The church will provide the turkey and ham. Please bring a side dish or dessert to help complete the meal. If you plan to attend, please email Melody Merida so we can plan appropriately.

Have you met Rev. Keith Phillips? Professionally, he is a full-time hospice chaplain. But for several years, he has also been an active member of our Church serving in a variety of volunteer leadership capacities, including Discipleship Teacher, supervisor of our current clergy intern (David Zier), and Found Pearl Press Board member. Keith is also editor-in-chief of the second book our Church will publish — a daily devotional by gay, trans, and affirming Christians called Quench!. Quench! is at the printer now and will be available for distribution within a couple weeks!

So, though you personally may not yet know Keith, he is already doing so much to bless our Church community and, as a hospice chaplain, the broader central Indiana community.

Keith holds a Master of Divinity degree from Earlham School of Religion, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Seminary. For all of his 30 year career in ministry, Keith has been ordained in the American Baptist Convention. But Keith wants to serve in a denomination that openly welcomes and celebrates LGBT people. So, over the past two years, he has gone through a process for transferring his ordination to our denomination, the Metropolitan Community Churches.

At regional conference in June, an ordination panel approved the transfer of Keith’s ordination credentials to MCC. In the November 1 worship service, we made that official with a Rite of Ordination. Please be sure to congratulate Keith!

The document below is a rough draft of a 25-Year Plan prepared by the Board and staff. We would welcome your comments — please email them to Pastor Jeff. Jeff will share your comments with the Board and staff. Several forums will also soon be scheduled.

25 Year Plan

Also new: a Steering Committee for the Singles Ministry. For a long time, the Ministry has been led by one person, Les Prout, who is now taking a much-needed break. We are deeply grateful for his leadership. Now it’s time for others of us to step forward.

Those who serve on the Steering Committee will be responsible for planning monthly dinners or social outings that keep MCC Singles in fellowship. The Committee will also actively manage the Facebook page and be empowered to develop additional sources of support for our singles. If you would like to know more about the Steering Committee, please contact staff liaison, Melody Merida.

• Eliminate our part-time Administrative Assistant position. Mark Shoup has filled this position with great distinction. Mark has now taken a full-time position elsewhere, and wishes to transition out of his position here. Although we would dearly love to refill this position, we have decided to bite the bullet and leave it open until giving returns to normal. That means clerical and administrative tasks will fall back on pastoral staff, reducing the amount of time they can devote to core ministry.

• Reduce our support for MCC outreach. We normally invest about $650 per month in special MCC outreach projects in Africa and Latin America. These investments have been suspended.

• Reduce contributions to the MCC clergy pension plan.

• Renegotiate contracts with various service providers — phone, trash collection, payroll processing — to achieve small savings here and there.

Taken together, these cost cuts should save about $1,693 per month. The Board will review the situation again next month. If further cuts are necessary, remaining staff will be directly affected.

If you have a job, and if you’re not yet a regular giver, please consider becoming one. Your generosity will make a huge difference in this time of economic stress. Also, next Sunday we’ll begin a Spare Change Drive to help close the budget gap.

We also want to say a special thanks to new givers who have stepped up in recent weeks. Without you, the crunch would be much worse!

Together, we will get through this. If you have questions or suggestions, please email the church office, or call (317) 722-0000.

We’ll begin this journey on Monday, October 26  at 7:00 pm, and together we will support each other as we seek to eliminate smoking from our lives. We’ll discover strategies, plans, and tips to help in the quitting process, share the challenges we face when we quit, and offer encouragement to stay the course together.

If you are interested in being a part of the support group, please contact Melody Merida. Together we can do this!

Although we’ve only been here a few days, we’ve settled in and hit the ground running — so here’s the latest from the southwest.

We arrived on Saturday and were invited back to the MCC of Albuquerque to share a meal and conversation. It was a fabulous time of fellowship and feasting, and they even sent us on our way with goodies!

When we started our week at the Southwest Indian Foundation (SWIF) warehouse, there were three houses under construction. We helped prepare one house to be transported, installed insulation throughout another, installed drywall, and there is always lots of painting to be done. In addition to continuing to work on the two houses that are in process, we are hoping to get a new house started this week.

Click to enlarge. More photos on our Facebook page.

As we continue building our relationship with SWIF, we are having our SWIF family over for dinner and fellowship on Thursday. We are hoping to have even more than the nearly 40 that joined us last year. We’ll find out soon.

Thank you to everyone back at Jesus MCC for all the prayers, support, well wishes, and goodies we’ve received. We want to extend a very special thank you to the Children’s Church for the wonderful cards and pictures prepared for us. We’ll be home soon with lots of pictures and stories!

Won’t you sign up today to be part of Team JMCC? Your participation can make a huge difference to people right here in Indiana. The walk is Saturday October 10, 1:00 pm at University Park. You can join the team or make a donation online, or sign up and get details at church on Sunday.

If you can’t walk (or don’t want to) you can participate by gathering pledges or sponsoring someone else. You’re even welcome to join the team on Saturday for the team picture, turn in your pledges, and not walk, if that’s what you’d prefer. Our goal is to raise funds to help those in need!

You can read North Central Principal C E Quandt’s letter to students, families, and the community here.

He has requested, “all parents and community members to ignore the protesters, if you see them. Do not draw attention to them, do not engage with them, and do not give them any undue publicity.”

The best way we can counter this protest is to attend the play. Performances will be this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (September 24-26) at 7:00 pm at the North Central High School Auditorium. Tickets are $7 at the door.

The Jewish Community Center has also been mentioned as a possible site of a Phelps protest. They have also requested that there be no counter-protest or interaction of any kind with protesters.

To be part of the professional directory, please download this form or pick up a copy from the info kiosk. For more info, email Sheryl Holko.