THE DOVE
December 2016

Cocoa and Carols
Sunday, December 18
By now, surely all are aware of one of our most festive and joyous celebrations at Holy Comforter:  the annual Christmas Carol sing-a-long on the 4th Sunday of Advent during the Christian Formation hour.  On December 18, gather with friends and family in the Great Room for a lively, spirited, even raucous time, and raise your voice in merriment and revelry!  And start pondering now how you will act out one of the 12 Days of Christmas....
Special Schedule:
New Year's Day
The Feast of the Holy Name
Approximately every six years, New Year's Day falls on a Sunday.  Such is the case as we begin 2017.  Many are not aware that January 1st, in addition to being the start of the new secular year, is also a significant feast day in the Church's calendar, for it is the Feast of the Holy Name, the commemoration of the day, a week after his birth, on which Jesus was officially given his name by his parents in the temple.

On Sunday, January 1, there will be only one morning Eucharist.  This celebration will take place at 10:00.  Because the Feast of the Holy Name rarely occurs on a Sunday, this will be a unique opportunity to hear lessons we do not otherwise encounter and to ponder an event that is, too often, obscured both by the Church's own calendar and by secular activities.  Although it is New Year's Day, please join us at 10:00 on January 1 to commemorate the Holy Name of our Lord.
Christmas Flowers
Very, very few parishes can boast of a Flower Ministry as talented and dedicated as the one we are blessed to enjoy at Holy Comforter. This group of gifted arrangers and designers takes great care with all of our decorations and arrangements year round, and most especially at the great festive times of the year.  For centuries, people of faith have decorated their local parish churches for Christmas with flowers and greens.  If you would like to help beautify Holy Comforter for the Feast of the Nativity this year through donations supporting Christmas greens and flowers, please send a check to the church, payable to the parish, with a note in the memo section for "Christmas flowers."  Please also indicate in a note if you are giving the flowers in memory or honor of someone.  We need to receive donations by Monday, December 19, in order to get dedications in the Christmas bulletins. 
Christmas Offerings and
Outreach Opportunities
During the Christmas season, we ask our parish 
households to contribute to the open plate offering and the special Christmas collection.  Our outreach budget is entirely funded at present by the seasonal offerings at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Please remember that every dollar you contribute helps provide support to agencies requesting our aid, and be as generous as possible. Your gift will make a difference for these organizations, and help us to sustain the level of giving we have attained in the past.  Your Jesse Tree donations are gifts of hope and joy for families supported by Connections for the Homeless in Evanston and students at Holy Family School in Chicago. Please be sure to return your unwrapped and tagged gift to the parlor by December 18.
 
Thank you for your kind generosity during this blessed holiday season.
  Advent and Christmas Schedule
 


Sunday, December 4 ~ Advent Lessons & Carols at 5:00 p.m. 
A special Liturgy with readings and hymns of the Season, featuring the Adult Choir

Sunday, December 18 ~ Christmas Cocoa and Carols: 10:00 a.m. 
An annual tradition for the entire parish; in the Great Hall.

Friday, December 23 ~ Christmas Pageant rehearsal; 10:00 a.m.

Saturday, December 24 ~ Christmas Eve Liturgies
Children's Christmas Pageant and Eucharist at 4:00 p.m.
Choral Eucharists at 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., with prelude music beginning 30 minutes before each liturgy (7:30 and 10:30 p.m.)

Sunday, December 25 ~ Christmas Day, Sung Holy Eucharist at 10:00 a.m.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday December 26 - 28, 30-31 ~
Holy Eucharist at 9:00 a.m.

Thursday, December 29 ~ Holy Eucharist and Healing Service at 7:00 a.m.

Sunday, January 1 ~ The Feast of the Holy Name, Holy Eucharist at 10:00 a.m. only

Monday, December 26 through Friday, December 30 ~ Offices open 8:30 a.m.- 10:00 a.m. only
Adult Forum for December
by Chris Hardman

In December we will continue " Digging Deep and Rising High "  with two very special presentations by Vicki Garvey.  She will engage us all on December 4 th and 11 th with a program entitled " Romping  Through Isaiah  for Fun and Prophet ."
...in the vineyard
The Celebration of the Life of Will Kellogg was held on Friday, November 18, at 3:00 p.m. here at Church of the Holy Comforter., followed by an interment and reception. May God enfold Will in light and love eternal.

