New Year’s Day / 2 / 3
4
10:30 Worship
with Communion / 5
Cub Scouts / 6
Boy Scouts / 7
Girl Scouts / 8 / 9 / 10
10:00 Unhanging of Greens
12:00 Worship Committee
11
10:30 Worship / 12
Cub Scouts / 13
Boy Scouts / 14
Girl Scouts
7:00 p.m.
Outreach Committee / 15 / 16 / 17
18
10:30 Worship
Annual Cong/Corp
Meeting / 19
Cub Scouts / 20
Boy Scouts
7:15 Session meeting in chapel / 21
Girl Scouts / 22 / 23 / 24
25
10:30 Worship
Eagle Scout Ceremony at
2:00 p.m. / 26
Cub Scouts / 27
Boy Scouts / 28
Girl Scouts / 29 / 30 / 31
Scout Pinewood Derby
1 – Barbara Soden
5 – Brayden Thomas
Roberts
7 – Joseph Price 9 – Betty Skorec Matthew Tomcykoski
10 – Jason Bowen
17 – Norma Frank
Barbara Metzgar
23 – Lisa Metzgar
25 – Eric Sohns
Jan 18 – Jack & Bev
Solsman
Special Dates
New Year’s Day, Jan. 1,
Epiphany, January 6,
Baptism of the Lord, January 11,
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Jan. 18-25,
--to all who provided boxes that were delivered to the Clarks Summit State Hospital to be given to residents, who might not have received any gift.
The Head Start of Dunmore sent thank your cards from each child who received a gift from our church. Thirty-six children got a gift pack of books and crayons.
Special thanks to the Secret Santa that helped with these gifts.
Both Joseph Price and Natalie Cantarella have sent Thank Yous! for the care package of goodies received to help through final exam time. Joseph is a student at Arcadia University and Natalie at Keystone College.
Resolutions
American theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) became focused on his life’s purpose at age 19. The result was 70 resolutions, or commitments, he wrote down and then read every week for 35 years until his death. Some of those resolutions include:
• To live with all my might while I do live.
• To study the Scriptures … steadily, constantly
and frequently.
• Never to lose one moment of time.
• Never to do anything which I should despise or think meanly of in another.
• Never to do anything out of revenge.
• To let there be something of benevolence in all that I speak.
• Never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
SESSION
CLASS OF 2015 CLASS OF 2016 CLASS OF 2017
Barbara Keller Linda Muracco Linda Bourbeau
John Frank Nancy Walsh Connie Richards
Dick Loessy Don Williams Frank Stieler
Financial Secretary: Connie Richards Treasurer: Sue Cantarella Clerk of Session: Sue Cantarella
Treasurer of Endowments: Richard Loessy
The next session meeting will be held on
Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 7:15 p.m. in the chapel.
The next stated meeting of the Lackawanna Presbytery is:
January 31, 2015 at 9:30 a.m. at
The UPC of Lackawanna Valley, Peckville,
BOARD OF DEACONS
Bonnie Forbes Georgie Levy Danny Clark
Myrna Watkins Lisa Price Bobbi Goldberg
Mary Grace Donati Betty Skorec Howard Miller
The next Board of Deacons meeting is: Saturday, February 21, 2015, at 10:00 a.m.
The Board of Deacons continue to collect non-perishable food items that are taken to the Safety Net in Scranton. Items may be left in the church vesitbule or leave them in the church office.
Tne Annual Congregational and Corporation meeting will be Sunday, January 18, 2015, following worship. All reports should be into the church office by January 11th.
Please continue to keep Betty Skorec and her family in your ongoing thoughts and prayers.
Betty will celebrate her birthday on January 9th.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Sarah Palermo and Cataldo Pinto following the recent death of their brother Joe Pinto. Joe had done work throughout the church in past years and we remember his family at this time.
