Coastal Christmas Fair 12/4

Coastal Christmas Fair will take place this Saturday, December 4, 9am-2pm. Get your Christmas shopping done! Children’s craft area while you shop.

     Items can still be donated until Friday so clear out your garage or attic or closet! Other donations would also be appreciated such as luncheon food, baked goods, etc. - please contact Chris Ward for information.
We would also love assistance in setting up the fair on Friday evening, and cleanup on Saturday afternoon. Many hands make for light work!

Hope to see you at the fair!

Advent Studies to Prepare Our Hearts for Christmas

Would you like to go deeper in your faith this Christmas? There are several excellent options for Advent Studies, and we hope you will take advantage of one of these opportunities.

"The Purpose of Christmas" small group DVD curriculum by Rick Warren is 3-week study on Mondays December 6, 13 and 20. This is a spiritually uplifting text and good for all levels, whether a new believer or mature Christian. Two groups will be meeting on Monday evenings:  5:30pm at Joely and Shane's home, and parents are welcome to bring children to this one; and 7pm at Kathy Brann's home. If you are interested in joining one of these groups please contact the hosts or pastors for more information.

“Advent Conspiracy” is a 4-week study Wednesdays 7pm 12/1, 12/8, 12/15, 12/22 led by Pastor Gwyneth.   The reading is easy but the topic very challenging, a study for mature Christians and church leaders. The goal of this group will be to assess the text as a church-wide program next year. FMI or to purchase the text, please go to www.adventconspiracy.org   You can view the Advent Conspiracy Video here as well.

"The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" is the Advent Study taking place at the weekly home Bible Study group at Rosemary Herd's home on Tuesdays at 9am. The study has already begun but newcomers are always welcome.

Advent Meditation Books are available!

Advent Meditation Books are available! These include a daily devotion written by folks at Peoples, in addition to some Christmas hymns and other readings. Printed copies are available for a suggested donation of $3. If you cannot pay that’s ok. If you can pay for an extra for someone else that’s great too.  Many thanks to Art Tordoff for putting these together! Next year, Christmas 2011 will mark the 25th anniversary of the Peoples Advent Meditation.

Hanging of the Greens 12/5

Hanging of the Greens will take place Sunday, Dec. 5, DURING WORSHIP (no separate worship service this year) Kids hear the Christmas story and we decorate the church for Christmas together. All are invited to bring in one unwrapped gift for a child to donate to the Root Cellar gift drive. Last year the Root Cellar requested some packages of socks. We received no special requests this year but socks are good. Many of the people at the Root Cellar come from warmer climates and have no idea HOW COLD it gets here in Maine and things like gloves and hats and the like would probably be welcome gifts too.  We hope you can attend this laity-led worship!

Root Cellar Angel Drive

Please come out and help at the Root Cellar Angel Gift Mission on Monday, Dec. 13, 9am-Noon, or for any portion of this time.  We will help organize and wrap gifts for needy children in the Portland area. It's a great time of fellowship too. Please contact Carol Bruneau if you have any questions, or if you need to carpool.

Youth Group Thanksgiving Mission

The youth group met together on 11/21 and made pumpkin pies for the Root Cellar as their mission project this Fall. Although the crowd was small this time everyone had a great time.
      The youth group will next be meeting with friends from some other churches on Friday, December 10th 5:30pm-8:30pm at New Light UMC in Portland. We'll walk to Monument Square, have dinner, go on a horse and carriage ride, take in the Christmas lights and decorations, walk around the art museum and head back to Hope.Gate.Way for some games.  Overall it's guarenteed to be a great time.  Bring a friend!
    The regional Jr. / Sr. High Youth Group generally meets every 2nd and 4th Sunday afternoon at different locations.

An Uplifting Church Conference!

