This week I want to highlight three changes that are taking place at 1st Presbyterian. The first is an annual change that is nothing new to us. Our shepherd groups are changing. At the last meeting of the session new shepherd group lists were distributed and the elder shepherds were given a week to ten days to look over them and see that everything was good with the groups. Those groups are now finalized, and they will be posted on the board in the narthex this coming Sunday and printed in next week’s newsletter. You should be hearing from your shepherd elder in the next week or so.
     PCF ( Children’s Fellowship ) and PYF ( Youth Fellowship ) are changing. As noted a couple of times in previous newsletters we are adjusting our schedule this fall to prepare us for the beginning of the LOGOS program during the spring semester of school. So, PCF and PYF will meet beginning this Wednesday, the 14th, at 5:00 PM. They will meet until 6:30 PM. There will be as usual snacks, some study, sometime to talk about projects, fund raisers, and trips, and there will be time set aside for choir and bells. Please involve your children and youth in these programs. The time spent in children and youth fellowship is invaluable to our present and future.
     The other change that will be noticeable for the next few months will take place in our worship services, both 8:30 and 10:30. We are going to begin this Sunday, the 18th, having a Stewardship Minute during our worship. The Stewardship Committee, in its attempt to make stewardship a focus of our discipleship, has received the approval of the session to ask individual church members, and in some instances families, to speak directly to the worshiping community about how stewardship has positively effected their understanding of who God is and how we are to respond to God. It will be good to hear from each other about stewardship.
     Continue to pray for the ministry of 1st Presbyterian. We have many opportunities to discover who we can become. We have been gifted by God in great and wonderful ways. It falls to us to use all of those gifts and to commit ourselves to the continued building of the kingdom. Let us be faithful and trusting and loving as we listen for and respond to the call of God upon us.