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St. John's Family News

Week of May 22-28, 2023 | Vol. 82 Issue 21

www.stjohnsbaptistchurch.org | @sjbccharlotte

Church Calendar | Realm Log-In | Deacon Schedule | Usher Schedule | Greeter Schedule | Men's Shelter Sign Up | Room in the Inn Sign Up | Daily Gospel Readings | Nursery Volunteer Schedule

In this week's Family News (Scroll to Learn More):


  1. Is Pentecost More Than a Sunday?
  2. Senior Sunday
  3. Global Missions Offering
  4. Bounce into Summer
  5. Mercy Bag Collection
  6. Volunteer with Children this Summer
  7. Wonderful Wednesdays for Children
  8. Minister for Worship and Music Search Team Survey
  9. Senior Summer Picnic
  10. Summer Handbell Group
  11. Special Reflection from Ken Hungate
  12. Prayer List
  13. Minister On Call Schedule & Staff Contact Info

The church offices will be closed for Memorial Day on Monday, May 29.

Is Pentecost More Than a Sunday?

by Dennis W. Foust, Senior Minister


This coming Sunday, May 28, we will celebrate Pentecost Sunday. Each year, fifty days after Easter (on the seventh Sunday after Easter), we retell the story recorded in Acts 2 of the earliest followers of Jesus being “filled with the Holy Spirit.” As in the story of creation, the wind – representing the breath of God - brings new life, there is a powerful wind on Pentecost. This wind also brings new order from chaos and brings a new creation. New power is realized. Evidence is revealed of God’s vision for followers of Jesus to share the good news with all people.


Once again, this year, on Pentecost Sunday, we will worship with our sisters and brothers of Together In Christ International Ministries. This community of faith gathers each Sunday in our Chapel. If you allow yourself to interact with them from week to week, you know they are extremely warm and loving people. Most of them have immigrated from Sierra Leone or Liberia due to persecution and violence. Rev. Brickson and Annie Sam lead this faith community, a mission of North Carolina Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The members are psychologists, nurses, licensed caregivers, taxi drivers, business professionals, etc.


They reveal how God’s Spirit brings new life out of chaos and suffering.


Today, as I write this article on May 24, 2023, our nation is remembering the nineteen children and two teachers who were murdered one year ago at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Mayah Zamora is an 11-year old girl who survived the act of terror at Robb Elementary. In this past year, Mayah has been expressing her gratitude as a survivor and remembering the friends and teachers she lost that day. Mayah was critically wounded. She was shot seven times in the chest, arm, and hands. She was airlifted to a hospital in San Antonio and hospitalized for 66 days. The family is still living in San Antonio near the hospital because Mayah continues to need medical care. Even with all this suffering, Mayah and her family are determining ways to share God’s love with others. They have been blessed by others and have become helpers, encouragers, and supporters for others walking through tragedy and pain.


This Sunday, in our St. John’s sanctuary, a variety of languages will be spoken; English, French, Greek, Korean, Krio, Limba, etc. Each language will be united by the Holy Spirit of God offering the language of God’s love. For we cannot heal the world with human love alone. It is God’s love moving within us and through us that brings resurrection hope and healing grace from tragedies and sufferings on a cross, senseless acts of violence at an elementary school, and actions of persecution in nations where people are abused causing them to immigrate to create a new life.

Yes, beloved, Pentecost is more than one Sunday. Pentecost is every day. Pentecost happens every time a person speaks, hears or experiences the warmth of God’s love in their own language despite their pain or suffering. God’s Holy Spirit is always blowing into the lives of diverse people bringing a warm glow of compassion while empowering hope and purpose.


Shalom!

Senior Sunday: Celebrating Our Graduates

June 4


On Sunday, June 4, we will honor and celebrate our high school graduates during morning worship at 10:30am. The seniors this year are: Jake Benton, Nora Frances Benton, Isaac Fries, Savannah Heasley, Reid Kinney, Katherine Mae Rodden, Mattie Stillerman, and Sophie Ann Sweet.


