3130 Franconia Road, Alexandria, VA 22310      703-960-9505      Fax: 703-960-5156        cameron @ cameron-umc.org

UPCOMING EVENTS AT CAMERON

Beginning January 2, Sunday School classes PreK-6th grade will be using a new curriculum called Faithweaver. This is an exciting curriculum that equips families to grow in faith together. It integrates learning about the Bible, applying the Bible, worshipping God, building Christian relationships, and serving God in our lives. Sunday School classes will study the same passage of Scripture each week in an age appropriate way through games, activities, songs and much more! Each week the lessons include a Home Connect which provides activities and Bible Verses for home use. Midweek, a Family Connect email will be sent to parents that reinforces the lessons learned on Sunday with activities and conversation starters. The Children's Ministry and Education Committee hope that this curriculum will provide encouragement to parents as spiritual leaders for your families.

The St Andrew Society Sunday was a great success with Reverend Jennifer Moore educating us about the work SOSA is doing to help feed the hungry. The morning was filled with information, worship, and food. All based on the lowly potato. Through our coin boxes we collected over $300 to go to their programs.

With the support and generosity of Cameron, our project of supplying Christmas stockings to Kid’s Konnection was a huge success. Carl Bon delivered 205 stockings to them. Thanks to everyone for their support and especially to the youth and Parents’ Night Out for filling and decorating stockings as a project.

A thank you from Mt. Eagle School in January is highlighted. Thanks for your continuing support in this mission project.

By Miranda Lansberr, Children’s Coordinator

Starting January 2nd, we will be starting our new Sunday School Curriculum Faithweaver. It is a whole family experience carrying Scripture and Faith Stories home throughout the week. Please join us!!

I would like to say a big thank you to those involved with the Christmas Pageant!! I know you worked very hard and it sure did pay off!! I can’t tell you how many compliments our production has received. I would like to send a special thanks to those who created the costumes for the play: Margaret Bon, Katy Bon, Julie Bowersett, Mariah McLean, and Lydia Clites. The costumes were beautiful and very much appreciated! Thanks again to all!

Finding Balance is a six-week study for women meeting Mondays at 9:30 AM beginning January 24th. We as women have all felt overwhelmed, bored, guilty, and lost. We crave to make our faith central in our daily lives. So how do we find the balance we so crave in the craziness of our lives? In this study we will consider the question of balance using the lives of New Testament women looking for clues in how they dealt with the issue of balance in their lives - between service and worship, duty and devotion, doing and being.

Childcare is available. Contact Gwen Brim, Minister of Congregational Development at gbrim@cameron-umc.org.

It is a New Year! A time for resolutions, and perhaps a time to reflect on the musical portions of our worship service. As you can understand, many hours are devoted to planning, scheduling, and rehearsing the music - and that is many weeks before you hear it on a Sunday. Since Cameron Church follows the lectionary, there are prescribed Scripture readings for every service, and the music should enhance at least one idea from those readings.

In service order, the prelude begins our time of worship together, as a time for quiet meditation and prayer in preparation for the service; the Introit is a musical “welcome to our service”, provided by the choir. The hymns augment the message of the day, as do the anthem(s). Offertory music provides a time for prayerful thanks; the Doxology is the traditional musical way to sing our thanks. The Closing Response is the choir’s way of saying “Amen, and go in peace”, and the postlude offers some departure music, although you are invited to stay and enjoy! And so, a quick review shows that the service begins with the prelude and closes at the end of the postlude. I hope this little explanation will help you better understand the “whys and wherefores” of Sunday morning music.

Just a reminder that in October we replaced our Red Bird Mission collection of Bar Codes from the Campbell‘s products and Box Tops from other products with collecting cancelled stamps to raise funds for the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) - our denomination‘s agency that assists in any and all disasters that occur around the globe. The UMC is always one of the first agencies to arrive (sometimes ahead of the Red Cross) and stays until after all other agencies have left.

This collection change allows parents, grandparents and friends to contribute the educational items to their children‘s local schools. The UMW will increase its annual monetary contribution to Red Bird Mission in Kentucky to offset our previous label and box top contributions; this also saves the postal costs of mailing packages of labels.

All cancelled stamps except bulk mail stamps are collected and foreign stamps are the most valuable. Just cut the stamps off the envelope leaving at least a ¼-inch border. If there is a row of stamps, please leave them as a row and cut the row out with a ¼-inch border. Do not peel the stamps off of the envelopes. You may place your cancelled stamps in the basket in the narthex that contains a sample of the stamps.

We now have a monthly craft night for Cameron UMC members and our friends! This is a place to bring your own projects to work on while chatting with friends in fellowship. If you don’t want to bring your own project, we will also always have supplies provided for making blank greeting cards to be sent to deployed Chaplains to give out to soldiers so they can send them home to their families.

We meet on the 2nd Friday of every month from 7 to 9 pm in Skelton Hall. This month we will meet on January 14th.

You can join us on FaceBook by typing “Cameron UMC Church” in the search bar and friend us. Parents, you can join the Children's Ministry FaceBook at "Cameron UMC Kids." Thanks to Katy Bon, we are now on Twitter! You can find announcements at #CameronUMC, adult daily devotionals at #CameronDevotion, youth and young adult devotionals at #CameronDevos and Prayer Requests at #CameronPrayers.

FREE MONEY FOR CAMERON

To access the Web site, go to www.goodsearch.com. You will see two windows. In the bottom window, enter "Cameron UMC" (without the quote marks) and then hit the "Verify" button. That will confirm the beneficiary of your searches. Save the page to your Favorites or Bookmarks so it will be easily available to you in the future. The site even features a button (Amount Raised) to check on progress.

Won’t you consider a small change in your Internet habits that could make a significant difference to Cameron?

CREDIT UNION

As a member of Cameron United Methodist Church, you are eligible to be a member of the Virginia United Methodist Conference Credit Union. Check out the benefits of membership in a credit union! For more information, call Virginia United Methodist Conference Credit Union toll free at 1-800-768-6040 or visit their Web site at http://www.vumcu.org .