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Community Meal

 

Tuesday, April 16
4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

This month, we are doing another throwback meal with recipes contributed by some of our favorite folks, taken from the Charm O’The Barn Cookbook.

Menu:  Baked Chicken Soufflé (Marge Davies), Mashed Potato Casserole (Peg Irish), Romaine and Strawberry Salad (Lin Wilson), Chocolate Chip Bars (Audrey Weatherhead)

If you are interested in helping, we will be cooking meals from 9:30-11:30 a.m.; assembling from 3-4 p.m.; and distributing / delivering from 4-5:30 p.m.  In addition, if you would like to bake chocolate chip bars (your recipe of choice or obtain recipe from office) at home, please drop off by 10 a.m. on April 16th.

To volunteer, click the link below:

 Sign up to volunteeer

To sign up for the meal, click the link below:

Sign up for the meal

 

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Annual Meeting Pastor’s Report – February 4, 2024

February 4, 2024 Annual Meeting Slides

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Sunday Services

See below for a link to the live streaming of our services or to see previous services:

YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYF6JWnNARixsYXmVVp-ImA/?guided_help_flow=5

 

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April 11, 2024

“But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7)

Members and Friends of Valley,

During this period between Easter Sunday and Pentecost – what is sometimes called Eastertide – we are exploring the nature and function of the church.  In the decades following Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, the apostles gave witness to the good news of God’s salvation for all; that Christ did not die in vain but was risen so that we might, with him, live eternally and in abundance.

But the Apostle Paul – writing here to the Christians in Corinth – reminds them of the difference between the treasure:  this good news of God’s extraordinary power of love and grace; and the man-made instrument that holds it:  the church.  We, church people, sometimes confuse the clay pot for the treasure; we are prone to believe that our religious institutions are so beautiful and compelling that folks just can’t wait to flock to them.

The institutional church in our age – in its many differing denominations and forms, with its countless cases of division and corruption – can sometimes be hard to defend.  We see and hear of churches hiding abuse, pilfering money, and promulgating hate.  Many folks these days are drifting or walking or being driven away from congregations.  The clay facades look cracked and worn.

There is beauty and power in our churches; just not in the ways we might expect.  Congregations – these local clay jars that, in our time, might appear fragile or fractured – reveal the true treasure of the gospel when they model service, humility, and acceptance.  They are shown through the ways we treat neighbors and strangers, by our care for the environment, by the tone of the stories we tell, by the ways we value all people as created in God’s image.

This Sunday, the Third Sunday of Easter, we will be singing “Christ Has Risen,” with words written by John Bell, from our supplemental hymnal, Sing the Faith.  Here is the final verse:

Christ has risen and forever lives to challenge and to change
All whose lives are messed or mangled, all who find religion strange.
Christ is risen; Christ is present making us what he has been –
Evidence of transformation in which God is known and seen.

Transformation – whether in us or the institutional church of which we are a part – is happening all around us.  The power of God is to change the messed up, the misshapen, and the doubting.  May we be open to be transformed so that our clay jars can reveal the true treasures they hold inside.

In Christ,
Pastor John

P.S. – There is still time to join us this weekend for the David Lamotte concert at John Knox on Friday, the “World-Changing 101” seminar on Saturday at Rocky River, and to sign up for next Tuesday’s community meal!

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ANNOUNCEMENTS
(additional announcements are in the bulletin and newsletter)

 

David Lamotte Events (from Presbytery)

To carpool to John Knox on Friday – meet at church at 6:15 p.m.
David will be offering a concert on Friday, April 12 at 7:00 p.m. at John Knox Presbyterian Church.  On Saturday, April 14, he will be offering a workshop entitled “Worldchanging 101” at Rocky River Presbyterian Church from 9:00-11:30 a.m.  This workshop will focus on the three prongs of the Matthew 25 Initiative that we are part of as a presbytery. See the April Valley Voice for more information and to register.

 

Knitting For Others

Inviting all folks from 12-100 years of age, who like to knit or who would like to learn, to be a part of Valley’s Knitting Group.  We will be knitting special items like prayer shawls, blankets, and other helpful and comforting items for our members and people in our community.

The group will meet three different times each month in the Church Library; so folks can come when their schedule allows.  Our first meeting will be the second Sunday of the month – April 14 at 12:15 p.m. after the 10:30 a.m. service.  This will be an informational meeting and a time for folks to get started on their first project.  If you can, please bring size 8 knitting needles with you.

Our monthly schedule will be:
2nd Sunday of the month — 12:15 – 2:00 p.m.
3rd Tuesday of the month — 5:30 – 7:00 p.m.
4th Wednesday of the month — 10:30 a.m. – noon

Please attend as often as you can.  Look forward to having you be a part of this ministry.

