|
November 3, 2024
We are fast approaching the end of 2024. As of November 3rd we have 58 days left in this year. November brings with it the change from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time. We fall back and gain an hour in the autumn of the year. I presume you have reset your clocks by now.
November marks the beginning of National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness and Family Caregivers Month. Today in America, 6 million people live with this disease. Every 65 seconds, a new brain develops Alzheimer’s Disease. Two-thirds of those brains belong to women and we have no idea why that is a fact. There are 40 million Americans who are serving as unpaid caregivers each and every day. Furthermore, 16 million of those caregivers are serving on the frontlines of Alzheimer’s Disease. Others caregivers are caring for special needs children, veterans, parents, and spouses struggling with a disability, disease or other hardship. (Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper / News and Views For A Meaningful Life)
Following are dates that require your attention and participation:
Sunday, November 3rd, 2024 is the first Sunday / Daylight Saving Time ends. We gain an hour. We fall back. Be sure to set your clocks back one hour on Saturday November 2nd.
Tuesday, November 5th, 2024 is Election Day in Los Angeles for local and municipal elections. It is imperative that we exercise our right to select who represents us in the legislature at all levels of government as it is a right that has been won with the sacrifices of many who gave their lives. We are a polling place. We are open Saturday November 2nd from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm, Sunday November 3rd from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, Monday November 4th from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm and Tuesday Election Day from 7:00 am – 8:00 pm. You can vote here or drop your mail in ballot here. Your vote will make all the difference in the world about the direction we will take as a country, whether we go back in time in the past or move forward into the future of becoming a more perfect union that lives out the creed of its faith. Let’s use our freedom to make the change we know needs to happen to maintain and sustain what we have been given and the gains we have made.
Sunday, November 10th, 2024 is Veterans Emphasis Sunday. Our Veterans will be leading in worship. The holiday goes back to World War I and marks when Germany and the Allies signed a 1918 agreement to end war hostilities. At the time, Nov. 11, 1918 was regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars," according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. As we can see the intent was not achieved as we have had several wars since. Unfortunately, we see wars continue to this day.
"Never was so much owed by so many to so few" was a wartime speech delivered to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom by British prime minister Winston Churchill on August 20, 1940. Let’s honor those who sacrificed so we can have the liberty we enjoy.
Sunday, November 17th, 2024 is Women’s Emphasis Sunday. Our women will be leading in worship for the radio broadcast in person service. Be sure to give a special contribution in the envelope labeled Women’s Day. Give commensurate with your capacity to support our congregation of believers in Christ. We ask if you are able to give a dollar for every year that the church has been in existence, $139.00. The men shore up the budget in July and the women in November. Thank you.
Thursday, November 21st, 2024 at 10:00 am is our in-person Thanksgiving Day Service. Let us express our gratitude to the Lord for all the Lord has done for us. The psalmist reminds us that the Lord is good, the Lord’s mercy is everlasting and the truth of the Lord endures forever.
African Americans commemorate and celebrate Thanksgiving as an awareness of the goodness, generosity and graciousness of the Lord in the particularity of the peculiar predicaments of our lives communally and individually. It is amazing that we have emerged and evolved from the excruciating experiences of captivity, discrimination, and the oppressive structures of slavery and segregation, fortified with a faith that saves and sustains us with an attitude of gratitude, praise and thanksgiving. Let us gather and give thanks for all the Lord has done for us.
Sunday November 24th, 2024 is the last Sunday in November.
For the privilege which is mine to be making this journey of faith in Christ with you, I am grateful. Let’s continue to fulfill the purpose for which we have been paired together. We are a people of promise from a land of promise, in a place of promise with a book of promise to achieve the potential of our promise in Christ.
-Pastor
Dr. William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
| 
