THE TIMES, THEY ARE A CHANGIN’
Remember how our parents didn’t like that Bob Dylan song? J Now it’s our turn. If we’re paying attention, we can see clearly that so many things around us are changing; in the world, in our community and in our own congregation. As they always have, and as they always will. But that’s the way of life. If anything in the world is alive, it’s constantly changing. Biologically, that’s the only way it can stay alive. If anything is stagnant, if it has stopped changing, then it’s dead. Change must occur to keep us, and the world, alive.
Sometimes we are happy with the way things are; we don’t want them to change. Maybe that’s because we can’t know how a change, the future, will work out. It’s always unsure. But I also offer that trying to keep things the same will, instead, kill whatever it is that we’re trying to hold dear. That is a certainty. To change requires faith. As a pastor friend of mine once said to me, “If you believe God is calling you down a particular path, walk it. If the doors keep opening, you know that is the correct path for now. When or if the doors close, you know you need to change paths. But whatever you do, keep walking.”
Our congregation has, and is, experiencing a lot of change. I’m new here but I know you/NVLC suffered a lot of trauma and loss throughout the pandemic. Now we are in a period of recovery and re-formation (because we’re Lutheran, don’t you know?) to become not the church we once knew, but the NVLC that God is guiding us to be. Right now we have various teams working on calling a new Pastor, planning how best to welcome the Interfaith Community into our sanctuary for a diverse community service on Thanksgiving Eve, re-forming a combination of sharing food and Bible study during Advent, reaching out to our neighbors far and wide with help for a diversity of needs in our world, and a planning committee to help determine the best long-term use of our properties and other assets.
So, we are walking; we are a changin’ with the times; we are re-forming. We are following the path that God has laid out for us. We are alive in Christ. Thanks be to God!
In Peace,
Bridge Pastor Rebecca Swee
ADVENT:FOOD AND BIBLE STUDY;
WHAT WONDROUS LOVE IS THIS?
The liturgical season of Advent always seems to sneak up on us right after Thanksgiving. But this year, we already have it in our sites!
Pastor Rebecca is offering a 4-week Food and Bible Study hour (or so) during Advent. The Study will be on the themes of the four candles of Advent; Love, Hope, Joy and Peace. Each theme will be discussed in the week preceding the lighting of each specific candle. Therefore, the meetings will take place during the weeks of November 27, December 4, December 11 and December 18.
Pastor Rebecca would like to have one meeting during the week take place in the morning, and another meeting (covering the same study material) in the evening, to make sure as many people as possible are able to attend. Therefore, there will be a sign-up sheet in Luther Hall, following the services, on both October 29 (Reformation Day) and November 5 (All Saints’ Day). The sign-up sheet will give people a chance to both indicate their interest in attending the meetings, as well as to give a preference for meeting days and times. The majority of people checking a particular day and time will decide our final meeting times. Are we democratic or what?
The meetings will also be hybrid, which means they will also be available by Zoom if you cannot make it in person. Zoom participants who wish to vote on day/time preferences may contact Pr. Rebecca at rswee305@gmail.com or 650-619-4729 once the list of choices is available.
We believe the more people who participate in these studies, the more everyone will get out of it. God created a unique voice for each of us, and it benefits us all when we share it. Thank you!
SECOND MILE GIVING FOR NOVEMBER
In November we are supporting Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), an internationally recognized leader in welcoming refugees and immigrants from around the world. Lynette Felsing shared this article.
Everyone needs compassion
LIRS Welcome Centers are critical for asylum seekers during this time. With your generous gift today, we can offer the following:
✓ Emergency food, housing, and financial assistance.
✓ Connections to community resources, including health providers, food banks, and faith communities.
✓ Legal services, including know-your-rights guidance and connections to trustworthy legal counsel.
✓ Education services, including school enrollment for children and access to youth and adult education programming, including English classes.
We encourage you to participate in LIRS ninth-annual Hope for the Holidays™ program which collects cards and gifts for distribution at immigration detention centers across the country, sharing holiday hope and joy with individuals and families seeking safety in the United States. Watch your Sunday Bulletin for an announcement about a Sunday when we will set aside time during coffee hour to write messages from our congregation. You can find more information, including a toolkit on the LIRS website, or check with Lynette Felsing or Leanne Martinsen for more information on how you can write messages of Hope. Cards must be mailed by December 1st, 2023! Additionally, we invite you to consider donating to help cover postage and support LIRS services, as well as advocating alongside us for a fair, just, and humane asylum system! Checks can be made out to NVLC, with Second Mile Giving on the memo line, and include with your offering any time this month. Thanks for your support of this vital ministry!
AN INTERFAITH COMMUNITY SERVICE FOR THANKSGIVING EVE
Great news! We have taken the opportunity offered to host a community-wide Interfaith service in our Sanctuary on Thanksgiving Eve. This is on Wednesday, November 22, at 7 pm. Following the service, we will all adjourn to Luther Hall to share pie with all our neighbors of various faith traditions.
I think this will be a very special time for NVLC. It gives us a chance to share expressions of the diversities of Faith within our community, and to also allow us all to get to know each other better while we get to eat our pie before our Thanksgiving dinner. Yay!
