Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread!

Thanksgiving is Coming - and so is the Youth's November fundraiser! We had a real winner last year - chocolate chip pumpkin bread! We used Chelsey's famous recipe from Kendal Day Care, and it was delicious! The youth will be baking on November 22nd, and loaves will be ready for pickup after church on November 23rd.

Reserve your loaf today! You can sign up at church on the sheet in the gallery, by clicking the link below, or by calling the church at 440-775-1711. Loaves are $12, and payment is due at pickup.

The funds raised will all go to buy gifts for children in the Holiday Helping Hands program at OCS. Please buy some pumpkin bread and help our youth help others! 

Furniture Moving Group

Our Furniture Moving Group is such a hit among our renters that we are EXPANDING the group and adding some people so no one gets burnt out! Some questions you may have before joining the group:

• What is the Furniture Moving Group? Folks who rearrange furniture on the stage in the Meeting House for various community events for the church.
• How often do you move furniture? As often as you'd like! The amount of times Miranda asks for help from the group varies in the year, but the busiest times of year are usually the late fall, early winter, and general spring time. We do ask for help in the other times, though!
• What do we ask to move? Anything that is on the stage EXCEPT THE PIANO could be moved off of the stage, and the piano can be moved around the stage.
• How will you know how to move these delicate items on this delicate stage? We will train you! There are casters on everything that you may be moving, as well! 

Please consider joining this crew because it takes a village to provide space for our community! Thank you for your consideration.

“Here I am Lord. I will be your light.”

As you come to worship on Consecration Sunday, November 9th, remember to bring your pledge card, if you have not already mailed it in. Late in the service, ushers will direct each row of worshipers to go forward to share in an act of giving and receiving blessings.* You may place your pledge card in the box at the front. Pastor David and Dana Parsons will be at the head of each isle and will guide you on what to do.

After sharing blessings, members of the Stewardship Committee will give each person a “Gift of Light”; an LED light bulb compliments of POWER, meant to symbolize our theme. You can then return to your seat. Once everyone has returned to their seats we will close the service by singing, “I the Lord of Sea and Sky”, also known to us as, “Here I am, Lord.” The song will be printed on the back page of your bulletin.

*For those unable to come forward for the exchange of blessings, someone will come to you at your seat.

A closing story further illuminates our theme.

“OUT FROM THE DARK”

Isaiah 9:2 “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light”

“The tugboat sank twenty miles off the coast of Nigeria, turning upside down as it fell to the sea floor. Eleven crew members drowned, but the ship’s cook, Odjegba Okene, found an air pocket and waited. He only had one bottle of Coke for provisions, and both of his flashlights died within the first twenty-four hours. For three terrifying days, Okene was trapped alone in darkness at the bottom of the ocean. He’d begun to give up hope when divers on a mission to recover dead bodies found him hunkered and shivering deep in the hull.

The image of Okene alone in the dark for sixty hours is unnerving. He told reporters he still suffers nightmares from the horrifying ordeal. But can you imagine what he felt when he saw the diver’s powerful lamp piercing the darkness? What joy and elation, what hope!

The prophet Isaiah foretold how, when the Messiah came, all “the people walking in darkness” would see “a great light” (9:2). Left to our own devices, we live “in the land of deep darkness,” but in Jesus, “a light has dawned.” (v.2).

Christ is “the light of the world,” and in Him we need never again fear the darkness for we “have the light of life” (John 8:12). We may feel trapped or hopeless, alone or in despair, but God illuminates good news. Jesus carries us out of the dark and into His marvelous light.” - Winn Collier

Taken from, “Our Daily Bread”, used by permission, copyright Wednesday, October 1, 2025.

Remember, as God has brought light to us in Jesus, we can, in the name of Jesus, be God’s light for others. The preceding story reminds us that any one of us can be the answer to someone’s prayer. And so we say, “Here I am, Lord. I will be your light.”

Food Collection Box

OCS - Oberlin Community Services needs shelf-stable items for its FOOD PANTRY to help Lorain County residents.

We anticipate demand for food will skyrocket in November when SNAP benefits will stop for about 34,000 Lorain County residents and many federal government employees are also without a paycheck. 

In addition to the Thanksgiving Food Drive at our Oberlin Walmart, OCS always needs staples such as rice and beans, canned meat & tuna, meal kits that do not require extra ingredients, canned fruit & vegetables. 

Please bring your donations to the Outreach & Service Box in the Gallery. O&S members will take the food to Oberlin Community Services. You can also drop off your food donations to the box in front of the OCS Cooper Service Center at 500 E. Lorain Street in Oberlin. 

