Sundays mornings at 10:00 a.m. or Wednesday Evenings at 7:00 p.m.
WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW BEFORE COMING TO CHURCH?
To protect yourself and others, please do not attend church services if you have a fever or other symptoms.
WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW WHEN I GET THERE?
You will park in the Exchange Street parking lot and enter those doors. No other doors will be accessible. All other areas of the church will be closed.
Please arrive no earlier than 15 minutes prior to service. The new service format will be approximately 30 minutes in length.
Greeters will meet you prior to entering the doors to greet you warmly.
* A Greeter will record your attendance prior to entering the church. This will also serve for contact tracing, if necessary.
* Wearing a mask is required. Greeters will provide a mask for you if you do not have one. Please make sure your mouth and nose stay covered.
6 Foot social distancing is required. The narthex floor will be marked in order for you (and your party) to maintain the appropriate distance while waiting to be seated by an usher. Please stand on the mark.
Please use the hand sanitizer provided, prior to entering the sanctuary.
A person will be available to take your joys or concerns PRIOR to service in order to have your joys/concerns shared and offered in prayer during worship. Or if you prefer we have set up A Manna Moment Jar in the narthex on your way to the sanctuary for worship. During the week, you’re encouraged to daily write your manna moments on slips of paper (these can be signed or unsigned) and place them in the jar to be shared with the congregation. Remember, manna moments are often simple moments – a call from a friend, something that spoke to you in scripture or a devotional reading, a hug from a child, a prayer – all these simple everyday experiences can be manna moments because they helped lift you and made you aware of God’s goodness at that moment. We share them with each other for encouragement and to remind one another of God’s with-us-ness. Let us encourage one another.
If you wish, bring your own Bible. The pews will not have hymnals, Bibles, pencils, or paper available. The worship service is paperless (bring your own paper and pencil if desired).
Screens are located at the front of the sanctuary with words for the service.
The ushers will seat you to ensure social distancing requirements. Families will sit together. Please comply with the ushers’ direction.
Restrooms will be single occupancy only (except for parents with small children).
No church school or nursery care will be provided.
HOW WILL WE EXIT THE SANCTUARY?
Please wait to leave your pew until you are directed to do so. Social Distancing must continue to be observed.
There will be a designated basket/plate to receive an offering on your exit from sanctuary.
There will be no Coffee Fellowship after services.
LAST BITS
The church will be cleaned and sanitized after each service.
If you are diagnosed as positive for Covid-19, please notify the church ASAP.
Our worship services will be videotaped and available on our church website and Facebook page for those who will not be attending.
Our first priority remains keeping one another safe. We care deeply for you, and remain committed to doing all we can for each other’s safety and health.
Crete UMC's mission is to be Christ centered, teaching and learning community, dedicated to reaching out to all in a spirit of caring and sharing, a community where growth in Christ inspires us to be joyful sharing people.
At the beginning of the week, you will receive an email with an weekly devotional
If you are not receiving this information and wish to then please office@creteumc.org
Someone has said, “We keep time by observing the sun and the moon; we keep sane by telling stories.”
A calendar without a story might get us to the right place at the right time but what good is that if we don’t know who we are when we get there. Stories are what tell us who we are and what we can do.
Christians inherited a Roman calendar that was perfectly adequate for getting up in the morning and going to bed on time, when to plant your crops and when to set your wedding day. But from early days, Christians told stories of Jesus and their experience with him. And as the stories were told and retold, they clustered around the calendar and the “Roman” year slowly gave way to the “Christian” year.
The Christian calendar is our storybook. Every year we live inside the stories of Jesus Christ – we begin in Advent, anticipating the coming of a Savior, and we live and move through his birth, his life and his teachings, his death and resurrection, his ascension into heaven and the birth of his distinctive people, the Church, through the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and all that this means.
We tell these stories that define and shape our beginnings and ends, our living and dying, our rebirths and blessings – and behind and in it all, is the story of our God revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ.
This Sunday, our story-telling begins anew with Advent. In Advent, we tell our stories of waiting. We are waiting, waiting, for an infinite God, unbound by time and space, to reveal himself to us in a way we can understand:
“The virgin is with child and will soon give birth to a son: and she will call him Emmanuel, God-is-with-us.” Isaiah 7:14
Imagine if new stories had been found, ancient scrolls pulled from the sand of first-person accounts of those who were there at the nativity? By chance, these ancient texts have been secreted to me by persons who have chosen to remain anonymous. I assure you they are of reputable character. After prayerful consideration, I have chosen to break the silence and reveal these untold stories to you this Advent.
Mums the word.
Pastor Kristen
Announcements
IMAGINE: An Advent of Storytelling
1st Sunday of Advent, November 29th, The Angels’ Point of View
2nd Sunday of Advent, December 6th, The Testimony of the Innkeeper
3rd Sunday of Advent, December 13th, An Angel’s Case Against Christmas: The Grievance of Hector
4th Sunday of Advent, December 20th, A Director’s Encounter
JOIN US FOR CHRISTMAS EVE CANDLELIGHT SERVICE, December 24th at 7-7:30pm.
DONATIONS OF UNWRAPPED TOYS, MITTENS, SCARVES AND GLOVES FOR CHILDREN are being received at the Crete United Methodist Church. The non-contact drop place is outside the drive-through entrance off Exchange Street on Sundays, between 9 and 10am and Wednesdays between 6-7pm only. Gifts must be received prior to December 13th. All gifts will be given to the Jones Center in Chicago Heights.
OUR THRIFT SHOP is now taking donations on Tuesdays, between 9-11 am.
ANNUAL CHURCH CONFERENCE will be held on Monday, December 14th at 7pm (with a brief SPRC meeting with the District Superintendent at 6:45). This is a good ways off, but this gives us good time to prepare.
The Cabinet has decided that all church conferences this year will be held online using Zoom video conferencing. This is due to the pandemic and its unknown influence in the future and does not set a precedent for future church conferences; this decision is based on the current extreme circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What this means is that you can attend our CUMC annual conference either at home, on your computer. (We are happy to explain to you what it will be like and help you with set up and instructions so that you are familiar and comfortable to be a part of the conference from your home –
OR
You can attend the conference in the church sanctuary, masked and socially distanced. You will be able to hear those attending remotely via internet and see them on the screens.
Please contact Pastor Kristen at (224) 628-9128 with any questions or if you desire help in order to attend the conference remotely.
Click HERE to download (PDF)
e-Learning Learning Initiative
Click HERE for more information
contact
Kathy Carter Young
Director of the Before and After School Program
Email: klcy6000@aol.com for further information.
Serving
Together
by
* serving food to the homeless (PADS)
* donating food to Crete Food Pantry
* praying for those in need
