Important Dates

January

3 - Worship and Music Team

Meeting, after 10:30 AM

worship

10– Team Reports Deadline

14 - Church Council, 7PM

14 - Choir Rehearsal, 7PM

15 - Wave Deadline

24 - Youth Sunday Rehearsal,

9AM

24 - Youth Sunday Worship

Service, 10:30AM

31 - Contemporary Worship,

10:30AM

4, 11, 18 & 25 - Men’s

Monday Night Bible Study (At

the Parsonage), 7PM

6, 13, 20 & 27 - Homework

Club, 2:15PM

7, 14, 21 &28 - Early

Morning Bible Study, 7AM

7, 14, 21 & 28 - Bible Study,

10AM

In this issue:

Pastor’s Splash

1

Sayings From the Wharf

Prayers for the New Year

2

Important Bethel

Announcements

3

Whitecap Wisdom 4

People of God,

"Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the

seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work - you, your son or your daughter,

your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns" (Exodus 20:8-10).

For most of us the suggestion that we should or even could clear our calendars once a week brings cynical

smiles and/or wishful sighs. A whole day devoted to rooting ourselves in time and place, a time set aside

for quietly and carefully landscaping our souls instead of bulldozing our way through the personal,

economic, and professional stumps we face the rest of the week sounds almost frivolous. But as we have

increasingly lost the art of "Sevening," a custom the early church calls obedience to preserving the Sabbath

and keeping it holy. Because we don’t with regularity, our lives have become more and more wound up,

wounded and wrecked.

There is a natural rhythm to life. To work without a Sabbath leads to a dysrhythmic life replete with all sorts

of dysrhythmic diseases - like chronic fatigue syndrome, pain, depression and low energy.

Without true Sabbath rest the best we can muster is a fragmented, fractured faith, one which emerges for an

hour every two or three Sundays between the hours of 9 and 12 o'clock. It is that kind of faith which finds it

possible to worship beside a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday, or to praise the Creator

in song while fouling creation with our lifestyles.

Sevening prepares us not just for the upcoming week. It also provides us with sacred space in which we

can plant spiritual seeds whose harvest will not be seen or perhaps even needed until far in the future.

Perhaps we are just beginning to rediscover the need for allowing fallow, fertile time into our lives.

Traditionally our national holidays, secular days of rest, have all been directed towards past events and

people. However, "Earth Day," has its roots in the nineteenth-century celebration, Arbor Day. Arbor Day

founder J. Sterling Morton described that day of national tree planting as a time which "proposes for the

future." So too did God intend that we have time to gather our spiritual energies for future use.

Every person, every community needs a "Benediction pause," a period in which to listen deeply to the

message of scripture and tradition as we search our way forward. Far from being a quaintly obsolete notion,

this concept of "Sevening" is absolutely central to the church's identity, heritage and mission.

May you embrace this in your everyday lives throughout 2016. A blessed New Year to you! Love, Pastor Mark

Pastor ’s Splash

Bethel Lutheran Church’s Monthly E-Letter

January 2016

January Birthdays

Darryl England—1 Sharon Weygand—12 Michelle Beyerling—21

Lori Anderson—3 Janet Hodges—15 Marsha Gray—25

Marge Gilde—5 Joy Topolski—17 Jennifer Stevenson—27

Susi DuBois—29

SAYINGS FROM THE WHARF

"Mommy," said the little boy. "Why does the pastor get a month's vacation in the summer

when Daddy only gets three weeks?"

"Well, son," answered Mommy, "if he's a good minister, he needs it. If he isn't, the congre-

gation needs it!"

Wilfrid Mellers is one of the most respected and incisive musicologists of our day. In his

masterful Bach and the Dance of God (New York: Oxford University Press), he shows

how Bach was perfectly entranced by the number seven and all of its combinations and

permutations. He added notes to hymn clauses so that they would number fourteen

("which represents B-A-C-H in the figural alphabet") and crafted forty-one notes in a

complex choral melody ("which is 14 backwards and stands for J.S. Bach"). This was

more than a game, for his number was twice seven, and seven was a peculiarly signifi-

cant number in the tradition of mathematics (Pythagoreanism) and the tradition of the

church. There are seven colors in the solar spectrum, seven tones in the diatonic musical

scale.

Whereas six represents harmony and concord, seven is not a closed circle but a spiral,

preparatory to the completion of a process. In alchemical theory seven is the gateway

between earth and heaven; the rainbow in its seven colors, appearing after the Deluge,

was a sign of the meeting of the terrestrial and celestial. The process of 'sevening' is like

the Flood in the seventh chapter of Genesis that 'covered the earth', or like a withdrawal

of the spirit of death. On the seventh day, after the six days of creation, God breathed

into man's nostrils the breath of life, 'and man became a living soul.' Seven is the num-

ber of new departures, and of reincarnations.

Calcutta's Mother Teresa writes this:

"We need to find God and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend

of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grow in silence; see the stars, the

moon, the sun, how they move in silence. Is not our mission to give God to the poor in

the slums? Not a dead God, but a living, loving God. The more we receive in silent pray-

er, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The

essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us. All our

words will be useless unless they come from within - words which do not give the light of

Christ increase the darkness."

