All Plymouth Church members and friends are cordially invited to attend the Wednesday Night Live kickoff on Wednesday, September 1 at 6:00 pm.

There will be food, activities for kids featuring SweetCakes Entertainment (balloons, body-painting, and more), an open mic opportunity with Maestro Nance for all the talented Plymouth Church folks, and of course, lots of fun!

Please RSVP for the this event! There is a sign up in the Folsom Room at church, or you can call the church office during regular business hours. If you are interested in offering something for the open mic opportunity, please email Robert Nance at robert@maestronance.com. We hope to see you there!

The first ICMEP in-person gathering in 18 months! Come see old friends, receive news updates about our friends in Palestine, dedicate our Peace Wheel, renew our commitment to our mission, hear about future plans. We will meet at Plymouth at 6:30 pm on Thursday, September 9. Masks are required.

Sunday, September 12 and 19, Rev. Timothy Murphy will be leading a discussion on addressing institutional racism and how it differs from responding to personal and systemic racism. The group will learn about projects Plymouth has been undertaking over the past year to address institutional racism within our structure, and attendees will explore next steps and possibilities of additional projects to be taken on in the future.

Save the date! Sunday School returns on September 12! More information to come.

“With Thanksgiving for the past, with joy in the present and with hope for the future we celebrate this renewal of Plymouth.” Plymouth Church presents the “Rejoice & Renewal Celebration” on Saturday, September 18 at 5:30 pm at the Mizpah Shrine Center Imperial Room located at 1015 Memorial Way, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46805.

The evening will include a free catered dinner and music. A registration form can be found at the button below and will ask you to select your dinner choice: homestead chicken (rotisserie grilled half chicken), or vegan friendly pasta primavera (bow tie pasta with broccoli, carrots, red peppers, mushrooms, onions and ripe olives in an herbed olive oil). Please register for each individual person who will be in attendance and their dinner choice. Registration ends at 11:59 pm on September 7.

We plan to meet on the third Tuesday of each month, and our first meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 21, from 12:00 pm to 1:15 pm, when the book will be Flight Behavior, a novel by Barbara Kingsolver.

Due to privacy standards, Parkview and Lutheran Hospitals do not provide lists of congregation members who have been hospitalized to churches. This protects your medical and religious privacy and allows their chaplain staff to better serve the needs of patients and families. However, this also means that Plymouth pastoral staff do not know if you are in the hospital unless you actively reach out to us. If you would like us to call and check in on you or a loved one while in the hospital, please call the church at (260) 423 – 9424. You will be prompted to dial the pastoral care emergency extension and record a brief message. Please leave your name, what hospital you or a loved one are in, and the room number so pastoral staff can contact you. If you don’t have a room number, let us know the hospital, and make sure that you or the patient are listed in the hospital’s directory, if possible.

Each Sunday, after we hear the scripture in worship, we “play” with the story. As adults, our play often involves using our imagination to picture Biblical times, listening to our pastor mull over the passage, and responding through our quiet thoughts or our songs and prayers.

This year in Sunday school, our kids will also have a chance to “play” with Bible stories. Unlike adults, who often play in their thoughts, kids tend to play in tactile ways. They reenact the Bible stories, they draw pictures of Bible places, they add imaginative bits of their modern life into their play.

“Godly Play” is a system of storytelling and playful response. It’s been used at Plymouth in the past, but it’s been a while, and the best way to understand the process is to see it in action. So on Wednesdays beginning Sept 8, all ages are invited to a Godly Play Sampler. While we will follow the same structure as our childrens’ sessions, these Wednesday settings are set up for all ages. We won’t ask adults to role-play that they are children -- along with the story props and play dough there will be space for adults to reflect through quiet space, journaling, and discussion.

If you could use a mid-week space to reflect playfully on scripture, or if you are curious about this year’s Sunday school program, join us for one or more of these sampler sessions.

Each fall, the Christian Education Board gives Bibles to our incoming kindergarteners and second graders. If you have a child who would like to receive one of these Bibles, please contact Katie Watson (kjwatson4@gmail.com).

Wednesday Night Live has its kickoff event on Wednesday, September 1 at 6:00 pm, followed by the regular weekly programming starting September 8. Sign up sheets are in the Folsom Room to indicate if you will be there for the weekly dinner, which is at 6:00 pm. Please write your name, number of members of your household, and mark if you are requesting a vegetarian option. Masks will be required indoors except when eating. Plans are fluid based on local COVID cases so watch for e-blasts on any changes of plans. We look forward to seeing you there!

The Evangelism & Marketing Board has ordered new Plymouth t-shirts, and will have them available after service today, September 5, and September 12! There is no set price. Suggested donations are $5 for children’s sizes and $10 for adult sizes, to help offset the cost, but this is a “pay what you can” situation. Whether you are able to donate at the suggested level or a little more or less, it is important to us that anyone who wants a t-shirt can have one. We have youth sizes XS-L and adult sizes S-3XL.

