope, our culture peddles a lot of cheap knockoffs. But that kind of “hope” falls short when things are bleak—which is exactly when we need hope the most.

This new study centers on a book about real hope—a spiritual counternarrative resilient enough to endure crises and crushing defeats without forsaking the here and now. Author MaryAnn McKibben Dana reflects on what hope is not (optimism, toxic positivity, scripty-font platitudes on Instagram), what hope is (a story we live by), and where to find it in hopeless times (in the messiness of our imperfect, flawed, beautiful human bodies).

This six-week study will be offered on Wednesday evenings at 6:00pm via Zoom and on Thursday mornings at 10:30am in-person at the church. The study will begin October 23rd and 24th and books will be available one week prior at a cost of $10.

Join us as we surround ourselves with hope!

Fall Women’s Retreat – A Recipe for Connection

Cheri Simonet
Women's Retreat

Women of all ages are invited to join us for a 24-hour retreat this month at Imago Dei Village Retreat Center in Clintonville, less than an hour’s drive from here. We will begin with dinner on Friday night October 25th and conclude after lunch on Saturday, October 26th.

Accommodations are in a lodge with bedrooms for 2 or 3 women and private bathrooms with showers. Cost will be $75 for each participant, and scholarships are available. There is a full kitchen, so we will share cooking duties and include 3 meals: dinner Friday night, then breakfast and lunch on Saturday.

Our theme for this time together is A Recipe For Connection. We will spend the time thinking about food, family, traditions, and the connections we create as women together. We will view the 2009 movie Julie & Julia, which is a wonderful biographical comedy drama written and directed by Nora Ephron starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in the title roles. The film contrasts the life of chef Julia Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell, who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child’s cookbook in 365 days, a challenge she described on her popular blog, which made her a published author.

We certainly can’t promise to “master the art of French cooking”, (the title of Julia Childs’ cookbooks) but we might attempt a few fun recipes from it together!

Please let Pastor Katie know if you are interested or sign up on the bulletin board at the church.