This week's newsletter from Gene

This past Saturday, there were 19 of us who, as a part of 2nd Half Ministry, worked at the Austin Area Food bank in south Austin. It was a very good opportunity for us to be directly involved in helping our community. We helped process over 2,500 pounds of food to help provide over 200 meals. Our particular task was sorting and making sure the quality of the goods was acceptable. We will do another of these ministry opportunities, and you’ll be welcome to join us.

Sunday night we had a really good time as our Sunday morning worship teams joined together for a dinner. We had about 80 people, so it was a very good turnout. Michael laid out his plans for the fall and it should be a very good ministry time as we sing/play each week. There is a change in the time of a couple rehearsals, hopefully to allow more people to participate. The Sunday morning worship choir rehearsal is moving from Wednesday night to 4:15-5:15 on Sunday afternoons. Handbells are moving to 7:00 PM on Wednesday nights. This is a really good time to join these groups.

We are waiting until January to start our children’s choir ministries. Over the past few years, most churches have done away entirely with their children’s choir ministries. As a result, the publishers are no longer publishing material to use during weekly rehearsals, as it is not financially viable for them. This makes it very difficult, as someone has to write and put together the entire schedule of activities, games, teaching and rehearsal schedule. This easily takes well over 100 hours each semester. We don’t have anyone available this fall to do that, so we will begin our weekly rehearsals in January in preparation for the spring musical. The kids will sing in September during our multi-generational service. If you have a child in grades 1-6, we will be in touch soon.