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December 19 , 2007
Pilgrims on the Journey:
 1. Each week during Advent, Ashley has asked two members or friends of the congregation to share their own Advent "dream of a world made new." On Sunday, Mary Ellen Player inspired us with her dream during worship. For our fourth and final week of Advent, we have two dreamers:
First, from Jeff Francisco:
In my daydream I see for myself more time spent making deeper connections with others as well as allowing myself to have bolder personal dreams unbounded by ‘my reality.’ And for our community at Pilgrims I dream of our Sanctuary and community being filled with even more vibrant people, singing yet louder and participating in more activities. I also dream of our existing Pilgrim-dreams being shared more widely in our community, city, Nation and World.
In the world at large I dream of us all having enough resources and understanding the resources that we all have. This includes truly understanding the value of the resources, the ramifications for not using them well and knowing the truly necessary amount of the resources. This dream includes resources such as time, personal connections and space, natural resources like water and oil and monetary and trade goods. The world over, I dream that we all have the unbridled ability to dream and pursue those dreams, as the tools would be available. Training, whether it was a formal school, mentors or other means of sharing knowledge would be available. Our individual and communal dreams would not be limited or cut short because of having to grow up too soon, because of societal norms or family tradition.
And then, our "bonus" dream this week, by Gene Stossell:
As we think of the wonderful world in which we are fortunate to live, it is easy to start dreaming of a few problem areas which need to be transformed for it to be truly heaven on earth. So often within a family there is division between those who are actively engaged in church life and those who seem to have no interest. We dream of families who become drawn together by embracing their Christian faith. Muslim and Christian societies often distrust each other. We see this in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in Washington. We dream that bitterness and hatred between ethnic and religious groups might be replaced, among both leaders and common folk, by appreciation, by warmth and attraction.
At Pilgrims, we dream that casual acquaintances with other members might grow into family like relationships with knowledge, understanding, acceptance and concern for one another.
You can read other Pilgrims' Advent dreams on our website: www.churchofthepilgrims.org/adventdreams.html <http://www.churchofthepilgrims.org/adventdreams.html>
2. In addition to sharing our Advent dreams, each Sunday in Advent we receive a Special Offering during worship. This Sunday, December 23, the fourth Sunday in Advent, we will we will collect a financial offering for the Save Darfur Coalition (see www.savedarfur.org <http://www.savedarfur.org> ), which funds awareness and advocacy programs that play a critical role in building the political pressure needed to end the crisis in Darfur. The Darfur Interfaith Network, that we have partnered with in the monthly vigils at the Sudanese Embassy, participates with the Save Darfur Coalition. (Our Christmas Eve offering will also support the Coalition.)
3. There will be no Adult Education or Children's classes for the next three week. Classes will resume January 13.
4. Put Your Faith Into Action: Here are opportunities to act on your dream for a world made new:
- Thursday, Dec. 20 at 11 a.m., Washington Region Religious Coalition Against Torture will present a guided tour of Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib at the Katzen Center, across from American University. Katzen Museum Curator and Director Jack Rasmussen will be the guide.
- Friday, December 21st, 5:00pm in McPherson Square Park (15th and K, NW), you are invited to join the National Coalition for the Homeless for the National Homeless Persons Memorial Day Candlelight Vigil, which will include poetry, testimonials, music, and prayer. Join us and thousands across the country as we honor all the men, women and children who have died on the streets, homeless in 2007!
- Saturday, December 22, the Washington Area Alliance for Middle East Peace is sponsoring a second annual Christmas Procession for Bethlehem, beginning at 10:00 AM with a worship service in the Bethlehem Chapel of the National Cathedral. The worship service will be simulcast with the people of Bethlehem. A procession will follow starting at 10:30 AM on Woodley Road. Mary and Joseph, with donkey, will lead the procession. Behind the wall that separates neighbor from neighbor, patient from hospital, student from school and farmer from land, Palestinian Christians will continue to bear witness to their faith this Christmas, as they have done for generations. Let us join our voices with theirs in seeking and offering hope for a better future.
5. Special Services Coming Up:
- 7 p.m. Christmas Eve Candlelight Communion Service on December 24.