A group of carolers visited our shut-ins and delivered Christmas gifts from the Presbyterian Women and the Board of Deacons. Many thank you notes have been received for their visit and gifts and they have been placed on our bulletin board.
Helen Biggar thanks the Deacons, Presbyterian Women, and members of the congregation for their cards, gifts, and visits during the holidays.
A special thank you goes to all the carolers who came to Green Ridge to share the scripture and carols with the other residents and me--I appreciated your taking the time on a busy Saturday afternoon to continue this tradition. With my best wishes for a Happy and Healthy 2015!
The Prayer Shawl group continues to be busy and have made 20 shawls for our shut-ins and friends and family of our congregation in need of prayers for healing. If anyone is interested in joining the group and making a shawl, please let Barbara Keller know.
The Outreach Committee will meet on Wednesday, January 14th at 7:00 p.m. Anyone that is interested in joining the committee is welcome to attend.
Volunteers are needed to help remove the Christmas decorations from the church are asked to meet on Saturday, January 10, at 10:00 a.m.
The Worship Committee will meet at 12:00 noon on Saturday, January 10, 2015.
The new edition of the large print “Our Daily Bread” is now available. These are in a limited quantity and can be found in the vestibule or in the Fellowship Hall. The next regular print edition will begin in March.
Openness to the unexpected is the key to spirited vitality. The wise men in Matthew 2, which is about the baby Jesus, came from modern-day Iran. They ably grasp that God’s revelation is coming to a different religious and ethnic group than their own. Do they know that the royal child they will worship will be born into economic circumstances far beneath theirs? Not likely. Others might have said, “There must be some mistake here! But undeterred, the magi bow in obedience and offer their gifts to this baby – Jesus.
The great spiritual writer, Henri J. M. Nouwen, in his early book. “The Wounded Healer” expressed an important spiritual insight – that the person who seems most in need of healing may himself or herself be a healer. But his insight acquired a new and transformational personal reality for him, when he came to know Adam Arnett. When Henri moved to L’Arche a community for Special Needs people, one of his tasks was to help Adam get ready in the morning.
Adam would not talk and had many physical needs; he was as slow as Henri was fast in walking and talking. But Adam, radiated a deep peacefulness. Bathing and dressing Adam fixing his breakfast, and sitting with him as he awkwardly ate it, Henri, whose brilliant inner being was driven by a constant anguish and sense of urgency, was opened up to discover Adam as his healer and teacher in a more centered and profoundly life-giving way of being.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschal wrote in an essay, “No Religion is an Island” these powerful words: “To meet a human being is a major challenge to the mind and heart for another human being. It is also a disclosure of the Godly. “ Sometimes God’s self-disclosure comes not in a form we desire, let alone expect; but it is always gracious and life-giving--- like how God came in the form of an infant, the baby Jesus!
Help us loving God, to be open to the unexpected in life, to treasure moments of revelation by God, and to live out of the energy and insight they gives us.
Happy New Year ! Faithfully,
Pastor Ken
January 18 to 25th is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has a history of over 100 years . . . , in which Christians around the world have taken part in an octave of prayer for visible Christian unity. By annually observing the WPCU, Christians move toward the fulfillment of Jesus' prayer at the Last Supper "that they all may be one." (cf. John 17:21) An Ecumenical Celebration of God’s Word will be celebrated on Friday, January 24, 2014, at 12:10 p.m. in the Cathedral of Saint Peter, Scranton.
The Reverend Clinton A. Randall will be installed as pastor of The Hickory Street United Presbyterian Church, Scranton, on Sunday, January 11, 2015 at 4:00 p.m.
Our Church received a plaque from the Clarks Summit State Hospital in recognition of our volunteer service in 2014 by providing the Christmas gift boxes for the residents. We again were able to provide this service this year. This plaque is currently hanging the church Fellowship Hall.
