On July 17th we did a little house cleaning at the church.  Some areas are now a little hard to recognize as they haven’t been this clean in quite a while.

Pictures from the event may be found — HERE

I just wanted to give all of my Northminster friends a big high five for what we accomplished last Sunday!  It’s amazing that in less than three hours, a little over 100 of us worked together to make a huge impact on our neighborhood by cleaning up the alley behind our church.

If you weren’t able to make it, you need to drive down the alley sometime soon.  No more potholes.  A repaired fence for one of the homeowners.  Clean paint on various sections of the alley. And no more weeds!  What an improvement!

If you’d like to see pictures from last Sunday, click here.

See you Sunday!  And again, THANK YOU for all your hard work last weekend!

Markus

On Memorial Day weekend, May 29-31, 12 of us joined a larger team of about 250 people to build 14 homes for families in need in Tijuana, Mexico.  It was an amazing weekend!  And what a blessing to be a part of the hope that God has given those families.  Our team worked on one of those 14 homes.  If you’d like to see pictures, click here.

And on Saturday, June 5, another team of us spent the morning volunteering at at CCSA (Community Christian Service Agency) filling bags of goods for local families in need.  To see pictures of that event, click here.

Keep up the good work, Northminster!

Hi, Everyone! My name is Sandra Erickson. I was born and raised in San Diego. I am a wife and a mother of two beautiful daughters, ages 9 and 14.  I have been a preschool teacher for 17 years. For 10 years I ran my own pre-Kindergarten program at the La Jolla Recreation Center. Some other things I did at the La Jolla Recreation center were parent’s night out, carnival, and senior dances. In September 2009 I took a job with Northminster Preschool as a 2-1/2 year old teacher in room B. My husband and I knew that we wanted to find a church that our family could connect with. We came one Sunday this past September after I asked some questions; we heard Markus’ sermon and the electric guitar and felt immediately this was the place for us!

I am very excited to help build children’s ministries at Northminster. The children are the future of our church. I believe that giving our children a fun, informative, and consistent program of spiritual formation will be the foundation of their faith in Christ for life.

Kids Night Out is scheduled for June 25, July 23 and August 13.

Time: 5:30-9:00 PM.
Ages: fully potty trained(no pull ups) to 5th grade.
Cost: $15 for 1 child and $25 for 2 or more children from the same family.

Schedule:

5:30-6:15 – Sign in and outside play
6:15-6:30 – Wash hands for dinner
6:30-7:00 – Dinner (cheese pizza, veggie, fruit, drink)
7:00-8:00 – Free choice (arts & craft, games ,movie)
8:00-8:30 – Worship (Bible story, songs, or skit)
8:30-8:45 – Dessert
8:45-9:00 – Group activity or discussion

Please call the Church office at 858 490-3995 to reserve your child’s spot. Space is limited to 24 children.

Please join us Saturday June 5. Donate some mission service time to Community Christian Service Agency. Northminster congregation has volunteered to donate time to pack food bags which will be distributed to the needy during the following month – that’s a lot of food! This missional service lasts from 10-noon at CCSA locared at 4167 Rappahannock Ave. – south Clairemont. All you have to bring are your hands. If you have any plastic or paper bags, they would be appreciated. Thank you! By-the-way, Carol Denton, director of CCSA will be speaking in church May 23, sharing about the program and agency.

Mario and Rosa Padilla Urena will have a new home by May 31, built by 11 Northminster Presbyterian Church participants. Working through Solana Beach Presbyterian Church and Amor Ministries, we will be a part of over 220 people building more than 12 homes during the Memorial Day Weekend. The NPC crew will work without power tools, working as a team to build walls and roof for a 2 room house, stand the walls, then wrap the walls with wire, tar paper, and chicken wire.  Once the roof is on, the house gets 2 coats of stucco and the family moves in!

Mario and Rosa have two children, Salvador, 8 months, and Kiara, age 2 years. They make $200 per week in construction and factory jobs. They learned about the chance to have a house built for them from a local pastor, who use this ministry as an outreach in the community where the Padilla Urena’s live and others in the Tijuana.. Amor Ministries is a non-profit organization working with a local pastor’s board to identify families in need, available land, and bring building supplies and volunteer builders together to build a house. The family is paying $50 per month for the land and the house will be built for them. Typically, the houses are 2 room wood frame houses wrapped and stucco’d, on a concrete slab.

Come Build Hope seeks to build relationships, people, and homes. Please join us in spirit through prayers as we prepare this month and journey to east Tijuana on Memorial Day Weekend.

Please contact the church office (858-490-3995) for more information about how you can participate in this ministry

I saw a news story today about a new movie documentary called “Babies,” the story of the first year of life for four babies in different parts of the world. Just watching the short clips that I saw, all I can think is, “It doesn’t matter where we come from, we’re not that different.”

It also reminded me of how important it is to raise our children well. If you have kids, you want to raise your kids well. And as a church, we want to participate with you in raising your kids well.

To do this, we offer programs like Vacation Bible School (July 26-30) and Sunday School. But we want to do more for our kids! We’re committed to that!

As a result, 50% of this year’s Pentecost Offering (which will be received the next two Sundays) will go toward Northminster’s Children’s Ministry. At this time, we have only a very small budget for our Children’s Ministry, which means that a lot of times the cost of teaching a Sunday School class comes out of our teachers’ own pockets.

I’m so grateful to our Sunday School teachers and their willingness to pay for supplies themselves, but I’d love for all of us to get behind them and support our children as a whole church!

The other 50% of the Pentecost Offering will also go to children’s ministries, primarily children at risk. Here are the other areas of ministry that will be blessed by your giving:

• Ministries with youth and young adults
• Young Adult Volunteers
• Child Advocacy Ministries

Please give generously to the Pentecost Offering over the next two weeks. You will bless not only the children of our own church, but also children and youth all over the world!

Blessings,

Pastor Markus

We deeply mourn Loreto’s passing. He was a major part of the life of this church, the youth in this community through his involvement with and support for Young Life, the Presbytery of San Diego,  his many friends, and of course his family.

There will be a Celebration of Life for Loreto at Northminster on May 22, 2010, at 10:30 AM, with a reception and light lunch following the service.

Don’t hesitate to go to the Loreto Remorca Memorial Facebook page and make a post.  You can also make a post to this site if you do not have Facebook access.

In April Northminster reached out to Hawthorne Elementary School which is located a short distance from Northminster to beautify their campus. Northminster built five, tiled plaques, hung the plaques on the library wall, cleaned an area between two buildings, spread deco rocks in the cleaned area, and weeded the school’s garden.

Pictures from the event may be found HERE.