Join us for Cookies with Santa! This will be such a fun afternoon for our kids and the community and will surely put you in the holiday mood. Enjoy crafts and games for the kids, COOKIES and photos with the main jolly dude himself, SANTA!
This event is open to all of our community. Please invite your family, friends and neighbors. Help us spread the word by sharing the event on social media.
Christmas is supposed to be a time full of joy and happiness but sometimes the Christmas season can be hard for those who are experiencing grief and loss. Join us for a Blue Christmas Service on Thursday, December 15th at 6:30 pm.
Blue Christmas is a gathering for those who have experienced loss and grief. It will be a time of reflection, comfort, hope, and healing. This service is open to all of our community. Please share this event with anyone who may need comfort during this season.
It’s going to be a great day at Shawnee Community! Join us for worship at 10:00 am, either in-person or streaming live on Facebook, as we finish our sermon series, Love Always Wins. Following worship, all are invited for an all church soup lunch.
This is a great chance for us to gather and celebrate what we are thankful for as a community of faith. We look forward to seeing everyone! If you would like to sign up to provide soup, desserts, etc. use the sign up button below. Bring a friend or a family member!
Over the next several weeks, members of our Shawnee Community family will be sharing their generosity story. This week’s reflection is from Emily Sterk. Thank you for sharing with us.
Growing up I knew adults would tithe and give financially to our church. I understood why, I knew the scripture and theology. I was taught that kids and teens shouldn’t be expected to give financially but to be encouraged with service and time.
As I got older and processed through my faith and the role finances played, I rebelled. I thought it was silly for churches to ask their congregation for so much money and I thought it was lazy that missionaries sent letter after letter asking for donations. I would give financially here and there but felt pressured to do when I, myself, struggled financially through early adulthood to put gas in my car.
In 2018, I landed in the hospital with emergency surgery and for a full seven days with no insurance. Months later we received the medical bill and instantly fell into $111,000 of medical debt, which is double the cost of my student loans. I had no idea where to start, our insurance wasn’t retroactive and I had been let go from my part-time youth director job (the day after I received the bill). The only escape I could think of was to file for bankruptcy.
I had reached out to a family friend who was a lawyer and after talking with him he told me under no circumstances to file for bankruptcy, not because of the stereotypes or shame that come with bankruptcy, he shared with me how it has helped millions of people but because we didn’t have anything to our name anyway. He advised us to call, negotiate a price, and pay $10 a month until it’s paid off.
I had called the hospital to start this process and the woman on the phone could not find my file anywhere, $111,000 had just vanished. After two hours on the phone, she finally found my case and the reason it was lost was everything had been paid in full.
This is when my money story started. She couldn’t tell me who, but shared with me that a church chose my case, saw the need, and covered the bill. Our bill was paid through the tithing of that church. The church was able to set money aside to support their community because they put a plan together based on pledges and projections.
This is why it’s important to pledge and help the financial team set up for 2023. If they have a solid idea of how much giving Shawnee Community will bring in, they can plan how to best support the church, but more importantly the community. Aaron and I were in our first six months of marriage when this happened and like many people, got slammed with something out of our control. I tithe now, it’s still not a lot but now instead of paying $10 towards debt, I can give more in tithing and stewardship.
Emily Sterk
Who’s ready for another Chicks & Chips at Sombrero’s? Join us Tuesday, November 22nd at 7:00 pm for laughter, conversation and good food! All are welcome to attend. It will be great to connect with everyone! Sombrero’s is located at 22702 Midland Dr, Shawnee, KS 66226.
Last week the Generosity Team shared a letter about how Shawnee Community has continued our ministry throughout the last year and some of Shawnee Community’s plans for ministry in 2023. Together we can continue to be the church in all the ways God calls us!
In order to plan our ministry for 2023 it helps if we have a good idea what offerings will be given in the next year. After you have prayerfully considered your 2023 giving, please remember to fill out a giving form, whether your giving amount stays the same or changes. You can continue to share your giving in whatever way you’re comfortable, online or in person during worship. (Your specific giving amounts are confidential.)
Your giving form also asks you to consider ways you would like to volunteer in the church for 2023. There are many ways to be part of the ministry of Shawnee Community, and we ask that you share your gifts in ways that are important to you.
Please return your giving form no later than November 30th. You can use the link below or fill out a paper form that is available at the Welcome Center.
Join us for worship at 10:00 am, either in-person or streaming live on Facebook, as we continue our sermon series, Love Always Wins. When we’re waiting for something important, anticipating how wonderful it’s going to make our lives it can be really difficult to concentrate on the realities of life. Especially if some of those realities are nowhere near as fun as what we’re hoping for. Whatever hopes we have for the future, we know we live in the present.
As Christians we have a foot in two worlds—the reality of our daily lives and the hope that we have in through Christ that will lead us to Heaven. Both of these places make the Kingdom of God. How do we live our lives in ways that keep us grounded, but also help us live with hope and compassion? The love of Christ for all of us always wins, and we can express that love for one another right now in ways that help all of us.
Please join your elders for a soup lunch on November 20th after service. We will celebrate community and what we are thankful for with our elder groups. Use the sign up button below or the sign up sheet by the coffee counter at church. There are opportunities to bring soup, sides, desserts as well as to help set up and clean up. Bring a friend or a family member!
Join us for worship at 10:00 am, either in-person or streaming live on Facebook, as we begin a new sermon series, Love Always Wins. We all have anxieties about what happens at the end of our lives. Where do we go? What does that look like? Who’s there with us? Where is God during that process?
Honestly, we don’t have what we’d like to call firm and absolute answers…we tend to have more questions than answers, but we do have traditions and beliefs that have upheld the church for generations. These traditions and beliefs can be a comfort to us, but we are also allowed to push back on them and see how they hold up with what we know about God in our lives today.
But one thing that we do know is that Love Always Wins because God has been in our past, is in our present, and will always be in our future.
