We are currently holding two worship services.

Our Early Worship service at 8:45AM is offered in-person only in Dunlap.

Our 11AM Traditional Worship service is offered in-person and

virtually on Zoom and YouTube.

All in-person worship attendees are required to wear masks.

November 7, 2021

Sermon: Everything She Had

Old Testament Reading: Psalm 146

New Testament Reading: Mark 12:38-44

Preacher: Rev. Tom Groome

Worship Assistant: Hardin Marion

Early Worship Assistant: Chip Honsinger

November 14, 2021

A Service Celebrating Worship

Preacher: Rev. Kelly-Ann Rayle

Worship Assistant: Liz Shupe

Early Worship Assistant: Mary Beth Baker

November 21, 2021

Sermon: Hardest Things

Old Testament Reading: 2 Samuel 23:1-7

New Testament Reading: John 18:33-37

Preacher: Rev. Tom Groome

Worship Assistant: TBD

Early Worship Assistant: Tom Goodale

November 28, 2021

Sermon: The Sign of the Times

Old Testament Reading: psalm 25:1-10

New Testament Reading: Luke 21:25-36

Preacher: Rev. Tom Groome

Worship Assistant: TBD

Early Worship Assistant: Philip Blackburn

Please check our weekly newsletter for more information on worship services.

Christian Education programs at Lex Pres seeks to provide a broad range of opportunities for spiritual growth through which we can deepen our faith, live more fully into the new life we have in Christ, and live more faithfully in our relationships and vocations.

*All classes will meet via Zoom until further notice.

Leah Circle will to meet this month on October 13 at 2pm in Brady Chapel. Masks required.

Call to Worship: Opened the meeting with a Responsive Call to Worship and a unison Prayer of Adoration. Rev. Groome read a scripture and shared reflections after a time of silence.

Congregational and Sessional Data: Current membership-368 (1 death). No congregational baptisms, births, new members, weddings, or transfers. One death-Lloyd Craighill (9/14/21). Many letters of thanks for donations made by the church.

Administrative Committee: Heard a report from the Audit Committee. The committee is soliciting requests and budgets from elders and committees to put together the 2022 LPC Budget. Session approved to advertise for two part time positions---Director of Christian Education (DCE) and Parish Associate.

Christian Education: The committee hopes to bring children in person to Faith Village in early November. Working to provide worship experiences for children and families remotely for now. Planning a family hike, a Halloween Parade, and a visit to the Lavender Farm. FV families will receive an Advent bag for use at home. Rooms are being prepared for in person classes. Purchasing books for the FV Resource Room. Adults are planning some Thantastic Thursday events. Also planning a Spring “Festival of Faith”. Campus Ministry continues to reach out to Rats and their families. Reaching out to W&L students with the help of Hannah Kearns ’22 and Lilly Gillespie ’22 with the assistance of Jack Eason ’22. A Bible study for students will take place after Thantastic Thursday events and the students are served dinner prepared by Skip and his group..

Communications: Committees, please review the website information to see that your committee is represented correctly. Consider what jobs your committee needs and let Maggie know to advertise for your needs.

Outreach: Kirk Ogden (South American Missions) will be visiting in early November. Watch for notices of when he will be with us. Donated to Community Table. Elizabeth Lauck is pursing a grant from PCUSA to help fund Zambian building project. Pam Luecke will coordinate the winter clothing drive and disbursement efforts through TAP Head Start.

Property: Soliciting bids for the flat roofs that are in bad repair. A painter will paint the woodwork in the children’s classrooms soon. A plumber has been called for repair of another urinal and to install the new instant hot water heater. Doug has cleared out the plastic wire molding in the hallway outside the balcony. Railings will be installed to avoid falls in the balcony after the sound work is complete. Installation of the sound system continues. New hallway lights have been ordered. Our old sound system and desk will be offered to other churches in Presbytery. The AC grill has been redirected in Brady so that air will not blow on people sitting in the side row and moving the banners. Staff will receive training on the new sound system when it is complete.

Worship:  Committee is working on forming four usher teams of three members each.

Major Report: David Hawkins explained the budget and all of the financial documents. Committees are to submit their committee budget to the Administrative Committee. There will need to be cuts, adjustments and other changes according to how the congregation responds to the pledge process, considering our changes in staffing, and considering our reduced membership enrollment.

