Oakfield United Methodist Church

Annual Pork Roast Dinner

2 South Main Street Oakfield

Menu:  roast pork, dressing, potatoes, sauerkraut, carrots, roll, drink and dessert

Saturday October 24th

4:30 - 6:30pm

EAT IN OR TAKE OUT

Children $4.00

Adults $8.00

The Oakfield Community Bible Church would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the Oakfield Fire Department for their generous support in allowing our new and growing congregation to utilize their facilities for our weekly worship services. As with all of our great volunteer fire companies, when we need them, they are there. When God opened a door for us to begin a new work, The Oakfield Fire Department was there.

Our last service at the fire hall will be Sunday, October 4th at 10:00 a.m. We encourage everyone to come and worship with us.  As always, when God closes one door he opens another and on Sunday, October 11th we will begin worshipping in our new home at the Oakfield Rod and Gun Club located at 3199 Maltby Rd. in Oakfield.  In the meantime support your local volunteer fire company because when crisis arises, no one exemplifies a neighbor like volunteer firefighters.

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(Family)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. Have you finally returned to your regular schedule?
JOE: We'll see. The answer is yes for the moment.
CALLIOPE: Did your weekend adventures provide all you expected?
JOE: They did. A couple from Spiritus Christi invited my brother and me for dinner Saturday.
CALLIOPE: How did that go?
JOE: Quite well. We learned more about the history of the community which has been in existence for about ten years now and is going strong.
CALLIOPE: Any revelations?
JOE: I was concerned that they might have some confining dogmas which might give me second thoughts. I thought I might want to just stay with the experience and not try to make too much sense of it.
CALLIOPE: And?
JOE: Discussing it did not provide any such difficulties. It is a community which offers support for acting in a Christian way without the onerous burdens I formerly carried as a Roman Catholic and which eventually drove me from their fold.
CALLIOPE: And then?
JOE: My brother and I and our girlfriends attended the Spiritus Christi service Sunday morning and felt totally immersed in their fellowship and community.
CALLIOPE: It sounds like you have found a new spiritual home.
JOE: I think so. We are trying to let it develop naturally without forcing anything. Talk with you tomorrow.

(Gull over Dunkirk)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. I wonder if you could tell me more about your visit to Spiritus Christi Church.
JOE: I'd be glad to. It's been on my mind ever since Sunday morning.
CALLIOPE: Please proceed.
JOE: I was raised in the Catholic Church and then spent nine years in the seminary and monastery.
CALLIOPE: Hence your book, Young Man of the Cloth.
JOE: Exactly. By the end of my time there, I became hopelessly embroiled in controversy about how life in the monastery should be and ended up leaving.
CALLIOPE: And then?
JOE: I discovered that my concerns about the direction of the monastery was part of a larger concern about the direction of the Catholic Church which I also eventually stopped attending.
CALLIOPE: Then what happened?
JOE: I drifted for a while and eventually discovered Unity Church where I felt comfortable for quite some time.
CALLIOPE: Yes?
JOE: I still felt some nostalgia for the Catholic Church in which I was raised but conflicted about the rigidity and other aspects of the church. Then I discovered Spiritus Christi, a church in the Catholic tradition but stressing the joy of redemption rather than a punitive, controlling stance.
CALLIOPE: Now what?
JOE: I want to make sure this is all I hope it is based on my initial impression. One step at a time. Talk with you tomorrow.

Here's an open invitation to area pastors and preachers: Post your Easter Sermons on The Batavian.  On Easter Sunday, we'll post sermons submitted by 10 a.m. ish on the home page.

It was a busy night at the Assembly of God church this past Wednesday evening.

Families and friends of the Assembly of God Church and Care-A-Van Ministries got together to celebrate the spirit of Christmas. The spirit of giving was flowing through the air and room. While the Christmas carols rung sweetly through the room and the hot chocolate and goodies warmed the tummies of all, the hands and hearts were busy wrapping Christmas presents. The presents were not for themselves or their families. No, these presents will be delivered to familes that are facing tough times this holiday season.

