"God is closer to us than our own soul…And therefore if we want to have knowledge of our soul, and communion and discourse with it, we must seek in our Lord God in whom it is enclosed." Julian of Norwich

"…your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." Colossians 3:3-4

"Know thyself," said Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi. Ever since then "self examination" has been a compelling theme in western thought and discourse. Today the desire to know one’s self can range from thoughtful introspection to morbid self-preoccupation. And it is hard work. But the words of Julian and of the Apostle Paul represent, if not a different approach, at least a different emphasis. They tell us simply "If you want to know who you are, you must first know who God is." Why? Because our souls are enclosed in God. The essence of who we are is embedded in who God is. And, remarkably, Julian says that "it is quicker for us and easier to come to the knowledge of God than it is to know our own soul." Perhaps it is a matter of where you focus the spotlight of your consciousness. Focus on yourself and you will eventually reach a dead end. Focus on God, and you will discover both who God is and who you really are. The importance of focusing on yourself is mainly to discover how much you are suffering. You suffer because you are lonely, because you feel so far away from God and others. That is a good place to begin, but not to stop.

This truth is at the heart of what Christmas is really about. The Incarnation that we celebrate is about "God with us" in the deepest possible ways – God in us and us in God. So close are we to God that one could say that, with the birth of Christ, we are given the opportunity to lead lives that are sacred, even divine. What happens when we truly focus first on God? The Christmas message is that when we focus on God, we are given the gift of Jesus. God is saying to us, "If you want to know who you are, look at Jesus – his birth, his life, his resurrection." God is not saying, "This is someone you can attempt to measure up to if you work hard, try your best, summon all your moral energies, and pull yourself up by your own spiritual boot-straps." No. I believe God is saying, "Jesus is who you are now. Look at his compassion, his courage, and his vulnerability. Especially, look at how needy and fragile he was at his birth. Yet he was loved and cared for. And look at what he grew into. That is you."

Christmas is not just about remembering and celebrating the birth of Jesus, God incarnate 2,000 years ago. It is really about celebrating your divine and miraculous birth and life. If you want to know who you are, St. Paul says in Colossians, "Set your minds on the things that are above." They are love, tenderness, patience, steadfastness, humility, hope, and trust. By finding them above, you will discover them within.

Love and all God’s blessings to you!

Jim

May Christmas be for you a time of reaching out to help, a time of putting anger aside, a time of striving for understanding, a time of forgetting differences, and a time of love for each other. May your Christmas be filled with the spirit of human and divine understanding and all the blessings of peace!

The CCC Staff
Rev. Jim Todhunter, Rev. Dale Ostrander, Rev. Linda Carder,
John Touchton, Ruth B. Avery, Jackie Walters, David Gayer, Cory Gray, Susan Gray

Beginning Jan. 4, church school during the 9:00 am service for 1st –6th graders will take place in three exciting workshop centers—The Story Tellers Tent, lower level, Room 010, where Bible stories will be told through drama; The Market Place, Room 104, where Bible stories will be told through crafts, cooking, and hands-on experiences; and The Well, downstairs on the stage where Bible stories will be told through music, movement and dance. The stories this year are:

January—Abraham and Sarah—the birth of Isaac,
February—Joseph, 
March—Moses, 
April—David and the Kingdom, 
May—Exile and Return.

The first three Sundays of each month will be spent rotating through the 3 different centers. On the 4th Sunday, the children will take part in the worship service with a song or a skit or artwork, something they have developed during the month.

If you would like your children to take part in this innovative and exciting church school, please sign up on the sheet on the Christian Education bulletin board outside the sanctuary. In order to develop each workshop we need to know how many children will be participating and their ages.

If you have an interest in music and dance or arts and crafts and hands-on activities with children, we welcome additional teachers to assist with teaching in The Market Place and The Well one or two Sundays a month. If you can help out, call Susan Gray at 301-593-5454 or email churchschool@christ-ucc.org

Dale Ostrander

Pathways Schools is sponsoring a benefit art show and sale of works by artist Michael Winger on Saturday, December 13, from 3 – 5 p.m. in the Social Hall.

