News for the Church, 6/2/23

Good Day to you Church! 

Did you survive yesterday’s extreme heat? Thankfully the temps will drop this weekend to more seasonal weather patterns. 

Here’s the news for this week: 

Church Ground Clean Up This Saturday at 9am

If you’re able to swing by the church tomorrow at 9am, there will be a group of people gathering to weed the flower beds, toss grass seed on open ground, and work on stumps. Might you be able to join? 

Kicking off Pride Month with a Special Sermon

Please join us this Sunday for a particularly important sermon that reflects on the LGBTQ community. We will be looking at the story of Jesus healing the slave of the Roman Centurion in Matthew 8. I’m going to leave you in suspense with this and hope you decide to show up to listen in! 

Youth Group on Thursday, June 8th

This will be our final meeting for the season. We will be going to the Indian restaurant for dinner at 6:30 to celebrate the end of school! 

Presbytery Meeting on Saturday, June 10th

I’m proud to let you know that our church will be hosting the June presbytery meeting. If you’d like to come get a taste of what happens at presbytery meetings, this is your chance! We will be meeting from 10am-1pm with a catered lunch starting at noon. 

A big thank you to those helping to pull this off—Sharon Pickard, Dale Hobson, Ivette Herryman-Rodriguez, Renee Stauffer, and Terry de la Vega! 

Free Piano Recital Concert Sunday, June 11th, 5-7pm

We will be hosting a Crane piano recital the afternoon of June 11th and it’s free and open to the public! Come enjoy the fun. 

Juneteenth—June 17th from 4pm-8pm

You are invited to participate in Potsdam’s Juneteenth Celebration at Ives Park on Saturday, June 17th

They also need volunteers earlier that day to set-up the event, staff a variety of positions, and a few people to stay after to help break-down. Might you be willing to help out? If so, please contact Laurie Lavine at (281) 639-6548, or email her at lklavine@gmail.com

Jeff Mitchell to Preach June 18th

I will be going to Missouri for a week to visit with my family, and I am so grateful to Jeff for being willing to fill in the pulpit. 

Church Picnic Planned for June 25th

Our picnic party is growing closer! Save the date!

Finding Time for Rest

Friends, as summer draws closer, I want to encourage you to find time for rest. Not just relaxation, but rest

Choosing rest in our crazy, busy culture is counter-cultural for sure, but for us as Christians, it is also a radical theological pursuit. Thousands of years ago, God taught his people the importance of rest– making sure to teach us to care for our mortal bodies, so that we would be strong to see another day. 

But theologically, there’s more to the idea of rest than just physical rejuvenation. Setting our work down and bringing our bodies to a stand-still is also an act of faith. It’s a song of confidence in God, believing that our Creator will continue to provide for us that which we are not producing for ourselves– even as the chaos of the world swirls around us. 

Choosing rest is to trust that God will cover for us– that God is big enough to keep the chaos monsters at bay while we refill our empty tanks. 

This summer, I invite you to consider what faithful rest might look like for you. Setting down our physical work is one thing, but what about setting down our non-stop thinking for a while? Perhaps real rest means turning off the news too (will the world really fall to pieces if you are not in the know of what is going on?) And what about our relational worrying? Perhaps choosing rest means taking a break from trying to change someone or something. 

When it comes to faith, rest is about relinquishing our need to stay in control. It means opening ourselves up to believing that God is big enough to stay vigilant on our behalf, so that we can rejuvenate our minds, bodies, and souls for a time before coming back to our responsibilities. 

What might rest look like for you this summer? I dare you to try it on for size and see what happens! 

Looking forward to my own summer rest,
Pastor Katrina