This will be a hybrid service. We will have the service in person in our sanctuary and will also Zoom the service. The Zoom link will also be made available to the entire Interfaith Community around Napa, in case they also have people that may want to participate at home. More information on that to come.
We hope many of you can make it to the service. One of the many things for which we will give thanks that evening will be the fact that a
greater diversity of God’s people will be joining us that evening, so that we can all worship God together. Thanks be to God!
Faith Lutheran Church of Sonoma Valley
ChristmasCraft Fair
Saturday, December 2, 10am – 4pm
19355 Arnold Drive, Sonoma
Faith Lutheran invites you to visit their Christmas Craft Fair. Local crafters will display a variety of handmade gifts, fashion accessories and home goods. Homemade goodies for sale to enjoy onsite or take home. Free admission and parking with full ADA accessibility. The event is held in compliance with public health guidelines.
COMMON GROUND UPDATE
We had a presentation from David Lindsay on October 15, and a video was shown. If you were not present, or as a reminder, this is a summary of accomplishments.
Over the last few years, we have:
- Improved neighborhood safety by passing a vacant lot ordinance
- Protected renters with one of the strongest eviction moratoriums in the state and leveraged millions of dollars for rental assistance
- Crafted and passed the Police Oversight and Accountability Ordinance in Vallejo
- Formed a team of faith leaders to act and pray for safety in the city of Vallejo
- Engaged with public officials in Fairfield-Suisun to help make our schools safer for our children
- Formed a recruitment team to strengthen our power building efforts
Common Ground has the potential to be the largest power organization in Solano and Napa Counties, but we need your time and we need your investment. We need to be ready to act together to create the world we want to live in.
Power comes in two forms: organized people and organized money. As we look into the future of Common Ground, is it imperative that we grow our membership as well as our hard money base through personal investments and institutional giving With your generous investments, the funds we raise will go towards building strong relationships within and across our institutions, equipping our members with leadership and organizing skills, and acting powerfully together on the concrete issues facing our communities.
Napa Valley Lutheran Church has been a member since the founding of Common Ground, and we hope to continue supporting this organization.
DEVOTIONAL RESOURCES
CHRIST IN OUR HOME: The October, November, December booklets are available now. If you would like to have one
of these delivered to your home, please contact the church office at nvlc@sbcglobal.net or 707-226-8166 to make arrangements.
COUNCIL UPDATES
The church council met on October 10 and voted to approve a contract with Bridge Pastor Rebecca Swee, which was sent to the Synod office for the Bishop to approve. Molly Calhoun reported that the call committee has submitted the Ministry Site Profile to the Synod, so that we may soon be able to consider candidates for a new Pastor. A packet of information has been compiled to share with prospective candidates. There was discussion about re-establishing a mutual ministry committee, and continued consideration of investment options. In
property matters, we discussed replacing a section of fence at the rear of our parking lot that has blown down, and also repairing the roof of the garage at 352 Jefferson.
You can help us declutter! If you wish to take home some books from the library, please help yourself. If you are aware of an organization that would like some of our treasured resource materials, please contact Pastor Rebecca or Leanne Martinsen and we will gladly arrange for them to go to an organization that will put them to good use. The books that remain after November 30 will be donated to the Friends of the Napa Library.
Napa Valley Lutheran Church is looking to revive the choir and band. We are seeking vocalists of all ranges to come together and sing. Our band has traditionally been keyboard, woodwind instruments, percussion and a variety of hand instruments. In the past we have had guitars and ukuleles, too. We are open to other instruments as we seek to restart this music program. If you are interested, contact Leanne Martinsen at nvlc@sbcglobal.net.
Napa Valley Lutheran Church is also seeking to hire someone to provide sign language services (American Sign Language -ASL) during our 10:00 am worship services on Sunday. If you are interested, or know of someone we could contact, please contact Leanne Martinsen at nvlc@sbcglobal.net.
Hope Circle remains suspended for the time being.
Piece Corps has disbanded.
Lunch Bunch will meet on Friday, December 1 at Ristorante Allegria, 1026 First St. Call Carol Holmes for reservations.
NVLC & Thrivent Financial are supporting the Napa Shelter on Hartle Ct. Needed for men & women are wool gloves and hats, and personal care items such as: Toothbrushes, toothpaste, bar soap, shampoo & conditioner, deodorant, body lotion, and razors & shave cream. There is a designated box in the narthex for these items. Please donate before November 12.
Carol Holmes, coordinator
To the NVLC knitters & crocheters: It’s time to think about getting the hats together for a 2023 donation. The thank offering Sunday will be November 19. And I would like to gather them before this date. If you’d like to just leave them with Leanne in the church office, I’d appreciate it. I will take them to the homeless shelter after December 1. Thank you so much for your efforts. As a reminder, the church provides the yarn and I have patterns if you’d like to join us in the much-needed contribution to the community.
Thank you, Ellen Wulf
Thank you to the members of our congregation that have been sending in your contributions to the church office. It is much appreciated. Your financial giving to NVLC is still necessary for us to maintain needs of the congregation during the time we are not all able to worship together. Remember, too, although we did not provide boxes of offering envelopes, as in past years, we still have the opportunity to make special offerings for special occasions, any occasion that is special to you!
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Click here to view the August 2023 Newsletter.
Click here to view the September 2023 Newsletter.
Click here to view the October 2003 Newsletter.