Weekly Bulletin

The Second Sunday in Advent

December 8^th, 2024

FAITH LUTHERAN CHURCH

KITCHENER, ONTARIO

N2M 4Z2

247 Westmount Road East                Telephone 519-745-6422

     Pastor Warren Hamp                     Telephone 519-571-0240

   www.faithlutherankw.com

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    PRAYER: Heavenly Father, Whose will and desire is that all come to repentance and faith in Your Son to be saved, we thank you for the preaching of John the Baptist, and for Your Son, the Messiah, to Whom He points us. Speak again to us in Word and Supper today, that Your way of grace be made clear in our lives; for You live and reign with Your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.  

IN OUR PRAYERS:

• Those who bear the sword of authority in our country and around the world; aid to those who are poor and homeless in our community; order for Haiti; the victims of warfare in Ukraine, in Gaza and Israel and Lebanon, in Sudan, and in all places of conflict
• Those in need of healing or comfort, especially John, Marilyn, Betty, Gina to be remembered by Jesus; John Couch, Jim Hammond, Ron Witt, Ray Knipping, for healing or patience by God’s grace; Pastor Robert Clifford, in cancer treatment; Bill House, in palliative care; Colleen and Michael for patience in their struggle; Lynda Kahl, recovering from surgery; Joyce Barker, in ICU; those who struggle with anxiety or depression, and difficulties in their families, especially at this time
• Repentance, faith, and good works to flow in Christ’s Church in these Advent days; Timothy our Synod President, Marvin, David, and Robert, our Regional Pastors, Andre, our Circuit Counsellor; our Lutheran; churches in Ukraine and in Russia, Haiti, and Nicaragua, for God’s preservation in every need; Rev. James D. Kay who serves as pastor of the Sudanese congregation of Grace Lutheran Church in Edmonton

LAST WEEK –

ATTENDANCE E: 53     L: 51

SUNDAY SCHOOL: 15   BIBLE STUDY: 17

WEDNESDAY VESPERS: 25

STEWARDSHIP

	Weekly Goal	Last Sunday	Goal To Date	Rec’d To Date
CURRENT	$4474	$7894	$214744	$204773
MISSIONS	$618	$580	$29649	$28215
BUILDING	$674	$680	$32330	$33044

CURRENT: Current Memorial $905

OTHER:  Rancheria Nutrition $50, Building Fund Memorial $120, Redeemer Vicarage Support Fund $80, National Youth Gathering 2025 Fund $465

A donation in memory of Paul Guil from Sharon Bateman; Brad & Jo Baechler; Sandi Hammond; John & Jacquie Couch; Ron & Linda Witt; Bud & Jill Brown; Barb Hallman; Kathy & Gary Wagner; Dieter Kromm; Gerry & Karen Goebel; Karl & Brenda Witzke to Current Memorial, and from Tammi Eggen; Brain & Judy Wardle to Building Fund Memorial and from Esther Groleau to National Youth Gathering 2025 Fund.

THE LUTHERAN HOUR weekly message of inspiration and hope will be broadcast on CKWR, FM 98.5 on Sunday at 6pm. You can listen on-line at  www.lutheranhour.org. “Completely Ordinary Human” Lutheran Hour Speaker: Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler. Everyone has a story to tell and yours can be one through which Jesus is working to make the world new again. (Malachi 3:7)

WOMAN TO WOMAN

May be downloaded at womantowomanradio.com

ISSUES ETC. CHRISTIANITY & OTHER WORLD RELIGIONS……Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism, Scientology.  Issues, Etc., a radio talk show and podcast produced by Lutheran Public Radio in Collinsville, IL, is doing a World Religions 101 series with Dr. Adam Francisco of Concordia University Chicago.  You can listen to this multi-part series at issuesetc.org/worldreligions.

THIS WEEK AT FAITH

Just a friendly reminder – please refrain from wearing perfumes or other strong scents when coming to worship, in care for your sisters and brothers who are scent-sensitive. Thank you.

Today, following the Divine Service, we gather for our Congregational Meeting downstairs. Lunch will be provided (with thanks to Lauren Lang and Kim Young). Please join in and contribute to our congregation’s plans for the next year of God’s grace.

This Wednesday we gather at 7:00pm for the second of three Advent Vespers services. God grant you to take time out of December to rest in Christ, our Saviour born of Mary.

