Christmas Joy Offering

One way we at Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church aid church leaders around the country and the world is through participation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Christmas Joy Offering. Funds contributed to this offering provide support to: (1) current and retired church workers and their spouses with financial need; and (2) leadership development among the primarily students of color at three PC(USA)-related schools.

Support given in the past to these ministries has even aided folks in our congregation. The late Mary Love shared how an Assistance Grant financed by the Joy Offering tided her over financially during a difficult time. Lemuel Garcia Arroyo, who worshiped with us until he was transferred back to Texas, shared how he learned and grew as a student at one of the schools supported by the offering, the Presbyterian Pan American School in Kingsville, Texas.

Advent and Christmas is a time of peace, hope, joy, and love—a perfect time to help church leaders by giving generously to the Christmas Joy Offering. You may do so by writing Christmas Joy Offering on the memo line of your check placed in the offering plate at Sunday worship, December 22, or by going to the CHPC website and clicking into Online Giving and then on Christmas Joy Offering. Give joyfully!

Help Decorate the Church for Advent

Advent, a holy time to prepare our hearts for celebrating the birth of Jesus, began on Sunday, December 1.

The windowsills in the sanctuary are beginning to be filled with symbols of Jesus' birth (manger scenes, candles, stars, angels, etc.). If you have an item that is special to you and reminds you of God's gift of Jesus to the world, please bring it to the church any time during Advent to place in one of the windowsills.

An Advent Reading Theater

Sunday, December 15 and 22

9:30 a.m. -10:30 a.m.

Before church on Sundays December 15 and 22, Phil Lloyd-Sidle will host an “Adult Sunday School” group reading of the Nativity morality play by Charles Williams entitled “The House by the Stable.” It is a thought-provoking, humorous, and insightful play about the birth of Christ that can speak to us now. We will devote both Sundays to the reading of the play (different participants taking the roles) as well as discussion. Bonus: there will be coffee cake and coffee!

Note: Charles Williams was a friend and contemporary of T.S Eliot, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others in mid-20th century England.  He was most known as a novelist, but also published poetry, works of literary criticism, theology, drama, history, and biography.

Prayer and Action for Middle East

If you are struggling with your feelings about all that is happening in the Middle East and yearn for shared information, prayers, and other possible responses, please join our small group. Here is our regular schedule:

• 1st Thursday each month, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., we meet in homes so location will vary. Updates on locations will be posted in upcoming Westminster Weekly.

• Other Thursdays, 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., on Zoom. Feel free to join us on Zoom, in-person, or both. This group has enabled such support for one another. We would be grateful to have others to join us. Email Soni at soni.castleberry@gmail.com to get the Zoom link and to be added to the group email list for regular communication. 

DID YOU KNOW?

What Presbyterians Believe About Mary

The mother of Jesus is not someone to pack away after Christmas

Presbyterian author Kathleen Norris makes the wry observation that Protestants have a limited attention span for Mary, the mother of Jesus. We unpack her from the box at Christmastime, she says, and then pack her back up again, with our other decorations, after the holidays are over.

One reason we Protestants hold Mary at arm’s length is because we associate her with our own vague discomfort about the role of saints in Christian spirituality. As Protestants we remember that Luther and

Calvin criticized the Roman church of the 16th century for compromising, in their understandings of Mary, on the basic Christian conviction that Jesus Christ is the one Mediator between God and humanity. Not wanting to make the same mistake, however, we inadvertently make another: We relegate Mary to the sidelines.

This may be changing. Publications as diverse as The Economist and Christianity Today have published articles about Mary. The time has come for Protestants to recognize Mary’s place at the heart of the Christ event and consider what she has to offer to our theology and spirituality.

Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians alike have argued that Mary is the model Christian believer, the symbol of the church in relationship to God. Consistent with this belief, Christmas sermons often lift Mary up as one of the great cloud of witnesses who respond faithfully to what God calls them to do. But these messages are incomplete. Certainly, Mary is one among many people of faith the Scripture bears witness to, and we celebrate. But she is also the only one who is identified as the “God-bearer.” And it is in this distinctive vocation that she serves as a model for the church in relationship to God. She reveals what it means for us, in turn, to bear God to the world.

Excerpt from an article by Cynthia L. Rigby published in the April 2004 issue of Presbyterians Today.

https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/mary/)

December Birthdays

Please remember these wonderful folks in prayer and, if possible, reach out to them with a card, phone call, text, email or however you choose to honor them.

To double-check your listing, contact Soni Castleberry at soni.castleberry@gmail.com or phone or text at 502-417-6481.

December 3- Martha Neal Cooke

December 6- Doug Yeager

December 7 - Andrew Hartmans

December 9 - Julie Leake

December 12 - Nelly Ngandu

December 16 - Connie Foss

December 22 - Peter Kemmerle

December 30 - Leland Bell

December 31 - Phil Lloyd-Sidle