2-23-25 Announcements
Hello Englewood Community,
Today was a day of contrasting emotions at Englewood. Our worship service was uplifting as we had the chance to enjoy music from James, Yesenia, and Adian Hunter who played traditional music from Veracruz, Mexico for our prelude, special music, response song, and postlude today. This was part of our service today which was centered around the Biblical call to Welcome the Stranger. If you were not able to join us in person today, you can watch the service recording on Facebook or on YouTube.
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-However, our service started on a somber note, as Sandi Vogel announced today that on Friday, Carolyn Hamilton resigned. The staff and leadership at Englewood have nothing but the utmost respect and gratitude for Carolyn and all that she has invested into the lives of our church members and our wider Yakima Valley community over the years that she has served here.
-As a result of this resignation, several programs are impacted. Here are updates on each of these activities:
-The movement classes that she had been leading on Tuesdays and Thursdays will not continue at this time.
-After School Arts will be led by volunteers who have been involved in the program this Tuesday 2/25/25 so that students can be informed and have a chance to complete one final project together. Without leadership in place, After School Arts will not be able to finish the spring semester. Please know that we will be exploring options for this program over the summer and will share updates and news related to this popular and beloved program via our Englewood Facebook Page.
-Our Sunday Kid’s Connection time will continue with volunteers who are willing to support the kids in this time of transition.
-We will be collecting cards of appreciation and love for Carolyn at our potluck on 3/2/25 and will be sending these to her as we wish her all success in her next chapter. There will be a basket and a sign on a table in the Fellowship Hall to place your cards in.
-I know this is a lot to process, so if anyone has any questions or concerns about this change, I am protecting time in my schedule over the next few weeks to listen and process these changes with anyone who wants to talk. In addition, Sandi Vogel and Diane Patterson are willing to process concerns with people as well. You can reach out to each of them by email:
Sandi: sassisandi@me.com
Diane: dianekpatterson@msn.com
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Other announcements that were shared today in our service include:
A reminder that next week is the first Sunday in March which means we will be having our monthly first Sunday potluck after service. We invite you to plan to join us for that time of food and connections after our service.
New name tags have been created for those who have turned in a contact information update form. If you did not turn your form in, you can click here to complete an update form online. We will be making some updates to the nametags this week to enlarge the font so that they are easier to read!
-In the bulletin this week, there was an insert that talked about our upcoming food drive for Lent called 40 cans in 40 days. We are challenging each household to consider participating by bringing one can to donate for each of the 40 days of Lent. This collection will begin on Sunday, March 9th with an area set up in the Fellowship Hall for us to place our donations.
Also in the bulletin this week is a note from me about recent emails and ways to recognize emails that are potential scams that are not from her as we have had some trouble with this over the last couple of weeks. If you have any questions about this information or about an email that you received from me recently, please connect with me about it!
Finally, Sandi shared about how impactful the Wide Welcome Learning event that we held last week was for her. It was a pronoun panel that featured the lived experience of several individuals who spoke about what pronouns are, how they can be used, and their personal experiences with faith and church spaces. We recorded this panel for our church members to watch. If you are interested in viewing this panel and need the link, please email me so that we can protect the courage and authenticity of the brave panelists who spoke by not sharing it on our website.
As always, if you need anything or have any questions or concerns- please feel free to reach out so that we can set up a time for me to listen, and us to talk and process together.
— Pastor Christie