North Shore United Methodist December 2016

The

December 4th– Church Council Meeting after 2nd service

December 6th– United Methodist Men Breakfast @ 7:30am

December 6th– United Methodist Women Christmas Party 10am

December 9th– North Shore at North Pole Village Caroling & Live Nativity 6-9pm

December 11th– Church Charge Conference 3pm

December 11th– All Church Christmas Caroling and Pot Luck Dinner 5-7pm

December 13th– Local Emmaus Gathering @ 6:30 pm

December 18th– Youth & Y.A.C.H.T. Club Christmas Party

December 24th- Children’s & Family Services @ 4:30 Candlelight & Carols @ 6:30pm December 25th– One Service 11am December 26th & 27th– Church Office closed January 1st– One Service 11am

Can You Dig it? North Shore’s Christmas Miracle

For the past two years at North Shore we have given our Christmas offering to help bring clean water to the people of Uganda. This is the first picture that stirred our hearts to do something about the plight of these children.

Your generous gifts allowed us to drill not one but 5 wells that first year in partnership with St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Boerne, Texas. These villages now celebrate the life giving clean water and the gift of the Living water of Jesus Christ.

The water crisis in Uganda is a silent killer. A few quick facts to consider:

1 in 8 people in Uganda only have access to filthy, deadly water.

This deadly water fills close to 1/2 of Uganda’s hospital beds with its people sick from water

related illnesses.

Every day, millions of women and children in Uganda walk an average of 4 miles to retrieve water to meet their families’ daily needs.

Through your support of our ministry’s clean water efforts, you will be saving lives in Uganda by providing safe, clean water. In addition to meeting their physical need for safe water, you will also be providing a platform for local Ugandan pastors to build relationships and to share the Living Water Message of Jesus Christ.

This Christmas give the gift that truly changes lives…you can give through our website…go to GIVE…them select CAN YOU DIG IT. Or through out Advent send a check to North Shore UMC. You can give your donation as a gift to someone special.

In Mission with You! Pastor Kim

Sunday, November 6th

W M U UNITED METHODIST WOMEN

Creative Hands and reading Circle will not be meeting in the month of December.

December 6th Tuesday all women are invited to the UMW annual Christmas Party at North Shore UMC – 10:00 – Noon. Bring your favorite snack to share. If you would like to participate in the gift

exchange bring your wrapped but no tag Christmas decoration but spend no more than $10.

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UMW women are the best educated faith based group of women in the world. We must be educated to be able to address the needs of marginalized women, children and

youth in the world. So plan on coming to the meetings on the first Tuesday of each month and get to know us and our

mission, we are much more than a social club!

United Methodist Men

Greetings – As of this writing, we find ourselves entering Advent, and enjoying Texas Indian Summer days. Altogether an exciting time – fraught with outreach opportunity.

Please make plans to join the rest of our men at the upcoming De-cember UMM meeting (on Tuesday December 6th – 7:30am – in the NSUMC Sanctuary). During this meeting, we will hold Officer Elections. 2016 has been a fast-moving year, fraught with ministerial opportu-nities. Please don’t be shy to seek out and VOLUNTEER to partici-pate in the many NSUMC outreach activities. This is my final newsletter column as NSUMC UMM President. My time at the helm has been rewarding and I’m anxious to move forward in greater service. In closing, please join me in prayer for our continuing ministries in the Canyon Lake area as we seek to answer our Savior’s call and meet local needs. In Christ, Fred

Coming Together: North Shore Capital Campaign

Church I am so proud of your efforts! You truly came together and we are approaching the 1 million 500 thousand dollar mark! Truly a miracle. But we have not yet met our goal. We will take some time during the month of December and move outside of our local church to search for additional funding. If you know of someone, a business, an associate who may be willing to make a tax-deductible donation to our dreams I encourage you to ask. If you have grant writing knowledge please contact the church office. We will push forward! If you have not pledged over the three-year plan I urge you to do so. Contact Pastor Kim at kburke@northshore-umc.org for creative ways to give or additional insights. A special thank you to Steve Yates and Lou Woodward as our Capital Campaign Directors, all the volunteers, those who prepared fellowship meals, our Prayer Team, the Design Team, the Finance Team, our amazing staff and everyone of you who Came Together and gave so generously! Keep Praying!

