Archive - TCC Flash

Potatoes for the Pantry – For the past several years, your generosity has provided the Tewksbury Community Food Pantry with all of the potatoes necessary for their Thanksgiving baskets for the upcoming holiday, making the celebration of family so much brighter for our friends in need.  This year, our goal is to provide 150 - 5lb bags of potatoes!   Our collection for this wonderful project ends TODAY!

You can make a monetary donation, using the pew envelopes that are marked as such.  Checks should be made out to TCC with Potatoes for Pantry in the memo line. 

If you’re bringing a donation of a 5-lb bag (or more!) of potatoes, please bring the bags up to the altar.  Using the monetary donations received, Carol and Bob Sturtevant will purchase the remainder of the potatoes needed and deliver 150 bags of potatoes to the Food Pantry in grand fashion! 

Thank you for helping so many families feel loved this Thanksgiving holiday!

As you know, we only serve homemade pies, so dig out your favorite recipe and support TCC’s Pie Social on Friday evening, December 6th, beginning at 5:30 pm. 

Sign up to donate after worship services or use SignUpGenius to register your name and your donation. 

Your participation is welcome and needed!  Let's make this Pie Social the best one yet!

We would like to invite all the ladies who have signed up for Soul Sisters to a social mixer/book swap!

Where:  Panera Bread, 228 Main Street

Wilmington, MA

(Market Basket Plaza)

When:  November 9th: 2:30-5:30

Please come and have a bite to eat with us, mingle and chat with old friends and maybe make a few new ones. Bring a book that you’ve loved to swap with a sister. (all unclaimed books will be donated to the Tewksbury Library). If you can only make part of this time, that’s okay. Do whatever your schedule allows. We’ll talk about events we’d like to enjoy together and start planning for the upcoming months.

Let’s unwind and take a minute just to ourselves. You’re worth it!! Leave the kiddos and the men at home and come enjoy time with some great ladies.

We can’t wait to see you!

Desma and Pam

Every day I miss many of my loved ones that have passed away.  I think about my grandmothers and how they were a great influence in my life.  They were both very different but there is one thing they held in common...they both cooked wonderful food!  Again, I miss them every day.

There is a saying that is used in various parts of my native South after someone has lost a loved one.  You may have heard it in New England or other parts of the world.  People will say "she went on" or "he went on" after someone loses a loved one. The saying describes the perseverance of a person who has lost a spouse or child and is grieving.  It can also mean that the person is strong and must move on because there could be a family to support.  

As a church, it is always good to have days to acknowledge grief of any kind.  

This Sunday we will celebrate All Saints' Day.  It is a day to acknowledge our grief and remember members of our church family who have passed away within the last year.  Sometimes churches will let churchgoers remember other people outside of their church family.  The day is celebrated because it very much symbolizes that even in our grief we find a way to move forward.  

I guess you can say, "the church went on" to continue its ministry to its community.

The Book of Revelation gives a beautiful description of what our future may hold.  This book of hope describes something wonderful in Chapter 21 and the first six verses.  John of Patmos writes about a day where the old has passed away.  All the old things that cause us pain are no more.

John describes that "God's dwelling place" will be with God's people.  Things like death, crying, or pain will have "passed away."  Did you hear that?  Instead of those we love passing away things that hurt us deeply will pass away instead.  

I totally believe when all the "old" passes we will be with those whom we have lost.  These will be the saints who have gone before us.  We will all celebrate.  More importantly, we will be with God.

So let's celebrate All Saint's Day this Sunday with great thanksgiving.  Seeing this is our first All Saints' Day in a very long time, we will give God thanks for all our church saints who have gone on ahead of us.  You will have an opportunity during our worship service to come and light a candle in memory of someone or many who made a great impact in your life or in the life of our church family.  

Let's all move on together until the "old" has passed away.  We will celebrate the "new" that is on the way.

Blessings,

Rev. Baxter

I invite you to join me for a spiritually uplifing weekend!

When: November 7th-10th, 2019

Where: St. Thecla's Retreat Center, 77 Dudley Road, Billerica, MA

Set aside some time for God and yourself.  Get away from your usual busy schedule by joining men like yourself, wise enough to seek His answers to life, family and eternity.  ACTS is an acronym for Adoration, Community, Theology and Service.  This weekend is an opportunity to strengthen your faith, renew yourself spiritually and establish friendships with some great men.  All Christian men age 21 and older are encouraged to attend. 

Registration forms are available right outside the church office or by calling Mike Wildeman at 508-341-3193.

What is the Love Offering, you may ask? 

     Have you heard anyone speak about the Market Basket cards that are used to help support those in need in our local community?  Hopefully, the answer is yes, but if not, let me tell you about it.  The Love Offering is collected monthly, on the 1st Sunday of the month, Communion Sunday.  The funds from this special collection are used to buy Market Basket gift cards that are then handed out to those within Tewksbury and surrounding towns, to those who are down on their luck and facing difficult financial times. 

