Westminster News Sunday, September 5, 2010

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Welcome to worship at Westminster Church. If you are worshipping with us for the first time, we hope you will sign the guest book in the lobby and stop by the “Welcome Table”. Please help yourself to any of the materials and information provided. You may also wish to fill in a “Welcome to Westminster” card to be found in the pews and place it on the offering plate or give it to an usher. As we are able to be of help, we look forward to doing so.

New to Westminster? Never joined us for coffee before? Don’t hesitate to come! To find the lecture hall, go through the door to the left of the choir loft. For a guaranteed conversation, look for today’s host who will be wearing a name tag featuring a coffee cup logo.

Greeters: As you came into the church this morning Gladys Comeault and Ted Barnett greeted you.

This week in the Winnipeg Presbytery prayer cycle, please remember the people and work of the staff of the Centre for Christian Studies.

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This Week’s Events
Monday
September 6 - Office Closed for Labour Day
Tuesday
September 7 - 6:30-7:30 pm Scout Registration Lecture Hall
Wednesday
September 8 - 7-9 pm Worship Committee Chapel
September 8 - 7 pm Sunday School Meeting Concert Hall
Thursday
September 9 - 7-8:30 pm Choir Practice Sanctuary
September 9 - 7-9 pm Al Anon Concert Hall Stage

COMING SOON!
September 12 – Where can you get good food, great conversations and meet new friends? If you said The Westminster Welcome Back BBQ, you are RIGHT! This wonderful event takes place immediately after the church service on Sunday, September 12th. If weather and mosquitoes permit, we will be outside on our lawn, otherwise, we will be indoors in the Lecture Hall.

Sunday School Registration: Sunday School will commence on Sunday, September 12th. All parents are asked to register their children for Sunday School. The registration will take place in the Concert Hall upstairs before church during the month of September. If you can't make the registration before church, we ask that the parents go upstairs with their children when they depart for Sunday School either on September 12th or September 19th. Registrations after those Sundays will still be accepted but the parents will need to speak to Linda Campbell personally to register. Hope to see all parents and children soon.

YOUTH AT WESTMINSTER - On Sunday, September 12, the Youth will meet for the first time again with a new Youth Leader. Jana (pronounced Yana) Venter (pronounced Fenter) looks forward to welcoming old and new faces back after the great summer break! And she has interesting projects planned for the group: starting with decorating our own Youth Space (so bring your inner designer) and some fun discussions with a 13 week session around the book "SCARY, GROSS & WEIRD STORIES FROM THE BIBLE"... (A note to parents: Even though the title sounds pretty weird, the focus is God's amazing way of using the unusual to bring us closer to Him!) We also have a new page on the website for the Youth - MUSTARD SEED will provide information to parents and youth about what we are up to: http://westminsterchurchwinnipeg.ca/youth/. We hope to see you on September 12! Jana can be contacted at youth@westminsterchurchwinnipeg.ca.



Sing, sing, sing with the Quarry Choristers. If you are a female, age 14 and over, who loves to sing, come see what the Quarry Choristers can offer you. Make this your year to join the fun. Open House and Registration – Sunday, September 12 at 7:00 p.m. in the lower level of the Stonewall United Church, Stonewall. For more information, call Dawn at 467-7513 or Bonnie at 383-5523. You may also check out our website at www.quarrychoristers.wordpress.com.




URGENT - PAKISTAN APPEAL
In response to the heavy monsoon flooding in Pakistan and the unprecedented human and environmental crisis it has created there, The United Church of Canada has issued a special church-wide appeal calling its members to donate to "Pakistan Flood Relief." Funds that are raised are being used by United Church partners ACT Alliance (Action by Churches Together, the network of churches and Christian aid agencies that enables global responses to emergencies) and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank for immediate relief and long-term accompaniment. You may find more information and donate on-line by going to www.united-church.ca/pakistan. Or you can send a cheque made payable to The United Church of Canada and marked "Pakistan Flood Relief Fund." Donations must reach the General Council Office by September 12 in order to qualify for the government’s matching program. The address is:

Attention: Pakistan Flood Relief Fund
The United Church of Canada
General Council Office
3250 Bloor Street West, Suite 300
Toronto, ON M8X 2Y4

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MINUTES FOR MISSION

The Value of Practical Work

Bill and Karen Butt are United Church overseas personnel working with the Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM), thanks to the Mission and Service Fund. They write:

In Mozambique, when we visit people’s homes, we are given the best seat—sometimes the only seat. There’s a hierarchy of seating: a chair with a back before a plain stool; a stool before a block of wood or stone; a block or stone before a reed mat; a mat before the bare ground. Furniture affirms and validates a person’s worth.

Recently we took part in the opening of a school built by CCM for 400 students. It has only two rooms and a teachers’ office, but there was great excitement. The former school was made of mud, sticks, and thatch, and had a dirt floor. Now they have concrete walls, a metal roof, and a concrete floor elevated above the wet ground.

What they don’t have yet is furniture. Besides offering work space, furnishings show respect for the pupils, much like a chair shows respect for an honoured guest.

Mozambique’s government is doing its best to furnish schools, and the Christian Council is helping by building desks.

Your gifts to the Mission and Service Fund help build practical and useful items, like school desks, that dignify the people who use them.

We are a united church! Ask a blessing for those who work in practical ways in the church and through our partners, local and global, to serve in God’s mission.