Yorkshire Worship Service, December 12, 2021. 11:15AM
Today’s Worship Service was presented by Yorkshire’s Youth
- Published in Worship Service Video
Yorkshire Worship Service, December 12, 2021. 9:00AM
- Published in Worship Service Video
What’s Brewing, December 9, 2021
9 December 2021
Advent Greetings to Yorkshire Church!
I spent some time this morning reflecting on the various traditions of the Advent wreath and candles throughout history. We have become very familiar with the focus of Advent as a season of expectation as we celebrate the first coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, yet look forward to His second coming ushering in His new Kingdom.
I was planning on writing about each of the candles and how their focus meaning came to be. At Yorkshire, we are celebrating the four weeks of Advent with the lighting of the Advent Candles reflecting on Hope, Love, Joy and Peace. Each week we are discussing these terms and how they are important to today’s church. As I researched the history of the celebration of Advent, I found that for me to write about my findings, would require something more than a two-page letter. But this week’s worship focus will be on the topic of Joy.
One of my go-to verses for the joy that we feel as Christians is Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” This sums up so much of what we have discussed during our messages this year. Our God is a God of hope and Paul is stating that as we trust in Him, he will fill us with all joy and peace. As we give our lives to God through His Son Jesus Christ, He sends His Spirit to be in our hearts. This is a gift from God. We no longer have to seek Him; he is with us. When we begin to understand this, we begin to trust Him in new ways, learn to lean on Him, and to walk confidently knowing that we are not alone. The result of our trust in Him is an unexplainable, inexplicable joy. So, in this one verse, we see that the love of God, provides us with hope, joy, and peace- the same things we celebrate during the Season of Advent.
I am looking forward to our time of worship together this week. On Sunday, our Youth Group will the 9AM and 11:15AM services. This includes the word and the witness that will be shared. We are blessed with a great group of students here at Yorkshire! We are also blessed to have Pastor Megan, Claudia Mingora, Joe Blackwood, and Linda Feeser who work to support them in Youth Group activities, Sunday School, and one- on-one support. Holly and I are blessed that we get the opportunity to host this group at our home from time to time and simply enjoy our interactions with each of them! So, this is a Sunday you won’t want to miss- either in person or on the livestream.
As a church and as a community, we are experiencing an increase of Covid cases, including some within our fellowship. So far, each case has been quickly isolated and we are most thankful that in all cases, illness has been mild for those dealing with it and additional spread has been effectively avoided. We continue to allow those who choose to attend in-person worship, to act in their own discretion in regards to various safety protocols, and we honor one another’s choices. Pastor Megan and I do our best to refrain from any type of physical contact with the congregation including hugs and handshakes, but expect that a few slip in here and there as it is simply natural for all of us to share such affections and greetings with those that we are close to. We regularly use the hand sanitizers located throughout the facility and generally try to keep a distance as we discuss and interact with each of you. As I have stated before, we do this because we interact with about 120 of you each week! I just ask that everyone simply take an extra step of caution during this time of elevated sickness. With the weather recording 60-degree temps one day, and 30 degree temps the next, even the
common cold becomes a normal element to deal with. (This is why I pray for cold weather and snow – its healthy!)
I would like to share our Year-to-Date financial information with you.
Yorkshire financial picture including Joyful Noise Christian Preschool: January 2021 thru November 30, 2021:
Income: Expenses: Working Capital:
$379,794.00 359,396.00
$ 20,398.00 (Positive Working Capital)
These numbers reflect that the total of all of our offerings and gifts supports the expenses of operating our church and preschool in a manner that leaves about 5% to cover things above and beyond what we might expect or foresee. So, the question is, what have or are we doing with the $20,398 extra dollars shown above? Well, let me share that with you. So far, we have spent $54,485 dollars on repairs and improvements to our facility. We received a payment from our insurance company for $25,000 toward that amount, so the net money we have spent so far on the needs of our building is $29,485.00. This is a little over $9,000 more than we have to spend from our Income minus Expenses this year.
