Here is what is happening at First Lutheran Church this month!
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Sunday Worship Schedule
December 3, 10, 17, 2017
Worship: 8:30 & 11 am
Education Hour: 9:45 am
December 24th and 31, 2017
10:00 am
Communion served every Sunday
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Advent is a Time to Wait!
In our preschool chapel time we sing this song:
Advent is a time to wait.
Not yet time to celebrate.
Light the candles one by one
'Til the Advent time is done.
Christmas day will soon be here
Time for joy and time for cheer.
As we enter our Advent time on December 3 it is good to be reminded that for us as Christians we do not enter "Christmas time" yet.
Read the rest of the article
here
.
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SUNDAY MORNING ADVENT WORSHIP
For the four Sundays of Advent, your worship and music team has decided to adapt Marty Haugen's Holden Evening Prayer for our morning worship. We hope that you will enjoy the familiar setting and join us each Sunday to sing our joy to the Lord.
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Men’s Breakfast and Bible Study
Saturday, December 16, 9 – 10:30 am
Come and join other men from the congregation for breakfast and conversation! There will be
food for the body, food for the soul and food for thought!
Gordy Phelps is preparing a delicious breakfast spread. Pastor Berg will lead a discussion about gratitude. Please join us!
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UPCOMING YOUTH ACTIVITIES:
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Saturday, December 16: Children’s Christmas Program Practice and Kid’s Time! 10 AM – 2 PM Practice is from 10 -11 am, followed by Kid's Time with lunch and fun activities! Freewill offering of $15/child will support the FLC Youth fund. Children need to be picked up at 2 pm.
Junior high and high school youth please sign up on the youth board to help!
Sunday, December 17:
Together at Christmas!
Children’s’ Christmas Program 9:45 – 10:30 AM Everyone is invited to enjoy our children present the message that Christ is born for us all!
Sunday, December 17: Christmas Caroling 4 – 6 PM Everyone is invited! Choir and ensemble members are especially welcome to help lead us!
Wednesday, December 27: A HOLIDAY Lunch at a Beardslee Public House!
1– 3 PM Grades 7 - 12, college students & young adults. Join Pastor Berg and Roger for lunch and reconnecting with old friends!
Wednesday, December 27: A HOLIDAY Party at Beardslee Public House! 3 – 5 PM College and young adults. First round of drinks is on Pastor Berg; appetizers are on Roger!
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Journey classes will return in January!
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I hope that you can join us for these December 2017 events. Your help and support is appreciated.
In this season of Advent, may God’s spirit lead each of us to a deeper and more enriching Christmas experience. My hope and prayer is that you will be ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior and experience Christmas in a meaningful new way. May God’s gift of new life in Jesus Christ bring you “Comfort and Joy!”
With JOY in Christ,
Roger
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December 2017
Our First Lutheran Church Library has a wonderful selection of Christmas books for children and adults.Children's books are on the shelves to your right, when you walk into the library.
The Bothell First 125th Anniversary History booklet has been edited, and reprinted. Copies are available on the desk just inside the library. A $5.00 donation for the reprint can be placed in the envelope. Thank you.
In January and February 2018, we will continue scanning our church’s early historical documents, making them available digitally, and preserving them in archival boxes. Sign-up sheets will be posted on the library windows. One hour time frames: 10:00 – 11:00; 11:00 – 12:00; 12:00-1:00: 1:00- 2:00 on January 10 and 24th and on February 7th and 21st. The scanning is easy, fun, and interesting. We had many hands helping last year, and hope to finish the task in 2018.
Check it out!
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Bell Tower Donations Report
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Construction on the bell tower is ongoing, and fun to watch!
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Our annual tradition of gift giving at Christmas to kids in our community has always been met with an overwhelming positive response and review. The giving tree is set up in the narthex with tags for you and your family to take, buy and return with
unwrapped
gifts by
December 10th
. You may purchase always welcome gift cards from our Scrip counter every Sunday morning! If you drop off gift cards during the week, please leave them in the church office. We will deliver the gifts to Hopelink and Compass Housing Alliance on Decenber 11. We appreciate your generosity all year long.
Social Ministries Committee
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December Outreach
Money deposited in the
Change for Change
jar in December will be used to support
Hopelink's
food bank.
The focus of donations to the
Hopelink
grocery cart in December will be for holiday food and
easy to prepare or heat food including flour, sugar, rice, cereals, peanut butter, condensed milk, pasta sauce, dry beans, canned tomatoes, fruit, oil and tuna.
December Monthly Outreach:
$1,000.00 will go to
Lutheran World Relief
.
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Scrip and Other Passive Fundraising for First Lutheran Church!
