September 10, 2013
Hi All,
Thanks to all, particularly the Ladies Night Out Group who organized and managed the luncheon, for a very good Homecoming Sunday. The congregational meeting showed there is still work to do on getting clarity on the proposed art project. There will be more information about how we do that work after the Sanctuary Art Committee meets on September 22. We can be very proud of our scholarship recipients and of the efforts of our Children’s Choir. Congratulations to Yvonne Young, this year’s Daisy Funderburk Award recipient, and thanks to her for her skilled and loving service. Of course it was great to welcome the Voices of Lakeshore back after their summer break.
Please keep this week’s “Call-In” in your prayers. This intervention is an essential component of Oakland’s Ceasefire (Violence Reduction Through Community Stability and Personal Responsibility) Strategy. We are honored to host the Call-In as part of our commitment to the peace of our city.
Let me again invite you to join LeDayne McCleese Polaski, the Program Director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, for coffee this Saturday morning, September 14, at 9:00 in the Family Room. In our troubled world the work of the BPFNA is most needed. This is a wonderful opportunity to stand as part of a circle of committed peacemakers.
This coming Sunday my sermon will be “100 Sheep, 10 Coins and Us.” It will be taken from Luke 15: 1-10. My theme will be that the two parables included in this text help us to think clearly about the similarities and difference between what we do and what God does. In the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin we learn that it is God who saves and we who welcome those whom God has saved, God who restores and we who celebrate the restoration, God who writes the story and we who tell it. Carolyn Matthews will be bringing the special music.
At the Forum our Latino/a Heritage will be the topic. LeAnn Flesher will moderate a panel made up of three of her students at the Graduate Theological Union. The panelists will be:
Rev. Horacio DaValle, ThD student in Theology at the GTU
Mr. Cesar Melgar, PhD student in Old Testament at the GTU
Ms. Corinna Guerrero, PhD student in Old Testament at the GTU
Prayers of the Congregation
Concerns
- The Harrison Family for Marc’s Dad
- Charlotte Myers for her sister
- Cecil White for his brother
- Sheila Sims
- Sandra Dunn
- Tyrone Mack
- Virginia Cheatham
- Virginia Damretzky
- Edna Dorenzo
- Joan Thatcher
- Max Powers
- George and Sylvia Lee
- Kay Baxter for her family
- Mary Karne for her daughter
- Those responding to and those impacted by the fire on Mt. Diablo
- LeDayne Pulaski for her father
- The people of Syria and the response of the international community
- Bonnie Sato for her family
- Fannye Leary
- Larry Hutchings fro Dennis, Alan and Ethel
- Our nation as it honors the victims of the September 15, 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL
Celebrations
- Thanksgiving with Ted and Doris Evans on the birth of a great granddaugther, Meilyn Bailey Edwards
- Thanksgiving for the pulpit ministry of Robert Wilkins who will be preaching in Los Angeles this Sunday
- Thanksgiving for the wonderful child-care provided by our Lakeshore Children’s Center
- Thanksgiving for the caring ministry of Chaplain Wally Bryen
- Thanksgiving that Sydney Webster has begun we work as our Minister in Training
- Thanksgiving for the anti-human trafficking efforts of our American Baptist family
- Thanksgiving for the work all the doctors, nurses and health care workers of Lakeshore
- Thanksgiving for the work of Kiwanis International to eliminate neonatal and maternal tetanus
- Thanksgiving with all our parents, grand-parents and great-grand parents for those entrusted to their care
- Thanksgiving for all our Sunday School Teachers and students as a new Christian Education year begins
- Thanksgiving for the Pathway to Citizenship work of PICO California and the PICO National Network