May 16 & 17

I’m (Matt P) going to be in DC and I hear that Lauren and Jan will be as well.  What’s planned?  Would love to hang out with a bunch of you?  Love and miss you so much!!!

Sunday Night with Matt

Hi Kiddos!!!

Steph just informed me that the infamous Matt will be leading on Sunday evening. I don’t know what the topic will be, but knowing Matt, I’m sure it’ll spark some awesome conversation

SO, come on out this weekend and join us Sunday evening for some fantastic fellowship!

Personal Favor

Hi Friends!

I have a personal request to make to all of you in my “tribe.” I recently found out from a very dear friend of mine, Katie (some of you may have heard me talk about her (graphic designer who lives in Brooklyn)) that one of her sisters (Kendra (whom I would also consider a friend)) has been diagnosed with follicular lymphoma. While I am quite certain that I can count on all of you for prayers (which I love), I have another request as well.

Katie has set up an online shop to help Kendra (and her husband Stephen) offset some of the cost of Kendra’s chemo treatments. If you get a chance, please visit wholeheartsforlife.com and consider helping out.

Thanks all

Leader for tomorrow

Hi friends we find ourselves in the same situation we were last week: we lack a leader for tomorrow’s hg Sunday gathering.

So, if you’re willing to lead tomorrow, please let Stephanie or me know or just comment on this post

Thanks!

Arlington Theology Pub

NO Sunday Service Tonight!

Hi Friends!

 

Jen reminded me last night that we never got the word out about the plans for Memorial Day weekend. As I recall, we decided to cancel the Sunday evening service because we were unsure as to who would be there and didn’t have anyone to lead.

SO… enjoy a Sunday evening off, come hang out at Half-Priced Burgers tomorrow, and we’ll catch you later

 

(If there’s a big enough group who wants to/is able to be there tonight as well as somebody who watns to lead, I’m going to trust you to handle that amongst yourselves )

 

Movie Time!

 

 

Alright Friends… To kick off the next few weeks of super fun moving parties, I propose an entertaining venture. THIS FRIDAY (May 13), let’s go see THOR. I don’t know an exact time yet (Fandango hasn’t released them yet), but I’ll probably be looking at and 8:00 showing in 2D at Hoffman AMC (right off 495 in Alexandria) or Regal Potomac Yard (on Rt 1 by Hops). Let me know if you’re interested in going (lrn.wllms[at]gmail[dot]com), and I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop once I get more details

Lodging Request

I’m so excited about seeing you all this Sunday as Jan’s tenure at FPC comes to a close.  I’ll be travelling with my friend Jess.  We’re needing a place to stay Saturday night.  I’m catching a flight to the upper peninsula of Michigan late Sunday afternoon and she’ll be driving my car back to Pittsburgh, so unfortunately it’s going to be a really short trip.  We’ll be getting into DC around 9 Saturday night.  Let me know if you have space for both or even just one of us.  Love and miss you all so much!

Rebuilding Together

Ok Everyone, Dave just sent me the details for our April service project. We’ll be getting together to work with Rebuilding Together Alexandria (aka Christmas in April). They’re a really cool organization that works to rehabilitate the homes of low-income homeowners. There are projects happening year round with RTA, but they have a massive Work Day every year in April (hence “Christmas in April).

This year, the work day is Saturday, April 30.

Dave thinks it will be easiest for volunteers to contact RTA directly and let them know that they’re signing up to work the the Holy Grounds/TNT team.

RTA’s POC is Mike Moss (703-93-0164, 571-277-0739 (cell), or cmoss [at] ida [dot] org.

Also, if you know of any Alexandria families that could be served through RTA’s program, please call 703-836-1021.

 

Hope to see you all out there!!!

Adding Security to Your Posts

I’ve heard it a few times from a few different people… There’s a desire for the ability to make posts inaccessible to crawlers like Google and Yahoo. This is specifically desired for posts that include personal information (such as prayer requests).

After a little bit of playing, I think I’ve come up (hopefully) with a suitable solution (at least for now until we can find something a little more reliable).

SO, if you have a post that you don’t want showing up on search engines (but still accessible to any visitors to the site and it will appear in RSS feeds)…

Step One: Write your post like normal

Step Two: Before you hit “Publish,” scroll down on the page (or look to the right sidebar, depending on how you’ve set your page layout) until you find the little box that says “Meta Robots” it should look like this…

Step Three: Find and select the “noindex, nofollow” option on the Meta Robots drop down menu.