Merry Christmas &

Happy New Year From the North Shore

Staff

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Music News Christmas Carols are pretty much heard everywhere beginning on Thanksgiving day - except in the Methodist church. We observe Advent which is the time we wait, hope, and anticipate Christ's birth. We sing songs that reflect the anticipation, but not Christ-mas Carols. By the time Christmas arrives, most of us are pretty saturated with songs of the season. It seems a bit off to sing Christmas Carols in January. .

Singing carols in church is really an invention of the 19th century. History has it that church leaders, concerned that the old Christmas traditions were dying out, began to make collections, often giving new tunes to old lyrics. The most influential of these came in 1871 with the publication of 42 Christmas Carols New and Old by the Rev H R Bramley of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Dr John Stainer, the college organist, and it was specifically designed for use in parish churches.

Christmas carols are an important element of our culture. The first song ever broadcast on the radio was a carol. On Christmas Eve, 1906, the Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden played "O Holy Night" . This was the first broadcast of the human voice anywhere and was picked up by receivers several hundred miles away. Fessenden, not Marconi, was the true inventor of radio.

During the Christmas truce on the Western Front in 1914, Silent Night was sung simultaneously by troops in German, French and English, as it was the only carol all sides knew.

As you know, we don't exactly go by the book at North Shore UMC. So you might just find yourself singing some Christmas Carols leading up to Christmas.

MARK Your Calendars. Church wide Caroling and pot luck - Sunday, December 11. North Shore night at North Pole Village. Friday, December 9. Come sing as if no one is listening. Marty Chrisman

PRAYER MINISTRY Greetings from the Prayer Ministry !!!.

We pray all the time, but meet on Sunday mornings at 8:30 AM if anyone would like to join us in the Prayer Chapel in the Education Building.

Please stop and say hi to anyone of us. We would be happy to speak to you, take a prayer request or just chat about prayer and how wonderful and privileged we feel it is to be able to take your concerns, joys, praises, etc. before the Lord.

When I said, "My foot is slipping, " your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul. Psalm 94:18-19

BLESSINGS - Annie Perez Katie Mason Pat Cahill

Susan Fuqua Diane Kunz

Coming Down to Earth! We come forth from God! Not a God who is an old man sitting on a cloud, but God who is light, love, compassion and Spirit. We have a Divine image!! As I look around it seems like the Divine light image is being overshadow at times. We live in a culture where winning is the order of the day. We want to win. Our side needs to win. We need to be right!! What if there was not a side? What if we are the ones who are blocking out the light that we so desperately hope for simply by searching for it in the wrong place? Humility! Humility is coming down to Earth and will show up in a manger. This is Good News!! Jesus is coming !!! "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of other people." Philippians 2:3-4 Peace, Rev. K.P. Polk

In re Pastor Kim’s message of just what is love and how can We share it- Our congregation decided several years ago to support the CRRC Food Pantry with members bringing a non-perishable item each week to put in the CRRC Food Pantry basket. While there are still a few that do that, we may have forgotten our pledge as we have worked to support other new causes as well. It is time again to renew our pledge to help a very needy and frequently used local mission. If you cannot bring an item each week-let’s do our best to bring things each Communion Sunday. Items needed now include any type of canned soup, soap products of any type (laundry, dish, person-al, shampoo), dental supplies, cereals. As these often change monthly, due to supplies available from the San Antonio Food Pantry– watch for current needs. Let’s fill the Food Basket to overflowing each month!!

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Has your family ever gone on a trip together? What do you do to prepare? Check the weather, make sure you have addresses to plug into navigation, make reservations, make sure everyone is packed and ready to go, etc. There’s a lot of planning that goes into taking a trip! Advent is a journey, not that unlike a family trip. I find Advent to be much more meaningful when I am in-tentional about my journey. I check the weather of my heart. How is it with my soul? Am I ready for the com-ing of the Christ-child or am I distracted and wrapped up in other things. Where am I going and how do I get there? I want to arrive at Christmas morning with a new sense of awe and wonder that the God of the universe, who create me and everything in it, loves me SO much that God would put on flesh and come and dwell among us. Emmanuel! How do I get there? By taking time to slow down and breath. By ‘making a reservation’ to spend time in scripture and prayer. In thoughtfully thinking about my gift giving. Does my mom need one more “Best Mom Ever” coffee mug, or would a donation to Breast Cancer Research honor her? Is everyone ready? Look around and see where your friends and family are. Is money tight so there won’t be as many gifts under the tree? Maybe find a way to help. Is someone in a ba-hum-bug mood? Seek to understand why their heart is heavy this year? We all journey at different paces, but who doesn't love to be encouraged and supported along the journey. If you were in church on November 27th, the first Sunday of Advent, hopefully you picked up a family ad-vent bag. Inside it you will find lots of fun tools to be able to journey as a family this advent. If you missed getting one, we still have a few left. Or you can check out our Family Advent Calendar available on our web-site under Children’s Ministry. I hope and pray that wherever you are, wherever you ‘re starting from, and whenever you’re starting that this advent season will be a meaningful and memorable one!