Merry Christmas! Wait! It’s only late summer, but orders need to be placed for wreaths now. St. Joe Tree Farm is graciously working with Standish Circle to keep the tradition of selling wreaths for you to order and receive in time for the Christmas holidays. The profits are used to assist the Christmas family that Standish/Knit & Kibitz adopts each year. Unfortunately, swags and roping will not be available this year as the greenery comes from Oregon and Washington where fires and extreme heat have really damaged, if not wiped out, the crops. The pickup will be at Plymouth and handled in a noncontact manner. Wreath pick up will be Sunday, November 21 at the porte-cochere entrance before and after church.

Orders and payment must be received before Sunday, September 12. To complete an order form, either click the button below to print off the form and return it to the Plymouth office or pick up an order form at the front office on Sunday mornings. Checks should be made payable to Plymouth Church and include a notation stating "Standish Wreaths" on the memo line.

Now that events and meetings are returning to the building, it is important that you contact Tina Puitz, Office Manager, to make sure the time, date and room for your event is available. You may also be asked to complete a building use form. By contacting the office, your event will be entered onto the calendar and your meeting space will be ready when you arrive. Even if your event is returning after the long break due to the pandemic, you must still contact Tina. Also, if you will be selling anything or money will be coming to the office, please coordinate with Tina so office preparations can be made. Contact Tina at 260-423-9424 or tmp@plymouthfw.org. Thank you.

To apply, click the button below and complete the Volunteer Information Form. All volunteers must have a background check which is done by the FWCS and two references. If you would like to be a tutor or a substitute or have any questions about volunteering, please let Lucy Hess know by contacting her at lrh22@frontier.com or 484-4430.

Due to numerous requests, Plymouth has decided to open our sanctuary on Thursdays from 12:30 pm to 4:30 pm for a time of personal prayer. Please enter through the Berry Street Office entrance and check in with our receptionist. Contact our receptionist Jake Slone at (260) 423-9424 or jss@plymouthfw.org with any questions.

Plymouth Church has joined Instagram! If you would like to follow our Instagram to see what's happening at Plymouth each week and more, give us a follow @plymouthchurchfortwayne. If you post any pictures at Plymouth or at a Plymouth event, or have any previous posts at Plymouth, please tag us! The link to our Instagram can be found at the bottom of this bulletin and on our website.

Those who want to sign up can do so by filling out the form, linked here, or they can call/email the office. Payment can be made through the donation link on our website (included in the form) or they can mail cash/a check to the office. Donations for the selected Sunday(s) must be to the office by the prior Tuesday. The cost for one bouquet is $50. If two members sign up for the same Sunday, we will have two bouquets that week.

For this week’s RIP Medical Debt campaign announcement, E&M would like to share a story published December 20, 2019, by WTIU, out of Indianapolis. There, Northview Church collected $40,000 and paid off $7.8 million through RIP Medical Debt.

One beneficiary of this collection is a woman named Sonya Brown, who agreed to be interviewed for the story. She had approximately $15,000 in unpaid medical bills, which had resulted from struggles with diabetes and several strokes. Her health issues eventually led to her quitting her job at Wal-Mart, leaving her and her husband to get by on only his pay. There wasn’t any extra to pay off debt.

Then Ms. Brown received a letter from RIP Medical Debt informing her that her debt had been forgiven, and she now owed nothing. “You know how people feel when they hit the lottery? Just overwhelming and so exciting. […] I wanted to pay my medical bills, I didn’t want to be that deadbeat person, but I couldn’t afford to pay that,” she said.

The interview with Ms. Brown was during December, so she was asked about her plans for the holidays. She replied that she was scraping together whatever extra she had to pay the blessing forward, because so many had helped her. She said, “It don’t take a lot of money, because if everyone puts in 10 or 20 dollars, it adds up quick, and it helps somebody.”

We couldn’t agree more, Ms. Brown. If everyone chips in a little, we can do a lot. Please give what you can, and help us bring the good news to more folks like Sonya Brown.

The fundraising campaign will run through September 26, and our fundraising goal is $20,000 – or $2,000,000 in medical debt relief – but if we end up raising more than that our joy will increase with our giving. Please feel free to share the link with your friends and family – the more the merrier! Click the button below to visit our fundraising campaign page. There is also a link on our “Contribute” page at plymouthfw.org. Scroll down and click on “Campaign." Information can also be found on Facebook. Thank you!

If you have a need to visit the office, we’d love to see you! Our office is open from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Appointments are no longer necessary to visit the office during these days. On Fridays, our office will be open from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm by appointment only. Contact the office at (260) 423-9424 or office@plymouthfw.org with any questions.

The state of Indiana has opened COVID-19 vaccination eligibility to anyone 12 and older. You can click the button below to schedule an appointment. If you have difficulty registering online, you can dial 211 from any phone for assistance.