Arundel Association
Crossroads Church, Odenton, will have a Christmas community outreach on Dec. 13. For the first part of the afternoon, the church will have family fun time with crafts, refreshment, and pictures with Santa. Later, parents are encouraged to leave the kids and go do some Christmas shopping, or other errands while the children enjoy stories, snacks and movie time.
First Church, Eastport, had an ordination service for their new pastor, Mark Jones, on Nov. 14, followed by a fellowship lunch.
Lake Shore Church, Pasadena, member Jaime McFarland has taken the event of the joyous but traumatic premature birth of her youngest child Molly and used the experience to help others struggling through similar situations. McFarland began Molly’s Mission after the baby girl was discharged from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Anne Arundel Medical Center in August 2008. The mission’s goal is to support parents dealing with premature birth experiences and to encourage medical workers who labor day and night to save these tiny infants.
Jaime’s daughter, Molly, was born on June 8, 2008 (at 27 weeks), weighing just two pounds, nine ounces.
“It was the scariest and most difficult time in our lives,” Jaime wrote on her blog, mollysmission.wordpress.com.
As Jaime and her husband, Robert, kept vigil by their baby daughter’s side at the neonatal unit, they grew close to the staff and met many other parents of premature children who, like the McFarlands, were feeling the angst and fear of the situation. The McFarlands know how much an encouraging word means and the importance of being able to share with others who can truly empathize.
Jaime’s realization of that need encouraged her create “Molly’s Mission.” The group hosts fundraisers to help the local NICU’s. They also have “preemie” clothing drives. Jaime is now collecting “preemie” parenting books and periodicals for a resource library so parents can read them while they are attending to their children in the NICU.This Christmas the volunteers will deliver dinner to the Anne Arundel Medical Center NICU.
For more information about Molly’s Mission see www.mollysmission.org.
On Nov. 15, Severna Park Church voted to call their new pastor, Dave Brown. He is currently the associate pastor of Southern Calvert Church. Brown plans to be on the field y mid-December.
The Church at Severn Run will present the musical “That’s The Good News” on Dec. 11 and 12 at 7 p.m.
The church will be a site for winter relief Jan. 11-18. This is the church’s third year participating with Arundel House of Hope to provide shelter to the local homeless.
Severn’s women’s ministry will host a women’s candlelight service at 7 p.m. on Dec. 7, featuring a reading of “The Paper Bag Christmas” by Kevin Alan Milne.
Severn has called Earl Gray as its new connection pastor. Gray began his ministry on Oct. 19.
Baltimore Association
Riverside Church celebrated its 125th anniversary on Oct.18 with morning worship followed by lunch and concert by the Oak Grove Quartet. A special anniversary service began later in the afternoon.
Special guests included BCM/D executive director, David Lee; Baltimore Association director of missions, Bob Mackey; pastor of The Church on Warren Avenue at Federal Hill, Lyn O’Berry; pastor of First Church, Brooklyn, Louis Paradiso, and deacons Larry McLucas and Earl Seymour.
White Marsh Church had an arts and crafts bazaar last month to support Stauros Ministries, a ministry for those addicted to alcohol and other drugs and for their families.
Blue Ridge Association
Myersville Church will have a Christmas cantata titled, “The Dawn of Redeeming Grace” during the morning worship on Dec. 20. The church will also have a candlelight Christmas Eve service.
Members of NorthStar Church, Monrovia, will enjoy a time of holiday fellowship at a Christmas dinner at Ceresville Mansion on Dec. 6.
Rock Spring Church, Kearneysville, WV, will host “A Night in Bethlehem” from 6-9 p.m. on Dec. 18. The interactive Christmas program will feature a busy marketplace where families can make crafts, snack on goodies and visit a petting zoo. The “people of Bethlehem” will share the excitement of the special night. For more information, call (304) 724-1942
Delaware Association
Seaside Church, Seaford, had a hand washing station and gave away free balloons at the annual “Pumpkin Chunkin,’” an event in Delaware that draws over 80,000 each year.
“We are the only church there,” Charlie Arnold, pastor of Seaside said. “They only let one kind of each vendor participate.”
