As summer arrives, many of us will enjoy vacations, weekends away, and time with family and friends. We hope you do! Summer is a season for rest and renewal. But while our calendars may slow down, the work of caring for our church does not. Lawns still need to be maintained. Buildings still need attention. Ministries continue to welcome and serve those who walk through our doors. In many ways, summer is when we can accomplish important maintenance and improvement projects that prepare us for the busy months ahead.
If Church of the Loving Shepherd has become a place that has encouraged you, welcomed your family, celebrated life's joys, or carried you through difficult seasons, we invite you to remember your church even while you're away. Your continued financial support helps ensure that the momentum we are building doesn't pause with the summer season.
Thank you for investing in a community that continues to grow, care, and create a place where people can belong...not only today, but for generations to come.
As we prepare for continued growth in our church, we are offering church members the opportunity to reserve a pew before they are made available to the public in three months (end of August barn sale). Most of these pews are in need of repair and are no longer used in worship. Due to a lack of space to store these pews, we are offering them to members before selling them.
These pews have held generations of worship, prayer, celebration, and sacred memories. We would be honored for members of our church family to have the first opportunity to give them a new home.
If you are interested in selecting a pew, please contact the church office or speak with Pastor Jill for details and availability. And please do not walk off with one from the Walti room since the ones we are offering are currently stored in the loft or the basement of the barn!
WEDNESDAY PRAYERS
At 11 AM every Wednesday, we gather online to pray for one another, requests shared with the congregation, our community, and world.
In spite of New Street being closed Friday morning, this month’s food
delivery went off without a hitch! The Food Bank truck arrived much earlier
than usual carrying a bounty of produce. Our Foodies unloaded that
produce, broke it down, divided it and packed into bags for delivery. Once
again, the turn out of CLS members was excellent, and the delivery was
completed by 10:30!
Thank you to all those who donated needed items for delivery, who helped with bagging and delivered food!
Set Up
Thursday, July 23rd at 8:30 AM
Meet in the pantry to load bags with non-perishables and paper goods
Food Delivery
Friday, July 24th between 8:30 and 9 AM
Meet at the pantry and unload CCFB truck 8:30-9 AM
Bag perishables
Deliver bags to families in pairs or small groups
There’s room for new hands and hearts, so come be a part of the team!
Besides your physical presence, we welcome donations for our deliveries.
CURRENT NEED:
Donations of toilet paper and paper towels are always appreciated.
Are you available for 1-3 hours to assist us in spreading wood chips, cleaning up fallen branches, and tending to our flower beds? Please let us know.
The weeds are growing quickly, and the branches continue to fall from these spring storms! We could certainly use the extra hands to help keep our property beautiful. This Grounds Day is rain or shine since we will also be preparing the interior of our barn (the Walti Room) for the start of camp!
Falls Township Park in Levittown Sunday July 12 at 6 p.m.
"Planting Trees We May Never Sit Beneath"
An excerpt from Pastor Jill's sermon on Anniversary Sunday (This included member, Tom Stretton, delivering the center of the sermon.)
Seventy years ago, somebody imagined something that did not yet exist. Not simply a building. Not simply a church. But a future.
And now, seventy years later, we stand between memory and possibility. Between what has been…and what God may still be creating among us. This morning, I want us to hear that truth a little differently.
Before there were floor boards worn smooth by generations walking through here...
before weddings filled these grounds with laughter...
before prayers echoed through these barn walls...there was only a vision.
A holy whisper that said: “God is not finished here yet.”
Buildings may have been crumbling, but we built anyway. We built when money was scarce. When answers were uncertain. When the future could not yet be seen. We planted anyway. And because we planted...you are here today.
But every generation must eventually answer the same question: Will we only preserve what was...or will we help create what could still be?
Because churches were never meant to become museums. We believe the Spirit of God is always moving ahead of us somewhere. “Forget the former things,” God says through Isaiah. “See, I am doing a new thing. Even now, it springs up...do you not perceive it?”
Again and again throughout Scripture, God keeps calling people forward.
Abraham...leave what is familiar.
Moses...go back to the place you fear.
Ruth...walk toward a future you cannot yet see.
Esther...risk comfort for courage.
The disciples...drop your nets.
Mary Magdalene...stop clinging to the empty tomb.
Again and again...God whispers: “There is still more ahead.”
Because the world has always been changed by people willing to plant seeds they may never live long enough to see bloom.
The teacher who pours into a struggling child.
The activist who marches for justice.
The immigrant who crosses oceans hoping their children inherit something better.
The grandparent who sacrifices quietly so another generation can thrive.
They all planted anyway. And that is exactly what has happened here at Church of the Loving Shepherd. Someone looked at a weed-covered barn with feed still sitting in the troughs...and imagined a sanctuary.
People imagined music filling this room. Laughter happening here. Healing happening here. Grace living here. A group of people believed God could still bring life from unlikely places. And because they believed it...we inherited the blessing of their courage and vision.
So now the question becomes ours. What will we plant? What kind of church will we become? Will we cling tightly to what we have been… or courageously build a future into existence? Because living things grow. Living things adapt. Living things keep reaching toward light. And that is true for communities too.
The moment a church stops imagining, stops risking, stops making room for people who have not arrived yet…it slowly stops being alive at all.
Yes, seventy years ago, somebody stood on this property and saw possibilities where others only saw limitations. And because they did…we are here.
Which means one day, seventy more years from now, someone else will tell a story about us. The only question is: Will they say we kept what we were given from falling apart…OR that we helped build a future where more people could finally belong?
So, Church, what are we willing to become next? Because someday…people not yet born will walk through these doors. They will inherit whatever we choose to build NOW.
They will live beneath the shade of trees we either planted…or refused to plant.
And they will know, almost immediately,whether this place was built merely to remember the past…or courageous enough to help shape the future.
That choice belongs to us now. Not someday. Not when things feel safer.Not when every answer becomes clear. NOW. Because history is never shaped only by people with certainty. It is shaped by people willing to imagine something better before anyone else can see it.
And seventy years ago…someone did exactly that here.