We have several opportunities for earning money while you shop for FLC's many social ministry programs:
- Buy Scrip on Sunday mornings or sign up for Shop with Scrip. Many vendors are available for instant purchase and redemption from your mobile phone in the Shop with Scrip program. No more writing checks; the money is automatically deducted from your checking account using Presto Pay. (The profit margin for scrip is not great enough to support credit card payments.) Scrip returns anywhere from 3 - 12% of your purchases to FLC! You can buy grocery cards, movie tickets, Amazon, even Groupon - the list is great!
- Sign up for Amazon Smile and name First Lutheran Church as your charity. Every time you shop with Amazon Smile FLC receive .05% of your purchase price. You can still use Amazon Prime. Get your kids to sign up, too!
- Link your Fred Meyer rewards card to their Community Rewards program for First Lutheran Church. All of your purchases will result in a quarterly donation to FLC.
- Sign up for Bartell's B Caring Program, and name First Lutheran Church as your charity.
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To All at the First Lutheran Church of Bothell,
I want to thank you for the tremendous support and generosity that you have extended to me and my family through the rent subsidy you have provided through Hopelink.
Since moving to the area just over a year ago seeking better educational opportunities for my three children and greater support for my autistic son, the financial challenges have been daunting. Having your support is priceless and makes possible the work of making a better future for my children, and that is something for which I can never be thankful enough!
On behalf of Charity, George and Lily and from the bottom of our hearts - thank you.
Sincerely,
Gregory
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Women of First Lutheran Church (WFLC or WELCA)
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The Women of First Lutheran Church (WFLC) is a local organization of the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (WELCA). All women at FLC are considered members of both WFLC and WELCA. You are invited to participate in any of the bible study circles, WFLC sponsored events and/or regional and national events.
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Bible Study opportunities available:
Deborah: Wednesday, December 6, 2017, 10:00 am, at Jennifer Lohr's home.
Women of the ELCA
Gather Magazine
bible study.
Contact: Bonnie Ahlstedt 360-805-1743
Hannah: Monday, December 18, 6:30 pm, Fireside Room,
Child care available
Contact: Linda Siebert 425-821-1703.
Rebecca Circle: Wednesday, December 20, 10:00 am in the Landing.
Women of the ELCA
Gather Bible Study
and articles
Contact: Barbara Thieme 425-898-8982
Quilters: Every Thursday, 9 - 11:30 am
All are welcome, no experience needed! Tasks for any ability. Cutting and ironing can also be done at home.
Contact: Audrey Fisher 425-822-6143
Wednesday, December 13, 2017, 12 pm Christmas Potluck Lunch
The Bothell High School Choir Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Lisa Iverson, will entertain us with seasonal favorites. A potluck dish to share is appreciated. Everyone is welcome.
Thank You
to all those who participated in our
DO NOT COME
event and the
Quilts & Baked Goods Sale. These gifts will benefit our Women of First Lutheran Bothell local and national ministries and our FLC quilters. There are still a few quilts available. Contact Audrey Fisher.
Thank you
to the quilters, circles, all those who made donations in memory and honor of loved ones and helpers that packed the boxes for our shipment to
Lutheran World Relief
(LWR)
.
90 quilts and 75 health care kits were shipped.
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The Lutheran World Federation, which has 145 member churches in 98 countries and over 70 million members, including the ELCA, has produced a document to support the 500th commemoration of the Reformation called: We are liberated by God's grace: Across the world Lutherans are offering God’s grace revealed through Christ to God’s people everywhere.
One of the highlights of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 is the Twelfth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation that will meet in Namibia in May under the theme “Liberated by God’s Grace”.
To read more click on the link above pick up the full article from the news shelf in the narthex.
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December 4, 7:30 pm -
Gloria
by PLU's Choir of the West
Benaroya Hall
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From Lutheran Counseling Network
Faith and Everyday Life - December 2017
Christmas TOO
This month we have Christmas. It is all of the “TOOS” combined. It is God’s “in addition to everything else.”
But also don’t forget that there is a regrettable incident tied to it, and that’s the fall of humankind. Remember that Christmas was not an option, it was an absolute necessity. God needed to do something that radical to solve the problem of the separation of the creation from the creator and between creature and creature.
There isn’t a “more than enough” here. It took all there was, very bit of it.
And for that we receive not only reconciliation to God but the possibility of reconciliation between each other. Perhaps that’s the big “TOO.” It is the bonus. Maybe it didn’t even need to be included in the package but it was anyway.
If nothing can separate us from the love of God, maybe nothing can separate us from the love of each other either. Well, one thing is able…us! But that is not a foregone conclusion anymore.
Perhaps carrying God’s TOO into all our relationships and staying aware of the “TOOS” that separate us is just enough to embrace and give back all the “TOOS” that make life rich and abundant.
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Connect With Our Partners
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First Lutheran Church | 425-486-2314 | 425-297-4898 |office@flcbothell.org
|flcbothell.org
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