St Paul Church

Just a reminder that the times for Sunday School and Worship will change this Sunday, May 6th. Sunday School will begin at 9am with Worship at 10am. We look forward to seeing you!

Now that we’ve gotten a taste of Spring or more so Summer, we’re excited to start that dreaded clean-up after a long winter! If that’s you, start digging into those closets, dresser drawers, cupboards, garages and even the basement for the church garage sale!

You may drop off your clean, neatly packed and sorted items for the garage sale beginning on Saturday, April 21st through noon on April 25th.

Here are two helpful hints for sorting your items:

1. Separate clothes into bags/boxes marked as women, girls, men, boys and infants.
2. Put all household items in a separate box.

These two minor requests will make the jobs of those sorting and setting up much easier.

We will again be offering a Bake Sale and Lunch Stand. There will be sign up sheets for donations passed around as the date gets closer.

If anyone is interested in helping this year, there will be a sign up sheet with specific working times for you to sign up.

If you would like flyers to distribute at your place of work or business, they will be on the table under the bulletin board soon.

Any questions, please call the church office.

Thank you in advance for all your help with this project!

The church is in need of a wheelchair. If you have one that is in good condition that you’d be willing to donate to the church, please contact Ralph Jones.

Confirmation Sunday will be on May 6th during our 10am worship service. Please plan to be in attendance for this special service.

If you have not had a chance to enjoy an evening of dessert and fellowship with Pastor Scott and Sue, April 29th will be your chance. Join them at the parsonage beginning at 6:30pm. There is a sign up sheet posted on the bulletin board for those wishing to attend.

Just a reminder that the times for Sunday School and Worship will change on Sunday, May 6th. Sunday School will begin at 9am with Worship at 10am. Please mark your calendars now!

The annual meeting of the Northern Illinois Fellowship of the CCCC will be held on Saturday, June 2, 2012 at the First Congregational Church in Peru, IL. Pastor Scott has a wedding commitment that day so the Council would like to encourage someone from the church to serve as our representative. The event begins with worship at 10:30am, followed by a potluck luncheon and then the annual business meeting. If you’d be interested in attending this meeting, please contact the church office.

Another active and productive year of AWANA has come to a close, though the WORD hidden into the hearts of our wonderful students will continue to be a treasure without measure in their lives! We would like to thank all of the families who brought their children throughout this school year! We deeply appreciate your commitment to your children’s spiritual growth!

THANK YOU, too, to our wonderful core of volunteers, without which our AWANA club could not function! We are blessed at St. Paul with so many who give of themselves in countless ways to encourage and mentor our young people. Listed below are those who were involved with the program this year:

• Commander: Deanna Babler
• Secretary: Paula Rainwater
• Games: Duane Schurch & Loren Ludeking
• Puggles: Cheryl Bradt, Adam & Christina Boyer, Jan & Joe Boyer, Brooks Henneman
• Cubbies: Dianne Meinert, Pat Smith
• Sparks: Karen Kleckner, Cathy Ludeking, Joanne Meinert, Sue Naevestad, April Zettle, Sal Kuhlmeier
• T&T: Jim Kleckner, Merlin Meinert, Diane Schurch
• Set-up Crew: Wayne Blocker Sr.
• Opening & Closing Program Leader: Diane Schurch
• Pastoral Support: Rev. Scott Naevestad
• Missionary: JP Morgan

To everyone from the congregation that contributed toward the financial support of AWANA, prayed for our young people, invited a child to participate, visited during a Wednesday evening club meeting or in any other way gave of your time – we are very thankful for you!

St Paul will have a Relay for Life team this year at the American Cancer Society’s event at Aquin High School on June 15th. If you’re interested in joining our team, we plan to meet after worship on Sunday, April 1st. We need to get registered as soon as possible to ensure our spot and participants t-shirts. Contact April Zettle if you’re interested in joining our team!

The Church Council met on March 20th and discussed the following:

• Heard reports from the following committees: Board of Christian Education, Finance, Cemetery. Mission Committee will meet April 10th and the Worship Committee did not meet.
• Appointed Christina Boyer to the Board of Christian Education to finish the term of Deanna Terpstra, due to her recent move. This term will expire August 31, 2012.
• Approved the recommendation from the Cemetery COuncil to award the mowing bid to Mark Mashaw. His contract will start April 1st.
• Pastor Scott gave dates that he will be away from the pulpit and will being working on Pulpit Supply for those dates. Denny Buss will preach on May 27th while Pastor Scott is in NY for Kyle’s college graduation.

