I thank my God every time I mention you in my prayers. I’m thankful for all of you every time I pray, and it’s always a prayer full of joy. I’m glad because of the way you have been my partners in the ministry of the gospel… -Philippians 1:3-5, CEB
Dear friends,
A couple weeks ago, someone from Presbytery asked me to write a few notes about Fairplain and how Presbytery (other area PC(USA) churches) can pray for us. I wanted to share some (slightly edited) highlights with you:
Our website tagline is “We Feed People.” We volunteer at soup kitchen once a month. Our food pantry is open Thursdays every week we’re not at soup kitchen.
We live stream our services, which include a wonderful music program, so we can worship together from all over the country, including a couple in Texas, a woman in Wisconsin, others from parts unknown, and several from right here in town. Our services are auto-captioned for the d/Deaf/hard of hearing, and our song lyrics appear on the screen in large print.
We also serve the broader church: One member serves on the Presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry, and we support mission coworkers in northern Iraq and Mexico.
We’re called to live out of abundance, not scarcity. Session is working to partner and share our building with local organizations, and to pay attention to what’s right with our church. We recently agreed to share some space with another congregation on Saturdays. This summer, youth groups will come here from all over the country to do service projects, with Fairplain as their host church.
Pray that God will continue to guide connections between our church and community partners so that we can share our beautiful building instead of having it sit empty most of the week.
Pray that the youth coming this summer will do meaningful work for the community and return home with new eyes for what God is doing here, and for how they might serve at home, too.
Pray for wisdom as we discern how God is calling us into the future. Pray that we will listen to those already in our church with new visions for how we can serve our community, and that God will connect us with others with new visions for how we can serve our community, and that we will listen to them too.
Blessings,
Rev. David Schell