November 6, 2022
We are fast approaching the end of 2022. As of November 6, we have 55 days left in this year. November brings with it the change from Daylight Saving Time to Pacific Standard Time. We fall back and gain an hour in the autumn of the year. I presume you have reset your clocks by now.
November marks the beginning of National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness and Family Caregivers Month. 5.5 million people live with this disease in America today. Every 65 seconds, a new brain develops Alzheimer’s. Two-thirds of those brains belong to women and we have no idea why that is. There are 40 million Americans who are serving as unpaid caregivers each and every day. 16 million of those caregivers are serving on the frontlines of Alzheimer’s. Others are caring for special needs children, for veterans, for parents and for spouses struggling with a disability, disease or other hardship. (Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper / News and Views for A Meaningful Life)
Following are dates that require your attention and participation:
Sunday, November 6th, 2022 is All Saints Sunday.
Tuesday, November 8th is Election Day. It is imperative that we exercise our right to select who represents us in the legislature at all levels of government as it is a right that has been won with the sacrifices of many who gave their lives. In order to maintain and sustain what has been achieved, we must continue to exercise our right unrelentingly so as not to have what we have been bequeathed obliterated. Benjamin Mays, former president of Morehouse College, reminds us of our obligation and responsibility to perpetuate the privilege to our posterity that we have received from our predecessors with a caveat that we will be held accountable.
"I have only just a minute, Only sixty seconds in it. Forced upon me, can't refuse it. Didn't seek it, didn't choose it. But it's up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it. Give account if I abuse it. Just a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it."
Let's take our minute and make the change we know need to happen to maintain and sustain what we have been given.
Sunday, November at 13th is Veterans Emphasis Sunday.
Sunday, November 20th is Women’s Emphasis Sunday. The Women’s Day Chair is Judith Younger. Our women will be leading in worship for the broadcast as well as the in person service. Be sure to give a special contribution in the envelope labeled Women’s Day. Give commensurate with your capacity to support our congregation of believers in Christ.
Thursday, November 24th at 10:00 am an opportunity on zoom will afford us the privilege to express our gratitude for all the Lord has done for us. Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among almost all religions after harvests and at other times. The Thanksgiving holiday's history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the late November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
African Americans commemorate and celebrate Thanksgiving as an awareness of the goodness, generosity and graciousness of the Lord in the particularity of the peculiar predicaments of our lives communally and individually. Amazing that we have emerged and evolved from the excruciating experiences of captivity, discrimination, and the oppressive structures of slavery and segregation, fortified with a faith that saves and sustains us with an attitude of gratitude, praise and thanksgiving. Let us gather and give thanks for all the Lord has done for us.
"In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Sunday November 27th, 2022 is the First Sunday in Advent.
I close with the words of George Linnaeus Banks.
“I live for those who love me, for those who know me true; for the heaven that smiles above me and awaits my spirit too. For the cause that lacks assistance, for the wrong that needs resistance, for the future in the distance, and the good that I can do.”
For the privilege which is mine to be making this journey of faith in Christ with you, I am grateful. Let’s continue to fulfill the purpose for which we have been paired together.
-Pastor
Dr. William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