For questions, please call one of our Co-Chairs, Beverly or Bev:

Beverly Wahl – 502-553-7255

Bev Keough – 330-888-5385

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LINKS

 

Church YouTube Channel

The livestream of the worship service is being broadcast via the Valley YouTube channel using this link:

Link to YouTube Live

 

Link to Facebook

Link to Prayer Request List

Link to Sermons

Link to service bulletins:

Sunday, April 14, 2024 service bulletin

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April 5, 2024

 

“The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers.” (Acts 2:42, Common English Bible)

Members and friends of Valley,

Easter Sunday may have passed, but the church season of Easter continues for another seven weeks, until the celebration of Pentecost (meaning “fifty days”), which this year falls on Sunday, May 19.

During this season, we turn to the Book of Acts and the formative stories of the first Christian churches.  More than 2000 years later, there now exists an almost endless variety of congregations – large and small; urban, rural, and suburban; those with stained glass and tall steeples; others meeting in homes, coffeehouses, or converted warehouses.

But as Gil Rendle offers as a reminder in his book, Countercultural: Subversive Resistance and the Neighborhood Congregation, churches have always played a unique role and function in our culture:  providing a narrative about the common good.  Rather than pointing us toward individual goals and identities, congregations promote the “we” through the practices of shared learning, prayers, caring, and fellowship.

Rendle does not sugar-coat the challenges that congregations face today.  Like many other institutions, they are – in our present culture – increasingly marginalized and mistrusted.  What churches look like and how they operate will surely need to change, he says (historically, adaptation to different forms and structures is nothing new), but their role in teaching the story of common good – a voice for the “we” – is as vital as ever.

Thus, neighborhood congregations, in all their many and ever-evolving forms, have a story to tell, a message to share.  Like the earliest Christian churches described in the Book of Acts, we are tasked with discerning how to speak and act in ways that will best communicate who the Jesus we follow is and what the new realm of justice, compassion, and peace that he announced – for the “we” and not just “me” – looks like.

And, beyond gathering together for worship, please, also, consider joining in some of the many ways that – over the next week or two – this congregation will be lifting its voice:  through the giving circles of the Pass-It-On store; in the ministries of the Sarah Circle and Men’s Prayer Breakfast; gathering with other local Presbyterians for music and learning with David Lamotte; sending notes and gifts of care to our college and military members; preparing and sharing a community meal.

The season of Easter represents the new life and hope revealed in the risen Jesus – a gift of God’s grace offered not only for one or some, but for all.  Let us gratefully receive and share this gift of new life – in subversive resistance to the powers of isolation, division, and death – in and through the prayers and practices of the church, the neighborhood congregation.

In Peace,
Pastor John

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ANNOUNCEMENTS
(additional announcements are in the bulletin and newsletter)

Sarah Circle – Tuesday, April 9, 2024

This year’s Bible study is:
Sacred Encounter: The Power and Presence of Jesus Christ In the Gospel of Luke

Meeting:  VPC Library, The 2nd Tuesday of the month
10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., September through May

All women interested are welcome to join.

 

David Lamotte Events (from Presbytery)

To carpool to John Knox on Friday – meet at church at 6:15 p.m.
David will be offering a concert on Friday, April 12 at 7:00 p.m. at John Knox Presbyterian Church.  On Saturday, April 14, he will be offering a workshop entitled “Worldchanging 101” at Rocky River Presbyterian Church from 9:00-11:30 a.m.  This workshop will focus on the three prongs of the Matthew 25 Initiative that we are part of as a presbytery. See the April Valley Voice for more information and to register.

 

Knitting For Others

Inviting all folks from 12-100 years of age, who like to knit or who would like to learn, to be a part of Valley’s Knitting Group.  We will be knitting special items like prayer shawls, blankets, and other helpful and comforting items for our members and people in our community.

The group will meet three different times each month in the Church Library; so folks can come when their schedule allows.  Our first meeting will be the second Sunday of the month – April 14 at 12:15 p.m. after the 10:30 a.m. service.  This will be an informational meeting and a time for folks to get started on their first project.  If you can, please bring size 8 knitting needles with you.

Our monthly schedule will be:
2nd Sunday of the month — 12:15 – 2:00 p.m.
3rd Tuesday of the month — 5:30 – 7:00 p.m.
4th Wednesday of the month — 10:30 a.m. – noon

Please attend as often as you can.  Look forward to having you be a part of this ministry.

For questions, please call one of our Co-Chairs, Beverly or Bev:

Beverly Wahl – 502-553-7255

Bev Keough – 330-888-5385

________________________________________

LINKS

 

Church YouTube Channel

The livestream of the worship service is being broadcast via the Valley YouTube channel using this link:

Link to YouTube Live

 

Link to Facebook

Link to Prayer Request List

Link to Sermons

Link to service bulletins:

Sunday, April 7, 2024 service bulletin

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Pass-It-On Mission Store