Our Finance team has done an incredible job in 2020 and 2021 in stabilizing our church’s financial standing. By evaluating all of our expenses, re-managing our cost of operations, and renegotiating several service-type contracts, the church has funds available to cover the necessary things that we need to do. The funds that they manage are a reflection of your generosity with your gifts and offerings. The combination puts us in a financial situation that allows us to operate our church effectively.
Although we continue to operate effectively, the repairs, investments, and work that we have done in our facility this year have reduced our “General Operating Fund” by about $26,000 since June. So, in effect, we are using our “savings” to finance much of the work around the church as well as to buffer our cash flow during months that have increased expenses. But we have not begun to reconstruct any of the damaged portions of the fellowship hall or improved access plans for the building as of yet. By the end of this month, we will pay out an additional $10,000 for our Shares of Ministry to the United Methodist Church, as well as an additional 6- 8,000.00 for the tree removal along Edgewood Road.
So what does all of this mean? It means that your gifts and offerings have allowed us to not only manage our day-to-day functions, ministry, missions and preschool, but also to invest in the repair and functionality of where we do these things. We are anticipating significant increases next year in many different expense areas, though, and we know each of you are anticipating the same in your households. So, we need to continue to be diligent in the management of our expenses as well as praying for continued generosity among our fellowship in your giving of offerings and gifts. We are growing all facets of our ministry, preschool, missions and worship attendance and we have faith in God’s provision to allow us to continue to support the additional expenses that come along with growth.
It is a joyous time to be a part of God’s church. It is a joyous time to be a part of the fellowship of Yorkshire Church. It is a joyous time to be part of God’s family through our fellowship at Yorkshire Church!
With all Joy and Peace!
-pastor dave.
dkominsky@susumc.org
125 Edgewood Road, York, PA 17402 • (717)755-4952 • www.yorkshirechurch.org
- Published in What's Brewing
Announcements and Worship Bulletin, December 12, 2021
- Published in Worship Bulletin, Announcements
Yorkshire Worship Service, December 5, 2021 11:15AM
- Published in Worship Service Video
Yorkshire Worship Service, December 5, 2021 9:00AM
- Published in Worship Service Video
What’s Brewing, December 2, 2021
2 December 2021 Good day Yorkshire!
I write this week’s rendition of What’s Brewing with a particular joy as we have completed our last few meetings of 2021. Of course this includes our church Charge Conference which occurred on Sunday evening, but the highlight of that evening was the Hanging of the Greens which followed the conference! As you read this, you may think to yourself that my “particular joy” is the result of not having any more meetings. And although there is an element of truth to that, the joy that I feel is actually a result of the meetings that we had.
In the past two to three weeks, we have had Finance, Staff Parish, Missions, General Staff, and several other meetings that were in preparation for the church conference. If these were simply meetings, then anyone would feel joy to be finished with them. But, for our various teams, these meetings have become times of great fellowship. Sure, we are working through the business stuff of the church, but in each case, it is a gathering of brothers and sisters in Christ, in fellowship, to work together seeking God’s will for how our church is being called to serve Him for a time such as this. In these times of fellowship, we have not only worked through the tasks at hand, but we have laughed together, sometimes to tears, and we have shared a joy in our relationships with one another.
I have learned a few things during this period of time, as well. I have learned that the church has “squishy- things” from which we serve coffee. You pour coffee into these “things” and then “squish” the top which then pumps the coffee from inside the container, out of the spout, and into your cup. We also have variations of these things known as “flippy things…” from which the coffee is dispensed by the pulling of a lever (In other churches that I have served, these were known to me as carafes.) I have learned that when purchasing socks for our mission’s outreaches, we should never buy “jicky-jack” socks, but only cotton or wool as they wick moisture away from the skin. Although I don’t personally purchase socks often (because I get
them as Christmas gifts on Christmas morning), I don’t recall ever making a decision between “jicky-jack” types and any other type of sock. I’ll look closer next time I am at Kohl’s.