Mr. Winger holds a BFA in Sculpture from the University of South Dakota and is the recipient of numerous awards and grants. Since 1984, his work has been exhibited in South Dakota and in the D.C. metropolitan area, including such venues as Strathmore Hall and Kentland Mansions. He completed 20 arts residencies for the Maryland State Arts Council before joining Pathways as a full-time instructor in 2002.

Mr. Winger was recently diagnosed with throat cancer. Pathways is organizing the benefit show and sale to help Mr. Winger with his medical expenses. The artist will be present to talk about his work.

Pathways Schools works with children to build academic and social skills with the goal of enabling the children to return to regular public school classrooms. Prior to CCC’s renovation, Pathways leased space in the education wing for its program and continues to conduct meetings and training at CCC.

The Board for Social Witness has decided to explore ways in which Christ Congregational Church and its individual members and friends can more fully fulfill our Christian mission to be stewards of God’s Earth. This includes examining how we, both as a Church and as individuals, conduct our lives and businesses and how we choose products to use and consume (and, ultimately, how we dispose of these products). It  also involves how our choices affect other individuals, including the workers who produce the products we consume, and other social and economic justice consequences that result from our choices.

The purpose of this exploration is not to merely conduct an intellectual exercise, but, rather, to educate and to make concrete proposals for changes in behavior for both the Church and for its individual members and friends that will, hopefully, be more in accord with our mission of stewardship. All persons wishing to be a part of this mission should contact the Board for Social Witness member in charge of this project,

Winifred Roberts, at 301-587-4827.

The Adult Education Committee of the Christian Education Board has formed to develop and administer Christian education for adults. The primary participants are members of CCC, but we see our responsibility as reaching beyond the doors of the church into the broader community.

The committee explores and selects curricula and programs, recruits and supports teachers, and creates the annual program. In support of lifelong learning, the committee is also responsible for organizing and enhancing the adult library in CCC (more about the library in a future News Notes.)

In addition to our goals of promoting ongoing opportunities in a variety of formats that accommodate different schedules and interests, we want to provide a range of opportunities for CCC members to share their learning and insight with others.

Our aim is to identify and develop a core of teachers of adults within CCC. Please consider adding your name and skills to our list. Don’t think you have any theological insights to teach? How about identifying speakers or topics that would make a compelling single presentation or series? Please get in touch with the Adult Education Committee by email at churchschool@christ-ucc.org or by contacting Barbara Little, Lynn White, Richard Jaeggi or Elsa Brandt.

Thanks to all who made those wonderful soups for the Advent Wreath Workshop. We had some official tasters who declared all of them good to very good. Thanks also to those who brought greens. You would be surprised how many greens it takes to cover those wreaths. And there were sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, breads, and cookies. A special thanks to Jim Stedman for working with the children to make their very own wreath. It takes many hands to cover all the details from soups, bread, greens. Also, Pat O’Connor provided us with some special hand cream to help wash the pine sap off our hands. Again thanks to everyone. Board for Church Life

CCC is receiving a lot of visitors these days, and we hear from them that we are a friendly congregation. We have all of you to thank for that.

In order to make sure that we continue to excel in this area, The Board of Outreach and Engagement is having a Welcomers' Workshop on Saturday, January 10, 2004, from l:00-3:00 p.m. It is open to everyone! The workshop will be led by Linda Carder. Those who participated in the first Welcomers' Workshop, led by Linda in April 2002, remember it as a lively, entertaining and useful experience.

This workshop will focus on four areas. We will discuss how to deal with transition and how to talk with visitors about it in a positive. We will have fun with some questions and situations that have been encountered during the past year and find ways to handle them through experiential role play. We will brainstorm ways to expand our welcoming beyond our church walls. Lastly, we will share tips and tools on how to help our visitors get connected with others and involved in CCC programs.

We will have light refreshments and hopefully feed your soul as well. The welcoming process is more a commitment of spirit than of time.

Please join us. RSVP to Kate Rogers: J-Krogers@msn.com or 301-622-4747.