Next Sunday, December 15th, you are invited to stay – or come early – for our Sunday School Christmas Program at 9:30am.

Our Advent ingathering this year will be items for Food4Kids, Waterloo Region. They supply children facing chronic hunger with food for weekends, and school holidays when students don’t have access to school nutrition programs. Some of their most needed items are canned soups, instant oatmeal, canned tuna or chicken and cereals. They accept any brand within the expiry date. Boxes will be set out in the narthex for collecting. Thank you in advance.

Faith Ladies Guild is again supporting Michael Thomas, in his second year at St. Catharines, as their adopted seminary student. God willing, he will wed Beatrice Reinhardt later this month. We are collecting a White gift to give to Michael for Christmas. Envelopes have been placed in the mail slots and are also available on the table in the narthex. Just put your donation in the envelope and put it in the collection plate before the end of December.

CALLING ALL BAKERS

Faith Ladies Guild is planning on our third annual cookie/bake sale on Dec. 15 and we ask for a donation of your cookies/baked goods. We will prepare plates of assorted cookies/squares for sale on Sunday, Dec. 15. If you wish to donate a batch of your cookies, please bring them to the church on Friday, Dec. 13 or early Saturday morning, Dec. 14 so we can assemble assorted plates on Saturday for sale on Sunday morning.

Faith Ladies Guild COOKIE/BAKE SALE, DECEMBER 15 between services and after late service. We now have Interac e-Transfer set up through our congregation’s bank account. If you wish to make use of this for your offerings to God, then please email Sherrie for the details at: office@faithlutherankw.com

Faith Ladies Guild is holding their Christmas Potluck meeting next Saturday, Dec. 14.  All ladies are welcome. Bring some food to share and a $15 gift for our gift exchange. We hope to see you there.

From the Faith Church Council –

Our Nicaragua Team 2024 Fund has been renamed the Central American Team Fund. We are investigating possibilities for the team to serve in 2025. More information will be shared when we have more details. We are currently not accepting donations to this new fund until we have the details of the team’s new work. When those details are confirmed, we will be seeking further donations. Please continue to pray for Christ’s church in Nicaragua in these difficult days.

The Redeemer Vicarage Support Fund is ongoing, in support of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Waterloo, who is hosting Vicar Vijay Samuel this year. Since all congregations benefit from the Vicarage training, we desire to assist our sisters and brothers at Redeemer. You can give support on the ‘Other’ line of your offering envelope.

Thirdly, the Council has established the National Youth Gathering 2025 Fund to encourage youth from Faith to attend the LCC National Youth Gathering in Waterloo next July. You can give support on the ‘Other’ line of your offering envelope. (N.B. at this point we have received enough donations to cover the costs of the Gathering – Thank YOU!)

The Flower Calendar for 2025 is posted in the old narthex. Please fill in your name if you wish to provide flowers on any Sunday (except for Lent) as a memorial for a loved one or to celebrate a special day.  A flower convenor will contact you to finalize details prior to the date that you have reserved.  Thank you.

Grace Lutheran Church, Kitchener, 136 Margaret Ave, is hosting English as a second language Bible studies weekly on Tuesday evenings from 7-8:15PM.  These studies are at an intermediate to advanced level and follow the theme of the church calendar, so if you invite your acquaintance to attend and then invite them to join you in worship on Sunday morning, they will have a general grasp of the theme of the Gospel reading each Sunday.  The studies are designed for newcomers who are new to Christianity and the Holy Bible.  For more information, please see our website.

We have a use for gently-used Portals of Prayer and other devotional booklets! If you bring yours back to church and place it in the box beneath the literature table, it will make its way to edify women at a women’s shelter in Hamilton.

After much prayer and thoughtful consideration, we have come to the difficult decision to pause Community Cupboard for this upcoming season. The decision was not a financial one, as we had the assets allocated for this season; but rather a decision based on the safety of our volunteers and guests. With the current changes on site, we could not come up with a satisfactory plan that we felt would ensure safety week in and week out. We thank you for your continued prayer and support for Community Cupboard, and we wanted to be transparent with the current status of the program. At this time, we will hold off on accepting items and donations to Community Cupboard, until further notice. The future is still bright for Community Cupboard, and the addition of Affordable

We now have Interac e-Transfer set up through our congregation’s bank account. If you wish to make use of this for your offerings to God, then please email Sherrie for the details at: office@faithlutherankw.com