The meeting was adjourned with a Charge and Benediction by Rev. Groome.

Mary Atthowe, Clerk of Session 

For 2022:

At the Session meeting on October 5 version one of a 2022 financial plan for our church was presented. It is $56,000 out of balance. The projected deficit arises principally in two ways. First, there is an increase in staff compensation costs, owing to a raise based on the current inflation statistics and changes in staff mix. Second, there is a material contraction in forecasted member giving. 

For perspective, the version 1 plan for 2022 includes salaries and allowances that will be $92,000 less than was actually paid in 2019. There was no compensation adjustment for staff in 2021. The forecasted member giving for 2022 is $110,000 less than in 2016, which was not our peak, but was the highest in recent memory.

All Session members and all committees were tasked at the meeting with making suggestions on how to modify our 2022 plan to achieve a balance between need and capacity. We will make significant decisions for the future of our church with the adoption and implementation of the next budget. 

Here is where you come in. Please ask questions and please make your pledge. We need to know the best available information to make good decisions and we need every member’s aggressive support.

My experience over a long career taught me that it isn’t possible to cut one’s way to prosperity. Cuts may facilitate survival, but even that is short term, particularly in any organization that is member driven. Only by innovation and positive development can we provide capacity to spread the Gospel well into the future.

The parable of the talents charges us to invest and manage the Master’s resources. Insofar as the legacies we have from those who have gone before us, I am content that we have done that wisely and well in the sense of good stewardship. However, the charge to invest may be seen as a need to improve current operating capacity, just as much as growing a corpus. In this latter sense, I believe we are now challenged to do better.

Now, more than at any time in my 40 years in this church, we need everyone’s help. Please make your pledge today.



Dave Hawkins

October 12, 2021 

The Apostle Paul addresses the presence of spiritual gifts in three main sections of scripture: Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. Peter also verifies their existence in I Peter 4:10. Through these sections of scripture, we learn that all Christians have been given at least one spiritual gift. The purpose of spiritual gifts is twofold: (1) to unify Christians in their faith and (2) to produce growth within the church, both numerical and spiritual. These gifts are to be used out of love for one another, and in service to one another. 

We do not choose which gifts we will receive. God bestows them upon us through the work of the Holy Spirit. Not all the spiritual gifts identified in scripture are used in this inventory. Those included are the most utilized in congregational life. Since the objectives of spiritual gift deployment are to unify and produce growth through service, in today's church climate, only the service-related gifts have been included.

If you aren't sure where your spiritual gifts may lie, reach out the the Church Office for a copy of our Spiritual Gifts Assessment. If you participated in taking the Spiritual Gifts Assessment, you may have identified ministry areas where your gifts will be most effective. Now is a wonderful time to begin working with any of our wonderful committees and groups! Please prayerfully consider how you may use your gifts to best serve others.

Some groups in the Church looking for helping hands are:

Communications Committee

IT Subcommittee

Nominating Committee

Ushers/Greeters

Lemonade/Coffee Fellowship

LPC Nominating Committee needs your help!   For next year, the committee needs to recruit three (3) new at large members each to serve a three-year term on the Nominating Committee. PLEASE contact any member of the current Nominating Committee with your suggestions: Kaitlin Smith, Becky Merchant, Tim Braddick, Philip Coulling or David Dugan. Please give us your suggestions no later than Sunday, October 31.

The LPC Nominating Committee's main job, each year, is to recruit six church members to be the new session class starting in January of the next year.

The Nominating Committee's make up, per the Manual of Operations, consists of two session members selected each January by the session from the current session membership and five at-large members recruited by the Nominating Committee and approved by the congregation for a total of seven members.

Thank you for your suggestions,

LPC Nominating Committee

When the Stewardship Committee chose “Doors Open Wide” as its theme for this year, they might not have expected us to take those words literally.

But the Outreach Committee is doing just that! We are asking you to open wide your CLOSET doors this month in search of coats, hats and mittens that you and your family no longer wear. We know it’s sometimes hard to part with our “stuff,” but it’s easier when you know that it can help our neighbors keep warm this winter. 

With the help of Latonya Douglas, the local Family Development Director for TAP, we will distribute the items collected to dozens of area children who take part in Head Start – and to their siblings and parents. Head Start is an effective national program that promotes school readiness for infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children from low-income families.

