“This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing. Haste, haste to bring him praise, the babe, the son of Mary” — Refrain of “What Child is This?”

As Advent begins and so does our journey toward Christmas, I find myself lost in Christmas carols already. I listen to them in my car, they are readily available on my phone, and if you stop by the office, there is a pretty good chance that you will hear some carols coming from my computer! I even had to play a few before Thanksgiving when the first snowfall arrived. (I know, I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t resist!)

At this time of year, I find myself longing to hear the sermon in these familiar songs once more. Granted, the message hasn’t changed. We are still singing of the same wonderful birth and of the glories to come. Yet these words have a holy truth which speaks to a spectrum of reality, feeling both new and exciting, but also timeless and calming.

At the same time as I am clamoring for more carols, I also feel the need to not rush the season but cherish these days. For the overall sermon in these songs is one of love. A love which our world needs. And so, this Advent and Christmas season, may we hear these sermons of love and let them transform our hearts once more, carrying the blessings of this season with us all year long.

Peace,

Josh

Rev. Josh Fitterling

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December

2018

Holiday Marketfest Craft Show — Dec. 7-8

The Wiscasset Chamber of Commerce’s Holiday Marketfest craft vendor venue will again be in Fellowship Hall on De-cember 7th and 8th. This is our last Revenue Raiser of the year. We will be offering church-baked muffins in the morn-ing, chili and soup and cornbread for lunch, and cookies in the afternoon. All supplies and recipes will be provided for baking/cooking on-site during those two days. Volunteers are needed for two to three hour shifts on both Friday and Saturday to help bake and cook and serve. Please sign up in Fellowship Hall, or contact Beth Maxwell for further information if you are interest-ed in helping but are not sure of your baking skills. (phone 207-882-6180, emax-well@myfairpoint.net)

The Maine Conference United Church of Christ has a new address!

337 State Street

Suite 3

Augusta, ME 04330

Advent Calendars, many of which contain little Bible verses and sweet treats, have long been used to accompany us on the journey of “waiting” as we head toward Christmas!

This year, you are invited to participate in a special Virtual Advent Calendar which will fo-cus on giving rather than receiving.

If you sign up, you will receive a special mes-sage each day from Rev. Josh, between Dec. 1st

to Dec. 24th, with a little note and a suggestion of something to do that day as we seek to share the hope, peace, joy, and love that we celebrate each Advent season! Sign up at the link below to receive daily emails:

http://www.uccwiscasset.org/virtual-advent-calendar-2018

If you with to receive a paper copy of the calendar to follow along offline, please be in touch with the church office.

December Cookie Sale!

The date for the Organ Society’s Annual Cookie Sale will be a few weeks later than usual due to other activities on the church calendar. So please plan to buy your deli-cious Christmas cookies in Fellowship Hall, on Sunday, December 16.

To make this year’s sale as successful as past years, we need your help. Please bring your

donation of cookies to the church by 9:30am on Saturday, December 15th. That day a group of Organ Society ladies will package the goodies for easy distribution on Sunday. We hope to offer 45-50 plates of cookies for $5.00 each.

Hope you will include these delicious treats at your holiday gatherings!

Thank you in advance for your help.

Please call Joan Shea, 207-882-4067, with any questions.

Bible Study Update

With the busyness of this time of year, weekly Bible Study will continue to take a break until the New Year. We will resume in January.

Keep your eye out for updates as we approach!

December 2018

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 Town Tree Light-ing 4:30pm

2 Family Worship & Communion

Hanging of the Greens

Advent Wkshop

3

Game Night 6pm

4 Garden Club Board Mtg 1:30 (upstairs)

Healthy Kids Playgroup 10-12

5 Organ Society 9:30am

6 Garden Club 10am-3pm

Holiday Market-fest Set up 3pm-7pm

7 Holiday Market-fest Craft Fair

8 Holiday Market-fest Craft Fair

9 Family Worship

Christmas Fund Offering

10

Game Night 6pm

11

HK 10am-12pm

12

Organ Society 9:30 am

13 Chase Point Ser-vice 10:30am

Choir Rehearsal 4pm

14 15 Organ Society cookie prep

16 Worship & Church School

Choir Sunday

Organ Society Cookie Sale

17

CIS 4pm

Trustees 5pm

Game Night 6pm

18

HK 10am-12pm

19 Organ Society Holiday Lunch

Blue Christmas Service 6pm (FH)

20

Choir Rehearsal 4pm

Council 7pm

21 22

23 Worship & Church School

24 Christmas Eve Worship 7pm and 11:30pm

25 26 No Organ Society

27

No Choir Re-hearsal

28 29

30 Worship 10am

Lessons & Carols

31 Wiscasset Green Coffee 9am

Game Night 6pm

Advent Craft Workshop — Dec. 2 Our annual Advent Craft Workshop will be held on Sunday, De-cember 2nd, from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. and we would love to have you join our team! We will be making Christmas cards, ginger-bread houses, tree ornaments, table decorations, and holiday hours d’oeuvres, as well as decorating cookies. Again this year, we are delighted that Dr. Jeff Grosser will be playing Christmas

carols for us while we work! This is for all ages.

