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November 5, 2023
We are fast approaching the end of 2023. As of November 5th, we have 56 days left in this year. November brings with it the change from Daylight Saving Time to 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. There are six million people living 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 this occurs. 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, veterans, 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 5th, 2023 is the first Sunday / Daylight Saving Time ends. We gain an hour. We fall back. Be sure to set your clocks back one hour on Saturday November 4th.
Tuesday, November 7th, 2023 is Election Day in Los Angeles for local and municipal elections. 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 needs to happen to maintain and sustain what we have been given and the gains we have made.
Sunday, November 12th, 2023 is Veterans Emphasis Sunday. Click here for a list of SBCLA Veterans.
The holiday goes back to World War I and marks when Germany and the Allies signed a 1918 agreement to end war hostilities. At the time, Nov. 11, 1918 was regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars," according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. As we can see the intent was not achieved as we have had several wars since. Unfortunately, we see wars continue to this day.
"Never was so much owed by so many to so few" was a wartime speech delivered to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom by British prime minister Winston Churchill, on August 20, 1940. The name stems from the specific line in the speech, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," referring to the ongoing efforts of the Royal Air Force and other Allied aircrew who were fighting in the Battle of Britain, the pivotal air battle with the German Luftwaffe.
Sunday, November 19th, 2023 is Women’s Emphasis Sunday. The Women’s Day Chair is Donna Pugh. 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. We ask if you are able, to give a dollar for every year that the church has been in existence, $138.00. The men shore up the budget in July and the women in November. Thank you.
Thursday, November 23rd, 2023 at 10:00 am is our in person Thanksgiving Day Worship Service. Let us express our gratitude to the Lord for all the Lord has done for us. The psalmist reminds us that the Lord is good, the Lord’s mercy is everlasting and the truth of the Lord endures forever.
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. It is 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.
Sunday November 26th, 2023 is the 26th Sunday after Pentecost.
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
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