The Fellowship Hall will be open again this Sunday, December 6, from 11:00 to 1:00 for pick up and drop off:
This Christmas, we invite you to sing with us!
It’s everyone’s favorite moment – when the lights go down low, we light candles one by one, and we sing together, “Silent night! Holy night!” It might be the most beautiful three minutes of the entire year.
We may not be able to sing together in person this year, but through the power of technology, our worship team is planning to bring all the families of our church together for one verse of this beloved hymn.
It’s easy to join us! Just play back our karaoke-style video below for the words and piano, and record your family using any video camera. When you’ve got the perfect take, you can send it directly to us by clicking this link.
Don’t worry at all about how you sound – when we all sing together, everyone sounds great!
And be sure to have some fun with this! Let your video reflect your personality. Choose clothes and lighting and props and a setting that say something about who you are and what Christmas means to you.
We’ll premiere the video at worship on Christmas Eve, and will share it on our YouTube channel, too.
Ready to go? Here’s the video!
The Fellowship Hall is open today until 2:30 for you to pick up and drop off the following:
Pick up your FREE Advent wreath kit in the Fellowship Hall – one per household.
Advent is a very special season in the church year. It is a time of preparation and anticipation for the coming of Christ both in the past in His incarnation as the baby Jesus, but also in the future with His promised second coming as Christ Triumphant. Furthermore, Advent is a time to focus on His present coming to us in the Word and Sacraments.
The Advent Kit included here will provide you with a way to experience this beautiful season of light in your own home. The ritual of lighting a new candle each week and sharing God’s word of promise and hope in our Savior, Jesus Christ may make the darker days seem brighter!
The Advent Kit includes 4 Candles, Instructions for Creating your own Wreath and Liturgy to use each week when lighting your candle(s).
From our partners at the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the ELCA:
This year, as we have had to transform our worship, our gatherings, our understanding of church, the one thing that congregations continued to do exceedingly well was minister to one another and to the communities around them.
Your gifts to your congregation, to partner ministries, and to Mission Support have saved and improved lives across the globe.
Pass On the Gratitude
All the blessings we’ve shared happen because we each commit to participating in the Church’s call together. Please share the heartfelt thanks of all within our synod with your congregation, council, and lay leaders for their contributions to Mission Support.
We are still planning to have the Angel Tree! We have 25 names this year. In communicating with the Director of The Northside Common Ministry, the suggestion was made to provide gift cards this year. Target, Amazon, and Dollar General are all stores accessible by most families in the program. If you wish to donate money, the Service Committee will purchase the gift card for you. If you are donating money, bring the donation to the church in an envelope labeled Service Committee/Angel Tree. You can come to the church to select a name from the tree or call the church office, 412-372-2934, to get a name. Please have your donation to the church by Sunday, December 6. The church will be open on Sunday, November 22 from 11am to 1pm, Monday, November 23 from 10am to 2:30pm and 5pm to 7pm, and Tuesday, November 24 from 10am to 2:30pm for drop-off of your donation or pick-up of a name from the Angel Tree. Again, we Thank You!
In keeping with our COVID-19 policy, in person events at The Good Shepherd have been suspended as of Friday, November 13, due to a surge in cases in Allegheny County.
We will continue to offer worship online each Sunday at 10:30. It’s easy to join us!
Please visit our COVID-19 Information Center for more information and current status updates.
Remember that we are the Church together – nothing can separate us from Christ’s love for us, the love that makes us family. Stay safe out there!
The 2020 SWPA Synod Assembly will be held online this Saturday, November 14. Please pray for us as we elect leaders, debate the budget, hear from our staff and partners, and more.
Your voting members are:
In addition, Pastor Bob is the chair of the Assembly Planning Committee, and the manager of the online event. He’d appreciate your prayers for a smooth meeting with no glitches!
You can watch the Assembly live beginning at 9:00 on the SWPA Synod Facebook page.
On Sunday, November 15, the Good Shepherd will join congregations from around our synod in a special online worship service honoring the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women in the Lutheran churches of America. The service will be led by women clergy of our synod, and Bishop Kusserow will preach. The service is offered as a way to bring our congregations together on the day after our Synod Assembly.
You can join the service in a several ways:
We’ll be showing the service in the sanctuary for anyone who wants to join us in person. We’ll also be premiering a performance by the Virtual Choir of “O Christ the Same” (to the tune of Londonderry Air, more commonly known as “Danny Boy.”)
We’ll be livestreaming the synod’s service and our Virtual Choir in all of the normal ways.
Pastor Bob is taking a well-earned Sunday of vacation time, after chairing the Synod Assembly planning committee. Our council will be taking over the tech responsibilities in his place.
We think it’ll go just fine, but if something goes wrong, you can always watch the synod’s service live at 10:30 on their YouTube channel. It’ll work no matter what technical difficulties we might encounter on our end.