- 11 a.m. Sunday December 30, "A Service of Lessons, Poetry and Carols" featuring the poetry of Jan Richardson.
6. For those of you staying around during the holidays, be advised that the church office will be operating on a somewhat skeletal schedule between Christmas and New Year. If you need to stop by, it would be good to call first. Also, a reminder that year-end contributions you wish to be counted toward your 2007 pledge must be received by December 30th. For those of you who are traveling in the next week, may you have a safe and happy time with your families. On behalf of the entire staff of Church of the Pilgrims, let me say, "Merry Christmas!"
Peace,
Jeff Krehbiel, Pastor
Church of the Pilgrims
Washington, DC
www.churchofthepilgrims.org <http://www.churchofthepilgrims.org>
December 11 , 2007
Pilgrims on the Journey:
1. The Advent Prayer Retreat on Saturday was a wonderful way to focus our hearts on the movement of God's spirit in our lives and in the world. Thanks to Margee Iddings for her leadership, and to Ashley for organizing all the details.
An additional gift from Margee to help us stay focused on the meaning of the season is a booklet of meditations and exercises on The Twelve Days of Christmas, which begins on Christmas Day and extends until January 6, when we will celebrate Epiphany and Twelfth Night. The booklets will be available for you to take home with you this Sunday.
2. Each week in Advent Ashley has asked two members or friends of the congregation to share their own Advent "dream of a world made new." On Sunday, Zach Wilks shared his powerful dream during worship.
Today, Diana Bruce shares hers:
In a world made new, everyone finds their place at the table of activism. Websters defines activism as “a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.” I guess at Pilgrims, we stir up controversy every week … we curb hunger among the homeless, fight genocide, demand affordable housing for our neighbors and let bunnies get to know kids with two mommies. We raise funds for peacemaking around the world and pay our pastors and staff a living wage.
In a world made new, everyone stirs up controversy in their own way – big and small, globally and locally. They fight for safer schools and better education in their children’s school, they seek health care access for all and not just those who can afford it, they wear a condom and they encourage their friends to do the same, they put a recycling bin next to the copy machine at work, they get their college campus’s health center to carry emergency contraception, they stay up late helping a child with algebra homework, they ask for HR policies inclusive of transgender people, they write a letter, they run for office.
In a world made new, parents who strive to live in God’s way understand their responsibility to raise and nurture change agents –little people who grow into big people who love. And this love overflows into all their work and pleasures. Their love extends into the world and politics, and they use their love to make a new world. This new world receives God’s love and implements God’s values of hope, love, peace, joy and justice for everyone, everywhere. In a world made new, all children have a rainbow flag bolted to their Sunday school wall … not just our children at Pilgrims.
You can read other Pilgrims' Advent dreams on our website: www.churchofthepilgrims.org/adventdreams.html <http://www.churchofthepilgrims.org/adventdreams.html>
3. In addition to sharing our Advent dreams, each Sunday in Advent we receive a Special Offering during worship. This Sunday, December 16, the third Sunday in Advent, we will gather wrapped gifts for the Shoebox Gift Project at So Others Might Eat (SOME). SOME is an interfaith, community-based organization that exists to help the poor and homeless of our nation’s capital. SOME meets the immediate, daily needs of the people they serve with food, clothing and mental health and health care. During the holiday season, SOME distributes decorated shoebox gifts to homeless and poor children, women and men who eat breakfast and lunch in SOME’s dining room. This project is designed to present a festively wrapped holiday gift filled with personal items for adults and children. Items could include: NEW socks, mittens/gloves, hats, scarves, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, deodorant, lotion, or in the case of a child the addition of a small toy or game. Please wrap the lid and box separately. This allows SOME to ensure that each package is equitable. Fill the shoebox with appropriate items and label the outside of the box MAN, WOMAN or CHILD.
4. In the mood for Christmas Carols? Join us this week for Friday Club, our monthly gathering for seniors, retirees, and others who have free time in the middle of the day! We gather in the Bird Room for lunch at noon, followed by a program of Carols and other seasonal songs, led by Dick Gigax on piano. Send an email to Pat Goeldner pgoeldner@iona.org if you would like to join us.
