Groveland Food Shelf is a non-profit providing emergency groceries for those in need. Groveland operates three programs: Groveland Emergency Food Shelf (located in Plymouth Congregational Church), the MCTC Food Pantry (at Minneapolis College), and a collaboration with Liberty Community Church in North Minneapolis and their 21st Century Academy.
About 5,000 clients are served per month and over 150.000 pounds of food are distributed.
During March Food Share Month, once again we have the opportunity to help Groveland Food Shelf assist our neighbors who are experiencing food insecurity.
• $20 buys emergency groceries for an individual for one month
• $50 buys emergency groceries for a family of four for one month
• $75 buys emergency groceries for a family of six for one month
• $100 buys PPE (personal protective equipment) for volunteers and staff for a Month (From Groveland website)
Your donations can be made in the usual ways: a check to the church office with “Groveland” in the memo line or through the Givelify app. There may also be an opportunity to bring actual food items; that is being explored!
As an added way to give, the white barrel is again available for actual, physical non-perishable donations! It is located outside the Garden Sanctuary under the coat rack. The most popular items are coffee, cooking oil, peanut butter, beans, canned meat and canned fish.) Be sure to check the expiration date!)
You can now sign up to be a worship leader online! Dates available through end of year: click here to signup
VOCAL ESSENCE: Leading With Love
Sun. Mar. 17 4:00 PM
Moxie and Jimmy will be performing with Singers of This Age in this concert, featuring beloved vocal activist, soulful singer, and composer Melanie DeMore and featuring music by Damien Geter, Marques Garrett, Joel Thompson, and songs from the African diaspora.
Join Karin and Denis in the Main Gallery of The Museum of Russian Art on Sunday, March 10 for an evening with renowned musicians Karin Wolverton, soprano, and Denis Evstuhin, piano. The Museum is known for offering the best in classical music, where audiences are treated to both the incredible acoustics and the artworks of the galleries.
You are invited to join us for our Lenten Study, which will take place on Wednesday evenings, 7 – 8 pm, on Zoom. The study runs Wed. evenings through March 20. The study will be based on the book Slow Kingdom Coming: Practices for Doing Justice, Loving Mercy and Walking Humbly in the World by Kent Annan. You do not need to buy the book (unless you want to!)
Click here to join us through Zoom
To join us through your phone:
(312) 626-6799
Meeting ID: 852 3989 3851
As part of Lent, Deb is using the movie “Up” as a base for the Children’s Moment. If you’re familiar with the movie, you know that Ellie created an Adventure Book, aka scrapbook/photo album, of the things she and her husband Carl did together. (If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it!)
First Christian is going to create our own Adventure Book. Deb is asking for people to send her pictures (deb.murphy@fccmpls.org) of their adventures with First Christian: mission trip, Mission at Our Doorstep, Book Group, Women’s Retreat, General Assembly, Quadrennial, a study group, one of our picnics… The list is endless, but you get the idea.
Please send the pictures as soon as possible so the kids and Deb can work on creating our Adventure Book on Sunday mornings during Lent. They hope to have it ready to look at Easter morning. If you don’t get pictures to Deb before Easter, no problem. Send them whenever you can, because we’re going to continue to add to the Adventure Book for as long as we keep having adventures together.
I have been asked to share a few comments on a couple of the new books added to the Springhouse Library that are displayed on the Library Cart. Naomi Nelson – Salem
“Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise” by Richard Beck
This is a book about the “strangeness of a God” who comes to us in strangers. (Matthew 25) Jesus comes to us in disguise in foreigners and refugees, in the homeless and outcasts, in the prisoner and the hungry. Beck draws on his own experiences in response to his Stranger God’s call to love and compassion for the other, the stranger.
I read this book a couple of years ago and will be reading it again and again.
The message reached down into the very depths of my soul (and in my gut). It forever changed me. I particularly saw the homeless through new eyes. I live in Uptown and am in walking distance to most places I frequent . I would encounter persons on Lyndale, Lake Street and Hennepin in particular, who would ask for money and some showed evidence they had been sleeping there. Often I felt uncertain how I should respond. With some I could but with others I was more hesitant (let’s just say it, whatever I was feeling had its roots in “fear”). I have truly believed that Jesus called me to love my neighbor and I have always felt a deep sadness whenever I have neglected to act like one. Thank goodness for God’s grace. This writer’s message has touched my heart and liberated me. I can now make eye contact, smile, ask their name, and see them for whom they are. God’s Beloved. (And their names are added to my prayer list.) That segues into the next book ……
“Life of the Beloved” by Henri J. M. Nouwen
Nouwen wrote “Life of the Beloved” for the secular world at the request of a secular Jewish friend. However, it has also ended up making a tremendously deep impression on searching Christians.
Henri says, “Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence .” And – the existence of all those strangers out there who are also His Beloved that He wants us to see.
In any Nouwen book I have read, God’s quiet voice reaches me through his words and experiences and I am changed. This one filled me with joy and peace and the embracing of His “fierce love” . (Author Brennan Manning’s expression from “Ragamuffin’s Gospel” .)
The girls are in the school play, Shrek the MusicalI, at Lincoln Elementary in White Bear Lake, March 1-3! Emerson is in the opening ensemble and Adalynn is backstage crew. If you’re interested in getting tickets to see them, info below!
Clickable link: https://isd624.hometownticketing.com/embed/all?schools=&single=1&depts=3
Support your church Girl Scout Elizabeth/Moxie and satisfy your yearly craving for Girl Scout cookies!
Order online any time before March 22nd at Tinyurl.com/
Our Lent worship series is what are you up to?
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” — Mark 8: 31-38
Lent is often known as a time of giving something up in order to make room in our lives for spiritual pursuits. Rather than just “giving up” in Lent, the scriptures ask us to consider all that Jesus is “up to” and all that he asks us to be up to in his name. Instead of bemoaning what we can’t do, or used to do, in a culture where “measuring up” to external standards seems impossible, this Lent we will celebrate the small things that we can do right now to respond to God’s call in our place, for our time.