Remembering is Caring - Memorial Day Sunday |
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Decoration Day is another term for Memorial Day. One outward reason this federal holiday was established at the end of May is because it was a prime time for flowers to be blooming. People decorated grave sites with flowers to honor those who died in service to the country. Although it is not a religious holiday, it certainly is a time for
prayer and for lifting our minds to noble, spiritual causes which we serve in this life and the next.
This Sunday I invite you to bring a flower or any item or memorabilia to church in honor and memory of someone in the other world - whether or not they served in the military. Also, it could be anyone you admire and honor for their
service to the country, whether you knew them personally or not. As part of our worship together, we will decorate an area of the chancel with the items as a way of remembering them and praying for them. Nathan
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UPCOMING CHURCH ACTIVITIES: MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND 10 am Music rehearsal 11 am Sunday Worship Service 12:00 pm "Mountain Camp Luncheon" - Everyone Welcome! MONDAY 5/29/2017 MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY No Go For It! Meeting today
No Tai Chi for Health today
TUESDAY 5/30/2017
6:30 pm NEW Spiritual Growth Group, led by Frank Rose
WEDNESDAY 5/31/2017 9:30 am Worship Team - 7th meeting - open to anyone
interested THURSDAY 6/1/2017
No Tai Chi - Yang Style today 7 pm Women's Group. Contact Elise G, Betsy G, or Kelly W for location 11 am Sunday Worship Service 12:00 pm Luncheon - Everyone Welcome! 12:30 pm "Who Cares? We do!"
Meeting - all welcome (see below)
New Direction for "Serving More People Team" |
Showing We Care - Sunday, June 4There's an old saying: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Isn't this true in general? And
the more deeply you care about someone, the more important it can be to share information and experiences with each other.
About a year ago, a small team of people at Sunrise Chapel started a new effort to serve more people. As a church we want to be serving people in a variety of ways, including members and friends, but also extending that care to others beyond our own church
family.
That team quickly took up the challenge to serve more people through a big, weekend-long 30th anniversary celebration which we successfully pulled off in March. CONGRATULATIONS, EVERYONE! It was a blast, and we accomplished a variety of goals!
Now it's time to get together
again and refocus our efforts to serve more people in ongoing ways.
Our first meeting will be Sunday, June 4 at 12:30 pm. Everyone is welcome as we brainstorm and make some plans.
My vision and hope is that our next efforts will focus on
INCREASING OUR CARE FOR ONE ANOTHER. I am working on a series of spiritual growth tasks around the theme of THE JOY OF SPIRITUAL CARE. Maybe it will become the third in the series of Spiritual Growth books. I truly feel that we can do better to care for one another in ways that foster spiritual community, which is a core value of Sunrise Chapel. Sometimes it happens spontaneously, but other times it takes effort and coordination to care in appropriate and effective
ways.
Please consider coming to the meeting on June 4 at 12:30 pm, and helping Sunrise Chapel increase our care for one another and for the surrounding community.
Nathan
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Notice of Annual Meeting - Sunday, June 11 at 12:15 pm |
Our By-Laws specify that Sunrise Chapel shall have two organizational meetings per year - one in May or June
The "spring"
meeting is especially for the sake of voting for Officers and Trustees for Sunrise Chapel (the incorporated non-profit in the state of Arizona) and for approving the financial budget for the coming fiscal year. We also have a pastor's report and reports from other leaders about various special and ongoing uses and services. As we have done recently, we will hold this meeting during the
luncheon. Everyone, whether a full member, an associate member, a friend, or a newcomer is welcome to attend and participate. Everyone can provide input and opinions. If you want to be part of official voting, you need to enroll as a member of the church. For information about membership, please contact me or any Board member. Nathan Gladish
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Congratulations to Kally and Heidi on their baptism last Sunday! |
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Welcome Jim's daughers, Kally and Heidi
It's a treat whenever anyone shares their baptism with our church family in
the Sunday worship service. Not only do we get to support their step, we can also be mindful of our own place on this path of faith. Each of us is on a journey toward spiritual development and maturity. We each have gifts to offer along the way, and we each have more to learn and apply to our own lives. Best wishes to Kally and Heidi! May the Lord continue to bless you as you learn and grow.
For anyone who is interested in exploring baptism, I offer a 7-session small group called "New Church Foundations" that covers the basic teachings, history, and organizational structure of our church. I offer it to individuals, couples, or groups as the need comes up. Just let me know if you are interested and we can schedule it!
With love and respect, Nathan Gladish
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REPORT on a Conference about Sunday School and Children's Ministry |
Last month I attended a conference in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania This Children's Ministry conference, held on April 28-30, 2017, was a gathering of people from about 12 different New
Church congregations. It was a collection of people wearing different hats: volunteers in youth or Sunday school programs, parents, pastors, coordinators of other volunteer programs, and the staff at the General Church Education offices.
One of the main purposes was to share and exchange ideas. There was ample opportunity to hear what others are doing in their Sunday School and youth programs. We
were also introduced to resources that the General Church has to offer leaders and facilitators. We also spent time on brainstorming ways to improve our programs and support our volunteers and teachers.
Participants came away with a sense of camaraderie with one another, and a feeling of support from others who have the
same love and interest in nurturing the next generation of children in their religious education. It is clear that the staff in Bryn Athyn is working hard to develop and improve programs, and truly want to create things that support the programs in our home churches. By inviting us to gather together to exchange ideas they certainly demonstrated their desire to support anyone in this important use of religious education.
I was very glad I was able to attend and am looking forward to working with various people to explore ways to enhance the offerings we have for children at Sunrise Chapel.
Elise Gladish |
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An Online Resource for Studying the Bible and Swedenborg's Work |
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News from the New Christian Bible Study Project Have you ever wished that you could read the Bible and the Writings of Swedenborg side-by-side?
Would you like to be able to look up the correspondence of words in the literal sense as you read? Would you like to be able to see New Church commentary on the internal sense? You can do all that, and much more, on the New Christian Bible Study website. The New Christian Bible Study Project is an online clearinghouse for people who are interested in the Bible, not just in its powerful literal sense, but also in its inner, spiritual sense. More than 100,000 people
visited our website last month! This crowd is growing quickly. Bible readers and spiritual seekers are coming from all over the world. It's one of the most exciting projects in our church today. Check it out! Look us up at www.newchristianbiblestudy.org. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let us know if you have any questions; We appreciate your help! Thank you! Steve David for the New Christian Bible Study
Project (Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) |
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The LORD Remembers
Isaiah 49:13-16
Shout for joy, you heavens;
rejoice, you
earth;
burst into song, you mountains!
For the LORD comforts his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
the LORD has forgotten me.”
And the LORD declares,
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I
have inscribed you on the palms of my hands."
Forgetting the Pain John 16:20-22
Very truly I tell you, you will weep
and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.
Perfect Memory without any Emotional Baggage
Secrets of Heaven 2493 I have spoken to angels about the memory of things of the past and about consequent anxiety
concerning things of the future, and I have been informed that the more interior and perfect angels are, the less do they care about things of the past or think about those of the future, and that this is also the origin of their happiness. They have said that the Lord provides them every moment with what to think, accompanied by blessing and happiness, and that this being so they have no cares and no worries...
But although angels have no care about things of the past and are not worried about those of the future they nevertheless have a most perfect recollection of things of the past and a most perfect insight into those of the future, because their entire present includes both the past and future within it. Thus they possess a more perfect memory than can possibly be imagined or put into words.
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Helping people experience heavenly joy through spiritual growth www.sunrisechapel.org
nathan@sunrisechapel.org Office 520-298-1245
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