Empty egg cartons of any kind are also needed to pack fresh egg donations!

FINAL Wednesday Night Supper of 2025!

As the colder winter weather arrives and with Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, let’s get together on Wednesday November 19 at 5:45 for our final supper in 2025! The organizing committee will supply meat and vegetarian chili, jambalaya, and various topping favorites. We’d like 4 people to sign up to bring corn bread and 6 to bring a dessert of your choice. There are sign-up sheets in the hallway on the way to fellowship hall. Or, you can sign up electronically here.

Volunteer Opportunity with Oberlin Weekday Community Meals

First Church supports the longstanding tradition of the Oberlin Weekday Community Meals (OWCM) program. OWCM has been serving regular hot meals in our community for over 30 years out of the Christ Episcopal Church Parish Hall kitchen. Following the Covid pandemic OWCM currently provides meals 4 days a week with dine-in meals on Mondays and Thursdays from 5-5:45PM and take-out on Tuesdays and Fridays 5-5:45PM. Paid staff does most of the food prep, however opportunities exist for regular and periodic/substitute volunteers to provide plating, serving and clean-up. It can be a very enriching experience to share a good nutritious meal with members of our community that you may not normally have the opportunity to commune with. To volunteer, contact them at chef@christchurchoberlin.org.

Oberlin Community Green Group Gathering Friday Nov. 14

This year's Oberlin Community Green Group Harvest Vegetarian Pot Luck Gathering will be Friday evening, Nov. 14, hosted by our First Church Green Team. The 5:30 dinner will be followed at 7:00 by a presentation on "Sustainable Berea," by Erika Coble, a member of the Berea City Council, and Baldwin-Wallace Emeritus Professor of Biology Michael Melampy, who serves on the City's Shade Tree Commission. "Sustainable Berea" is a volunteer group whose purpose is to address environmental issues, take action and make the city a sustainable place to live. Mark your calendars, spread the word, and, if you are able, bring some vegetarian food to share!

Liturgist Coordinator

Are you looking for a way to support worship at First Church without taking on a monthly committee meeting? The First Church worship committee is looking for a new Liturgist Coordinator. This important volunteer is responsible for lining up a liturgist each Sunday. Don't worry, there is no shortage of potential liturgists! Becky Thompson has built a strong cadre of liturgist volunteers over the years she has served so successfully in this role. She will turn a well-tuned process over to her successor. If you are interested, please contact Peter Thomas (pjthomasmathbio@gmail.com).

First Church building rental opportunities

The First Church buildings offer numerous opportunities for meetings, rehearsals, concerts, weddings, and family events. After long study, a reasonable rental fee schedule has been worked out to offer fair use of the facility to our members and our neighbors. Large rooms (the Meeting House, Fellowship Hall, or JFO Room) and small rooms (upstairs classrooms, Room 4, Reading Room) can be reserved by the hour or by the half day. Discounted rates for church members and community partners may be available. The city of Oberlin has limited spaces available for events, and we are happy to offer our facility to help fill that need for our neighbors.

There Are Requirements for Making Submissions to our First Things First eNews!

In an effort to make our eNews more readable and shorten the length, we have created new guidelines for submitting posts! The guidelines are as follows.

1. As usual, the deadline for submissions for the upcoming First Things First is Wednesday prior to 10 AM.
2. We will not be putting in any non-First Church job postings.
3. We will not be putting in any full flyers as the submission (however, we will put in a button that links to a PDF of the flyer).
4. There is a word limit of 100 words for the text of a submission.
5. You may insert links into the text post for more information, either by button or hyperlink in the text.
6. You may insert PDFs (accessible by buttons) for more information, a flyer, or anything else that would be helpful for the post, but the document must be in PDF format. Any other document format will not be included in your submission.
7. You may send one picture that you have the rights to use (i.e. a picture that is not subject to copyright, we suggest using the site pexels.com).
8. The submission will run for a maximum of 2 weeks in the eNews. These 2 weeks do not have to be consecutive.

When sending in your submission, you must have

• The title of the post
• The text of the post (maximum of 100 words)
• Which 2 weeks you'd like for your submission to run

When sending in your submission, you could have

• If you'd like, one picture
• If you'd like, PDFs (and what you'd want the title of the button that links to it to be)
• If you'd like, the links for spots in the text post (and which word(s) you'd like to be the hyperlink or what you'd want the title of the button to be)

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we try to make our eNews experience more manageable for our readers!