JACKSON, Louise Villemagne, of Richmond, Virginia went to be with the Lord on August 10th, 2023. She is survived by her son, Richard Gary, wife Janet and two grandchildren Tyler, wife Michelle, and Lindsey and great granddaughter, Lillian Louise Jackson.
Family and friends are invited to a graveside service at Westhampton Memorial Park on Monday, August 21st, at 2 p.m.
Our church consultant, Mark Tidsworth, has written a summary of the group meetings that he held a few months ago. Click here for a summary of his report. This is the information he shared at the Congregational Meeting on Sunday, August 13, following worship. If you were unable to make the meeting either in person or by zoom, click here to watch the recording of the meeting.
On Sunday, August 13, 2023 following worship, we will have a congregational meeting in the Fellowship Hall. Lunch will be served. At this meeting, items will be shared from the Leadership Roundtable Retreat that will take place on Saturday, August 12. Mark Tidsworth, our consultant from Pinnacle Leadership Associates, will be sharing with the congregation.
If you are unable to make it in person, here is the Zoom link for the meeting:
Topic: Congregational Meeting – August 13, 2023
Time: Aug 13, 2023 12:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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Meeting ID: 810 4625 8916
Passcode: 867153
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Our Quarterly Business Meeting will be held following worship on Sunday, July 30. Lunch will be served. For those of you who will be joining us in the virtual acre, here is the link to join us in Zoom. We hope it will be in your plans to join us. Click here to access a link for the Quarterly Book of Reports. It will be at the bottom of the email.
Missed the meeting? Click here for a recording.
Topic: Quarterly Business Meeting
Time: Jul 30, 2023 12:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89107305703?pwd=T3JQcks3Rm9aN2tJc2dwcnovMEcwQT09
Meeting ID: 891 0730 5703
Passcode: 640405
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Meeting ID: 891 0730 5703
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BUDGET FOR FY ’23 – ‘24 for TBC & TCCC
The Finance Team (FT) and Administrative Board (AB) are providing the TBC Budget for our upcoming fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2023 and ending on June 30, 2024.
Click here for a copy of the Tabernacle Child Care Center 2023-24 Budget.
Please CLICK HERE to vote for the TBC Budget and please CLICK HERE to vote for the TCCC Budget. Voting ends on Sunday, June 18, 2023 at 2:00 PM.
Thank you for your strong endorsement at the Quarterly Business meeting to partner with Pinnacle Leadership Associates entering a “Season of Renewal” as a church. We are building on our collective experience during January’s Making The Shift Weekend, moving into the next season. To that end, we need a way to gather our collective discernment about our calling as a church.
Over the weekend of June 2-4, our partner in ministry Rev. Mark Tidsworth will be on campus at Tabernacle, eager to gather this church’s insights. Everyone who considers Tabernacle their church is invited to participate in a listening group. These are one-hour sessions with up to 10 persons, facilitated by Rev. Tidsworth. We encourage everyone to participate, whether your name is on the membership list or not, helping us discern our calling and focus for the present and near future.
You can register via this link or on a clipboard in the back of the Sanctuary.
Fire System Installation for the Williams Building
On February 11, 2022 our neighborhood Fox Elementary School went up in flames, causing extensive damage. As a congregation, we offered to assist the staff, parents, and children in any way that we could in support of the aftermath of this unfortunate event. In months prior to this fire, we as a Building & Grounds Committee had been discussing how we would address our own concerns regarding safety for our buildings that are also in a similar age range as Fox Elementary. It was this in combination with other security concerns for our child care center that led us to take more direct action in the area of safety and security for all of us.
In June 2022 a team of staff and volunteers completed a walk through of all of our buildings with Noah Rogers, a specialist in safety and security with the Baptist General Association of Virginia, to assess and begin to prioritize our needs. We created an initial action plan, taking into consideration the daily use of the Williams Building and the need to focus on the safety of the children in our care. That assessment led us to begin immediately to address the need for a fire alarm system in the Williams Building.
The B&G Committee researched and obtained bids for the installation of a system that would fit our specifications. With your support and the support of TCCC parents, we agreed to work with Fire Protection LLC to complete the work. Installation started in February of this year, and it was completed on schedule on March 22nd, with training for several members of our TCCC and TBC staff provided on that day.
We sincerely appreciate everyone’s help and support in making this important safety step possible. Please take any opportunity you have to extend special thanks to TCCC and Endowment Board partners, understanding that TCCC is covering about 65% of the cost of this project and our Endowment Board is paying about 25% of the project costs. We look forward to continuing to work together as we implement more safety steps in the months ahead!
