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For Everyone Born – Stewardship 2020

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“For Everyone Born,” a hymn in our newly dedicated hymnal, provides inspiration for this year’s stewardship theme – A Place at the Table. Consider how the opening words of the hymn, words we’ll hear throughout our stewardship season, reflect our presence and purpose to serve Christ, share God’s love, and work for justice in our world:

For everyone born, a place at the table,
for everyone born, clean water and bread,
a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,
for everyone born, a star overhead.

This theme speaks to all we do at Westminster. In a world where the journey for some to find a place at God’s table is difficult, your faithful generosity provides space for all, welcoming everyone to a large and bountiful table filled with love, grace and acceptance.

Your practice of stewardship in 2020 will continue to help us meet the challenge that everyone born, both in our community and beyond, will receive God’s hospitality. Through worship, music, our Christian education programs for children, youth and adults, sharing God’s love with students and faculty at the University, supporting our immigrant neighbors, promoting racial justice, sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, serving as allies to our LGBTQIA community, our home and hospital visits, and much, much more, your financial support helps us provide a place at the table for everyone.

This week you will be receiving your annual packet of materials for the 2020 stewardship campaign. Over the coming weeks, you will hear more about the many Westminster ministries and programs that reflect our love of God and our neighbors, including at a congregational stewardship lunch in Fellowship Hall on November 3. As we move toward Pledge Dedication Sunday on November 10, the stewardship committee asks that you prayerfully discern how you will practice stewardship this year.

If you have not pledged previously, we ask that you faithfully consider whether you will be able to make a pledge for 2020. If you regularly pledge –thank you! – and we ask that you faithfully consider whether you could increase your pledge to an amount that reflects the many blessings that God has bestowed upon you.

The refrain of the hymn, “For Everyone Born,” includes the following declaration:
“God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion, and peace!”

Through our faithful practice of stewardship, we can continue our shared journey of creating justice, joy, compassion, and peace. That journey will include challenges. Let us meet and overcome those together. For everyone born, a place at the table.

Thank you.
Jim Cauthen, on behalf of the Stewardship Committee

Coming Soon to a Pew Near You!

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Yes, folks, they’re here—the new hymnals have arrived from the publisher! Bookplates are being prepared and pasted in, and the brick-red hymnals will replace the blue ones in the pew racks on October 6. What might you notice about the hymnal beside the change in color? Well, first off, you might observe that it is just brimming with hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs — 853 of them — drawn from Protestant hymnody and sacred singing traditions around the world. From Hymn #1 (Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!) to Hymn #853 (Siyahamba—We Are Marching in the Light of God), the hymnal contains a wealth of musical inspiration and spiritual resource for singing congregations like ours.
What else? You might notice a new organization. Unlike prior versions of the Presbyterian hymnal, which generally followed the order of the liturgical year, this hymnal follows the outline of salvation history, beginning with hymns celebrating “God’s Mighty Acts” and ending with hymns devoted to “Our Response to God.” This approach reflects the Swiss theologian Karl Barth’s understanding that grace always demands an answer of gratitude. Mediating these two sections, the center portion of the hymnal focuses on those occasions when God’s grace and our gratitude meet, in “The Church at Worship.” (I’m borrowing rather heavily here from “The Theology of Glory to God,”
 an article by Mary Louise Bringle that appeared in The Presbyterian Leader in 2013.)
You might also notice that many of the hymns are not set out in four-part harmony but rather appear as a single melody line with guitar chords written above. Fear not, harmony singers among you! Of the hymns carried over from the blue hymnal, the ones appearing as a single melody line are hymns that were written to be sung in unison anyway. The only change is that the keyboard accompaniment of the blue hymnal has been swapped out for guitar chords in the new one. Plenty of four-part harmony hymns have been carried over, and plenty of the new hymns are written that way.
What else might you notice? Myriad other things! Soon you will be able to pull a new hymnal out of the pew rack and see for yourself. And we hope you will be inspired to sing, sing, sing to the glory of God!
Blessings,
Nadine Roddy, Music Committee Chair
Megan Sharp, Director of Fine Arts