We are excited about our excellent staff. We are busy putting the final touches, gather-ing toys, books, and supplies for our classroom spaces. We are anxiously preparing and waiting for our Licensing inspection on Tuesday, December 6th. We are enrolling precious ones from our community. We are looking forward to and are excited about opening our doors on Tuesday, January 3rd! Thank you North Shore for helping make this dream come true as we seek to serve those in out community and to create a safe place for our precious ones to grow and learn about Christ!

CrossFit Sunday Mornings 9:35 & 11:00

4th—Serve 11th—Be Sacrificial 18th—Be Thankful

25th—Worship Together, No CrossFit

YACHT Club 4th & 5th Graders

Sundays 5-7 (dinner included)

4th—CHRISTmas 11th—Caroling 18th —Christmas Party

25th—Merry Christmas, No Yacht

Grab a Family Advent Bag from Church and make use of it. Or Check out the following websites for some Advent Resources:

Advent wreath lighting worship ritual—http://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/2016-advent-home-worship

Advent daily calendar—http://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/2016-ministry-with-children-advent-calendar * Toilet paper tube nativity templates—http://www.icf.org/kids/kids1213.pdf * Color your own advent wreath (just add tea lights) - http://www.buildfaith.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Advent-in-a-Box-Advent-Wreath.pdf

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North Shore Youth

Youth Beach Retreat 2016 was a great weekend of fun, fellowship, and way too much food! We took 19 youth and 5 adults and had a great three days on the beautiful beaches of Port Aransas! We built sandcastles, roasted marshmallows, scavenger hunted, worshipped our God, and had great con-versation about the character of our good good Father! We left wishing we could’ve stayed longer, but were thankful for a time to get away, recharge, reconnect, and relax!

This past Sunday, November 27, our congregation came together to Hang the Greens and we had a blast! It’s always great to see our church family come together and we had a blast helping bring in the Christmas season with fellow-ship and frito pie. Youth Bible Study comes back on November 30th as we kick off our church wide Advent study! Excited to continue to dive into scripture with our youth and look forward to what our the Lord has in store.

The rest of the month is filling up as well, so be sure to mark your calendars for the following events as well as upcoming Winter Retreat dates: November 30th: Youth Bible Study @6:30-

7:30pm December 4th: Youth Group @5-7pm December 7th: Youth Bible Study @6:30-

7:30pm December 9

th: North Shore at North Pole Vil-

lage @6-9pm December 11th: Church Wide Caroling @5-7pm December 14th: Youth Bible Study @6:30-

7:30pm December 18th: Youth Christmas Party @Times

TBD! Thank you for always supporting, praying

for, and loving our youth so well! We wrap up 2016 feeling incredibly blessed and thankful for all God has done in and through our youth program. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Melissa Arishita

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MIGHTY OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW Two small projects are available for you to support In the Narthex– both projects will allow you to make small donations to the Capital Fund. 1. There is a box of Assorted Christmas Cards– you are

welcome to take any you wish to use. Have some at home you just want to get rid of– bring them to donate for someone else to take and use. Remember you probably can’t find a card at a store for under $.99 so how about a two/for or whatever you feel is fair. You might use some to send wishes to North Shore Friends and bring them back to North Shore to be distributed without having to use stamps.

2. An ongoing way to help without feeling any pain– Shop using Coupons which may be an unpleasant task, but those amounts add up. There are current coupons, sorted by type– take what you can use then bring back the amount you saved and you can make a donation to the Capital Building Fund without spending a cent. You are also welcome to bring coupons and add them to the envelopes or add a new envelope (there are sever-al empty ones I the container) if you have categories not yet identified.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . Come Join us Sunday, December 11th 5-7pm for an ALL CHURCH Caroling and Pot luck dinner. Bring your favorite dish to share. We will be caroling in the neighborhood behind the church then coming back to fellowship together.