Our annual Church Conference took place on Sunday, November 21 after worship, with a beautiful luncheon prepared for us as well. This is the annual all-church meeting, with Rev. Mike Davis, District Superintendent presiding. The meeting began with a slide show reminding us of how Peoples has been active in ministry this year, followed by voting on issues such as approving lay speakers and pastoral compensation, receiving bequests, etc., as well as a video presentation by Bishop Weaver followed by table discussion on ideas for continuing to make disciples of Jesus Christ through outreach in our community and how we could partner with sister churches in this outreach.
    Mike also commended our work as a church in paying off a significant portion of our mission shares this year and appreciates the many ways we are working as a church to be more faithful stewards of our resources as well as more joyful givers.
    We were honored to have Mike serve as our guest preacher that morning as well. He gave us a challenging message on what it means in today's world to "make disciples of all nations."
    The minutes of the meeting are available from Betsy Morrison who served as our Financial Secretary, or you can view the Draft Church Conference Minutes at this link, which will be reviewed during the December Church Council meeting. Thank you all who attended!

Christmas Pageant Dress Rehearsal

All children in the Christmas Pageant should plan to attend the Dress Rehearsal on Saturday, Dec 18, 9am - Noon. All children in the pageant should attend this important and fun rehearsal for the big day!  Please contact Andy Folley with any questions or to volunteer your assistance in props, costumes or other pageant preparation at 749-5702.

Children’s Christmas Pageant

Please join us on Sunday, Dec. 19 at 10am for our Children’s Christmas Pageant!  The pageant this year is called Christmas Around the World, and will be completely different this year so very exciting. The kids will show us how Christians in Mexico, Korea, Ghana Africa and Sweden celebrate the birth of Jesus. There's rumor there will also be a visit from the Magi.  Celebrate the birth of Jesus as the kids bring the Good News!

Candlelight Christmas Eve Worship

Candlelight Christmas Eve Worship, Friday, Dec. 24, 7pm  Celebrate the birth of our Savior in this beautiful candlelight worship. And bring a bell to ring!

Preble Street December 29 - Come Help Serve

Peoples Church will be helping to serve at the Preble Street Soup Kitchen on Wednesday, December 29. Please arrive around 5pm to help set up. Meal begins at 6pm. The soup kitchen is located at 252 Oxford Street (near the Portland Post Office). For questions or to arrange a carpool, please contact Tom Nelson at 799-6321.

Don't forget to wear your Peoples Church apron!

What Will You Give?

If you consider Peoples your church family and have not yet pledged your 2011 financial commitment, please turn in your pledge card as soon as you can, or contact Kathy and she can fill one out for you. THANK YOU!  FMI contact Financial Secretary, Kathy Brann at 799-1981.

Kids Craft Room at the Church Fair

We are going to have the Children's Craft Room again this year at the fair. The kids really look forward to doing the crafts and it's a great opportunity to get their parents out shopping at the fair!

A lot of the crafts this year will be made from the foam sheets and foam stickers. We would love any donations of the large sheets of foam and foam stickers. The sheets can be any colors, hoping to have a lot of red, green and white but would love other colors as well. Stickers with Christmas and winter themes would be great but would happily appreciate any as the kids will certainly use them!

We also need

~ribbon in a variety of colors and widths
~glitter pens
~any odd and ends craft things your'e looking to clean out!

As always~thank you for your support for the kids of Peoples and our community~

Karen Jennings

Generate Income for Peoples Just by Searching the Internet!

GoodSearch!  Here's a new easy way to raise money for Peoples United Methodist Church, with no cost to you.  Just start using Yahoo! powered GoodSearch.com as your internet search engine and they'll donate about a penny to Peoples UMC every time you do a search!

