What's New?

SUMMER WORSHIP HOURS

On Sunday, June 6, worship will begin at 10:00 am in the sanctuary. Summer worship hours continue through Labor Day weekend, September 5.

UPCOMING EVENTS

GARDEN FAIR began Sunday, July 11. It has become a tradition for GPPC members to share the bounty from their gardens with the congregation. A table will be in the breezeway on Sundays starting July 11. Most folks make a contribution for what they take home. The monies collected over the summer will be given to an appropriate worthy cause. We will contribute to the Central Va. Food Bank and Las Familias, a program of health and educational services for migrant workers and their children on the Eastern Shore of Va. Let us celebrate together the abundance of the season.

Summer Sermon Series and VBS

July 11 was the first Sunday in our “Brave People in the Bible” Sermon Series and Vacation Bible School. Sermons will engage stories that many of us learned as children and may or may not have explored in meaningful ways as adults. Elementary age children (rising 1st graders through rising 6th graders) are invited to stay after worship for lunch and games/stories/activities relating to the stories. Their program will end at 2 p.m.

I invite all of you to do a little reading and thinking about the stories prior to the Sundays we’ll be reading them together. If you would like to send me any comments or questions you have about the stories, that’d be great! As I prepare the sermons, it will help me to know what issues the stories raise for you . . . and to have thought about the stories beforehand will certainly enhance your encounter with the stories in worship. You can write me at Carla@ginterparkpc.org. I especially encourage families with children in the VBS to do this!

Here’s the lineup:

Also, if you’re willing and able to help with the VBS in any way, please contact Noell Rathbun at carolynnoell@gmail.com.

Blessings,

Carla

SUMMER READING

Last summer a number of GPPC members read Sara Miles’ book Take This Bread. It was so wonderful to read and discuss that book together, I’d like to propose another book for this summer.

Here’s what I suggest: An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor

From the dust jacket:
[In this book, Taylor] shares how she learned to encounter God beyond the walls of any church.

From simple practices such as walking, working, and getting lost to deep meditations on topics like prayer and pronouncing blessings, Taylor reveals concrete ways to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see. Something as ordinary as hanging clothes on a clothesline becomes an act of devotion if we pay attention to what we are doing and take time to attend to the sights, smells, and sounds around us. Making eye contact with the cashier at the grocery store becomes a moment of true human connection. Allowing yourself to get lost leads to new discoveries. Under Taylor's expert guidance, we come to question conventional distinctions between the sacred and the secular, learning that no physical act is too earthbound or too humble to become a path to the divine. As we incorporate these practices into our daily lives, we begin to discover altars everywhere we go, in nearly everything we do.

This book is available in many bookstores and online. Please find a copy, or let me know if you’d like my help securing a copy. Discussion dates are set for the evening of Wednesday, August 25 and for Sunday, September 5, after worship. If you are reading the book and cannot come to one of those gatherings, please let Carla know. Details TBA.

 

 


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