Christmas

Open House

Pastor Jerry, Diane & Jerad Jerry, Diane & Jerad

TurnerTurner invite you to aou to a Christ-

mas Open House at the Dunlap UMC Parsonage at the Dunlap UMC Parsonage

on Saturday, December 19on Saturday, December 19th (with a snow date of Sunday, th (with a snow date of Sunday,

December 20th) December 20th) from 2:00 pm from 2:00 pm -- 4:00 pm. You may come 4:00 pm. You may come

at any time, stay as long as you like, and leave when at any time, stay as long as you like, and leave when

you must!you must!

Page 3 Page 2

No lunch in December. Enjoy the holidays.

Barb Stutsman

Seniors Lunch

Kid’s Club / Wednesday

Meals

Kid’s Club & Wednesday Meals will resume on Wednesday, January 6th, 2016 and continue through April 27th. For those interested in pre-paring a meal contact Tricia Oswald at 875-6676 or sign up on the back table. Thank you to all who signed up to cook during the last session.

Preschool News

The children are busy learning Christ-

mas songs for our annual Christmas pro-

gram, Tuesday, December 8th at 6:15

p.m.

We will again be accepting donations for our Hat, Sock

& Mitten tree, the weeks of December 1st thru the 16th.

All donations will go to families in need. All items should

be new and unwrapped.

Pastor will be having chapel with the children on De-

cember 7th and 8th.

The children will also be participating in our annual

birthday party for Jesus on December 17th & 18th. This

is an excellent opportunity for us to celebrate with the

children the true meaning of this holiday season! We cele-

brate with a birthday cake and the singing of happy

birthday.

The preschool will be closed for Christmas vacation

from Monday, December 21st thru Friday, January 1st.

Merry Christmas & A Very Happy New Year!!!

College & Military Care Each year we send cards and packages to our college students and service men. Soon there will be a sign up sheet avail-able for anyone willing to donate supplies for the packages. If you have not turned in your college

student’s or service person’s current address, please do so immediately to the church office. We don’t want anyone to miss out on getting these packages.

Attention Cookie Bakers and Helpers First of all - Thank you for baking, praying and vol-unteering for this year's Cookie Walk. We need many, many hands to help make this event a blessing and success for our church. We will be working in the kitchen on Friday, December 11, from noon into the early evening. Come when you can - leave when you must. It is important that we receive your cookie donations at the church by Friday afternoon or early evening latest. We will need to have the trays ready Friday evening for 8:30 a.m. opening on Saturday morning. Also - May we borrow your cookie sheets to use as trays for this event? The trays and sheets will be covered with aluminum foil so it doesn't matter how used they look. Please put your name on the bottom so they may be returned to you on Sunday. Again - thank you for your time and effort.

Thanks and a

Great Big Cookie Blessing from the

Cookie Ladies!

Church Family

Christmas Party

Mark your calendar for Sunday, December 6th, following the service. Everyone is invited to the DUMC Church Family

Christmas Lunch in Fellowship Hall. Meat and drinks will be provided by the Staff/Parish Com-mittee. We ask each family (or individual) to please bring 2 covered dishes to share.

Church Closings

Please remember that during the week if Con-

cord School is closed for weather other than morning fog our church will also cancel activities

scheduled for the day.

We rarely close on Sunday morning unless a snow emergency has been declared, but if you

don’t feel safe, don’t venture out. Look to channel 16 for a weather related closing for Sunday but

follow Concord’s decision for weekday evening activities.

Christmas & Christmas Eve Services

Sunday, December 13 will feature our Handbells. On December 24 from 7 to 8 pm. we will have “An open Christmas Com-munion” in our sanctuary. You may come at any time during the hour for quiet medi-tation and prayer. Blessed Communion elements will be on the prayer rail, and Pastor Jerry will be in the sanctuary. At 11:00 p.m. we will have our Candlelight Christmas Eve service. This is a most beautiful time here at Dunlap. Invite your family and friends to share this special night with us. On December 27 we will celebrate with Christ-mas songs.

Our Church Staff

Pastor Rev. Jerald E. Turner

Bell Choir Director Kim Dooley

Christian Ed Dir Tricia Oswald

Choir Accompanists Karen Wolber

Choir Director Becky Aldridge

Church Secretary Wendy Hepner

Custodian Trenton Miller

Organist Lois Coney

Preschool Director Cynthia Covey

Our Vision Statement “To promote the Word of God and

the Love of Jesus.”

Dunlap United

Methodist Church

23674 US Highway 33 Elkhart, IN 46517

Phone: (574) 875-7950

Pastor’s Emergency Phone: (574) 214-5451

E-mail: dunlapumc@frontier.com

Web: elkhartdunlapumc.org

Dec. 2015 Dispatch Ramblings from the Pastor

“Thanksgiving Thoughts”

It’s been some 392 years since the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving. The date to observe Thanksgiving

shifted around over the years, until President Lincoln finally settled on the last Thursday of November. Lincoln wrote

that it should be a day for “thanksgiving and praise.” This year we observe Thanksgiving Day on November 26th, but

whatever the date, the spirit remains the same. Through “thanksgiving and praise” our faith is reinforced! In 1863, Abraham Lincoln wrote, “It is the duty of nations as well as of man to own their dependence upon the over-

ruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine re-

pentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and

proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. … But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and en-

riched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings

were pro­duced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken suc­cess, we have become

too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one

heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United

States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last

Thursday of November, a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the heavens. — A.

Lincoln, 1863. Words that ring true, yet today. In his multi-volume work on the Psalms entitled, “The Treasury of David,” C.H. Spurgeon reminds us that God is the

source of all praise and thankfulness. But Spurgeon also reminds us that the true treasury of the Psalms is not only to be

thankful for our material wealth, but for our relationship with the Lord, that continually blesses and enriches our life.

When all else in life fails, the Lord never fails us! Martin Luther wrote, “To live is to praise.” As we gather with family and friends on Thanksgiving Day we will thank

God for our material blessings, as we rightly should. But we must never forget that our greatest blessing is our relation-

ship with God, through which we are invited into life eternal in Christ Jesus. The closer we walk with our Lord, the

more we see God’s glory and goodness, and the more we begin to see and understand that “to live is to praise God.” So

every day becomes an opportunity to praise God for the blessings, and the love, and the mercy we have received. As the people of the United States pause to observe Thanksgiving Day, I pray that every American will remember to

praise God. When we gather with family and friends, let us be truly thankful for the benevolence God has lavishly

poured out upon us. And as we share how grateful we are for the privileges and blessings we have as Christians and as

Americans on Thanksgiving Day, I pray that we will have the true wisdom to thank God every day. I feel called to remind you that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the first Sunday of the holy Advent Season, when we

prepare for the coming Christ. So as you celebrate Thanksgiving Day, I pray that

you will also begin to prepare your heart to receive our Blessed Savior. I pray for

you a blessed Thanksgiving with family and friends, and some quiet time just to be

still with God, who came in the person of Jesus the Christ, and who remains within

us in the person of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Blessings in Christ Jesus,

Pastor Jerry Rev. Jerald E. Turner

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

DUMC Children’s Holiday

Mission Project

Like past years, the children are collecting canned goods to be donated to Church Community Services. This year they will be collecting any kind of canned goods in order to build a tower to feed the hungry. Let’s all help to feed the hungry in Elkhart County by donating a couple of cans!