Every time you search, Peoples earns a penny!
http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=925482

   How do you do this?  Go to GoodSearch.com, select Peoples UMC in South Portland, Maine and plug in what you want to search for right there (or enter Peoples directly using the above link with the church ID#).
    You can also set up GoodSearch as your Default browser, and there are instructions on the site for doing that, or you can add a toolbar in Internet Explorer or Firefox search engines.
    There are a few exceptions (doesn't count toward image searches, etc.) which you can read about here as well as other helpful answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
    In addition, you can generate money for Peoples while you do your Christmas shoppingonline.  If you shop through the online shopping mall, GoodShop.com, you can find more than 900 top online retailers (including Amazon) who will give a percentage (1-3%) of your purchases to Peoples UMC. You pay the same price as you normally would, but a donation goes to your church family! You can access GoodShop directly from GoodSearch.
    You can read more about GoodSearch in the NY Times, Oprah Magazine, CNN, ABC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Peoples Variety Show 2010

The Peoples Variety Show was held November 13, ranging from classical music to comedy acts, harmonica to bagpipes, and poetry to fencing!  You can view the entire 2010 Variety Show Photo Album here.

     Those who participated included Paul and Justin on Harmonica and Jazz Piano, Pastor Jamie and Faith demonstrating fencing, Dena on piano, Mariah singing, Merrill and Marilyn singing with guitar, Aaron reciting poetry and singing, Pastor Gwyneth leading the congregation in a silly song called Toody Ta, Betty Smith singing, Faith on piano, Ushers and children singing in their jammies!, Fred playing piano, Jason on bagpipes, Sally with a comedy skit, Chris and Dan singing accompanied by Ruth on piano and ending the night with a hilarious song by Marilyn.  Also, many thanks to all who participated and attended, and to our two guest bands who played such amazing music: Angus and the Rock Dogs and Apollo 13 whom the children loved dancing to!  And of course a huge thank you to Dickey for leading the evening as our MC.  Also, a special thanks to Merrill Kaiser for organizing this event and all those who helped to plan, set up and take down.  Another fabulous time was had by all.
  

Senior High Youth Rally

Senior High Youth Rally at Camp Mechuwana
Come join us for the Senior High rally as we gather for fellowship, worship and all around awesome weekend.

WHEN: DECEMBER 10-12 (Drop off 6pm on Friday) (Pickup noon on Sunday)
WHERE: CAMP MECHUWANA
COST: $35.00

PLEASE GO TO OUR WEB SITE AND DOWN LOAD A FORM www.mechuwana.org or email us the information mechuwana@fairpoint.net.

If you can only come to part of the weekend because of other commitments, that is fine just let us know when you will be arriving.

Calling All Kids for the Pageant!

The kids Sunday School have begun assigning parts for the Christmas Pageant. Be sure to attend worship this Sunday if you'd like your kids involved, or contact Andy Folley. The pageant this year is called Christmas Around the World, and will be completely different this year so very exciting. The kids will show us how Christians in Mexico, Korea, Ghana Africa and Sweden celebrate the birth of Jesus. There's rumor there will also be a visit from the Magi!

Variety Show, Saturday, Nov 13 at 7pm

Peoples United Methodist Church cordially invites all of you to our ANNUAL VARIETY SHOW being held this Saturday, November 13th @7:00 pm.  This is a fun event that show cases Peoples people performing on stage, show casing some very interesting talents.  Some are very talented, some are very amusing and some are very strange!!! Our ushers sing, our pastors perform, children perform, various comedy skits, music by the bell choir, a band and MORE. Always bring tissues for tears of laughter.  Variety is the key word here and talent is optional. There are snacks and drinks available for purchase.  For a $3.00 donation (children under 12 free) you can enjoy a pleasant and hilarious evening of good fun. COME ON DOWN to Peoples this Saturday.  Come and join the fun and silliness, ranging from comedy to classical musicians. If you have an act you’d like to add, please contact Merrill Kaiser at 799-8750. You can view the 2009 Variety Show Photo Album here.

Game Night on Saturday Nov 6

Everyone who attended had fun playing pegs'n jokers and 3-15 Rummy at the Peoples Fall game night. We hope more can join us next time!

Outdoor Cleanup Day - Wow!

