Greetings Saints of St. Paul’s!
Happy Thanksgiving. May you travel safe and not be so overwhelmed with preparations that you cannot enjoy the presence of family and friends. And however you celebrate this holiday, may your hearts overflow with thanksgiving for the goodness of God’s presence in your life.
If you’re in town, please consider joining our MOT Methodist brothers and sisters for a community Thanksgiving service at Bethesda UMC (116 East Main St. Middletown) TONIGHT at 7:00 PM.
We give thanks to God and to over 90 St. Paul’s households for your generosity and commitment in pledging nearly $190,000 for mission and ministry at St. Paul’s Church in 2020. We anticipate that several more households will join us, besides our regular contributors and friends who choose not to pledge but who give regularly. Based on our past giving history and these 2020 pledges, our leadership team passed a spending plan for 2020 on Monday, November 18. If you would like to review a copy of this Budget, we have posted it online or you may contact the church office.
This first Sunday of Advent, the Rev. Carlos Reyes-Rodriguez will be preaching on Isaiah 2:1-5 (Theme: Gather). Carlos is an ordination candidate I have had the honor to mentor for several years as he has graduated from Wesley Seminary (in 2016) and begun serving our conference as Coordinator of Hispanic/Latino Ministries. He was ordained a provisional Deacon in our conference in 2018, and hails from Barranquilla, a city located on the Northern Caribbean Cost of Colombia, and in Bogotá where he grew up, went to college, and worked as a journalist before coming to America to earn a second Bachelor degree at the University of Delaware, in 2012. He leads a worship experience at Wesley UMC in Dover called La Caminante (walker, traveler, or pilgrim) at which he met and formed relationships with Dreamer students at Delaware State University. Four of them will join Rev. Reyes-Rodriguez and share their stories in the fellowship hall between worship services, from 9:45-10:45 (instead of our normal Adult Studies group Bible study). After our 11 worship service, we will join Rev. Reyes -Rodriguez and the Dreamers from DSU for lunch sponsored by St. Paul’s and our newly-formed immigration response ministry team.