Step Four: Publish your post as usual.

 

This plugin should stop crawlers from coming through your post. It will still be tweeted, emailed, and it will still appear on RSS feeds.

Additionally, if you want added protection for your post, you can change the visibility of the post to only include registered users of this site. To do so, edit the “Visibility” options in the “Publish” box. Setting it to “Private” will lock it down for anybody who is not registered on our site.

If you have any questions about this, or if you would like additional tutorials on posting options, let me know!!!

 

Potluck Next Sunday

Pull out your Pyrex and find your recipe for Tuna Noodle Casserole, we’re having a potluck!

Next Sunday is our LAST lunch meeting/study with the Methodists, and we thought it would be appropriate to do something fun.

SO, next Sunday (April 17), we’ll be meeting at 12:15 in the basement of FPC. Bring an empty stomach and a dish to share. The plates/cups/napkins and drinks will all be taken care of

As always, PLEASE feel free to come even if you forget/don’t have time/whatever to bring something. There is always more than enough food when we get together!

Site Maintenance Update

Alright Kids… I *think* I’ve gotten everything sorted out enough that you should be able to fully use the site without any major issues.

If you’re curious about what I did, I’m about to tell you. If you don’t care, stop reading now ;)

In a nutshell, I got rid of some of the extra plugins that we weren’t utilizing, installed a new Facebook login plugin that will hopefully be less glitchy, added a “login through wordpress” option to the sidebar for those who prefer to use their wordpress login, installed a new calendar plugin (and updated it!), added a “Coming up” events list to the sidebar, and tried to clean up a little on the backend of things.

If you have any questions about any of this, please feel free to ask me! The only other (somewhat) major update that I’m working on is ensuring that our twitter account is still linked to the blog (it hasn’t been updating properly), but I’m still waiting on some info before I can check into that. I also plan on looking into connecting to the HG facebook album to add some fun pictures to the sidebar (not sure yet if I’m going to get that to work).

I think that’s it! Please play around, click all the links, and let me know if you run into any issues. I’ll be monitoring the site activity fairly closely for the next few days to make sure I don’t see anything wonky come across

Test Post

This is a test post… feel free to ignore it

 

Are You Ready for Some Football?!

Alright Kids… the Superbowl is this coming Sunday (Feb 6). SO we’re going to party it up!

Thanks to the efforts of Josh and Anthony, we do officially have access to the game (and the commercials!) in the basement! We’ll be meeting at 5:15ish so that we have some time to grapple a little before kick-off. Nancy’s taking the lead on this discussion, so it will be awesome

Please bring your favorite game-day munchies to share.

Ok… RECAP:

SUPERBOWL.

Feb. 6.

5:15ish.

FPC Basement.

Bring yums.

Superbowl!

Alright kids… there have been murmurs floating around about having an HG Superbowl party (YAY!). The original concept was to have the football up on the screen in the basement at FPC, and have games, munchies, etc… HOWEVER, since the church does not have a cable drop anywhere… we would be relying on rabbit-ears to get us the game, so we couldn’t exactly be certain that we’d be able to watch it (and the commercials ).

SO, we thought that this might be more fun at somebody’s home Would anybody love to open their doors and host what will most likely be a seriously wicked awesome party? If you’re up for it, reply to this post, or send me an email at lrn.wllms@gmail.com

If nobody is available to host, we will probably still do something that night, we just may or may not be able to involve football in the fun

HG Recap 09Jan11

Tonight our members took and honest appraisal of where HG is, where we are going, and how we want to change. A recap of this conversation has been sent out the the members of HG. However if you didn’t receive the email please let me know  wllmsjv[at]gmail[dot]com.

Don’t spend Christmas alone – come to the Dale’s!

John and I would like to invite anyone who is staying in the area for the holidays to join us for a late lunch at our house on Christmas day. As members of the Kingdom of God, we’re all one big family, and we don’t want any of our family members to be alone on Christmas.

John’s mom and boyfriend from Missouri and the Hoppe family will be joining us around 2:00 pm that day for dinner, where we’ll have a relaxed meal, filled with tasty food and good conversation. Feel free to come anytime between 1 and 2:00 pm to hang out, help cook, or relax.