Through the generosity of church family and community members, there was monetary and gift donations made to Care-A-Van Ministries to help bless many families. In years past, Paul and Bridget would do all of this wrapping by themselves. This year a new tradition was formed. With all of the hands that were available, Santa's work went alot quicker! Can you imagine being Laura and having to do all of this shopping? Bless her heart! Approximately 15 families will be blessed. The Care-A-Van bus will be helping Santa out. The bus will spend 4 nights out on the street during this upcoming week to deliver presents along with the Lord's blessings.  Here are a few photos to share with you:

Our Own Pastor Dan gets in on the action

• Since 1990, more than 300,000 people have been murdered in the U.S.
• More than 50 million babies have been aborted since Roe v.Wade.
• 50–60% of married couples admit to adultery, and 5 million unwed couples live together.
• 75–80% have had premarital sex by the age of 19.
• One-third of births are out of wedlock.
• 1 in 4 teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease.
• Americans spend up to 13 billion annually on pornography.
• We have over 2,200,000 people in prison - the highest number in the world.
• Surveys suggest that 91% of Americans lie regularly.

Oakfield United Methodist Church

Pork Roast Dinner

October 18th

Emmanuel Baptist Church will host an outdoor concert with vocalist and evangelist George Miller on August 24 at 4:00pm under the church pavilion at 190 Oak St. The concert will be followed by an ice cream social, so "bring a friend and a lawn chair for this old-fashioned hymnfest."

Before the year is out, Batavian Rindy Walton will quit her job as a physical therapist, get rid of almost everything she owns and move with her three young sons to a suburb of Cincinnati with no financial prospects to found an itinerant church and minister to the disenfranchised.

"We're leaving the only place we know," she says, seeming to measure the gravity of the statement. "There's not a doubt."

It was the right decision, she says. She was called to it. It had to happen. Not everyone in her life, however, was able to match her conviction. Her family rejected her. Others have said she is stupid or crazy. They ask her how she could give up everything for... for what?

"It is a leap of faith, absolutely," she says. "I've had a lot of people support this. But I've also had a lot of people criticize."

Rindy talks unflinchingly of her past. She has been through "a lot of brokenness and abuse," she says. "And a lot of other people have been through that. I can use what I've been through to help other people."

Rindy lives in Batavia where she has worked as a physical therapist for BOCES for 21 years and raised three sons, doing it mostly on her own for the past ten years. For a long time, she hid her hurt out of shame, she says. She was like so many others who felt that private pain ought to be kept private.

No longer.

"There are people who say family secrets should remain secret," she says. "But there are too many families struggling. People are suffering and it's not OK to keep things secret. People dont deserve that."

Ministry is Rindy's way of changing that. Paul Peterson, the former pastor of her church, Northgate Free Methodist, is right now in Georgia attending a "church planning registry," explains Rindy.

"He felt the call to start a new church," she says. "We want to reach people who don't attend church, people who just don't feel that they'd fit the mold."

Peterson will pastor the church that the two of them will found in Maineville, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati. Walls Down Church, as it will be known, will be exactly that: they will build up and tear down the church every week in a new venue out in the community, at schools, theaters, generally anywhere with an auditorium, bringing the church to the people, explains Rindy, rather than insisting that the people come to the church.

"That way we can go to the people," she says. "We can go where the need is. Especially for the people who are not attending church, to walk into a strange building is foreign to them. It's going to be a place where you feel comfortable, familiar."

Officially, Rindy will oversee family ministries for the church, which really means that she will work to make the church best suit the needs of its parishioners and do the most for them. She also plans to use her training as a physical therapist to accomodate families and children with special needs.

"From where I was to where I am now — there was someone who was hiding a lot of stuff, a lot of abuse, a lot embarrassment, shame," she says. "Now it's open. What's really cool is that I get to spend the rest of my life helping people who are where I was to get to where I am. That's just so cool."

If you want to donate to the Walls Down Church, send a check to Mountain Lake Church, 3105 Dahlonega Highway, Cumming, GA 30040. Indicate Rindy Walton or Walls Down Church in the Memo line. All donations are tax deductible, and Walls Down will receive 100 percent of the money.

Emmanuel Baptist Church on Oak Street will welcome "songwriter, vocalist and missionary" Nancy Honeytree Sunday, July 27 at 2:00pm. From the press release:

Honeytree's music is cross generational. She gives a dynamic Christian testimony through music. Her "Rattle Me, Shake Me" is among her earlist numbers, while her poignant song about her two sons — one in heaven & one on earth — grabs every heart.

This free concert will be outside under the pavilion.

From the Daily News (Monday):

• Today's paper is predictably dominated by coverage of Saturday's Ramble Music & Arts Fest — as it should be: the festival saw a great turnout of both musicians and concertgoers. Fine coverage, but be sure to check out, as well, The Batavian's photos and video from the event, posted today.
• Monsignore Leo McCarthy spoke to parishioners at Resurrection Parish in Batavia for the last time Sunday. McCarthy will "assume new duties at Blessed Sacrament parish in Tonawanda," following his 12 years in Batavia.

For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.