PHOENIX LOCAL / WEEKLY NEWS & EVENTS:
For questions or clarification, please call the office at 269.383-3222.

This Week's Highlights

Sunday, July 25
6:00pm -- Worship: "Teach Us To Pray"
.................. Communion will be served - All are welcome!

Tuesday, July 27
7pm -- Peer Ministry meeting at Richard's house

Wednesday, July 28
6pm -- Prayer Group
7pm -- Dream Interpretation Workshop

Sunday, August 1
6:00pm -- Worship: "Focusing On What's Important"

Our Worship & Ministries

The purpose of Phoenix Community Church is "to embody God's all encompassing love, as exemplified by Jesus, in the way we interact with each other, our neighbors, and all creation."

Sunday worship schedule (topics listed are tentative):
July 25 -- "Teach Us To Pray" - communion will be served.
August 1 -- "Focusing On What's Important"
August 8 -- Jim Shoup will lead worship
August 15 -- Karen Tompkins will be the guest speaker
August 22 -- "Set Free, A Service of Healing"

If you have prayer requests that you would like to share with our community through the Flamings, please send them to the church office.

Our Peer Ministers provide a helping hand as needed. Peer Ministers for 2010 are: Richard Dailey (269-342-5058), Ruth Ketchum (269-628-4775), Mona Olson (269-383-9318), and Bev Edwards (269-372-7516)

We occasionally receive requests for a ride to Sunday evening worship services (usually people who haven't been to Phoenix before). Are you able to offer a ride when needed? It would be nice to develop a call list of people who would be willing to give rides as needed. If you feel called to this mission, please send an email to the church office. Thank you!

Announcements

We have an online calendar! To keep up on Phoenix Community Church events, go to http://www.phoenixchurch.org/WebCalendar. If you have an event that should be added to our calendar, email the information to the church office. Hint: When viewing the calendar, scroll your mouse over the event name for more information.

A few worship assistants are still needed for August. If you would like to assist in making worship a pleasant and meaningful experience by helping, please email the church office or sign up on Sunday evening at worship. For August 8, we need a greeter and reader. For August 22, we need a reader and for August 29, we need a setup person, a greeter and someone to work the sound system. Thank you!

Do you, like me, hate to carry around change in your pocket and just let it accumulate on a dresser or desk? Consider donating your change to help Phoenix. An easy way to do this is to put your change in an old prescription bottle and when it fills up, bring it to church and leave it in the offering basket. We hope you will consider doing this... old prescription bottles will be available at church soon for you to use.

Are there any musicians out there? We are looking for volunteer musicians who might be interested in either playing piano or providing special music for worship. This is a wonderful way to honor God and get some experience playing for a group of people. If you would be interested or know someone who might be, please contact Katy Neynaber.

New Phoenix Church Directory coming soon! Katy is working on a new version of the church directory. If you are interested, Angie will be offering to take people's pictures for inclusion in the directory. This would be an especially wonderful way for new people to get to know everyone. Please consider having your picture included. Angie will be available to take pictures after worship for the next couple of weeks.

If you are willing to help organize a fundraiser or two, or even just have an idea for something we might do, please contact a member of Steering Committee. We have some possible ideas, but we need more ideas and people to help us follow through.

Did you know Phoenix has a Wedding Policy? However, it is about 10 years old and needs to be reviewed. If you would be interested in such a project, please let the church office know.

Help with Worship planning is very welcome. If you have ideas for worship you would like to share or if you would like to help plan a future service, please contact the church office. In particular, we are considering a service to honor the Autumn season on September 26 and would like ideas for the service.

We are re-working the Sermons page on the Phoenix web site. We are now posting written sermons there, and hope to post recorded audio sermons again soon. Text (PDF) versions of some recent sermons are now downloadable. Also, please feel free to visit Pastor Ken's online blog and sermons pages at: http://www.pieceofthepuzzle.net/blog

Pastor Ken will be on vacation from Monday, August 2, 2010 through Sunday, August 15, 2010. If there is an emergency during this time, please contact Mark Kole, our moderator, or a member of the Peer Ministers (see below).

From First Baptist Church:
Trumpet and Organ Concert at
First Baptist Church
July 29th at 7pm
315 W. Michigan Ave. Kalamazoo
Brandon Ridenour, Kalamazoo native and member of the internationally renowned Canadian Brass, will present a concert with our organist, Robert Jordan. The concert is free and open to the public. This concert will feature music that Brandon and Robert will be performing for their August 2010 concert in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The Kalamazoo concert will feature music for trumpet and organ including Giambattista Martini's Toccata, John Stanley's Sonate, Alan Hovhanness' Prayer of Saint Gregory, David German's Festive Trumpet Tune, Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise Opus 34, No. 14, J.S. Bach/Gounod's Ave Maria and Alexander Scriabin's Prelude for the Left hand.

Food For Thought

Water is a critical resource for all life. If you are concerned about the health of this vital resource and particularly the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, you might be interested in investigating some of the following links in addition to your preferred news sources:
Water.Org
Sierra Club
Natural Resources Defense Council
Change.Org


Ongoing Missions for the Greater Good...

For Our Earth:
Car Wash: Take your car to a car wash that recycles water. If you wash it yourself, use a bucket and sponge, rinse sparingly and allow water to drain onto the lawn.
Home Shade: In hot areas, if you have west-facing windows use window tints, blinds, deciduous trees or trellises to help keep out heat from the summer sun and help lower energy consumption for air-conditioning.
Teach Thrift: Teach children the value of being thrifty (the wise economy in the management of money and our limited resources; frugality).

Pack-it-Out: If you are traveling and no recycle bins are available, pack your recyclables home with you whenever possible.

Don't forget to bring your plastic grocery bags and old newspapers (please remove the shiny inserts) to church for recycling. If you have questions, contact Ruth Ketchum about plastic bags and Jim Shoup about newspapers.

If you have canned goods you can donate, please remember Loaves & Fishes. You can bring your canned goods (no glass) to worship on Sundays and put them in the bin labeled "Loaves & Fishes". They will be delivered to the food bank for you.

If you have empty printer ink cartridges that you don't want or need, please save them for Phoenix to help toward our supply purchases. They must be HP, Dell, Lexmark, Brother, Epson, Samsung, Kodak, Sharp or Canon ink or toner cartridges that have not been previously refilled. They are worth $3 each at Office Max. We also need copies of receipts for anything purchased at OfficeMax. We now have to spend the same amount of money before we can get credit for the used ink cartridges. Receipts must be less than 90 days old and need not be original. You can give cartridges and receipts to Linda Cross, who is coordinating this effort.

Our Peer Ministers

Peer Ministers provide a helping hand as needed. Peer Ministers for 2010 are: Richard Dailey (269-342-5058), Ruth Ketchum (269-628-4775), Mona Olson (269-383-9318), and Bev Edwards (269-372-7516)