Tom Berlin’s December 5 eNote

Today I am on the roof the church, by the outdoor Christmas tree, because the entire Christmas Eve offering is leaving the building! Four things we will be doing with the 2019 Christmas Eve giving:

• Cornerstones, in Herndon and Reston, that works with people that are homeless and helps them find housing.
• Helping Children Worldwide, our work in Sierra Leone, with Mercy Hospital and the Child Rescue Centre, and the over 600 children that we will be blessing.
• A Place to Be, which serves people with disabilities and medical and mental health struggles in Loudoun and Fairfax Counties. This is an exciting new aspect of the Christmas Eve offering.
• Finally, the Community and World Impact Fund, which is how we put our generosity in place for anything that comes up in 2020.

I will give you more details every week. The only way we can do this is if our generosity is in place at the church. This week you will be receiving your 2019 year-to-date financial statements, which will help let you know how you are doing with your estimate of giving. If you filled out a 2019 Estimate of Giving, you will receive a statement. If you have any questions please contact Karen Heier (kheier@florisumc.org).

All of the Advent giving gifts will be coming in on Sunday. Please have your gifts here before noon. Folks will be volunteering their time and delivering those on Sunday afternoon. Thank you for what you are doing, you are helping a lot of people in our community to make Christmas really special.

Celebrate the Season will take place this Sunday beginning at 4 p.m. There will be an ornament craft service project. The ornaments will be used here at the church, and we’d love to have your family come contribute. Music, worship and celebration will take place at 5 p.m. It will be really different from the morning service with a heavy focus on music and a lot of activities for kids. Your kids will love it. At 6 p.m. we will have the soup supper, and you can sign up to volunteer for that online.

Finally, I’d like to encourage you to make a short video for our “Rediscover Christmas” social campaign. It can be about what your favorite Christmas memories were from your childhood or what Christmas means to you or your children. You can tag us in your videos on social media or send them to Dylan Nichols (dnichols@florisumc.org ). I look forward to seeing you on Sunday!