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While I expected this fall to be busy, I'll admit that I didn't quite expect it to be this busy.
This past Sunday, we held our second Lunch 'n Learn about the Israel/Palestine Conflict - a date for Part Three will be announced shortly. There have been neighborhood gatherings, interfaith events, and memorial services. If you haven't been able to make it to everything (or everything that you have wanted to), we understand. There is always more to do than most of us have time for in a day, a week, or even a month. However, the next event on Northminster's social calendar is coming up this Sunday after worship: Northminster's Fall Potluck Picnic. I encourage everyone to 1) bring some food to share & 2) invite someone to come. Call someone up and see how they are doing and ask what they are planning on bringing. Send an email to ask if a friend has made plans to come. Or simply, let someone in our community know that you are thinking about them. The weather forecast for this week looks like rain. If it is rainy or drizzly on Sunday like it is today, we will move our picnic inside to the Ark. While I hope you all are excited to come and fellowship with one another, we also expect guests to join us: The Congregational Church of Birmingham. As we enter into official space sharing negations with CCB, we felt that it was important that the two congregations get to meet each other and mingle for a bit in order to see if the culture of our congregations is a good fit. Since we were already planning to gather for some extended fellowship time, we felt that the Potluck Picnic would be a perfect opportunity for the congregations to officially meet one another. As I mentioned on Sunday, we at the beginning stages of negotiations with CCB. We have not come to a formalized agreement, and we will be discussing the details of a possible agreement in the coming weeks. We expect this process to take time in order to make sure that we have gotten input and feedback from both congregations, have found solutions to potential issues, and ironed out details of our weekly rhythms before we sign any agreements. By taking this slowly, it also gives both communities a chance to envision what this will look like before implementation. We also hope that this process will give us opportunities to change plans if we think something won't work. This Sunday's Potluck Picnic will be an important step on this journey: we get to meet each other and put names, faces, and personalities to a congregation that we have mostly just heard about. My hope is that you make this picnic a priority this week so that you will be able to contribute feedback as we continue on this path. If you have any questions about this process or what next steps look like, do not hesitate to email me with your thoughts. Blessings, Pastor Chris Let’s cut to the chase: there is a lot of this coming up the next few weeks.
So let us take a moment and touch on some of the highlights: Lunch n’ Learn: The History of Israel & Palestine The conflict between Israel and Gaza continues to be in the news but the full history of the conflict is rarely discussed in detail. Come and learn about how this conflict devolved, the major players, and the key issues. Lunch will be provided. Talk will be recorded and uploaded to our YouTube channel afterward.
Troy-area Interfaith Group: International Day of Peace Building Harmony to Create Peace Sunday, September 22, 2024 at 7 p.m. at Congregation Shir Tikvah Join together with our interfaith partners for a night of singing and discussion about harmony and how building harmony in our community can create peace. Northminster’s Homecoming Potluck Picnic. Sunday, September 29, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. in the Pavilion, weather permitting. It is time to christen our new pavilion with a Homecoming Potluck Picnic. We will gather in the front yard after worship to in fellowship to celebrate the harvest season when we take time to remember where we came from and the communities that shaped us. Haven’t visited in a while? Now is a great time to stop on by! Haven’t seen someone in a while? Now is a great time to invite them to come! Bring a dish to share. In addition to these events, there are a couple of things that you will be hearing more about in the coming weeks.
If you are a Google Calendar user and want to say up to date with the "goings on" here, subscribe to our Google Calendar of Special Events HERE. To subscribe to our regular weekly events calendar, go HERE. Blessings, Pastor Chris With the school year starting up again, I have been inundated with people’s back-to-school photos. With school starting in mid-August in Kansas and Missouri, my family began posting photos weeks ago. I have seen little kids with “First Day of Kindergarten” signs and parents standing in barren dorm rooms that are filled with bags yet to be unpacked. I have seen friends post photos of themselves with backpacks and big grins with the caption that they are beginning their last year of graduate school. I have also seen side-by-side comparison pictures of the current first-day-of-school picture with the last-first-day-of-school picture. And today being the first day after Labor Day, I have seen the last round of Michigan’s first-day-of-school pictures.
Seeing these photos today made me think about how we measure time. There is a joke on the internet that crops up every now and again that, “Americans will measure with anything other than the metric system.” Want an example? Click here to read 27 of them. Similarly, I find it interesting how many people use the school year as a tool of measurement. Never mind that we celebrate the changing of the year every January, we use the beginning of the school year as a different measure of time. Even folks like me who haven’t had a “first day of school” day in 7 school years! Never mind if you are retired, are actively teaching, or taking someone to school, September still holds a feeling of the year getting stated again. Fall programing begins, some congregations are holding Homecoming Celebrations, and committees start meeting once again. Northminster is no different: Our new fall series will start this Sunday. The following two Sundays we have lunch-n-learn classes after worship. Session meets this Thursday and the Deacon the week after. If you have questions as to what is going on at Northminster CLICK HERE to subscribe to our online calendar and stay up to date with everything happening. And CLICK HERE to subscribe to our Special Events Calendar! And with that, we are off and going again. If Northminster was to have a back-to-school picture, it would be 69 years old and in the 64th Grade. Happy School Year everyone! Blessings, Pastor Chris |
AuthorPastor Chris Hallam earned her degree at Princeton Theological Seminary and moved to Michigan to become a pastor. Also trained as a studio artist and graphic designer, with an interest in pop culture and social science, her passion is thinking creatively about the future of the church. Archives
May 2025
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