In addition to critical-minded thinking through the elements of “squishy, flippy, and jicky jack” discussions, a great deal of business has been discussed and decisions made that bring value to our fellowship. We will be publishing our 2022 Financial Budget shortly so that you can see how we are planning to use your gifts and offerings in support of our church operations, worship, facility, and missions’ outreach over the next year. There is still a great deal of work to do on our facility to not only repair the issues of our flooding this past year, but also to update the space with improved ADA access, restroom equipment, many other general maintenance concerns. The finance team has considered rising costs in energy and other areas that will impact our financial resources and will continue to not only look at how we are spending our finances, but also in seeking places where we can operate more efficiently- even while we are experience growth in our attendance, and our preschool enrollment.
Two goals of the Finance team are to improve our participation in our Online giving platform in 2022 and to simplify the giving categories in both the online program and our envelope giving. You will hear more about this in the near future, but the concept is to have four major areas of giving; 1) General Fund, 2) Missions Fund, 3) Joyful Noise Christian Preschool Fund, 4) Building Fund. Through these various “funds,” the church
leadership will be able to manage the needs of each area more effectively. Online giving through the website or what many know as Stripes, benefits us as it significantly simplifies our counting processes on Sundays and the beginning of the week. This change in fund focus will NOT eliminate any preferred giving methods.
From a Staff Parish perspective, we will continue to support our staff and personnel resources while continuing our search for a Worship Leader. Discussions were held with each of our staff members on their goals and objectives for next year- with every member of our team focusing diligent efforts on seeking God’s will in their areas of responsibility in serving Yorkshire Church.
Our Missions team is continuing to look at ways to serve our fellowship. We discussed the overwhelming success of this past year’s community outreaches starting with the Spoken Concert in July, the Rally Day program in September, and our most recent event, the Trunk or Treat in October. The team wants to grow our support of our missionaries in 2022. The Finance Team has supported this goal by at least doubling the amount that we contributed in 2021 to Henry Hauser in Africa, Rebecca Jacobs in the Dominican Republic, and James Reacher, in our college campus ministry support at West Chester University (Cru). The Casserole ministry remains strong and there are so many that support this great community outreach. If you would like to learn more about how you can participate in this ministry, please reach out to Mary Beaverson who can get you connected to this program. You may even learn a new recipe – Zippy Beef. (I am beginning to see a very unique Yorkshire trend here… “squishy, flippy, jicky, and yes, Zippy- you can’t make this stuff up!).
In other news, it looks like our new member induction service will be held during the services of 19 December. We will be welcoming 12 new members into the Yorkshire family membership. Membership is a personal choice for each person and does not change any status in worship participation. Some will choose to “join” a church, and others will simply choose to worship at a church and participate in its services and ministries. All are equally valuable and important. All folks that enter our portals, regardless of their “membership” choices, are part of our Yorkshire family. The important thing to celebrate is that we have many people choosing to be a part of our family. Jesus tells us that this will happen when we are a family that loves one another and our neighbors, just as He does. (John 13:34-35, Acts 2:42-47). Jesus also tells us in John 15:11-12,
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. Love each other as I have loved you.” -Jesus.
So, how can we find joy, even in our meetings? Well, I believe it is the result of our love for one another. And it is this joy that the world will see and experience as we witness to those around us and share with those that God leads through our doors. The joy is you, Yorkshire Church, through God’s presence within you.
Peace and Blessings!
-pastor dave.
dkominsky@susumc.org
My command is this:
125 Edgewood Road, York, PA 17402 • (717)755-4952
• www.yorkshirechurch.org
- Published in What's Brewing
Announcements, December 5, 2021
- Published in Announcements, Latest News
Yorkshire Worship Service, November 28, 2021 11:00AM
- Published in Worship Service Video
Yorkshire Sunday School, November 28, 2021
- Published in Worship Service Video