Responding to the call of Jesus Christ to love and serve a broken world
	Dearest Friends in Christ, Do you eat Chinese food with chopsticks or a fork? A recent devotional in The Upper Room used chopsticks to illustrate how all of us can be involved in Mission. Capable users of chopsticks (I am not in this category!) apparently keep one stick stationary while moving the other stick. Some of us are called to be involved in Mission through ´staying put´, being planted right here. We can pray; we can give our resources; we can write to those in the field or sponsored children; we can extend hospitality to visiting missionaries. Others of us are called to travel, to go. That might mean "next door" with our Norwalk Neighbors, to the Gulf Coast, or outside of our country. "All of us have a part to play according to our God-given gifts." As I write these words towards the close of 2006, I remember two deaths (outside of our church family) that have impacted me this year. My 101 year old Grammy died this past January. Very recently, the director of the agency from which we adopted our second daughter died suddenly. Gratefully, both my Grammy and Mr. John Fricker, in different ways, led significant lives. They have each left a legacy. We want our lives to be meaningful, especially as we contemplate what this New Year may bring. We want to participate in things that are enduring and lift us beyond ourselves. Joining NPC in Mission is a vital way to measure our lives less by "success", perhaps, and more by "significance." When I think of what will matter at the end of my life, I know that getting to join our God in making Jesus’ saving love known through involvement in Mission will be right up there at the top of ‘the list.’ I am excited because 2007 will be a year of expanded mission awareness, reach, impact and involvement for NPC. For instance, we hope to send forth people to: Pakistan, Brazil, Kenya, Uganda, the Dominican Republic and Mississippi. We hope to receive mission partners from Russia, the Czech Republic and Cameroon. We hope to help our congregation better understand what it means to live in a world where Christianity is flourishing in the southern hemisphere but floundering in our own. We hope to educate ourselves about Islam and its bearing upon Christians around the globe. We hope to increase our local involvement with all of our Norwalk Neighbors. We hope to partner with our Youth Team to support more youth and family "hands on" involvement, including the Confirmation Class’s first mission trip. It is our deep desire that more and more members and friends of NPC will become personally involved in Mission in a meaningful way: whether it is by being a critical "stationary" one, or one who gets in a car or on an airplane and "moves." So as you open your 2007 calendar and begin to make commitments, please prayerfully consider how you can join our Lord in Mission in, through and beyond Noroton! In Christ’s Sure Love, Pastor Connie