Covenant Update
Dear Covenant Church Family:
We had both a great church service and Annual Business Meeting today at Covenant. We had 22 people in attendance for the church service. Attached is the church bulletin for today, please be sure to check out all the announcements there.
Mack Vlacos was in Shands for a few days this week and is now home. They still have not diagnosed his issue, but are still testing him. Craig Alexander’s sister Janine went to the ER this morning, and he was waiting on an update from her. Victoria MacArthur asked for unspoken prayer requests for two friends and Tina asked for prayer requests for Kim Haddow who has had chemotherapy previously for cancer and will now begin radiation therapy. Also, the family of Virginia Phillips is holding a celebration of her life next Saturday December 17 at the home of her son at 9621 SW 94th Terrace, off of Archer Road out nearArcher. The event is meant to be a whole day affair and they will serve lunch at noon for whoever can attend. Please keep all these people in your prayers this week.
Victoria brought some delicious chocolate brownies to church today and Craig and Becky brought some excellent Hazlenut coffee so we had special treats during our open visitation time and for the Annual Business meeting. Thanks to them all for their kind and generous gifts that everyone could appreciate today.
Pastor Don’s sermon was titled It’s For Everyone and his scripture was
Luke 2:10-11 – And so the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Pastor Don stated that everyone can have joy and you need to find joy in Christmas. God’s word provides us joy and contentment with peace. Joy occurs when you see a need and reach out to help. You end up finding your joy when you are helping others, as verse 10 shows us. Fear can keep you from having joy, it can freeze you. Joy is provided to us from Jesus Christ, joy is meant to be shared with others and not to keep things for ourselves. Joy is made up of J-Jesus, O-Others, and Y-You, all 3 are needed to find true joy. Joy occurs when you take what God has blessed you with and share it with others. Joy can suddenly appear if you have Jesus in your heart. He will provide you the opportunities to have joy and to share it with others, if you open your heart to joy.
The day was completed with our Annual Business Meeting in which we passed the 2023 budget and also approved $24,000 in capital improvements to the church. After we passed the budget, we thanked Joe Morgan for his long and continuing excellent service as Church Treasurer for about 30 years now. We then affirmed Edwina Hope and Michelle Miller as Trustees whose current terms had just expired. Michelle accepted a new 3-year term as Trustee but Edwina was uncomfortable accepting a full 3-year term as Trustee. Because of her long time service to Covenant as a Founding Member (like Joe, Rose, and Tina) in teaching Sunday School, depositing church giving for many years now in addition to serving as a Trustee , we agreed to allow Edwina to serve one year terms as long as she wished to continue as a Trustee. Covenant is s blessed to still have these four members providing such great service to Covenant Church!!
I wish everyone at Covenant Church a most blessed week as we all now prepare for Chrustmas!
Ron