Those who have any type of prayer need request for a friend or family member, please contact: Pastor Ken at 570-344-3145, Sue Cantarella at 570-343-6807 or let a prayer chain member know. Our chain:
Bonnie Forbes Danny Clark
Betty & Everett Fitch Betty Lamm
Georgie Levy Norma Mecca
Lisa Price Eleanor Metzgar
Nancy Walsh Doris Keller
Liz Hamborsky
Monday thru Friday
9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon
Church Office: 570-343-6807
Pastor Ken is in the office Tuesday thru Thursday mornings most weeks.
Should anyone need pastoral care for any reason please contact Pastor at home: 570-344-3145
or when Pastor Ken is away, please contact Sue during office hours or after hours –
Her home: 570- 383-9298 or Cell: 570-954-5846
Church website: dunmorepresby.org Pastor Ken:
Church email:
A Well-Balanced Church
The owner of a new puppy got a good laugh when the little dog, out for a walk, had an itch. The trouble was that the itchy spot was accessible only to a hind leg. So, while still walking, the pup tried to scratch and tumbled over, rolling a couple of times before coming to rest.
In several places throughout Scripture, the apostle Paul writes about the church as the body of Christ, and of the importance of each member. Just as the dog needed each leg to stay balanced while walking, so the church needs all the different God-given gifts of its members: preachers and elders and deacons, friendly visitors, generous givers, musicians and singers, wise parents and imaginative youth, greeters, ushers, people to help produce newsletters, repair something when broken, and on and on.
When we start thinking that some part of Christ’s body isn’t necessary, we risk taking quite a tumble!
The Faith Journey
Faith is better understood as a verb than a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you’re going, but going anyway. A journey without maps.
—Frederick Buechner
Get ready for Epiphany
Many Christian denominations celebrate Epiphany each year on or near January 6. “Epiphany,” which means “showing forth,” celebrates the visit of the magi, or wise men, to the baby Jesus. These men, also known as kings, saw the star that led them to Bethlehem.
The fact that these wise men were Gentiles, not Jews, teaches us an important theological lesson: Their search for the Savior shows that Jesus came for all people.
In 1875, Philip Bliss wrote the hymn “The Light of the World Is Jesus.” The first stanza captures the meaning of Epiphany, a season of light:
The whole world was lost
In the darkness of sin,
The Light of the world is Jesus!
Like sunshine at noonday,
His glory shone in.
The Light of the world is Jesus!
The Presbyterian Women are now selling 2015 calendars and sets of greeting cards and they can be purchased during coffee hour.
Prices are: Wall calendar $ 7.00
Pocket calendar $ 6.00
Set of 12 blank greeting cards $ 7.00
Blanket Sunday was held in November and $390.00 was received to provided blankets for those in need through Church World Service.
GIVEN BY: IN MEMORY OF:
Don Becker & Linda Muracco Lois A. Becker
Helen & Jean Biggar Loved Ones
Paula Costanzo Loved Ones
Cynthia Dagger Ralph and Mary Jenkin
Mary Grace Donati Orlando & Mary DiGennari
Betty & Everett Fitch Mr. & Mrs. E.V. Fitch
Mr. & Mrs. Eugene McLaughlin
Donna Jenkins and Brenda Gallagher Ronald Martinelli
Mary Rudolfi
Wesley & Barbara Keller Grandma Tur,, Uncle Domenick, Florence G. Brown
Richard Loessy Harold & Lois Loessy
Rev. & Mrs. James Marsh Loved Ones
Norma Mecca Loved Ones
Eleanor Metzgar William H. Metzgar
Connie Richards & Family Florence Gillespie Brown
Lisa Simrell & Rick Phaler Fred Phaler
Bev & Jack Solsman Parents
Nancy Walsh George J. Hamborsky
Myrna Watkins & Georgie Levy Gwen and Dick Walters
Ruth Davies
Given By: In Honor Of:
Mary Grace Donati Ryan Evans
Rev. Ken & Bonnie Forbes Eugene & Lorraine Sterner