To our Coffee Hosts for December Trustees

Emily Adler Art Ballard Carol Bradford

Jeffrey Grosser Sue Lewis Jon McKinney

Michelle Peele Chris Sieracki David Sieracki Cindy Wright

The church school would like to thank the thought-ful and kind person who left us the book “The Blessings Jar.” We are spending the second Sunday of the month telling each other what we have put in our “blessings” or gratitude jar.

I have kept a daily gratitude journal for 16 years. I planned to make gratitude the focus of the church school year. I was delighted to find “Blessings Jar” in the church mailbox.

We are grateful to you, kind and anonymous friend, for the gift.

Colleen Crowley

Thanks from these Summerfest Recipients (Letters are posted on the CWS bulletin board.)

Midcoast Humane Healthy Kids Habitat for Humanity Mobius

MaineHealth Care at Home (Sussman House, Lifeline in the Midcoast)

Carpenter’s Boat Shop Feed Our Scholars ElderCare Tedford Housing

Deadline for Poinsettia Orders is Tuesday, Dec. 4!! With Christmas on the way, now is the time to order poinsettias if you would like to help decorate our sanctuary on Dec. 16, 23, 24, and 30. Each 6.5” poinsettia is $12.00, and can be ordered in red, white, or pink. You are welcome to take them home after the service

of Lessons and Carols on Dec. 30. Any remaining flowers will be delivered to indi-viduals who serve our community, home-bound members of the congregation or anyone else in need of some Christmas cheer.

Special UCC Offering for the Christmas Fund for the Veterans of the Cross

and the Emergency Fund

Our church will be collecting the special offering for the UCC Christmas Fund during worship on Dec. 9th. This offering has been collected in the UCC for over a century and is designed to pro-vide retiree health premium supplementation, emergency grants and Christmas “Thank you” gift checks to individuals who have served the church for many years and now face unexpected financial needs.

We received a lovely card from Dan Harris (now hung on the bulletin board outside the church office)

Rev. Fitterling and members of the First Congregational Church of Wiscasset,

Thank you so much for the boxes of snacks. They were unexpected and very much appreciated!

On behalf of myself and my co-workers [who added their signa-tures to the card] , thanks for thinking of us!

Sincerely, Dan Harris

From the Diaconate….

As you prepare for Christmas, are you also preparing for the birth of Jesus? The Board of Deacons invites you to join us in worship as we move through the Season of Advent, one of the most beautiful and meaningful seasons of our church. It begins this Sunday with "The Hanging of the Greens" and wraps up on December 30 with our service of lessons and carols. In between, the children will perform for us, the choir will present a cantata and we will hold our Christmas Eve services. As usual on Christmas Eve, we will have our family service at 7 pm. This year we are adding an-other service on Christmas Eve. This one will be held at 11:30 pm. It will not be a tra-ditional church service but rather a quiet period of reflection. We hope you will join us for all these services as we once again celebrate Christ's birth. A special thank you to Phyllis Soule for the wreaths, Green Acre Christmas Tree Farm for the tree and all of you for supplying the poinsettias that beautify our sanc-tuary.

Church World Service

Holiday Family Wishes Program Facilitated by the CWS Committee, our church has again participated in the Holiday Family Wishes program to provide needs and wishes for Christmas gifts for Wiscasset children. Wish tags were on a Christmas tree in Fellowship Hall during coffee hour on November 18th and 25th. All unwrapped gits with the tag attached should be re-turned to the church by Sunday, December 2nd; or they can be returned to the Wis-casset Town Office, Wiscasset Community Center, or Ames True Value by Monday Dec. 3rd. Thank you all for your generosity and eagerness to fulfill these wishes so our children know that their community cares about them.

Feed Our Scholars Bake Sale at Ames, Saturday, Dec. 8th, 7am to 1pm Feed Our Scholars will be holding a Bake Sale at Ames on Saturday, Dec. 8th, from 7am to 1pm. Baked goods would be greatly appreciated. The baked goods can be brought to Ames after 7am on Saturday or left at St. Philip’s on Friday. Please call Nancy Roby with any questions (phone 207-882-6441, cell 207-380-9081).

Donations of Children’s Hats/Mittens Feed Our Scholars would also appreciate donations of hats and/or mittins for the chil-dren.

… And another Paint Night Party on the Way Mark your calendars now: Feed Our Scholars will be holding another Paint Night Party on Friday, February 8th. It will be a fun night to chase away the winter blues! Please plan to come!!

Again … thank you all so much for all you do all year to help others!!

Noisy Offering for October raised

$171.85

for the St. Philip’s Food Pantry!

Thanks for all your help with this very im-portant service to our community.

Meeting House Chimes

First Congregational Church, U.C.C.

P.O. Box 350, 28 High Street

Wiscasset, ME 04578

December

2018

First Congregational Church

United Church of Christ

28 High Street, PO Box 350

Wiscasset, Maine 04578

We welcome you to the First Congrega-tional Church of Wiscasset. We are an

open and affirming congregation and are open theologically, growing spiritually, and

concerned socially.