The Board of Outreach and Engagement

Former UCC President to Lead NCC Anti-Poverty Program. The National Council of Churches has appointed former UCC President Paul H. Sherry to lead the NCC’s Mobilization to Overcome Poverty for the next year. Dr. Sherry was elected UCC president in 1989 and retired in 1999. Since then he has been working as a consultant with the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, a project of the Center for Community Change. He also serves as an officer of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. The NCC is currently engaged in a multi-year Poverty Mobilization effort that seeks "to lift up best practices in the struggle against poverty, change common wisdom about the inevitability of poverty, and partner with other anti-poverty organizations . . . ." Dr. Sherry will serve as a liaison with state organizations, oversee cooperation with other anti-poverty groups, and develop a Benefit Bank which will be "a web-based system . . . that allows people with low incomes . . . to calculate and file for all the benefits for which they are entitled at the same time."

"The U.S.A. Patriot Act: An Interfaith Evaluation." On the evening of February 19, 2004, the Churches’ Center for Theology and Public Policy at Wesley Theological Seminary, 4500 Massachusetts Avenue, DC, will hold a discussion of the ethical and theological implications of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Featured will be David Cole, Georgetown University; Azizah Al-Hibri, University of Richmond Law School; Rabbi David Saperstein, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; and the Rev. Louis-Charles Harvey, African Methodist Episcopal Church. There will be no charge, but an RSVP is needed. Call 202-885-8648 or e-mail cctpp@wesleysem.edu.

Anne Weissenborn for the Board for Social Witness

Recently I took a class on Hebrew Bible and was struck by my professor’s translation of Micah 6:8. In the NRSV Bible this verse is translated "...and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."   "Walking humbly" with my God has always puzzled me. What does it mean?  My professor explained that this particular phrase is difficult to translate.  He suggested that a more accurate translation would be "to travel attentively with your God."  The word attentively caught my attention!  Travel attentively - what a hard thing these days!  We’re torn this way and that way, constantly interrupted and distracted.  It seems impossible to  pay attention to God.  Yet we need to explore and cultivate our relationship with God.  How are we to do it? One way is through the regular practice of a spiritual discipline.  Engaging in a spiritual practice (such as meditation) with others nurtures our spiritual family. It encourages us and offers the richness of shared journeys.    

Although CCC currently holds a time for regular meditation on Sunday mornings, it seems important to offer an alternative time for people who are unable to make it at 8:30 a.m. Therefore, the Spirituality Committee is hosting three evenings of meditation - one a month for the next three months.  Dates are:  December 14, January 11 and February 8.  Each session is from 6:00-6:45.  We’ll spend a few minutes discussing the type of meditation we’ll be doing, then we’ll meditate for 20 minutes.  We’ll finish by spending the last 15 minutes talking about the experience.  There will be a different convener for each session.  Chairs, pillows or kneeling benches are all available.   Please join us on a journey of traveling attentively with our God.  All are welcome!

Sarah Anders
for the Spirituality Committee

In celebration of _______________________________________

or

In memory of _________________________________________

Given by ____________________________________________

Number of plants ________________ Check for $ ___________

There is still time to order a poinsettia ($10 per plant). After the service, the plants will be taken by the Deacons to those confined to home, hospital or nursing homes. Make check payable to Christ Congregational Church, noted Christmas Plant. Turn in form and check by Monday, December 15 and place in marked envelope in the church office.

Next Discussion: Sunday, Dec 14 
Book: The DaVinci Code,
by Dan Brown
 Place: Mary Stone’ House                            
10610 Glenwild Road
Silver Spring, MD

Gwen Datt, Home Finder (and former CCC member)
Foster & Adoptive Parent Services, DHHS
Department of Health and Human Services

Once again, we will collect mittens, gloves, hats and coats for the children of Broad Acres Elementary School in Silver Spring. The last Sunday to donate items will be December 14. If you have any questions, contact Kristen Brown at 301-460-1806 or brownjk@erols.com.

June 27—July 3 Middle School
July 11—July 17 Senior High, Kathy Stedman, Director
July 18—July 24 Music, John Touchton, Director
July 25—July 31 Traditional, John Gipson
Mark Your Calendars Now!!