Next meeting was set for April 17th at 7pm.

The Board of Christian Education continues to sponsor monthly food drives for The Salvation Army and for the month of April we will be collecting any non-perishable food items, paper products and personal hygiene items, or anything else you wish to bring. As always, thank you for your continued support of this outreach to our local communities.

The Stateline Ministerial Association will host a Good Friday worship service at Indian Grove Country church beginning at 1pm. Pastor Dan DeSchoolmeester will share the message. There will be a monetary offering at this service and will go to support the Rockford Rescue Mission.

St Paul will share in a Maundy Thursday soup and service with Communion on April 5th beginning at 6pm. There will be a sign up sheet passed during worship and then placed on the bulletin board. Please sign up if you plan to attend as this will help us better prepare for this service.

The Freeport Choral Society will present its spring concert Sunday, March 25th at 3pm at St John UCC Church in Freeport. Featured will be a combined bell and choral rendition of the hymn, “How Can I Keep From Singing?” A combo will accompany the chorus with several dance songs of the 40s and 50s. It is more of a pops concert and not heavy with choir music being sung. Come and enjoy!

The annual reports are now available in the Narthex. Please pick one up to review it before the annual meeting (on the 22nd).

If you’d like one mailed (or emailed) to you, please contact the church office.

After dealing with repeated computer issues, I finally managed to get the sermon online from when Justin Schlueter led Sunday Worship back in August. My apologies for the lengthy delay. I hope to get a video clip of it online soon. Meanwhile, check out the audio version at http://stpaulchurch-davis.org/sermons/?sermon_id=17.

The following dates have been set regarding the 2011 Annual Meeting:

• December 31, 2011 – Church books close. All recorded membership contributions should be made by this date.
• January 4, 2012 – All committee reports for the Annual Report due to the office.
• January 8, 2012 – Annual Reports ready for pickup at the church or received via email.
• January 22, 2012 – Potluck and Annual Meeting following worship.
• January 23, 2012 – 7pm Council meeting with newly elected members attending
• January 29, 2012 – Installation of newly-elected council members

Please be in prayer as to how God may be calling you to serve at St. Paul. The Nominating Committee has met and will be looking for members to serve on the Church Council and various other committees. Should you be asked to serve, please take the time to pray about it and see if this is where God is asking you to serve.

We will be putting together a new address and telephone directory for 2012 and would like current addresses, telephone numbers and emails for those of you that may have updates. If you’ve canceled your home phone and are using only a cell phone, we need to know that, too. Please call or email the church office by January 16th with these changes. The 2012 directory will be available the first Sunday in February.

Family Life Ministries Presents:
The Art of Marriage
Friday, February 3rd – 7pm-9:30pm
Saturday, February 4th – 9am-4pm
at Highland Community College Conference Center

A marriage refresher. The opportunity to refresh your marriage and grow stronger in your love for each other. Cost is $50 per couple and includes the cost of materials and lunch on Saturday. Any questions, ask Pastor Scott or Sue.

For those ladies that have been part of the 2011 Secret Sister fun, we will have our “reveal” on Sunday, February 12th after church. We will share in a potluck meal followed by the reveal so please bring a dish for sharing, your table service and a small gift for your Secret Sister; drink will be provided.

We are looking for people to help run the laptop/screen during our worship services. If you’d be willing to help serve St. Paul in this area, please contact the church office.

The Building and Grounds is looking for some volunteers to help with shoveling the sidewalks this winter. There is a calendar on the bulletin board for anyone that may be interested. Please sign up for a week at a time. Thank you!

Due to the cold and snow, the north entrance will be closed until Spring. Thank you!

The Freeport Mennonite Church will be hosting the MCC canner again this year and would like to invite you to join us in the mission project. We will be canning at the church, located at 3416 Brick School Road on January 12th and 13th. If you’re interested in helping with this project or just seeing it in action, please talk with Mike Zettle as he will be there helping and would be glad to show you around. Last year MCC canned at 35 different sites in the United States and Canada from the beginning of October 2010-April 2011 and canned 525,096 cans of meat. Freeport Mennonite Church produced 11,047 cans from 19,000 pounds of turkey last year. 10% of the cans were held back for local missions at Freeport Area Church Cooperative, Rockford Rescue Mission and Gospel Outreach in Freeport. MCC distributed canned meat produced in Freeport to Bosnia this year. (This info was taken from a letter received from Chad Weber.)

Don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour this Saturday night (or early Sunday morning).