5. This Sunday at 9:30 a.m. Jerry McPike will conclude his Adult Class, Soprano Inspired.
6. Immediately following worship this Sunday, we will hold a Congregational Meeting to elect church officers and consider changes in the Pastor's "Terms of Call." All members of the congregation are urged to attend, and friends are invited to stay and witness "Presbyterian democracy" in action. As is our practice at Pilgrims, each of the candidates for office (our candidates are Jeff Francisco, Pat Goeldner, and Anne Womeldorf) have written a brief Statement of Faith. They are attached for your review.
7. Put Your Faith Into Action: Here are four opportunities to act on your dream for a world made new:
- This Sunday at 1 p.m., join other Presbyterians and a neighboring Jewish congregation for our monthly 3rd-Sunday Vigil at the Sudanese Embassy on behalf of the people of Darfur. We gather at the church at 12:50, and then join in vigil at the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue from 1 to 2 p.m.
- Also this Sunday at 5:00 p.m. you are invited to join an ecumenical gathering of Christians in Lafayette Park to pray and sing and witness for peace, and hold up a bright light in the midst of the darkness of winter and of war. This month the message at the witness will be brought by the Rev. Tara Spuhler McCabe of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.
- Friday, December 21st, 5:00pm in McPherson Square Park (15th and K, NW), you are invited to join the National Coalition for the Homeless for the National Homeless Persons Memorial Day Candlelight Vigil, which will include poetry, testimonials, music, and prayer. Join us and thousands across the country as we honor all the men, women and children who have died on the streets, homeless in 2007!
Saturday, December 22, the Washington Area Alliance for Middle East Peace is sponsoring a second annual Christmas Procession for Bethlehem, beginning at 10:00 AM with a worship service in the Bethlehem Chapel of the National Cathedral. The worship service will be simulcast with the people of Bethlehem. A procession will follow starting at 10:30 AM on Woodley Road. Mary and Joseph, with donkey, will lead the procession. Behind the wall that separates neighbor from neighbor, patient from hospital, student from school and farmer from land, Palestinian Christians will continue to bear witness to their faith this Christmas, as they have done for generations. Let us join our voices with theirs in seeking and offering hope for a better future.
8. Readers Needed: I need readers for our 7 p.m. Christmas Eve Candlelight Communion Service on December 24, and for our annual Service of Lessons, Poetry and Carols on the First Sunday of Christmas, December 30 at 11am. If you are available to read at either service, please let me know!
9. A Memorial Service for Charlotte Floyd's sister, Nannie Evans, a Colonel (ret.) in the U. S. Army, has been scheduled at Arlington Cemetery for January 23, at 11 a.m., with a reception to follow at the Ft. Meyer Officer's Club. If you would like to join Charlotte and her family, please let her know by calling her on her cell phone: 703-475-8771.
Peace,
Jeff Krehbiel, Pastor
Church of the Pilgrims
Washington, DC
www.churchofthepilgrims.org <http://www.churchofthepilgrims.org>
December 4 , 2007
Pilgrims on the Journey:
1. On Sunday we began the season of Advent, that four-week period leading up to Christmas. In the world of Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, in worship we were invited to "enter a zone of alternative possibility," opening our eyes to the world as it really is, and then with prophetic imagination to imagine a world made new. To help us dream of a world made new, each week Ashley has asked two members or friends of the congregagation to share their own Advent dream. This week, the dreamers are both members of my family. On Sunday, my daughter Kelsey shared her dream. Today, my better half, Cheryl Krehbiel, shares hers:
This year, my dreams for a world made new focus on this city. I cannot daydream about a world made new in isolation from my current work in the public schools. In a world made new, our Nation’s capital would be home to a world class school system. In a world made new, the school system would be organized around the needs of children and not the self-interest of adults. In a world made new, schools would be palaces filled with highly paid teachers who are the brightest in their content areas, and children in every ward of this city would be among the highest achieving students in the nation.
In this world made new, Pilgrims would be a home for those for those who advocate for the most vulnerable, in this city, and around the world. I understand my role to be the dreamer, and then to act on those dreams by developing the capacity of the people within our school system so that they can empower our children to realize dreams of their own.