In light of last week’s headline, World Health Organization declaring an end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency
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All humans long for stability. Throughout time, Societies have built structures to protect stability. Call it covid, call it chaos, there’s been a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on. Rigid structures don’t tend to fare well when the ground starts shaking. No structure is meant to last forever and yet when history circles back around we’re surprised by its arrival. Anything we carve or build out of rock, bricks, steel, or glass, eventually falls. Travel to Greece, Rome, the site of the former World Trade Center in NYC, or, (dare I say it) down a long stretch of Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va, historical structures eventually and always buckle under the pressure of the passage of time.
Most any group of people that find themselves finally tasting the “good life” naturally want to build a structure that can maintain, expand, and protect that way of life (aka stability). Think about the destructive cycles that spin chaos into the world from there. If building, maintaining, expanding, and protecting our “good life” requires the diminishing, disqualifying or destruction of the lives of others, expect chaos and prepare to choke on the dust of fallen idols, fortresses, and structures.
I believe God is refashioning us, not only out of the dust of our fallen idols, fortresses, and structures, but also out of the dust being stirred up by the beautiful feet of those walking beside “God with Us”
There’s a moment in the Bible when the disciples of Jesus find themselves awestruck by the Temple structure,“Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what a wonderful structure!” Jesus responds, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” The temple is supposed to be the most stable place on earth, the one place where God’s finger touches the world, therefore the one place chaos can’t possibly exist.
Later in the story, those that arrested Jesus justify their actions based on the audacity of Jesus bringing chaos, the equivalent of kryptonite, into the temple. He doesn’t help his case when he predicts the temple’s destruction or in claiming he will rebuild the temple in three days. To add insult to injury, he claims the new Temple won’t be confined by geography or any other lines we might draw in the sand. No-one-corner of the world will be able to claim this One as their own. This One, is meant to travel. This One is a throwback to the original design. Anyone with institutional memory might call him “Tabernacle”, but most of his followers call him Savior.
Church, I know we’re all longing for stability, it’s natural to do so, especially in our grieving. I want you to know that I join you in deep grieving. So much more, I want you to know that we worship a God that brings order out of Chaos.
Any version of life, built upon a structure that diminishes the potential for thriving in the lives of others, cannot be attributed to the goodness of God.
YHWH didn’t fashion us out of metaphorical dust, breathe air into our lungs, and put us on our feet, only for us to create our own versions of the “good life”. Any version of life, built upon a structure that diminishes the potential for thriving in the lives of others, cannot be attributed to the goodness of God. Any version of the “good life” that leads someone into isolation, separation, or even relational annihilation is a cheap counterfeit. God is good…all of the time. The good life Christ offers is the real deal….the Way, the Truth, and The Life. Walk in the knowledge that we follow a Savior that can take all of the fallenness, brokenness, and complexities of the stories of the past and present, all of the unintentional chaos we’ve unleashed into the world, and somehow bring profound goodness through it. Know that God can, and will, make ALL things for good.
As we move out of this global pandemic, it will be critical for us to understand that it’s not our job to rebuild our temples. God already did that, three days after his son was crucified. The news gets even better. The resurrected Savior is inviting us to tabernacle with him right smack into the middle of the chaos. He’s inviting us to join the search party for those who have stumbled into, or were pushed into, lostness and loneliness. He’s inviting us to join him in the reclamation of the abandoned, to participate in the healing of the brokenhearted, and even in the resuscitation of the hearts of the presumed “righteous”.
In this very moment, I believe God is refashioning us, not only out of the dust of our fallen idols, fortresses, and structures, but also out of the dust being stirred up by the beautiful feet of those walking beside “God with Us”. It’s an invitation to breathe again. It’s an invitation to life again. It’s the invitation of a lifetime!
Rev. Sterling W. Severns, Pastor
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To those who gave birth this year to their first child — we celebrate with you
To those who lost a child this year–we mourn with you
To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stain–we appreciate you
To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you
To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment—we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is
To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms–we need you
To those who have warm and close relationships with your children–we celebrate with you
To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children–we sit with you
To those who lost their mothers this year–we grieve with you
To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother–we acknowledge your experience
To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood–we are better for having you in our midst
To those who have had abortions–we remember you on this day
To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children–we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be
To those who stepparent–we walk with you on these complex paths
To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren, yet that dream is not to be–we grieve with you
To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year–we grieve and rejoice with you
To those who placed children up for adoption–we commend you for your selflessness and remember how you hold that child in your heart
And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising–we anticipate with you
This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you.
Written by Amy Young
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