Please plan to be present with us on this special Sunday.

Global Missions Offering

Nyarweng Primary School, South Sudan


This year, our annual Global Missions Offering will again go to support the Nyarweng Primary School in South Sudan. If you would like to contribute to this offering, please click below. You can also write a check to St. John's with "Global Missions" in the memo line.

Give Today

Let's Bounce into Summer!

REGISTER BY JUNE 1

June 4 after Worship


Children and families, join us after worship on Sunday, June 4 as we officially welcome summer together! There will be lunch, bubbles, chalk, icecream, a bouncy house, and more!


Sign up by clicking below.

Sign Up Here for Bounce into Summer Celebration

Mercy Bag Collection

Collecting Items for Our Homeless Neighbors


As a part of the children and families Bounce into Summer event, we are receiving donations and assembling Mercy Bags for the homeless in the Charlotte Metro Area. Please consider donating one or more of the following items to help us fill our bags:


  • 8 oz. bottles of water
  • Peanut butter crackers
  • Granola bars
  • Individual packets of mixed nuts and/or trail mix
  • Snack size boxes of dried fruit
  • Combs
  • Toothbrushes
  • Toothpaste
  • Travel size bottles of hand sanitizer
  • Pocket size Wet Ones singles


Our children will receive donations through June 4. Please place your donations in bins in our Giving Nook.

Share Your Summer with the Younger Church


Participate in the true magic of the Kingdom by sharing your summer with the younger church. There are three ways to serve:

 

  1. The Infant and Toddler Nursery. You may serve during the Sunday school hour (9:15 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.) or during the Worship Care hour (10:15 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.) Click here to sign up.
  2. Preschool Worship Care. Volunteers are needed to provide Worship Care for our preschoolers on Sundays. The Worship Care hour begins at 10:15 a.m. and concludes at 11:30 a.m. Click here to serve.
  3. Children’s Sunday School Hour1 adult volunteer is needed weekly to serve alongside Kheresa during the children’s Sunday school hour, 9:15 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Click here to sign up.

Wonderful Wednesdays for Children


Three times throughout the summer, all children are invited to Wonderful Wednesdays! You can now register for the June 14 outing at the First Ward Park Splash Pad from 10am-12pm. Register here today or contact Kheresa by email.


Wonderful Wednesday Schedule:

  • Wednesday, June 14, 10am-12pm, First Ward Park Splash Pad (register above)
  • Wednesday, July 19, 2-4pm, NASCAR Hall of Fame 
  • Wednesday, August 2, 4-6pm, Big Air Trampoline Park

We Want to Hear from You!

A Message from the Search Committee for Our Next Minister for Worship and Music


The Search Committee is eager to hear from you, as we are beginning the search for a new Minister for Worship and Music.


1. What types of music, vocals, and instrumentals do you find to be enriching to your worship experience?

2. What responsibilities do you consider to be essential for the Minister for Music and Worship?

3. These and many other questions may be on your mind, as you think about our search. Please share all your thoughts, that could be helpful, as we advertise and interview for this very important position.


The members of the Search Committee are: James Laney, Kathy Bragg, Ken Hungate, Eric McCombs, Elizabeth Peacock, Ed Turner, Sally Young, and Dennis Foust. 


Please click below to submit your responses to these questions.

Click Here for Survey

Senior's Picnic Lunch: SAVE THE DATE!

Sunday, June 25


If you are 75 years young or older, please mark your calendar to attend a summer picnic on Sunday, June 25 in Broach Hall.


We will gather immediately after the worship service for lunch and fellowship. Registration details will follow in a few weeks.

Summer Handbell Group


All who are interested are invited to join a special summer handbell group! We will meet from June 21-July 26 and play in worship on July 30.


Rehearsals will take place on Wednesday evenings from 6-7pm with Jared Daugherty as our leader.


If you want to join in the fun, please let Amanda Morrison or Jared Daugherty know.