--Quoted in James Roose-Evans' The Inner Stage

(Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley Publications)

PRAYERS FOR THE NEW YEAR

We give you thanks Lord for the Sab-bath day. We are grateful for its many

blessings: for peace and joy, rest for the body, and refreshment for the soul. May something of its meaning and mes-sage remain with us as we enter the

new week, lifting all that we do to a higher plane of holiness, and inspiring us to work with a new heart. AMEN.

-Gates of Prayer (New York: Central Conference of American Rabbis) Dear Lord, If anyone is in Christ, there

is a new creation: Everything old has passed away; see, everything has be-come new! All this is from God, who reconciled us through Christ, and has

given us the ministry of reconciliation. AMEN.

O Thou that art Beyond and Above,

O Thou that art Below and Within, O Thou who art- Scoop out within each one of us a hol-low, a space, a place.

O Thou that art the eternal Fire, teach us so to play with Thee that we may be burned of all that is waste.

O Thou that art the eternal Sea, O Thou from whom we come and to whom we return, let Thy tides cleanse and renew

us, sweeping through the caves within. O Thou that art the eternal Sun, rise up within each one of us, let Thy light

shine through the space that is within. O thou that art Fire, and Sea, and Sun, pierce our hearts of stone, so that we

may stand like statues against the sky, letting through Thy light. O Thou that art Beyond and Above, O

Thou that art Below and Within, Shape us,/Hollow us,/Pierce us, Divine Sculp-tor, until we stand in that image, fore-seen from all time, the image of our

true selves in Thee. To Thee, Sun, Fire, Sea and Wind, we prostrate ourselves, we lift up our-

selves, we empty and we fill our empti-ness. AMEN. —Roose-Evans, The Inner Stage

Annual Meeting for Bethel Lutheran Church

Sunday, February 7th, following 10:30AM Worship

Mark your calendars now for this important yearly meeting, as we reflect on the

past year and set our ministry goal for 2016 and beyond! Lunch will follow. Join

your sisters and brothers in Christ as we share fellowship and challenge each

other with the call of Jesus Christ.

We are on the WEB!

www.BethelLutheranNE.com

P.O. Box 617, North East, MD 21901

Pastor Mark Crispell

Phone: 443-220-1761

Email: mscrispell@comcast.net

Secretary email:

secretary@bethellutheranne.com

FINANCIAL STEWARDSHIP UPDATE

(November 30, 2015)

Total Budget:

Receipts - $112,200

Disbursements - $114,607

Balance – (-$2,407)

God’s purpose for Bethel

is to be disciples and

make disciples of Jesus

Christ, who pray, love,

and witness, share and

serve.

Worship

Opportunities Early Worship Sundays at 8:00 A.M.

(with holy communion)

Sunday School for adults, Sundays at

9AM

Worship with Holy Communion

Sundays at 10:30 A.M.

Contemporary Service (The last Sun-

day of the month) – 10:30 A.M.

Youth Sunday is January 18th and you’re running the show. We need

youth of all ages to be: usher, greeter, reader, acolyte, communion

assistant and more. We will have rehearsal in preparation on Sun-

days January 24th at 9:00 AM. Contact Gretchen Brown

(gbrown@ccps.org) or Abby Brown (abrown90898@gmail.com) if you

are interested and show up at the rehearsal.

Sisters of Serenity is the name of the women's Narcotics Anonymous meeting be-

ing held at the Bethel Lutheran Church on Monday nights at 7:00 pm. Our attend-

ance has averaged about 20 women. There have been an average of 5 children

using the Nursery during the meetings ranging from 6 months to 12 years

old. Women who attend the meeting come from throughout the area including

the 2 local women recovery houses. Spouses and parents of recovering people

can attend the Nar Anon meeting downstairs that meets from 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm.

A Narcotics Anonymous group is any meeting of two or more recovering addicts who meet regularly at a specific time and place for the purpose of recovery from the disease of addiction. All Narcotics Anonymous groups are bound by the principles of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of NA.

This has been a needed recovery support for many families in Cecil County. If

we can recover together, we have a better chance at success!

Coming Soon in February…

* Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, February 9th at 6PM

* Annual Congregational Meeting, Sunday February 7th

immediately following 10:30AM Worship

* Lent Begins on Ash Wednesday, February 10th (Worship

@7PM)

* Congregational Roller Skating Party at Christiana, Sunday

February 28th, from 5:15-7:15PM

Whitecap Wisdom

Corporate public worship and spirit-building

events have now become just one more

leisure activity among others. Time for

communion with the Creator, spiritual growth

and thankful praise must be squeezed into

that busy leisure-activities calendar no

differently than getting your racquetball court

or making that trip to the mall. But "Thus

said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, 'In

returning and rest you shall be saved; in

quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

"But you refused."

Sabbath rest, as made clear by the prophet

Isaiah, is not some elective which we may or

may not choose to augment our faith. The

health of our spirit, our soul, our self depends

on taking a "time-out" to focus obediently on

our life of faith. Without this time of Sabbath

settling there is no opportunity for God's rest

and God's spirit to percolate throughout the

entirety of our being.