If you’d like to come but don’t have a ride, just let us know and we’re happy to arrange for someone to pick you up. Additional friends and family members are welcome.

Merry Christmas

Sarah

sarahedale (at) gmail.com
703 789 7164

CHRISTMAS PARTY TIME!!!

Alright kids, it has been decided that *THIS SUNDAY* (December 12, 2010) instead of “regular HG”, we’ll be having our annual white elephant gift exchange at 6:00pm. As a refresher, everyone will wrap something ridiculous (preferably that you already own), bring it, and then we’ll all sit down and laugh at the awesomeness as everyone unwraps the “gifts”. PLEASE feel free to come even if you don’t have anything to wrap. There are always extras

Also, if you’d like to bring snacks/munchies/drinks, that would be AWESOME!

In addition to that, we’re also adding a little something this year… As a reminder that community is outward as well as inward, we will be collecting non-perishable items to be donated to an as-yet-to-be-determined place of need.

So, to re-cap…

THIS SUNDAY (Dec 12)

6:00 pm

Bring: a wrapped gag gift, some food-stuffs, and/or a non-perishable donation item

Tacky sweaters optional.

Volunteer Opportunity – Nov. 20

Hi everyone, 

Casa Chirilagua is having it’s first ever Chirilagua Thanksgiving Celebration, on Saturday November 20, 2010. We’re gathering with other church partners to offer a day of fun and food to over 100 Chirilagua families. Grace Community Church will be leading the efforts, but our hope is that many other churches will also take part, including Holy Grounds. Dawnielle and Emily are looking for 70-100 volunteers to make this work!

We’re celebrating with moon-bounces, a cook-out, hot chocolate, face-painting, carnival games, raffle prizes, clothes distribution, and a turkey basket give-away. Our goal is to have 100 baskets prepared (Hispanic style with rice, beans, and maseca for making tortillas). 

How can you get involved?

• Sign up to run a game or food station (2 hour shift).

• Sign up to help set-up (8:30-10:00am) or to clean-up (2-3pm).

• Donate money or gift cards to help buy food for the event or for the turkey baskets.

Talk to me (Sarah Dale) if you have any further questions and/or want to sign up. Also, FYI, it will be a mainly outdoor event, so please come bundled up and prepared to face the elements (and/or pray for a warm day!).

Sarah
sarahedale (at) gmail.com

Ancient Church Fathers & Devotion to Scripture

One of the communities I’m a part of in Pittsburgh is devoted to learning about Christianity from the Ancient Church Fathers (writers during the first few centuries of Christianity).  It’s been an incredible time for me reading  and discussing the implications of what they teach for our understanding of our faith.

We are having a conference in January that I thought you all would enjoy coming to!  I will arrange for a place for you guys to stay in Pittsburgh of course, if you want to come.  Just let me know.

Here are the details:

The House of St. Michael the Archangel Devotional Conference:
Come and be led into greater awe and reverence for Holy Scripture

We will gather for worship and reflections on what it means to strive for and desire greater devotion to Scripture. Our worship will be guided by the Psalms, silence and contemplation.

Friday, January 14th, 6:30pm-9:30pm**
Saturday, January 15th: 9:00am-4:00pm (lunch served on-site)
** Friday, 10pm through Saturday, 8am: an elective vigil, where the Psalms will be read publicly in the Church.

Location:
Oakmont Presbyterian Church
415 Pennsylvania Ave
Oakmont, PA 15139-1562
www.oakmontpresbyterianchurch.org

Cost:
$20 thru 2010, $30 in 2011

To register e-mail: devotionalconference@gmail.com

Speakers:

Rev. Dr. Richard Ray
He has spent a lifetime meditating on spiritual masters of the Christian faith. He has served as a parish minister, seminary professor, editor of the Presbyterian Outlook, and managing Director and Senior Editor of John Knox Press. He currently serves as the Consultant for Theological Enrichment of Presbyterians for Renewal (www.pfrenewal.org) and as the Director of the Children’s Trust Society of The Grandfather Home for Children (www.grandfatherhome.org). He is blessed with numerous grandchildren and lives with his lovely wife, Lila, in Montreat, NC.

Matthew T. Bell
He is currently a PhD student at Durham University (www.dur.ac.uk) in the area of early church interpretation of Scripture. Matt holds an MDiv from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh. He originally hails from El Paso, TX and currently resides in Pittsburgh with his wife, Alyssa./

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