Specifically, we are looking for new or gently used:

·        coats;

·        mittens and gloves; and

·        hats.

Of particular need are girls’ coats, size 6x, and boys’ coats, size 6. Toddler and teen sizes are most welcome, too, as are clothes for adults.

Beginning Nov. 7, look for several big boxes in the breezeway between the sanctuary and Murray Hall. Just put your items there any time before Nov. 22.  We have also designated several hooks in the hallway for donated coats that are more easily hung. 

The Outreach Committee will help LaTonya distribute the items the week before Thanksgiving.

Thank you for opening your closet doors wide during this season of giving!

Campus Ministry thanks the Johnson Family, the Fure Family, and Tom Goodale for serving this Fall as Host Families for the Rats who attend Lexington Presbyterian. We deeply appreciate their cheerful willingness to offer meals and respite for these young people. Please consider volunteering in Fall 2022 to serve as a Host Family. The rewards are great!

In addition, we will continue to offer the Coffee Fellowship for Rats, cadets, and students in the church courtyard before the 11:00 AM Service until the weather turns too cold or rainy. All are welcome! Come join us!

The Bible Study sessions for college students on Thursday nights is up and running! We held the initial meeting on October 7, and four students attended. Two W&L students, Hannah Kearns and Lily Gillespie, have initiated these sessions, recruited the participants, and provided information and leadership for their fellow students. We are very grateful for their witness. Please include them to your prayers and seek them out at our church services to express your appreciation for their hard work. The adult participants and leaders are Kelly-Ann Rayle, Ann Massie, Rich Bidlack, and Julie Hammond. The curriculum for the Bible Study comes from Presbyterian Outlook, “Testimony: Vocabulary of Faith.” It is excellent, and certainly it could serve in the future as a curriculum for a Sunday School class. We will continue the sessions almost every Thursday evening until the Fall semester ends. Our thanks to Skip Hess and his fabulous Culinary Ministry crew for supplying the box dinners to participants!

All gifts to the Rafiki Foundation, Inc. are deductible for income tax purposes in the U.S. All funds given to the Rafiki Foundation are under the complete administrative control of the Foundation to ensure that the exempt purposes and programs of Rafiki are met. The Rafiki Foundation will do everything within these guidelines to ensure that donor preferences are honored. Rafiki did not provide any goods or services in return for your gift.

Thank you for your faithful support and partnership in spreading the gospel in Africa. Visit the Rafiki website for more information: www.rafikifoundation.org.

From the Director of Music

We all rejoice with the members of Grace Episcopal Church as they celebrate the installation of their new pipe organ, built by Casavant Frères (Saint-Hyacinte, Québec). This fine instrument, in a beautifully restored chancel space, has already made an eloquent arrival into our midst.

We at Lexington Presbyterian Church can appreciate the joy felt by our friends at Grace, as many of us remember celebrating the arrivals of two world-class pipe organs in the years after the 2000 LPC fire. The first, arriving in January 2003, just after the congregation returned to worshiping in the restored LPC sanctuary, was the spectacular Taylor and Boody, opus 37. That great instrument, built in the T&B factory in nearby Staunton for St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco, encountered a multi-year delivery delay due to construction complications at the California structure. As a result, by a remarkable agreement (miracle?), T&B opus 37 was placed ‘in active storage’ at Lexington Presbyterian, where it served the congregation and community in worship services and concerts until October 2006, when it made its way to its intended permanent home on the west coast. 

About a month after the T&B left us, the magnificent and long-awaited new Lexington Presbyterian organ arrived, opus 128 by C. B. Fisk, Inc. (Gloucester, Massachusetts), just before Thanksgiving of 2006. A joyous feature of the arrival was the participation of many members of the congregation in helping to unload the truck, carrying boxes of pipes and other parts of the instrument into the sanctuary. My own particular joy was in having had a role in the tonal design and choice of stops for the new instrument. The organ, for which the extended and careful voicing process was completed in early April of 2007, included several stops (~ranks of pipes) underwritten by members of the congregation. Two ranks of pipes, distinctive ‘partials,’ sounding at intervals between the organ’s octave pitches [=a characteristic organ sound}, not funded at the time of the purchase, were made possible by a gift and installed in 2018.

