Dear Friends and Members of the Ark and Dove Community,

Our annual meeting is approaching.  What is an annual meeting? Well it is a couple of things. It is an opportunity for members to learn about each other, about our challenges and successes in the past year and an opportunity to set our eyes and our hearts on ministry plans for 2022 and beyond.

The annual meeting will take place on Sunday January 30^th at 7:00PM and it will be a hybrid meeting in that it will take place in the sanctuary and on Zoom at the same time. Thank goodness we have a Tech Team that can pull off such wonders. The annual meeting will be preceded by a written annual report. We will get that link to you by e-mail. It is always a good idea to peruse the annual report before the meeting because it might generate an idea or a question that you can ask and or share at the meeting.

While Special Meetings of the congregation are limited in purpose, you can bring up any issue you want at our annual meeting. Official business includes:

--Electing the Elders on Session as the Trustees of the corporation as per MD law.

--Receiving a report from the Nominating Team which includes nominations for the election of church Officers, both Elders and Deacons

--Voting on the terms of call for the Pastors

--Approving the minutes from last year’s congregational meeting.

--Electing a new Nominating Team

It is also our practice to offer words of thanksgiving for work well done and to field questions about our ministries and our finances.

Please hold the date and time. Here is the zoom invitation which will be shared again later in January: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86343635229.

Peace of Christ,

Dear Friends and Members of Ark and Dove,

On December 26th, I asked you what you want in a sermon. Starting this week, we will explore what we believe the Church should be about. Should the Church challenge individuals to be more pious and righteous or should it seek to right the wrongs of our world? Is the Church obliged to demand that sinners repent and so be saved or is the Church called to proclaim the reconciliation, forgiveness, peace, and salvation that is ours to share? Is the task of the church to make people moral or is it tasked with affirming the belovedness of all God's children? Does the Church offer something to people in worship or is worship what we give to God? Will the Church merely confirm what its people already think or will it challenge assumptions with necessary truth? And should the Church help people live with the way things are or should it equip people to live in a new and different way?

For the next six weeks, we will be discerning what the Church should be today. We will do so by thinking through what our denomination claims the Church should be about: 1) the promotion of social righteousness; 2) the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; 3) the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; 4) the maintenance of divine worship; 5) the preservation of the truth; and 6) the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world. I hope you will engage and wrestle with what you believe the Church should be about now and in the near future.

Peace,

PRAYERS OF HEALING AND SUPPORT for Christy Hipchen’s nephew; the Sealing Family; Karen Arnold's brother, Tim; Josh Arnold; the family of Mike Esparza, sister struggling with mental illness; Debbie Arey; Steve Debus' father, Bill Debus; Paul Doughty's mother, Ruth Doughty; James Franklin's sister-in-law, Kelli Franklin; Amy Tardiff’s Aunt Fran; May Gilden; Richard Jasper; the Finnegan family; Laura Batten-Carbaugh; Nicole Chidlow's son, Jai; Michelle Schoonmaker's friend's children, Kai and Ezra; Frank Stillwell; Mary Caolo; David Johns; Carrie Dodson's friend Pam; Lou Kareha's cousin, Thomas Kochis, and friend, Nando Smacci; Louise Sharrocks; Angela Goska; Belinda Edwards; Karen Stokes; Sarah and Bojan; Betty Small; a friend of Bob Fuller; the Unger family; Debbie and Bruce Arey's niece, Sarah, and daughter, Allison, and Debbie’s sister, Denise; Calvin Latham; Brianna Lapp; Anne Hirschy's relative Isaiah and cousin Gordon; Diane Makar; Gabriele Mecca; Charlotte Davie; Adell Gaurin; Dotty Kaufman and her daughter-in-law, Carol, granddaughter, Sarah, and grandson Nathan; Carol Saylor; Ray Bussey's mother, Doris; Liz Olson; Margaret Floyd; Vaughn Brown; Patty and Steve Plander; Arlyce Lohr; Krista Klohr; Michelle Schoonmaker; Dick Paronto; Cheryl Walcutt’s sister Judy and mother; Christy Hipchen’s grandmother, Ann Chubon; Amy Hagemann’s sister, Susan Pratt; Mary Benson’s sister; Amy Carskadon Lifsey’s father-in-law, Bill Lifsey Sr.; Karen Dodson’s cousin, Miles, and Miles’ family; Helen Wilkens' mother, Jane Reinert; Christina Nelson’s grandmother, Patricia Dole; Judy Cooper’s daughter, Jessica Quigley; Debbie Saylor’s sister, Christine; a member of the Tardiff family; Dionne Whitby's niece, Jannah; Kathy Miller’s sister, Beth Krauth, and brother-in-law, Jeff Miller; Lewis Shorter and Lewis Shorter’s niece, Jennifer Schwandt-Gayle; Dot Forloine’s granddaughter Melisa Tucker Saatthoff, and her great-grandson Luke;Linda Taylor’s mother, Izola; Amy Goldberg’s grandmother, Ruth Cooper; Christy Yeager’s mother, Linda Jordan; Linda Jordan’s niece, Bonnie; Diane Johnson's Uncle Ed, Aunt Janet, and cousin Richard; Shelley Franklin's father; Amanda Wehage’s father, Dave, and sister; Laurie Barrow’s nephew, Gunther Kurtz; Sabonna Keeney’s mother; Bernabe and Griselda Solano, and Griselda's sister, Irma; Laura Doughty’s brother-in-law, Carl Hahn; Laura Willoughby's father, Norman; Ann Hirschy’s aunt, Cindy, and brother; Cheryl and Doug Walcutt’s grandchild, Gray Adacutt; Erika Sealing's grandmother, Margaret Schade; Lourdes Cordero's brother Jose, granddaughter, and friends, Fred and Arelene Jones; Linda Lewis’ friend, Carol Fudge; and Rob Yeager’s friends, Greta Daughtrey and Peter Brown.

THE LOVE AND PRAYERS OF THE CONGREGATION go out to the Arnold family upon the death of Karen Arnold's mother, Lorna.

PRAYERS OF HEALING AND STRENGTH for our families dealing with COVID.