Our annual Children’s Christmas Program is a re-enacting of the Christmas story as part of the worship service. Several of the older children performed a skit highlighting how various Christmas traditions teach us what Christmas is really about. Following the skit, the younger children acted out the Christmas story while the congregation sang traditional Christmas carols.
This year, 50 students and several adult leaders participated in Christ Redeemer Church’s annual Summer Youth Retreat at the Kull Youth Center in Ocean City, NJ from July 5th through July 10th.
The week’s theme was “The Power of Freedom.” Each night, participants gathered for a time of singing, a testimony, and a talk on freedom. (You can read more about the teaching time below). In the morning, students had a time of personal devotions followed by a small group discussion on the talk from the night before. The rest of the day was spent enjoying the beach and boardwalk, playing games in the Kull Youth Center, and hanging out with friends. Big thank you to the kitchen crew and volunteer leaders who made the trip possible.
To see some of the highlights from the week, watch the video below. Special thanks to Jake Roberts for creating the video for us!
You can also see photos of the week below.
Following the trip, Sarah Ball shared her reflections from the time away at the Sunday worship service. To hear Sarah’s reflections, click here.
On Sunday, July 19th, five people were baptized at Storrs Pond during our annual summer picnic. During the baptismal service, each person shared their story of how God has worked in their life to bring them to faith. It was an encouraging time of celebrating God’s faithfulness in bringing people to himself!
On July 11th, over 70 people joined our annual Community Service Day! Teams of volunteers completed projects at The Lebanon Green, Storrs Hill, David’s House, The Richard W. Black Center, The Haven, The Montshire, The Quechee Church, Greensboro Road, and several other locations.
More than 60 fathers and sons gathered at Gilman Island for the annual Father-Son campout on the Friday and Saturday of Father’s Day weekend. We substituted sleep for fishing, swimming, eating, log wars, manhunt, fire making, midnight hikes and catching up with friends. On Friday night, Abrm McQuarters gave a talk on the story of Jesus walking on water. He challenged everyone to bring their fears, challenges, and misconceptions to Christ because he is big enough to handle them and desires to do so for us. A big thanks to Joel Lefferts and Phil Lee for organizing an awesome time, and also to all who came and took part in the fun!
On the last weekend of April, over 55 women from Christ Redeemer Church, Christ Restoration Church, and The Quechee Church gathered together for our annual Spring Women’s Retreat at Pilgrim Pines Conference Center in Swanzey, NH.
The retreat theme was “How Does Your Garden Grow? Rooting Our Relationships in Grace and Truth.” Speakers Rebecca Strickfaden and Susie Matter shared how our experience of grace and truth dictates the way we live and relate to God and others. The interactive format created a great atmosphere for women to connect with one another as they considered how to grow in grace and truth in their own lives.
Following the retreat, Faye Gillespie, Amy Chan, and Shirley Adams shared their personal reflections on the retreat. To hear the audio of their sharing, click on the links below.
Faye Gillespie & Amy Chan (shared in Hanover)
Shirley Adams (shared in Quechee)
This February, CRC went on a service trip to the NETS (New England Training and Sending) Center in Williston, Vermont. We took a team of 27 people (11 adults and 16 youth) for a 3 day trip in order to help NETS renovate their campus. Our projects ranged from demolition to painting to moving to completing inventory to framing, and more. CRC was the first church to be planted out of the NETS Center. It was good to be able to give back to an organization that has done so much for CRC.
Not only did we do manual labor, we also took time during the evening to talk about the gospel as it relates to the issue of belonging. We did so through a series of three talks led by Pastor Don and Abrm McQuarters. The three areas we covered were belonging to God, His people, and His mission from Philippians. It was great to see our own team refreshed by our talk times after a long day of work. Moreover, it was great to see the number of kids engaging with the gospel.
In between work and learning we did a bit of playing too. The youth and adults played a “youth vs. wisdom” basketball game, with wisdom winning the day (as usual).
Men from Christ Redeemer Church in Hanover, New London, Quechee, and from several other area churches, gathered together for a retreat at Singing Hills from 1/19-1/20. The retreat focused on the theme “Fighting to Live! Power for the Daily Grind” The men enjoyed talks from Jared Wilson as well as time for discussion, fun, and fellowship. You can find links for the recordings of these talks below.
Fighting to Live! Power for the Daily Grind
Part 1: Living – Jared Wilson
Part 2: Warring – Jared Wilson
Part 3: Worshipping – Jared Wilson
Part 4: Panel Discussion – Jared Wilson, Don Willeman, Doug Cooper, Jim Alexander
