Wednesday, December 21st at 7:00 pm

For many of us, Christmas is a bittersweet time for remembering people who are now gone or times in our lives that are now so changed.

Yet God offers us comfort and hope even when we feel so out of sync with ‘the Season.’

Please join us for this special service of music, scripture, stories, silent reflection and healing prayer.

Invite someone. Invite yourself.

A time for those who find rejoicing hard work this year.

Don’t miss our annual Choir Christmas offering as part of our worship service at 11:00 the Sunday before Christmas. Hear the Christmas story in word and song as the youth and the choir together celebrate Christ’s birth. Reception and lunch is after the service.

If you’ll miss Sunday, come to the dress rehearsal at Friendship Manor Dec 14th at 7:00 where our Choir and Youth and join in fellowship with the residents (including our very own Cornelia and Pearl!).

Thanks to Joe Taylor for stuffing backpacks all November at Liberty. Erma and Jay Macht will be stuffing backpacks for December. If you are interested in stuffing backpacks for April or May (Jan –Mar are already taken), please see Pauline Moore.

Did you know that Great Harvest does not provide food the week of Thanksgiving to our special friends at Liberty? Well Shiloh would not let them go without so we shopped and assembled special Thanksgiving backpacks for each sponsored child.

Special thank you to Dick Jenkins who created 36 Christmas stockings for each Blessings child. With money donated by Shiloh, our youth shopped to stuff the stockings. The week of December 12th, the stockings will be added to the backpacks for a special surprise.

Please check out this article in the Oldham Era:

http://www.oldhamera.com/content/era-readers-support-blessings-backpack

November was fabulous for Youth Ministry and we are really looking forward to December! We kicked off our new study based on the movie “To Save a Life”, have had wonderful discussion concerning the issues in this movie, shopped for at least 5 shoeboxes, made stockings for the children of inmates and served a wonderful meal to the residents of McCauley House. I don’t know if we can beat that in December! Our youth parents are the real heroes in all this ministry as they shuffle schedules and provide continuous support for both their kids and kids they barely know.

Here comes December so hold onto your hats!
December 7 - Breath of Life (meet at Goshen Store at 5:30)
December 14 - Friendship Manor with the choir to perform the cantata
December 18 - Youth will have reading parts during the cantata
December 20 - Bell Ringers for Salvation Army at Prospect Kroger(2:00-4:00)
December 21 - No Youth meeting - 7:00 Blue Christmas Service
December 28- Youth White Elephant & New Year’s Party at Shiloh Church 5:00-8:00 pm

O God, our hope and refuge,
in our distress we come quickly to you.
Shock and horror of that tragic day have subsided,
replaced now with an emptiness,
a longing for an innocence lost.

We come remembering those who lost their lives
in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania.

We are mindful of the sacrifice of public servants
who demonstrated the greatest love of all
by laying down their lives for friends.
We commit their souls to your eternal care
and celebrate their gifts to a fallen humanity.

We come remembering
and we come in hope,
not in ourselves, but in you.

As foundations we once thought secure have been shaken,
we are reminded of the illusion of security.

In commemorating this tragedy,
we give you thanks for your presence
in our time of need
and we seek to worship you in Spirit and in truth,
our guide and our guardian.  Amen.