I share my favorite anecdotal observation on the unique juxtaposition of the Taylor and Boody and Fisk organs at Lexington Presbyterian: The 2007 edition of a yearly wall calendar of new pipe organs in the U. S. included both Fisk opus 128 (LPC) and Taylor and Boody opus 37 (by then finally in San Francisco, but formerly interim LPC). That meant that LPC alone could claim two of the twelve pictured instruments in that year’s calendar. We won!

I have been blessed to have a part in the decisions and design process of other organs in Lexington: the lovely Schantz organ (1991) at Manly Memorial Baptist Church, and now, the new Casavant instrument. Just as I had a specific connection to C. B. Fisk organs from each decade of my organ-playing life, instruments by Casavant have figured in my performance life over many years.

I will have the privilege of offering one of the first concert performances on our community’s newest pipe organ, in a recital on Sunday, November 21, at 4 pm, at Grace Episcopal Church. I hope you will join me in welcoming this splendid new addition to the worship and performance life of our community. 

Blessings,

WMcC

Red Velvet Cake Recipe

The Christmas season is upon us. A popular cake during the holiday season is the Red Velvet Cake. This recipe was given to me many years ago by Jackie Leslie shortly after her mother’s death.  It was her mother’s recipe. I enjoyed this cake growing up so I am going to share it with you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Skip

Ingredients for Cake:

1 ½ Cups Sugar

1 Cup Buttermilk

½ Cup Wesson Oil

½ Teaspoon Salt

2 Eggs (room temperature)

1 Tablespoon Pure Vanilla

2 Oz. Red Food Coloring

2 ½ Cups All Purpose Flour

2 Tablespoons Cocoa

1 Tablespoon White Vinegar

1 ½ Teaspoons Baking Soda

Ingredients for Frosting:

1 Box Confectioner’s Sugar

1 – 8 0z Cream Cheese

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

1 – Stick Butter

1 Tablespoon Buttermilk or Half and Half

Cream sugar and oil with mixer until light in color, then add eggs one at a time mixing well. Add buttermilk, vanilla, and food coloring. For the bright red color, use exactly 2 oz. bottle. In another bowl, sift together cocoa, baking soda, salt, and flour. Add flour mixture slowly, mixing well. Add vinegar last and mix well.

Spray 2 - 9” round pans with baker’s release spray (PAM for baking). Pour in batter and bake in 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. 

Cool for 15 minutes before removing cake from pan. 

For cream cheese frosting use an electric mixer. Cream butter and cream cheese (both must be at room temperature) until smooth then add vanilla and buttermilk. Heavy cream may be used instead of buttermilk. Add Confectioner’s sugar slowly with mixer on the lowest speed. Adjust frosting by using more or less milk and sugar.

For best results, use a crumb coat for the cake. This is a very thin layer of frosting all over the cake and cooled in the refrigerator for several minutes before applying the final coat of frosting. This prevents crumbs and color bleeding.

LPC has one employment opportunity. If you know someone who we should consider please email Tom at tgroome@lexpres.org or call the church office.

Job Title: Director of Christian Education

Position Scope:

The Director of Christian Education (DCE) shall be the primary staff person responsible for providing leadership and oversight to the educational programs of the church related to children, youth, campus ministry and adults. The position shall draw upon clerical, motivational, teaching, leading, organizing, and administrating skills.

Qualifications:

- A Bachelor of Arts or its equivalent;

- A passion in seeing the Christian faith is imparted to all ages;

- A warm, agreeable, and welcoming demeanor in meeting the public;

- An ability to speak effectively in a public forum;

- Adequate facility with computers…particularly Word.

- A creative and energetic spirit.

- A willingness to gain facility with the church’s data base (Realm).

Relationships and Accountability:

A. Relationships: The DCE’s primary line of communication is with the pastor; the Christian Education Committee; and with Session.

B. Accountability: The DCE reports to the pastor. Supervision and guidance are of a general nature.

Hours: Part Time

Annualized Salary: $26,000 ($2,167 per month or 1040 hours @ $25)

Vacation: As per the Manual of Operations (adopted by session 12-20-2020)

Lexington Presbyterian Church

120 South Main Street

Lexington, VA 24450

Phone: 540-463-3873



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