First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Disciples serving Middletown since 1912.
Easter is a full morning at FCC
7:30 a.m. Sunrise Worship (outside if weather permitting)
9:00 a.m. continental breakfast in our Fellowship
Hall,the children will have an Easter
Egg Hunt, our Easter celebration of worship will be
10:00 a.m. our Easter celebration of worship will begin
Invite family, friends, and neighbors to join us
Well, it seems that winter is upon us as much as I hoped it would be minimal this year. El Nino’s and the like don’t always pan out the way you expect when it comes to long-term weather conditions. Despite the snow and bitter cold, we have had some great Sundays recently. It was a great delight to have the Boy Scouts with us a week ago and to see them participate in worship in such a great way. My hats go off to the leaders and the Scouts themselves. While they were with us, they cleaned our Fellowship Hall and set up the tables for our Souper Bowl luncheon. Our Souper Sunday luncheon was a rousing success. We have a lot of great cooks at First Christian and there were just too many soups and chili’s to sample. Congratulations to our winners, 1st place to Martin Schaefer, 2nd place to John Otis, and 3rd place to Larry Steele I love the idea of voting with your pocketbook. What a great way to add to our Outreach offerings. Speaking of Outreach offerings, we kick off our Week of Compassion offering this week and next. If you were present in worship yesterday, you heard me tell of the way that Week of Compassion came to the aid of the people of Hebron, Ohio. This incident with the freak flood that swamped the parsonage basement and many member’s homes or vehicles on the street behind the church was greatly helped by nearly $10,000 from the Week of Compassion. You never know when your offerings might alleviate a disaster that might strike Middletown. Join us each Sunday as we continue to explore the petitions that Jesus taught us as a part of the Lord’s Prayer. With His Love, Pastor Nik
Join us after Worship Sunday February 7th for the Super Bowl! Bring a Soup to share. Voting will be held for the best soup. Also remember your muffin tin so that you can sample all of the soups.
Our New Year is off to a good start. Our worship order has been tweaked just slightly to make it flow better. Worship leaders have been recruited to the end of the year. A coffee fellowship time has been started and will be held every other Sunday. Our first coffee fellowship was on Sunday, January 10th. A Souper Bowl fellowship will follow worship on Super Bowl Sunday, February 7th. This will replace the usual chili cook off. Also, on February 7th we will observe Scout Sunday with Scouts assuming various worship leadership responsibilities. Our ministry to the homeless called Shalom will be the week of February 14th. It is good to see a congregation involved in so many different ways. Yesterday, I helped to lead members of the congregation into the next step of transition as seek to discern God’s direction and mission for First Christian. I have invited members to join together in prayer triads. This can be three people, three couples, but I cautioned against having more than nine in a group. Each prayer triad will have some designated passages of scriptures to study, to pray about, and to carefully listen for what God might be saying regarding mission and vision in the months and years ahead. What gifts and strengths will you offer to God to accomplish his vision and mission? I need to know the participants of each prayer triad and who you have designated as your recorder. Begin to think about where you would like to see First Christian in the next seven to ten years. There are exciting days ahead of us. Your love and passion of our Lord will help to bring that excitement to fruition.
With His Love, Pastor Nik
Happy New Year!
It has been a wonderful time of celebration around First Christian over the last several weeks. Thank you to everyone who helped with all the decorating and un-decorating of our sanctuary. All of those who shared their musical talents over the holidays added to the special moments in worship as we prepared for the birth of our Savior. Our youth presentation of the manger time was one of the best. Please continue to share those gifts throughout the year!
For the last 6 months the Elders have been serving as Worship Leader. This was not meant to keep anyone else in our church family from enjoying serving in this position, it was a step in the transition process that we are going through. I want to extend to any of you who would like to serve as worship leader to let Ginger Alley, Tina Yarber, Larry Steele, or Cliff Thompson know so that we can add you to the rotation. Please ask if you have questions about the details of this and what is expected.
The Elders will continue to visit with our special needs members and deliver communion and companionship. If you would like to join and Elder on these visits, just ask! We would be happy to have you join us as would our friends that we are visiting. Remember that if you have a hospital stay, or a family member that does, we are available for prayer and support during that time, BUT WE NEED TO KNOW. The hospital or rehab center will not reach out to us due to privacy laws. We do not want to ignore anyone or let anyone be neglected in a time of need.
With continued Joy from serving,
Your Elders
The CWF Executive Board will meet on Saturday, January
23rd at 10:00 am.
CWF wishes to thank our members and our church family for
all of their support for our various projects throughout this
past year. Our projects have included: Blanket Sunday,
Blessing Boxes, the Soup and Salad Luncheon, the shower for
the Middletown Community Pregnancy Center, making up
Hospitality Bags for hospital patients’ families, giving gifts to
homeless families at Christmas, and making centerpieces for
our fellowship dinners.
Sunday, January 17th we will have a carry-in luncheon following worship so that we can be introduced to some spiritual formation opportunities that will lead to the formation of “Prayer Triads.”
CWF (Christian Women’s Fellowship) wishes to thank all who helped in any way on our March Salad Luncheon. We had 71 persons attend and our gross income was $528. After expenses, we will net a little over $400 which will be spent on both local and national mission projects.
On March 29th CWF sponsored a discussion on the book and movie “Heaven is for Real”. A light lunch was served and there were 11 present. We would like to have another lunch and book discussion in June on a Sunday after church. A date will be announced later.
Blessing Boxes will be dedicated on May 10th this year. You may place your money in an envelope or bring your Blessing box that day.
CWF Executive Board will meet on May 2nd at 11:00 after choir practice in the Memorial Room. We will plan our get-together then.
Come join the fun at Armco Park on October 5th. We will picnic, play cornhole, and walk the new trails. Bring a friend and a covered dish. We will start eating at 12:30. Membership committee will provide hot dogs and hamburgers.
Beginning Sunday, April 27 we are offering a new adult Christian Education class following worship focusing on our Disciple History. We will explore the Stone-Campbell movement on the frontier and who we are as Disciples today. We will be using the curriculum Leaders and Legends: A Study of Stone-Campbell History & Beliefs written by the Disciples Historical Society. Leaders within our congregation will guide us through the study. This class is perfect for those who have recently become a part of our church community and those who have been around awhile. No matter who you are this is an excellent opportunity to deepen your understanding of who we are as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).