You can read Kelsey's dream, and other Pilgrims' Advent dreams as they are posted, on our website: www.churchofthepilgrims.org/adventdreams.html <http://www.churchofthepilgrims.org/adventdreams.html>
2. This Saturday, all Pilgrims, members and friends alike, are invited to come to our
Advent Retreat: Praying Out the Old Year, Praying in the New:
Saturday, December 8, 10am-2pm, led by Margee Iddings.
The retreat will run from 10-2, but you can come for an hour, or two, or four, to be reflective, to touch the center of our being, to remember who and whose we are. Gathering in community, we say by our presence that we want to be accountable for practicing a different kind of lifestyle and need the support and encouragement of others who also yearn for this, as well.
Come join us for all or part of the day.
The sanctuary is the beginning place:
10-11 a.m. "Naming the Dark"
11-Noon "Anticipating the Light"
Noon-1 "Nourishment for Body/Mind/Heart/Spirit"
1-2 "An Adventure in Dreaming"
Each hour is self-contained and contains opportunity to be prayerful in a variety of ways.
Child care provided upon request. RSVP to ashley.goff@verizon.net.
3. Each Sunday in Advent we will receive a Special Offering during worship. This Sunday, December 9, the second Sunday in Advent, we will gather non-perishable food plus travel size toiletries and tube socks for our own Open Table program. Open Table is our lunch we serve for homeless folks after church. Open Table is always in need of the following: dried onion soup packets, family-size cans of cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup, chili powder, large boxes of instant rice, 1 pound boxes of macaroni, rotini, cans of kidney beans, diced tomatoes, peas and corn. In addition to the food, Open Table needs travel size soaps, lotion, razors, shampoo, conditioner, feminine hygiene products and shaving crème. We will also collect tube socks of any size to help keep folk’s feet warm and clean.
4. Continuing this Sunday at 9:30 a.m. we will have two Adult Education offerings. Each will run for two more weeks:
Advent Reflections on Gratitude: Led by Ashley Goff in the upstairs education room. A recent Washington Post article cited a study that showed the more we name our gratitude’s, the more we can resist materialism. This three week class will focus on our gratitude’s during the Advent season, giving us the wisdom to resist the need to buy and focus more on the gift of giving ourselves to one another and beyond. This class will incorporate our daily experiences of gratitude, journaling, sharing and reflection.
Soprano Inspired: Led by Jerry McPike in the Bird Room. This three week class will focus on folk, opera and other inspirational melodies that cover the experiences of troubled women, transcendence, salvation and the crucifixion. [Note: If any one has a nice quality portable CD player-- such as the Bose Acoustic Wave System-- Jerry would like to borrow it for his class. Please let me know ASAP.]
5. On December 16, immediately following worship, we will hold a Congregational Meeting to elect church officers and consider changes in the Pastor's "Terms of Call." All members of the congregation are urged to attend, and friends are invited to stay and witness "Presbyterian democracy" in action.
6. We received a note from a 17-year-old Presbyterian college student from Brazil, Renato Fernandes, who is coming to DC in January to study English at LADO International College in Georgetown, and is looking for a room for the month of January. If you might be willing to offer him a place to stay, you can email me, or Renato directly: renato381@hotmail.com
Peace,
Jeff Krehbiel, Pastor
Church of the Pilgrims
Washington, DC
www.churchofthepilgrims.org <http://www.churchofthepilgrims.org>
November 2007 Pastor's Updates
October 2007 Pastor's Updates
September 2007 Pastor's Updates
August 2007 Pastor's Updates
July 2007 Pastor's Updates
Sabbatical 2007 Pastor's Updates
April 2007 Pastor's Updates
March 2007 Pastor's Updates
February 2007 Pastor's Updates
January 2007 Pastor's Updates
December 2006 Pastor's Updates
November 2006 Pastor's Updates
October 2006 Pastor's Updates
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August 2006 Pastor's Updates
July 2006 Pastor's Updates
June 2006 Pastor's Updates
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April 2006 Pastor's Updates
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