Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Would you like to make a positive difference every time you drink a cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate or eat an organic chocolate bar? The Presbyterian Coffee Project makes it easy by offering a special link to help us reach out to neighbors overseas not only with our prayers and offerings but with the goods and products we purchase.

Why is this so important? Show the film "Black Gold" in your congregation, which features coffee production in Ethiopia and the farmers in the Oromia Cooperative. Or watch it online Black Gold:

Souper Bowl Sunday - February 1

Souper Bowl of Caring is a national movement of congregations, schools, community organizations and compassionate individuals caring for others on Super Bowl weekend. Souper Bowl of Caring equips and mobilizes youth to positively impact their communities by collecting money or food on or near Super Bowl weekend. 100% of the collections are donated directly to the charity of each group's choice.

Souper Bowl also includes a Service Blitz. In addition to collecting the dollar donations, youth are encouraged to serve hands-on at the charity of their choice the Saturday before the big game.

32 congregations (about 70%) in Monmouth Presbytery are registered for Souper Bowl!

Forty-eight years later . . .

A friend send this to me. Amazing! Thank you Lisa!

This is a Norman Rockwell Painting of Ruby Bridges, the little black girl who had to be escorted to school by federal marshals. "On November 14, 1960 . . . Bridges faced hostile crowds as the first black child to attend a previously all-white New Orleans school. She was 6 years old and had only been told by her mother that she was going to be attending a new school that day and "had better behave." Little did she know that she would be bombarded with jeers and even death threats and that she would end up being the sole child in her first-grade class after all the other children were kept home by their parents. All because Ruby was black.

Forty-eight years later--January 5, 2009--here is a picture of Sasha Obama, a little 7-year old black girl, being escorted to her school by her mother, First Lady-elect Michelle Obama and the Secret Service because Sasha's daddy is now President-elect of the United States, Barack Obama.

Celebrating the Birthday of Martin Luther King

There is a beautiful Litany of Celebration (and other worship resources) for Martin Luther King Day worship celebrations. I'm posting it here and hope this dream will become ours!

Litany of Celebration

LEADER: Martin King had a dream. The ideals of justice and freedom and the belief that all are created equal in the eyes of God are noble principles. But they are meaningless unless they become the personal possession of each one of us.

ALL: For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent. I will struggle with myself. I will not rest until the dream of justice and freedom becomes my personal dream. I must realize that I am not an innocent bystander. I can help realize the dream by my action, or delay it by in inaction.

LEADER: Martin’s dream of a day when people from all races and nations, eve the offsprings of slaves and former slave owners, can sit at a table as brothers and sisters and find ways of transforming their differences into assets. That was Martin’s dream. What is your dream?

ALL: My dream is that one day soon I will find a way to stop just celebrating the dream and start living it. It must become a part of my daily life; or nothing much will change.

LEADER: The dream is not about an ideal world; it is about the real world. Martin King’s poetic refrain, “I Have a Dream,” is a call for us to remember the real world where injustice abounds.

ALL: When I am in the shelter of my home I must remember the homeless. When I eat, I must remember the hungry. When I feel secure I must remember the insecure. When I see injustice I must remember that it will not stop unless I stop it.

LEADER: I have a dream!

ALL: I also have a dream. I have a dream that the Holy Spirit will arouse in me that very flame of righteousness that caused Martin King to become a living sacrifice for the freedom and liberation of all of God’s Children. Then I will be able to resist racial injustice everywhere I see it, even within myself.

Merry Christmas

This is from the Presbyterian Hunger Program staff in Louisville, Kentucky who have asked me to share it with all who give so much to help hungry people here and all over the world.

New Jersey Council of Churches Launches "Clip Campaign"

Bring your coupons to the Presbytery Center--we will collect and make them available on request to hunger ministries or send them on to NJCC

In these times of unprecedented fiscal uncertainty, the NJCC is launching a new campaign to help people in need. Every week thousands of coupons that can be used to help purchase necessary items are thrown in the trash.

The NJCC would like to ask its local churches to begin an organized collection process of coupons for distribution.

Here is how it works. Churches will collect coupons in four categories:

1. cereal
2. baby products
3. detergents/cleaning supplies
4. miscellaneous (a particularly good coupon in any area)

The coupons should be distributed either:

1. to the NJCC office; we will see that they are given to those in need
2. to members of the church who need them
3. to another local church
4. to a local food pantry or soup kitchen
   

Please consider having your church participate by taking this step and helping in another way to make a difference.

For questions or comments, please respond to this email or call the NJCC at 609-396-9546.

How Brightly Shines Our Morning Star Food Pantry

Morning Star’s building at 1 Morning Star Drive in Bayville is new, but its hunger ministry is not. “We’ve had a food pantry for many years,” says Rev. Myrlene Hamilton Hess, “but we didn’t have a facility appropriate for a public food bank, so it remained small and grew through word of mouth.”

The new Morning Star Food Pantry opened to the public on August 10, 2008. It has grown to handling over 150 people with food on a monthly basis and continues to grow each month. As part of Morning Star’s Loaves and Fishes Ministry. Special projects in 2008 include backpacks for children in September, Halloween costumes for children in October, Thanksgiving turkeys in November, and Christmas presents to families in December.

[read entire article]

Current sources of funding for this ministry include 50% of the money collected from Cents-Ability and donations and food from the congregation and the general public.

At a time when so many families and individuals find themselves in need, however, the food pantry needs sponsors and donations of money, food, health and beauty, cleaning items and clothing. Local businesses are ideal for partnerships with the church as are nearby congregations. Monmouth Presbytery is proud to be a new partner: at its November meeting, the Cents-Ability Grants Committee approved a $1,000 grant.