Many faithful Peoples folks attended the Outdoor Cleanup Party on Saturday, November 6! Workers raked leaves, cleaned out gutters, trimmed hedges and even installed the new banner on the outside of Ellis Hall. We also saw the finished product of the overhauled bean supper sign.
    All of the work is amazing so be sure to check it out and say thank you to those who cared enough about their church family to work so hard on a Saturday morning!
You can view the outdoor cleanup photo album here.

Note from Chuck Kamilewicz:  A special 'thank you' to all those who were there, and to David and Carol who refurbished the bean supper sign with Lexon and vinyl lettering.  It looks so good.

Note from Sue Angell:  Fall clean up was a great success.  Two troop leaders and 4-5 scouts were amazing in that they cleaned a huge area of leaves in 3 hours!!!  Marlene spent 3-4 hours on her knees working on our garden and what a fine job she did. Art Tordoff, our bush wacker, trimmed all our parsonage bushes while Keith Snoddy trimmed raked.  David Bruneau was THE man with his motor on his back and leaf blower with which he blew leaves and cleaned the parking lot as well as then mowing the parsonage lawn. David also gifted us with a NEW and wonderful Bean Dinner outdoor sign!  Carol was here there and everywhere working on and hanging a church banner and washing windows. Becky Gottlieb showed up after working most of the morning at her job and cleaned windows in the breezeway and worked until she ran out of steam. Chuck scaled the parsonage and replaced all down spouts and then replaced boards on the parsonage deck.  Joanne took good care of us by sending sausages and biscuits. Rosemary Herd greeted us all with a great smile and kept fresh coffee coming and assisted in the stage set up for the variety show and digging up of Christmas Fair decorations from last year.  Kathy was there. Brad was everywhere.  He brought coffee first thing, helped Marlene, raked, lifted barrels of leaves, assisted Art, assisted everyone, etc.  Susan and Kathy raked and hauled  barrels of leaves and bushes.  Walter brought his truck, tools and tarps.  His truck trailer was filled to the brim with leaves!  He brought cold pack tar and mended various areas of the parking lot and sidewalks with the assistance of Brad and Chuck tamping it down.  Men love that stuff. We all left tired, dirty and satisfied!  Hard work, fresh air and good companions are the best health tonic there is!

Celebrating Thanksgiving with Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2010

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in Thanksgiving.      -- Colossians 2:6-7   

Dear Peoples Family,

      What do you think of when you hear the word, Thanksgiving?  Often we think of the holiday in our nation’s history. Or perhaps we think of the many blessings for which we are thankful. However, as Christians, Thanksgiving is most importantly a faithful attitude that shapes the way we live, the choices we make, and our outlook on tomorrow. This attitude has little to do with outward circumstances and all to do with our thankfulness for what Christ has done for us. Therefore, for the Christian, Thanksgiving happens in the midst of poverty and in the face of scarcity. For the Christian, Thanksgiving can be celebrated in war zones, hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, as well as in our warm and comfortable homes.

      Thanksgiving is not about being the luckiest, the richest, or the healthiest. It is about knowing in the depth of our being that we belong to God through our Savior Jesus Christ.  And from that depth of belonging emerges a thankful joy leading us to celebration and generosity. These are the thanksgiving blessings we pray for you: A joyful heart “abounding with thanksgiving” in Christ, and the gift of responding to the joy we experience by giving ourselves for others.

We pray God’s richest blessings on you this Thanksgiving! 

Together in Ministry for Christ

Revs. Gwyneth  & Jamie Arrison

Sunday School Supports UNICEF

The Sunday School learned about the ministries of UNICEF and then came up after worship for a wonderful time collecting loose change. The kids took their UNICEF boxes so they could go trick or treating with them in the evening!
   You can view the whole UNICEF Collection Photo Album here.

Coffee Fellowship

Brad and Betsy Morrison joyfully provide coffee and goodies for fellowship after worship every week, and have done this for a number of years. Every now and then when they are away, they call on some folks to fill in. This past Sunday Jody Fyles, Janice Huelin and Carol Bruneau worked together to provide this wonderful time of hospitality.