Welcome to our Holy Comforter Family  and the Family of God!  Baptized at the All Saints' Day  celebration on Sunday, November 6th  Connor Trenary Kelly  and James Rutherford Wilson.
The Rector's Column 
Stop.  Look.  Listen.

by The Rev. Dr. Jason L. Parkin, Rector

My Aunt Maxine died last year on December 7. As she was the last remaining member of my parents' generation on either side of our family-save my own Mom, thank God-I travelled to southcentral Iowa to attend Maxine's funeral and represent our part of the extended clan, as did my third brother, Jon, who drove out from St. Louis.  As I was driving back from the interment in the cemetery in the tiny town of Garden Grove where most of my mother's family are buried, I visited the graveyard where almost all of my father's relatives are interred, a place with the wonderfully evocative name of Last Chance Cemetery. Pulling away from Last Chance, I approached a freight train rail line crossing rather obscured by a copse of woods.  There were no railings or lights to warn of oncoming trains. Instead, a simple sign stood there with the simple warning:  Stop.  Look.  Listen.
 
Stop.  Look.  Listen. That is as succinct and as appropriate a message for the season of Advent as I can imagine. For during this poignant season, God-through the voices of John the Baptist, the teenaged Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, through prophets and other messengers-urges us to take inventory of our lives, and to stop whatever it is that is keeping us from God; to stop whatever is keeping us isolated from other people; to stop following roads that make us less than we were created and are called to be.  God also summons us to look:   to look for the arrival and the presence of the Coming One who has been promised, however and wherever he may come; to look for him in the midst of our daily lives and routines and rhythms. And God exhorts us in this Advent season, finally, to listen:   to listen for the stirring of the Spirit inciting us to new growth and faith and mercy; to listen for the ways in which we can help God expand the kingdom and promote peace, justice, compassion, and love; to listen for the ways in which God is calling us forward into a different life and a richer, deeper way of being.
 
Stop.  Look.  Listen. This is the message of the entire Advent season:  to be awake, to be alert, to be alive to the incoming Kingdom of God and the ways in which God is even now active among us.  God has come, in Christ Jesus.  God will come again.  God is always with us.  May Advent be a time of stopping, of looking, of listening for God's life and love in ever new forms and ways.
Trust
by Pastor Heath Howe, Family Ministries

It can be challenging to trust, especially for those of us who are used to being in charge or for those of us impatient to  see God fully at work. Is God really at work in the world? Does God really know what God is up to? Will I recognize it if God is? Will God be born once again? Can God's love bring us back into community and relationship with one another? Are Hope, Peace, Joy and Love possible at all right now?  If these are the questions you hold right now or if you have others like these, bring them along the journey this Advent season. 
Everybody Needs Sam 
by Mary Johnson, Youth Ministries and Director of All Things Bright and Beautiful

At this time of year, I work with various members of the CHC staff to put together the cast for the Christmas Eve Pageant. We have been using the same script for a number of years and in my tenure, the excitement over which role is "the best" one changes from year to year. Some years all the boys want to be Joseph, other years, King Herod. The girls alternate between wanting to be Mary, the Angel Gabriel, or Elizabeth. And with a children's production you never know what will happen: many in the angel choir may be climbing under the choir pews, Mary often forgets the Baby Jesus doll when she and Joseph flee Bethlehem, and it is guaranteed that lines will be altered in the most delightful ways.
Write the Vision
by Charlotte Long, Youth Ministries 
 
Not for nothing have I been praying over how best to teach our children about discrimination.  It is the world they are living in now and it is the world they inherit from us.  The year of 2016 has been a toughie for even me, the middle-class white artist with a stable job - not to mention for those who live in real fear in our nation. I want our kids to be good at calling out injustice, at seeing humanity from God's eyes.  But how *does* God see us? How does God see ALL of us?  Read more here...
Stephen Ministry
God is our refuge and strength,
An ever-present help in trouble.
         Psalm 46:1
 
We all need God's strength at one time or another. Sometimes we need God's strength in the shape of a trusted confidant.  Stephen Ministers are available to be that source of strength and help. The Holy Comforter Stephen Ministers have been trained in the art of listening and Christian caring. The Stephen Ministers meet with parishioners on a one to one, strictly confidential basis for as long as you need someone to walk with you during a difficult time. We all need extra support from time to time with life's challenges. For more information, please contact a member of the clergy or please call Carrie Smart, Stephen Ministry Referral Coordinator 847-501-3954 or Stephen Leader Team Coordinator, Jean Britt 847-256-2372.