We celebrated both Christ the King Sunday and Thanksgiving (with a Thanksgiving tree!) on a mild November day. It took two services to do it. 50 people attended the 11:00am service and 33 were at the Service of Praise and Thanksgiving at 1:30pm with Memorial Baptist. This was the last Sunday in Year A concentrating on the Gospel of Matthew before we move to Mark next week. The bulletin is here. A photo gallery of this Sunday can be found here.
The readings portray God and Christ as shepherds, rulers and arbiter of justice. The Matthew parable was the culmination of the end of time stories in Chapter 25 over the last 2 weeks which included stories about the bridesmaids and talents.
This time we are at judgment day where Christ separates the Sheep (righteous) from the Goats (unrighteous). The sheep get to the kingdom because of their faith which led to works that helped "the least". They served Jesus even though they were not conscious of doing so. They had already separated themselves with their works. Such as was the case with the sermon on Cynthia Newcott. "Until 2006, when the last of her four children graduated from high school and she became ill with ovarian cancer, Mrs. Newcott opened her home to as many as 50 guests every Tuesday night. " She did this for 15 years reaching out to young people of every age group.
The new youth choir was featured in a play directed by Nancy Long, "Turkey, Potatoes and Peas", a tale about thanking God for the Thanksgiving feast as well as many other things. As we sang in the Offertory -"All Hail the Power of Jesus" name.
We also celebrated the "least" by taking up the Samaritan Purse shoeboxes.18 boxes were donated for use in the world. Thanks to Nancy Long for spearheading this project.
Members from Memorial Baptist joined at noon for lunch featuring venison, goose, various vegetable casseroles, breads and cake, including Brad’s pound cake. Thanks to a group of volunteers under Cookie Davis. The youth had a good time playing on the hill leading down to the river.
At 1:30pm the Service of Praise and Thanksgiving began. Marilyn provided a wonderful harp opening, subdued and beautiful. We sang many traditional hymns separated by readings from Deuteronomy and Corinthians. Barbara Raphael, Pastor Mike’s wife sang "Amazing Grace" and our own Town Crier Mike Newman read Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789.
Certainly a highlight for the service was completing a joint thanksgiving tree. Everyone wrote down things they were thankful for on yellow paper and they were attached to the Board. Both ministers read them which included thanks for family, friends, nature and the work of God and Jesus.
All in all a wonderful day to celebrate the end of the Church year in Matthew and the beginning of our Thanksgiving celebration this week