Hendersonville Church of the Nazarene

GREETINGS

I came away inspired and encouraged this past Sunday from our worship service. It was amazing to see God at work in the hearts of our people who responded to His voice in so many ways and on so many levels. The theme of the service this past Sunday was preparation. This week to follow has certainly been a week of preparation. It has been exciting to see so many children, teens, and come together over the past several weeks in preparation for Christmas on Luna Lane. We look forward to a great weekend together!

Trust me! You do not want to miss this exciting night of worship as our children, teens, adults, and worship band lead us in this Christmas concert and worship event. Remember to bring with you, friends, family, loved ones, and some canned food items and/or non-perishables to go towards our food pantry ministry.

I want to publicly thank Classical Conversations for their involvement and contribution to our partnership with Walton Ferry Elementary as we work to provide food boxes for 23 families in need. They have come alongside us and helped by donating food items and monetary gifts as well.

While we as a church strive to reach out to our community, it is also important that we take care of our own in our church family who are also part of our community. Many of you know the difficult year Holly Filler has been through. From difficult circumstances she has been given custody of 4 of her niece’s children who are also part of our church family in addition to her own daughter Lilly. As a single mom, this is a huge task and financial responsibility. As her church family we are going to help her this Christmas. We have tags on our tree in the lobby for anyone who would like to take one and purchase the items on that tag. Please return these gift items to the church by next Sunday December 20th. If you feel led to give or support Holly and the family in other ways, please feel free to as you feel led.

I want to thank our general contractor company who has been contracting all of our renovation work over the past several months. This week, Dick Wilson, Pastor Caitlin, and myself met with the owner. They informed us that they will be donating some of the work they billed us along with purchasing and installing new bathroom partitions. This work along with the partitions will total almost $20,000 which was $15,000 more than we had in our budget. This is a huge blessing and very generous contribution from them. Over the past several weeks we had been in negotiation over an invoice that we had questions and concerns over which has put our progress to finish renovations in limbo. I remember us as a staff and board praying together over this situation and God has answered that prayer by providing this tremendous blessing. I also want to thank Dick Wilson for his involvement in this process as he was our advocate for us with them during these negotiations.

I want to bring before you a very urgent and special prayer request involving a brand new couple to our church family. Pat and Kathy Ridenoure who have recently moved here from Florida attended our church a few Sundays in a row. Since then, Kathy became very sick and after going to the doctor, was diagnosed with a very serious form of cancer. She is now in the hospital at Sarah Cannon Cancer Center. She almost died, if it were not for the doctors catching it when they did. Pat and Kathy are praising God for His hand of protection on her as the doctor she has in of of the best in the world when it comes to treating this specific kind of cancer. I’ve been in communication with Pat this week multiple times, praying with him and checking in on her status. She is not feeling up to having visitors right now, but is in need of our prayers. Please lift her and Pat up during this very difficult time.

This week’s HCN Volunteer of the Week is Ellen Robison. Over the past several months Ellen has been supporting her husband Matt who leads our connections ministries. Over the past few weeks, Ellen has come into her own as she has been a crucial help to Pastor Caitlin preparing for Christmas on Luna Lane in so many ways. Ellen is tremendously gifted and is a valuable part of our church family. We love and appreciate Ellen so much for who she is and for all that she does to serve Christ!

We look forward to a great day at HCN! As we continue in our season of Advent, this Sunday’s focus in JOY!!! I anticipate a great time of worship together! We also are very excited to announce that Gary and Libbie Lide are back in town and plan to be back with us this Sunday for worship!!! We are so excited to have them back for the Christmas season!!! It will be a great day for our church family all in all as we spend Sunday evening together for Christmas on Luna Lane!!!

I look forward to seeing everyone this Sunday!

Pastor Duane