Pine Street Pine Street Presbyterian Church
VOLUME 32 | ISSUE 1
Attention to Attendance by Rev. Alexander lang
When I came to Pine Street two and half years ago, I was so very excited that I had been called to a church with such a vibrant community of Presbyterians. I felt so blessed that out of all the candidates who had applied, your APNC felt I was the right fit. That said, I also felt overwhelmed by all the new names and faces. Often people would have to introduce themselves to me three or four times before I could remember who they were. Over time I became more used to names and faces, but I still had trouble recognizing when people were present in worship and when they had been absent for a number of weeks. Ultimately, this didn’t bother me too much, until an event occurred that really caused me to reassess how I looked at our congregation. A few months after I began serving Pine Street, I received an e-mail that
one of our parishioners was in the hospital. I drove out to see her and when I entered the room we began chatting. I asked her how long she had been in the hospital. I assumed she had been there for one or two days. Her response: six weeks! She was unconscious for most of that time, so she couldn’t tell the doctors to contact us. What I couldn’t believe is that she had been in the hospital for six weeks and no one had noticed she was absent from worship. She sits in the same pew every single week and yet no one thought to ask: where is she? I felt as though both I and the Pine Street community had let her down. When we restructured the deacons, I wanted to devise a system that would help us to know who had been attending worship and who had been absent so something like this wouldn’t happen again. The See CARING on page 2
Rethinking retirement: a Workshop by David Rich by Ron Poorman
On Saturday, March 3, 2012, David Rich will present a workshop that will challenge how we think about retirement. David, a noted retreat leader and husband of former Pine Street pastor, Deborah McKinley, will ask us to answer some questions about our lives and to reconsider what our lives can be See RETIREMENT on page 4
JANUARY 1, 2012
INSIDE THIS ISSUE DDB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 January Calendar . . . . . . . . 5 January Scripture. . . . . . . . 6
January At A Glance Bagels & Belief . . . . . . . Jan 8 Cong. Meeing. . . . . . . . . Jan 8 Pot Luck Luncheon. . . . Jan 8 Men’s Breakfast. . . . . . . Jan 14 Snow Tubing . . . . . . . . . Jan 28 Youth Sunday. . . . . . . . . Jan 29
PSL Deadline Articles, photos and items of interest for the February issue of Pine Street Life are due by January 15, 2012. Please e-mail to Sue Black at BL3COL@aol.com