Thoughts and Lessons

from the May 3 event “Building a Better World in Solidarity with Immigrant Children and Families”


Ken Hungate, one of the attendees, shares this:


On May 3, St. John’s hosted a group of local leaders to help us learn how to be good neighbors to the immigrant children and families who have come to our community. Three organizations, two of which we work with closely, sent representatives to discuss how they work with immigrants. We want to share this valuable information with more of our congregation.


Agencies represented were:


  • ourBridge for Kids fosters education and well-being of newly arrived first generation children and their families. They promote Love, Education, Respect and Diversity. The families come from Central and South America, Mexico, Caribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
  • The Charlotte Immigration Law Firm assists clients through the immigration maze, including through deportation defense, cases for survivors of crime under the Violence Against Women Act, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status for abused, abandoned or neglected children and, in the past, asylum for those fleeing persecution in their home country.
  • Home Study and Post Release Services, a Church World Service program housed at St. John’s, supports the safe unification of unaccompanied immigrant minors with sponsors. The organization advocates on behalf of the minors and families to help them fulfill their dreams of a better life.


Once the immigrants are over age 18, the concern is… Are you safe? What is your plan? How much are you getting paid (and is it appropriate vs being taken advantage of)? Children are encouraged to go to school, which is the “gateway to success” in the US.


Because there is an immigration court located in Charlotte, many immigrants come to and through our city. Their court date is often many years away. Filing for asylum is very complicated. What form? Where do you send it? How do you qualify for a work permit? Do you have housing, food, etc.?


Due to COVID and many other challenges there are backlogs in processing the immigrants. Attorneys are getting burned out. Social Workers are needed. Mental Health and therapy is important and needed and it is not cheap. Immigrants don’t know whom to trust. There are those that will take advantage of them.


It is very easy for us as US citizens to make the statement, “I would never send my minor child alone to cross strange lands in hopes that they could reach the US. What mother does this?” The answer is, you have not been a mother having to make a decision “do I risk my child being killed by gangs or starve to death or do I try to give him/her a chance for a safer/better life?” These are hard choices that most of us do not have to confront. Only 13% of those who apply for asylum in the Charlotte Immigration Court get approved.


Not everyone who comes to our country can qualify to stay, but while they are here, they are our neighbors. We can treat them as human beings and have empathy for them and their situations. Being aware and more informed will help us decide how we will treat the stranger among us.

Prayers, Thanks, and Celebrations


  • Barbara McElwey, Emily Batts, Arnold Philemon, Jack Crymes, and Jane Starnes
  • Jim Austin passed on ahead of us on May 17. Please remember his wife Page, daughter Rebecca, and grandchildren Rowan and Alora in your prayers.
  • Sympathy to Carol Logan in the death of her mother, Betty Logan, at the age of 99

Minister On-Call Schedule


  • May 22-28: Kheresa
  • May 29-June 4: Haley

Staff Contact Information


  • Rev. Haley Blackwell, Minister for Youth & Young Adults - 704-333,5428, ext. 2013; 620-515-3558 (cell)
  • Rev. Dennis Foust, PhD, Senior Minister - 704-359-7234 (cell); 704-333-5428, ext. 2012
  • Rev. Lee Gray, Minister for Congregational Care - 704-333-5428, ext. 2015; 704-451-1309 (cell)
  • Rev. Kheresa Harmon, Minister for Children & their Families - 704-333-5428, ext. 2018; 910-890-3392 (cell)
  • Dr. Jared Daugherty, Interim Minister for Worship & Music- 704-333-5428, ext. 2014


  • Jessica Borgnis, Academy of the Arts Director
  • Mallory Brown, Media Coordinator - 704-477-3349 (cell)
  • Chloe Hall, Children's Choir Director
  • Noel Lance, Organist
  • Dr. Matthew Manwarren, Associate Organist
  • Amanda Morrison, Ministry Coordinator - 704-333-5428, ext. 0
  • Lydia Olmsted, Weekday School Director - 704-333-5428, ext. 2039
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