November 25th begins a 4 week Advent series titled “God Among Us” in the Fireside Room.   These classes are open to everybody and are held here at the church on Sundays in the Fireside Room between the hours of 12:00 and 1:00 p.m..  Here is how this class is described…

From the opening words of the first chapter of Genesis to the end of the book of Revelation, the Bible reveals a God with a passion to live in the midst of and journey along side creation. By forming humanity in the Divine Image and drawing us into covenant, God calls us and by grace enables us to live as His reconciling Presence in the world, transforming all creation into the reign of heaven on earth. During the four Sundays in Advent, we will explore historical (creation and prophets, Jesus Christ) and contemporary witnesses (us!). We will reflect on God’s presence among us in Word and Sacrament.

Join Northminster in helping the homeless January 13, 14, and 15.

Here in San Diego County, it is not uncommon for as many as many as 2,000 individuals to be homeless on any given night. Many of them are children.

The Interfaith Shelter Network (IFSN) consists of 120 faith congregations in the county who link up during the cold weather months to provide food and shelter for some of these people. An IFSN homeless shelter will be set up at Clairemont Lutheran church, (across the street from NPC) for most of January 2008. For three days, Northminster Presbyterian will be responsible for providing donations for breakfast and lunches, cooking dinner for about 12 individuals, and providing one or more persons to spend the night at the church. There are other ways you can help as well.

This is a great volunteer opportunity for friends, families and organizations to work together in this important endeavor. To learn more, please visit the sign-up table between Sunday services, or call Johana at 858-467-1836.

Sermon by Markus Watson on November 25, 2007

This is the fifth and final sermon in the series titled “The Big Picture - An Overview of the Bible”

Theme - We, the church-the people of God-are now Christ’s hands and feet on the earth. We are God’s new missionary people. Our ministry is a ministry of reconciliation, helping people be reconciled to God.

Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, the fourth sermon of the series, “Then God Stepped In”, was not recorded.

Next Sunday, December 2nd, a new series titled “Unexpected!” will begin. We look forward to seeing you on Sunday or on the Internet.

This sermon may be downloaded to your local machine by right clicking (or control clicking on a Mac) on the link above and saving the mp3 file to your local hard drive.

It is recommended that you give Juice a try. Juice is an open source podcast receiver, allowing users to capture and listen to podcasts.

It is amazing what green grass can do to make a playground look finished! Even if it is artificial grass. The children are out on the new grass playing soccer and rolling around as children should be.

We are so grateful to all of the parents who donated money and the fund raising efforts of the Parent Group to make this project possible! What a wonderful community effort.

Thank you everyone!

Shelli Harder,
Preschool Director

The Northminster Worship Band’s first goal is to worship Christ, simply, honestly, and humbly. Our second goal is to have fun while worshipping Christ!

We have a great time through the week and at the Sunday morning service jamming, singing, and praising as we celebrate the living Christ through His music. We invite you to come sing, clap, and praise along with us. The environment is casual, come-as-you-are. The attitude is welcoming and sincere. The message is relevant and meaningful.

When you come, don’t forget to introduce yourself to us, we’re looking forward to meeting you!

This is a month for giving thanks and we would like to thank ALL of the carnival committee volunteers, the parent volunteers, the parent contributors, the parent group members, the silent auction participants and the raffle participants for an AMAZING carnival this year! Wow! We could not have done it without each and every one of you and we are so grateful for all of you and your tireless efforts to pull off another successful preschool carnival. Thank you to all of the parents who came to the carnival and brought your children. You also made it a success by participating! we recognize that all contributions on all levels make this preschool successful.

You will be noticing high school children around the preschool this month. We have participated in the Regional Occupational Program provided by Clairemont High School and University City High School for many years. The purpose of this program is to provide unpaid internship training experiences in the community. These students receive formal vocational related classroom instruction before they are placed in training stations, such as Northminster Preschool to further their learning experiences that commensurate with their skills. They are under the supervision of a Regional Occupational Program teacher who is an employee of the San Diego Unified School District. All of these students are supervised by the teachers in our classrooms and wear name tags to identify them as part of the ROP program. Parents, please feel free to ask your teacher about the students assigned to your child’s classroom. If you have any other questions or concerns, please stop by the office.

We will be collecting food for our annual food drive with donations going to CCSA here in Clairemont. There will be boxes outside each classroom for canned goods, pasta, stuffing mix for those in our community who are in need. Thank you for your donations. We are so blessed here at Northminster Preschool it is nice to be able to reach out to those families in need in our backyard.

We are very appreciative of all the parents and children here at Northminster Preschool and feel very blessed to be able to be a part of your lives for the short time you are with us.

If you ever have any questions, concerns or feedback, our door is always open!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, reminding us again of God’s abundant gifts to us. The past few weeks have brought horrendous loss and pain to the county. We continue to comfort and assist those whose losses have been great, and we hold the community in prayer, especially during this grieving/healing time following the fires.

Traditionally, each year at this time Northminster has received offerings of funds and goods to assist those in direst need in the San Diego community at Christmas time. In the past these offerings were received separately for the Community Christian Service Agency (CCSA), Military Outreach Ministries (MOM), and the Presbyterian Crisis Center (now known as Presbyterian Urban Ministries, BUM) over several Sundays prior to Christmas. This year ONE offering to benefit ALL THREE outreach agencies will be received on Sunday, November 14. Our gifts, therefore, will be available early enough to ASSURE that special Christmas assistance WILL be available to those in need in Clairemont, San Diego, and nearby communities.

Our thanks-giving is obvious in our thanks-living. We are so thankful for the OPPORTUNITY of being called into the service of God, the Giver of Life. Let us continue to pray for God’s people everywhere, and let us PARTICIPATE GENEROUSLY in this tangible giving of ourselves this Sunday.

Special ‘Thanksgiving Offering’ envelopes will be enclosed in the bulletins on Nov. 18. or your offering may be mailed to the Church Office, please mark it “Thanksgiving”.

Presbyterian Women in the Presbytery welcome you to attend their next meeting on Dec. 7, at Trinity in Spring Valley. Carpool will be available from Northminster at 9:00 a.m.

A luncheon will be served at $7. Reservations can be made by calling the Church Office.

Mark your calendars and come join us for our annual Women’s Christmas Tea at 2: pm on December 11!  Participants are invited to bring baby items to donate to the Community Christian Service Agency’s layette program. 

We promise great entertainment, fellowship and tea.  No charge — all ladies are welcome!

Please contact the church office for details.

Come join us at noon on Sunday, November 16th and 23rd, for a two part class about Basic Judaism for Believing Christians facilitated by Shannon Rowson. The class will be held at Northminster Presbyterian Church in the Fireside Room. All are welcome to attend.