Ministry Updates

Paraclete Ministry

Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exalt over you with joy. He will be quiet (or "renew you") in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy." At the Paraclete Ministry, this is what we seek to convey to all those we serve: the Lord our God rejoices with and over His children! This past year has been a blessing as we have seen 4 servants of God complete the Stephen Ministry training and begin to serve one-on-one with those desiring personal care - Ben Walker, Caroline Wilkinson, Vickie Niebel, and Joe Pollitt. They have been much needed as our congregation continues to work together to become a closer-knit community that comes alongside one another through life's difficulties and trials. The Paraclete Ministry continues to be active helping to lead the Mom's Support Group that meets Wednesday during WOW, as well as counseling/mentoring some new couples soon to be married! God is always active in our midst and we remain grateful, privileged and awed to be used by our Almighty Savior.

Central Lights

Central seniors and friends of Central meet the second Monday of the month for Christian fellowship, special music and a variety of programs. The year 2002 was a busy one for us. The highlight of the year was the production of The Music Man. We were happy to have people from all groups participate in this wonderful musical. It was an all-church event and we performed two nights to a full house. We explored Baltimore history with Wayne Schaumberg, celebrated the Star Spangled with music, enjoyed a crab feast in our new pavilion and offered many other interesting programs to our seniors. Our mission is the Christian Community Center and we contributed to the Scholarship Fund and provided turkeys, pies, etc. for their Thanksgiving dinner. Our 2003 schedule promises to be a very exciting one. Watch the News & Views for monthly details.

Men's Ministry: Men of Promise

We began this year with a small group gathering together to seek out God's direction for men's ministry at Central. We concluded that "Men of Promise" is designed to help men discover their calling from God. It strives to equip, disciple, encourage and send out each man to fulfill his unique calling. We then began to flesh out how to accomplish this during a series of planning meetings.

Actually there are already a number of ongoing opportunities including a Saturday morning Men's Prayer Breakfast once a month and six weekly small groups. A listing of these groups and other "Men of Promise" activities will be available in a brochure coming out in February 2003.

As in previous years, the men of Central went to the Promise Keepers Conference in Washington, D.C. in July. We had a wonderful time of celebration and immediately followed the event with a soul-searching, three-week Sunday School class based on the book, "Every Man's Battle." The 25 or so who joined in this class began learning why we do the things we do. The goal in this process was to honor God by being sexually pure. We praised God as lives began to change.

In 2003 we look forward to a number of exciting events including: an eight-week ongoing class on "Sexual Purity," a "Wild at Heart" conference, "Promise Keepers 2003," a Retreat in the fall, and a new Men's Mentoring Ministry.

Women's Ministries

Presbyterian Women

Presbyterian Women was renewed by the formation of a coordinating team following a lengthy absence of leadership. Our four circles have met faithfully for prayer, Bible study and fellowship. This year we are studying the Book of Hebrews. Circles continue to support selected missionary families with prayer and substantial financial giving. The Ruth Circle has a long tradition of raising money for the Presbyterian Home by preparing cancelled stamps for resale. The Priscilla Circle together with spouses again decorated the sanctuary beautifully for the Christmas season.

In September PW hosted the Fall Gathering of the PW in the Presbytery of Baltimore. The success of this event would not have been possible without the cheerful assistance of many individuals in our congregation.

Our Christmas Program, "Sweet Little Jesus Boy," was well attended. It was a joy for us to share job assignments with volunteers from WOW.

We welcome new members at any time throughout the year and would be blessed by your involvement.

Women On Wednesday

The following mission statement was created in September, 2002 in anticipation of our second year of growing together as the body of Christ.

WOW: Impacting women for Christ by building bonds of friendship through shared praise, study and prayer.

God has richly blessed this group of approximately 50 weekly attendees with many newcomers of all ages. One of our highlights this fall was the establishment of a curriculum for our little ones while they are in childcare. Now, not only are the Moms drawing closer to Jesus and each other - our children are too! Another blessing has been the Holy Spirit's provision of women with diverse and unique gifts, talents and abilities to raise up leadership for all aspects of WOW. A primary goal in all of our efforts is to provide a warm, welcoming atmosphere so that all will find WOW a comfortable and loving place. The most important aspect of WOW is the spiritual anchor it provides as we work out our faith in this challenging world with many roles and responsibilities.