Snow Wonder We’re Friends

It’s been a fairly eventful few days in and around the DC metro area. A historic snowfall of more than 2 feet over the weekend (the 2010 “snowmageddon”) and now we’ve got more snow coming in just a few hours (“snowmageddon part deux?). Just about everyone in our cooperative parish has had to do their fair share of shoveling snow and many people have experienced power outages in their homes and apartments. Through it all we’ve been reminded of just how fortunate we are to have neighbors who help us shovel the driveway, invite us into their warm living rooms and remind us that no amount of snow can remove us from others.

We had to cancel church on Sunday, February 7 because there was too much snow, but that didn’t stop us from gathering for worship. At 10am this past Sunday nearly 60 people – of all ages – phoned in to a conference call worship service. We shared in liturgy and prayers, sang hymns, reflected with one another through a wonderful time of bible study and gave praise to the God who binds us together at all times.

Sunday’s conference call worship service was a great reminder of our cooperative parish’s commitment to gather together to worship and praise God, no matter what. It was also reminder that we do not travel, or shovel, these icy roads alone.

Check Out Our Official Cooperative Covenant!

In order to live more faithfully into our present and our future as a cooperative parish, we have created this covenant to guide our shared ministry. The Silver Spring Cooperative Parish is a dual-site church functioning under the direction of a single unified leadership body with each site established as a center of excellence for specific ministry areas/initiatives as determined by the joint Leadership Council.

Our goal is to be an Acts 2 Disciple-Making Congregation as described by the Baltimore-Washington Conference in the strategy to “Strive for Five.” Specifically:

* Celebrate (touched by God through Worship)
* Connect (transformed by God through Relationships)
* Develop (Shaped by God through Study and Spiritual Disciplines)
* Serve (Gifted by God to Serve Others) and
* Share (Led by God to be a Witness).

To download our Cooperative Parish Covenant, which was ratified unanimously by our Cooperative Leadership Council on Sunday, January 24, 2009, click here:

Cooperative Parish Covenant

January 2010 Messenger

Click here to get your January 2010 Cooperative Parish Messenger Newsletter!

January Messenger

The House that Love Built

VIM Trip – Day 3

from Wendy Hudgins, VIM team member:

Today, due to the rain, our bridge/ramp building efforts here in rural (waaaay rural) NC were delayed. Instead we shifted gears and went to help out a very sweet multi-generational family fix up their sorely run-down home. Hearing their story, we learned that they have endured a whole lot of heartache, family loss and medical problems. But they are clearly grateful for what they have. And one of the things that they have is a very strong faith. Quite an inspiration to each of us. Especially today when W.L. Day, the patriarch who’s in his late 60s broke down into tears telling us his story of a near death experience. He said, “the good Lord must not have been done with me here on earth yet.” ‘Couldn’t help but to hug him and sing the last main verse of a song that moved me when the Liberian choir sang it at Woodside… “Oh, Lord please hear our prayer”

And as the locals here would say, we say to all of YOU… “we all appreciate y’uns” keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. And this Volunteer In Mission group can’t believe tomorrow is our last day. It feels like we just got here. Such a privilege to be here helping.

And to our wonderful Woodside family. Thank you. We are so, so blessed.

(photos are the home, and the girls and Julia, our fearless leader, on one of the girls’ beds after the girls got to see their new bedrooms for the first time.)

Men’s Retreat Recap

During the weekend of October 2-4, 2009, 11 guys (okay, men) from our cooperative parish – men from both Marvin and Woodside – took to Camp Pecometh on the eastern shore for a weekend of fellowship, service and renewal.

Friday was an evening to get settled in, enjoy the sensible and smart option of sharing in a cookout, and talking about the retreat’s theme of “This I Believe” over a camp fire.

Saturday was a day for service!  The retreat men spent the morning and afternoon serving at a Habitat for Humanity work site, building and raising walls all while instilling structural confidence in the neighbors, site supervisors and home owners!  After the long days work the crew took to dinner out and a early night’s rest.

On Sunday the men had a late breakfast at the retreat center, shared morning devotions together by reading their own “This I Believe” statements, celebrated communion together and, if we might go so far to say, did an excellent job cleaning up after themselves.

It was a great retreat!  Not only did those Habitat walls go up (and stay up!) but the weekend gave some of the men of our cooperative parish the opportunity to better get to know one another through sharing in faith and service.

Check out the link below for a picture montage recap of the weekend (and thank you Bob for all the great photos!):

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=151072807477

Volunteers in Mission Team Update: Day 2

From Wendy Hudgins, VIM team member:

Excellent day today. First day with a family.

Hilda, the daughter (late 40s) needs dialysis, so today we built an extension to the deck so that tomorrow we can build a ramp for her to get down more easily for her dialysis. We’re calling it “Building a bridge to save a life.” We’re all beat from a long day but all have full hearts and look forward to going back tomorrow.

Willa Mae, Zane, and Suzanne are in the last pic.

Volunteers in Mission Team Arrives in Western NC

From Bob Browning, VIM Team Leader:

We made excellent time with Jane C. and Joe W. at the helm. We arrived at 5:30 and met with our Volunteer Coordinator [at the Hinton Rural Life Center], Julia Buckner who just graduated from Candler!!!! We bragged about our pastors. We did a lot of group bonding (and laughing) en route and are ready to tackle the work tomorrow morning. It is a very good team. We dined with Julia and did our food shopping and are preparing for bed at present. Thank you for coming out this morning and serving communion. It was very good of Shannon to come as well. It’s the Woodside way.

Youth Group goes Outside

Our first cooperative parish youth group gathering of the fall was a blast!  We played games on the lawn at Woodside and ate burgers and hot dogs for dinner.  One of the games involved a race to mummify the pastors by wrapping them in toilet paper.   During this fun, silly game, I overheard one of the youth ask, “I wonder what people driving by are thinking about all this?”  I hope everyone who saw us thought, “That looks like fun!”

Worship in the Park

Our last worship service of the summer and first joint worship service of our cooperative parish was a great success.  God provided the beautiful weather and we had music, praise, prayers, and a blessing of the backpacks.  And of course, there was lots of good food and fun on the moonbounce at the picnic afterwards.  Check out a few pics.

Picnic fun

good food

good fellowship

praise and worship

backpack blessing