You may have heard the monthly mid-week concerts, but now we are delighted to welcome the Griffon String Quartet to play for our Sunday morning 10am worship service on December 15th.
Don’t miss the opportunity to hear these four wonderful string players during this special season. Bring a friend or neighbor!
The snow has begun to fly so the time has come to have some fun on the slopes at our annual Ski Trip! This year we’ll once again be joined by our friends from First United Presbyterian Church of DePere.
And, although primarily coordinated with Youth Group, the ski trip is considered a family event so all are welcome to join!
Our ski destination is Ski Brule and we’ll be checking in on Friday, January 31st, checking out Saturday, February 1st at the Chicaugon Lake Inn.
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!
If you’re interested in joining the fun, please reach out to Loni McCormick at (920) 655-8258 or email pmccormick1@new.rr.com for our registration form.
We hope to see you on the slopes!
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 early Christian tradition, Saints’ days began as a way to mark the anniversary of a martyr’s death — his or her “birthday” as a Saint. By the middle of the church’s first millennium, there were so many martyrs that it was hard to give them all their due. All Saints’ Day was established as an opportunity to honor all the Saints, known and unknown.
All Saints’ Day has a rather different focus in the Reformed tradition. While we may give thanks for the lives of particular luminaries of ages past, the emphasis is on the ongoing sanctification of the whole people of God. Rather than putting Saints on pedestals as holy people set apart in glory, we give glory to God for the ordinary, holy lives of the believers in this and every age. This is an appropriate time to give thanks to members of the community of faith who have died in the past year.
It is our tradition to remember and give thanks for all the “Saints” of this congregation and throughout our extended families who have gone on to their heavenly homes in the past year. On Sunday, November 3rd we will celebrate All Saints’ Day in worship, remembering especially Harland Merrell, Wayne Price, and Theda Nero. As photos are projected, we will join in prayer for all the Saints and remember each name. As the names are read, a family member or friend will come forward to light a candle for each one. Following the recognition of all our members, others will be invited to come forward and light a candle for a friend or family member they have lost in the last year as well. We’re delighted to have a harpist to accompany our commemoration this year. We remember and give thanks for all those who have gone before us to show us the way—don’t miss this special worship experience.
December 1st is the first Sunday of Advent and our annual Advent Workshop will be held that day following worship in Banner Hall. Look forward to lunch and plenty of activities to start off the season.
A new Bible study for Advent will begin on Wednesday December 4th at 6:00pm online and Thursday December 5th at 10:30am at church. We will be studying together the book Season’s Greetings: Christmas Letters from Those Who Were There.
Twelve vividly-imagined letters from the familiar characters of this narrative speak to the many meanings of Christmas—awe, wonder, disruption, scandal, and hope. The author is a seminary classmate of Pastor Katie’s and promises to make a Zoom visit to us sometime during the study! Books will be available in the church office for $10. Join us!
Imagine this: cello music by Jesse Nummelin of the Griffon String Quartet, an anthem by our own choir, and increased commitments of time, talents and treasure to the glory of God!
Our annual generosity campaign will conclude on Sunday, November 10th as we dedicate our pledges in worship and imagine what God wants of us in our next year. We hope that you have ‘been framed’ in one of the picture frames and added to our gallery of imaginings, and that you have added your own post-it note visions for what our impact could be in the coming year to the frames in the sanctuary.
Your pledge to the work and ministry of our church in 2025 will help us all to imagine the next great things God is doing among us. Remember to bring your pledge card to worship and plan to stay for a celebration lunch in Banner Hall catered by Renards. All are welcome!
It is our turn to host the joint Thanksgiving worship service with our sisters and brothers in Christ from First United Presbyterian Church in De Pere!
We will gather here on Monday, November 25th at 6:30pm in the sanctuary. Choir members from both churches will join to be directed by our Music Director, Michael Raught.
A homemade pie and hot apple cider reception will follow the service in the Fellowship Room. Come give thanks with us!
In the Presbyterian tradition, young people confirm the faith their parents chose for them when they were baptized as infants.
Five students from our congregation have been working for more than a year on topics including scripture review, worship, beliefs, church history, and much more. They have contributed to the design of a Sunday morning service for November 24th and will share their personal statements of faith with the Session prior to that date.
Please join them in celebrating faith as well as doubt in the journey on Sunday, November 24th.
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.
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!
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!