     This extremely important ministry has been supported by our congregation for over a decade and has helped many local community and church members in times of desperate need.  On average the Deacons are distributing about $600 a month worth of Market Basket gift cards, money all funded from the generosity of the congregation.  When individuals or families come seeking some assistance they are not only supported financially, but they are also connected to other services within our community and offered spiritual support and guidance.  In order to help continue this ministry and the increasing needs, we need your help.  Please consider donating to the Love Offering, as you are able, so we at TCC can help support our fellow community members in their times of need.

If you’ve signed up to participate in Soul Sisters but have not yet picked who you have as your Soul Sister, please see Pam Dooley or Desma Kuras to find out who you have.

If you are unable to make it to service and need assistance picking your name, please reach out to us and we’ll help with that. PamD1969@GMAIL.com or Dezadoo@YAHOO.com.

ALSO…We neglected to ask for your address when you signed up and some of our sisters would like to send mail to their sisters as we’ve been able to do in years past. Would you mind reaching out to Pam or Desma and providing your address so we can pass that along to your sister? We apologize for this oversight.

Thanks to your generosity, 60 sets of pajamas will be delivered to The Wish Project in Chelmsford, early next week!  There is still time to donate, if you missed the opportunity.  Please see Joanne Kenney if you wish to add to this collection before onTuesday morning.  

Thank you also to the kids and adults who enthusiastically donned their favorite PJs for the occassion.  We love your spirit!

The children and adults who will receive these gifts will understand that love and care are all around them.  Amen to that!

As is our Halloween tradition at TCC, we will be collecting any 'extra' candy and bagging it up to be given out to our friends at the Lowell Transitional Living Center.  They really enjoy and are thankful for this special treat.  Whether you have some that was not handed out at your door or you would like to downsize the stash that your children brought in, we can put it to great use!   A marked bin will be at the side entrance on the Sunday following Halloween (Nov 3rd), or you can pass it on to Joanne Kenney.  It will be sorted and bagged that day, after the community wide breakfast.. 

Thank you in advance for your donations! 

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Christina and I would like to take a moment to thank all of you as we celebrate the birth of our daughter, Ansley Lauren Chism.  We are so thankful for the gifts, cards, food, and well-wishes.  Especially, we thank you for your prayers and support.  Again, we are truly grateful!

On this topic, I would like to discuss the blessings we receive by being grateful to God.  Gratefulness doesn't come easy from time to time because this is a challenging world.  I think that may be why we find writer after writer in the Bible bringing up gratefulness.  It is an important response among many we can have.  Some share gratefulness easily while others not so easily.

In the Book of Psalms, there are many references to being grateful.  Psalm 95 challenged the people of that time to "shout aloud" with thanksgiving through "music and song."  That is why we sing hymns of praise in our worship service.  Many of you like contemporary praise music which often reminds us of being grateful.

The Epistle letters in the New Testament challenge us to practice gratefulness even during trials we have in life.  Much of these writings were to the early churches, who often struggled with questions about life or simply being followers of Christ.  It was important for the writers to rally everyone and remind them of the blessings that come from being grateful.  James 1:1-4 shows that applying gratefulness to "testing" situations can produce "perseverance" to continue on and overcome.

I recently was reading a commentary by Dr. David Lose.  In his words, he talked about a coworker battling cancer.  It was in remission but his friend knew that wouldn't last forever.  Every time he asked her how she was doing her response was, "I'm grateful."  I honestly can't say that would be my response.

Dr. Lose went on to say that there are many responses and emotions we can share in any circumstance.  But the one that produces the most fruit is usually gratefulness.  Maybe if one part of life isn't working out then maybe we can acknowledge other things we can be thankful for.  That's just a theory of mine.

But being grateful is more than a feeling.  It's something in which we actively participate in our response to God's Word and grace.  

Our gratefulness can lead us to greater participation in our church and community.  Gratefulness turns into an act of love and kindness toward others around us.  Gratefulness reminds us of how following Jesus has changed us.  Some of you may celebrate gratefulness because of how God helped you during a difficult situation.  Gratefulness steers our focus to the important things.  

The great philosopher Aristotle talked about gratefulness.  If you remember your history, Aristotle loved a good debate.  He is quoted as saying, "It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those whose views we may agree with, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for those also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought."

In a debate or the things that happen to us in life, maybe gratefulness causes us to think about something other than that hard thing that hurts.  Maybe the debate we have is between our mind and soul and the soul screams for us to be grateful.  Gratefulness helps us to still see the sun rise and set in the midst of tears.  Maybe it helps us to enjoy the precious moments we have with our family.

Gratefulness can do a lot of things.

Blessings,

Rev. Baxter