Join a Habi-Tour on Sept. 28

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As a group of Westminster folks met with, fed, and played with the children of Habitat families over the last year, we realized we wanted to know more about Habitat’s work in Charlottesville.  So, on Saturday, September 28, we are going on a Habi-tour.  We’ll meet at the church parking lot at 10 a.m., pile into a Habitat van to tour and hear about Habitat’s history and work.  The last stop is Southwood where we will get to see the space with all it’s maps and charts in which residents are designing their new neighborhood.  We’ll be back at the church by noon. To join this group, contact Carolyn Brown or Lucy Burnette.

Climate Strike on Sept. 20 in C’ville

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Please join local students (Charlottesville Area and UVA) for the Climate Strike being held this Friday, Sept. 20, at noon at the Free Speech Wall on the Downtown Mall. In addition, a march down Main Street to the Mall is planned by UVA students (under the auspices of the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition) starting at 10:30 at the Rotunda. University professors and student protesters will speak on the climate crisis before the march proceeds. In the words of the event organizers “For over a year, millions of students across the globe have been ‘striking’ by leaving their classrooms every Friday to call attention to how the climate crisis is devastating homes, land, and communities…Young people refuse to sit by as our future is destroyed around us. Ahead of the UN Global Climate Summit on Sept. 20th, young people and adults will be striking with a shared platform of demands in the U.S. to call attention to the issue and to build momentum for these demands to be met.”
Included in these demands are actions to protect and restore biodiversity, to promote environmental justice for marginalized communities, to respect indigenous lands and sovereignty, to implement sustainable agriculture, and to promote a “Green New Deal” for U.S. citizens. The event is explicitly geared towards bringing together the different generations of environmental activists and concerned citizens to demand strong action addressing climate change, and is sponsored by a wide range of environmental and religious organizations. Local efforts are being led by the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition and 12-year-old climate activist Gundrun Campbell.

Mission Endowment Proposals Due Oct. 8

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Westminster Presbyterian Church invites proposals to be supported from its Mission Endowment Fund for Fall 2019.  Proposals are due to be received by the Church office by noon on Tuesday, October 8, 2019. Funding for 2019 is anticipated to be $12,000, to support one or more startup activities or new innovative projects that fulfill our mission to build a more just and peaceful world.  Selected proposals may be eligible for several years of funding as long as suitable progress toward the goals is evident, funds are available, and given recommendations and approvals.

The committee seeks proposals that are transformative for the people served, and invite engagement from members of our worshipping community as well.  We hope our support will be more than monetary, and that projects such as these can become yeast for a mission-driven congregation.

Westminster Presbyterian is a congregation formed in 1938 to minster to the University of Virginia community.  We think of ourselves as a socially progressive Christian community, currently comprised of about 600 members.  We are active locally and internationally in many causes through congregational financial support and volunteerism, but feel a call to serve even more through expanded engagement of our members.

Proposals should describe the project objectives, should include a budget, identify assessment methods and a commitment to report by the next fall.  Proposals should not exceed three pages in length, and should be addressed to

Mission Endowment Committee
Westminster Presbyterian Church
400 Rugby Road
Charlottesville, VA  22903

Funding decisions are anticipated by December 2019 for the Mission Endowment Fund.

Disbursements are subject to Session approval.

“So faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.”
−1 Corinthians 13:13

Our Mission

Sustained by grace, we are called to serve Christ, share God’s love, and work for justice in a complex world.

Our Values

With faith, hope, and love as bedrock Christian values, we also cherish the following:
  • Thinking and Learning
  • Inclusiveness
  • Fellowship
  • Stewardship
  • Courage

 

Westminster follows the Presbyterian Book of Confession and is a confessional church. You can view/read the Book of Confession at the PC(USA) website by clicking on the following link: http://www.pcusa.org/book-confessions.

Contact

Westminster Presbyterian Church
400 Rugby Road
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2474
(434) 293-3133 | Email

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