This year, Arnold performed two marriages on the field. The couples were referred to Arnold through the Pumkin Chunkin staff. Arnold counseled the couples prior to marrying them. One couple came to Seaside Church the week after the wedding.
Eastern Association
Berlin First Church members will have a ministry table and share hot cocoa and Christian tracts during the annual Berlin holiday parade.
Church members recently collected and distributed coats for the needy. At Thanksgiving, the church served over 300 meals to the community.
Fifty volunteers from Faith Fellowship Church (FFC), Cambridge, will work at the Operation Christmas Child packing plant in North Carolina Dec. 1-8.
Randall Blackmon, pastor, heard about Mid-Maryland Association’s annual trip and was excited at the idea of incorporating a trip like this into FFC’s Acts 1:8 strategy.
“We had been giving shoeboxes for years. I thought, let’s go the next step…let’s get in the middle and see the boxes go all over the world,” he said.
First Church, Easton, will have the children’s musical “The First Day of Christmas” from 6:30-7:30 p.m. on Dec. 16.
Lynnhaven Church, Pocomoke, will have their annual “Walk Through Bethlehem” from 6-9 p.m. on Dec.12, 13, and 18-20.
Pastor Kerri Hinton said the program draws about 3,500 each year.
They gather in the fellowship hall to hear Christmas carols from local groups while they wait to enter the “city.”
Each group has a guide. Along the way, they see a potter making pottery, blacksmiths and carpenters working in their shops. They can smell the fish as they cook. “Bethlehem” is also alive with the sound of animals—live ones including a camel, horses, donkeys and sheep.
Shepherds come running into the town to tell about angels visiting them and the visitors follow the shepherds to the manger where they see Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. Afterwards, a guide leads the visitors back to the church to hear the “rest of the story.” A very short presentation of the life of Jesus, including his death and resurrection is shared. Afterwards, folks are invited to speak to counselors if they would like more information.
Mid-Maryland Association
Westminster Church will have “All Day Missions” on Dec. 6. Special guests will be John Warnken and his wife Barbara. The couple served as missionaries in Senegal, West Africa, for 24 years. They now are representatives of New Tribes Mission.
Also on Dec. 6, the children’s ministry will present a parade of flags.
Montgomery Association
Redland Church’s singles group had a Sadie Hawkins dinner last month. The single ladies provided dinner for the single guys.
The Afghan-Iranian Christian Fellowship, a mission of Seven Locks Church, Potomac, licensed Abdullah Shokouhi into the gospel ministry. The AICF church ministers to Farsi-speaking people in the Potomac area.
Potomac Association
First Church, LaPlata, filled Christmas stockings for disadvantaged children in Charles County.
The women of First Church meet monthly for breakfast, and then they visit church members who recently had surgery or who have been ill.
The church’s Women on Mission have been collecting coats, hats, gloves and toiletries for men at the Robert Fuller House, a transitional facility for homeless men.
The Psalm Singers at Hughesville Church will present “The Best Christmas Present Ever!” at 6 p.m. on Dec. 13. The adult choir will present “The Name…Jesus,” a Christmas musical at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 20.
Prince George’s Association
Manna Ministry, an outreach of New Song Church, Bowie, is striving to provide food for 500 people the week before Christmas through Angel Food Ministries. A box of food that will feed a family of four for one week is $30. Manna Ministry is seeking sponsors to help provide the funds to make that goal a reality. For more information about the church’s Manna Ministry, email Mannaministries500@gmail.com or call (301) 809-9871 ext. 18.
Susquehanna Association
Oak Grove Church had “Man Day” in October with basketball, ATV riding, target shooting, food on the grill and a Bible study.
Western Association
Members of Second Church, Cumberland, will travel to Jenkins, Ky., on the weekend of Dec. 18 to deliver 50 food baskets the needy.
Miscellaneous
Facius Alfreide, pastor of First Haitian Berachah Church, Seaford, traveled to Haiti last month to give school supplies and children’s clothing to Baptist schools and orphanages.
The Western Maryland Resort Ministry is in need of hand warmers, baggies, hot chocolate packets, small packs of tissues, lip balm and tea bags. The team gives these items away at various events and at ski lodges in an effort to build relationships and share the Gospel. For more information see www.deepcreeklrm.org.