December 15, 2021
Friends in Faith—
This coming Sunday, December 19, is the fourth Sunday of Advent. You are invited to bring one of your favorite creches to the worship service. We'll have tables set up at the front of the sanctuary so you can display your set. Please arrive early so you have enough time to get your manger scene all set up before worhsip begins! Our text will be from Luke 2:8-18. Pianist Natalya Amelchenko begins playing gathering music at 10:20 a.m, with the service starting at 10:30 a.m. Folks can also join from home on Facebook. (You can also watch services at any time here.) Following the guidelines of Sacramento County and the CDC, we continue to practice social distancing and require masks while worshiping while indoors. If you plan to attend a worship service at the church, you can find out more about our safety protocols here.
As always, there seems to be a lot of information to sift through when a new COVID variant makes its way to our shores. It weighs heavily on our hearts and we wonder how we can best stay safe. I found this article by Dr. Emily Smith very helpful, and it speaks specifically about doing "church" as safely as possible. Most important, we should all get our booster shot, and any time we are indoors at Bethany, we must be masked. This is also a California mandate. Please do what you need to do to feel safe—and don't forget that we always have online worship as an option. (See details above,)
Our own Peter Baird and Rowena Frick are singing in a "Coro del Pueblo" (traditional Christmas songs in Spanish and English) prior to a play at the Guild Theater in Oak Park December 15-19 (entitled "La Pastorela de Sacramento"). The singing outside of the theater—from 7:30-8 p.m.—is free on December 16, 17 and 18. All are welcome to stop by for this special Sacramento Christmas tradition! For more information and to purchase tickets for the play, click here.
Our Christmas Eve service will be at 7 p.m. on Friday, December 24th. We will also be live-streaming the service so you can join us virtually, too. Join us for one of the most special nights of the year! Here are details.
We are excited to share that we have hired Robert and Lety Lopez as part-time custodians at Bethany. They will be cleaning the interior of our facility for five hours a week. They are kind, adaptable and hard-working, and we are eager to welcome them aboard! Robert Madrigal will continue to reside in our house and work for us on Mondays. He'll also do nightly rounds to make sure the facility is locked up. As we adjust to the financial realities of our church, some of our expectations need to be modified. We are asking all groups to take care of their own set-ups, and then returning the room to its original set-up. If you run across a problem with our facility, please let me know. We thank you for your help in pitching in to keep our campus clean, and we thank you for your understanding.
As a faith community, we have the privilege of being able to journey with one another through a chaotic and beautiful world, full of many highs and lows. We celebrate one another's victories, and we hold one another in prayer during those times of pain, fear, and loss. If you have prayers that you would like to share with our community, please contact myself or Office Manager Maria Mar. Also, be sure to indicate if you'd like your prayer to be shared, or if you'd like it to be held in confidence.
God hears all of our prayers, and in Christ, we find healing, wholeness and new beginnings. With each passing day, the Spirit of God is presenting us with new opportunities of love and grace. No matter what comes our way, all roads lead to Jesus—thanks be to God!
Blessings,
Jesse
