Autumn Sundays
Worship at 9:30 am
Fellowship and Learning Hour Following Worship

Presiding Minister: Pastor Tim Keyl
Assisting Minister: Vicar Gabrielle Brown
Music Director: Stephen Gamboa-Díaz
Music Intern: Ike Harijanto
Lectors: Abigail Kromminga and Dianne Witte
Altar Guild: Clarissa Youngberg
Ushers: John Aden and Ray Bussolini
Livestream: Blair Goodlin
Tellers: Leslie Dunn and Miles Kirschner
Bread Bakers: Lee family
Coffee Hour: Richard Ford

From the Pastor

Autumn Colors

September has always been my favorite month. Yes, it’s my birthday month. Yes, it has meant new beginnings for those like me whose rhythms are wed with school calendars. And yes, the hues on trees beginning to move from green to red, yellow, and orange in degrees of intensity make all of us aware of change within and without.

Many in our community are carrying heavy burdens.  Wading through new health diagnoses. Holding friends or family they love through crises. COVID popping up in close circles. Let us enact St. Paul’s image of the body as a metaphor for the community in Christ, where each of us offers gifts, and no one is more important than the other. In truth, we look to those who are said to be least important as most worth our attention.  Paul writes in First Corinthians 12:25-26:

“But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

I am grateful for the care many of us are giving. Be sure to receive care.  I am privileged to be your pastor now in my thirteenth year at Bethesda, and am here for you sharing burdens and joys.

Pastor Tim Keyl

“Waken in Me a Sense of Joy”
By Ted Loder

O extravagant God,
in this ripening, red-tinged autumn,
waken in me a sense of joy
in just being alive,
joy for nothing in general
except everything in particular;
joy in sun and rain
mating with earth to birth a harvest;
joy in soft light
through shyly disrobing trees;
joy in the acolyte moon
setting halos around processing clouds;
joy in the beating of a thousand wings
mysteriously knowing which way is warm;
joy in wagging tails and kids’ smiles
and in this spunky old city;
joy in the taste of bread and wine,
the smell of dawn,
a touch,
a song,
a presence;
joy in having what I cannot live without–
other people to hold and cry and laugh with;
joy in love;
in you;
and that all at first and last
is grace.

Save the Dates

Sunday, October 9 - Memorial Service for Rev. Carl Sharon, former LuMin campus pastor at Yale (then called Luther House) 1:30 pm at Dwight Chapel. Attendance is limited due to capacity. Click here to access the RSVP form or the Zoom link.

Saturday, October 15 - Bethesda at the Bowl (Yale Football Tailgate), 10:00 am

Sunday, October 30 - Concert Series: Reformation Concert, 4:30 pm

Sunday Worship Livestream

We stream Sunday worship services live on Bethesda’s YouTube Channel. Join us live at 9:30 am every Sunday or watch the recording afterward.

Click here to view this Sunday's bulletin.

Bethesda Nursery School Mum Sale
Preorders due Friday, September 23!

Beautify your porch, steps, yard and home with fall Chrysanthemums (Mums). Mix and match--go all the same or create a rainbow of autumnal colors! All mums come in a 9 inch pot, but can grow up to 2 feet wide if planted! All preorders are due by the end of the day on Friday, September 23.

The mums will be available for pick up beginning Friday, October 7th at school, or at the Family Picnic Night. Mums will also be available for purchase at the picnic while supplies last.
Order Today!

Bible Study on Zoom

Bethesda's Bible Study meets every other Wednesday at 8:00 am on Zoom. The series on the Book of Acts continues on Wednesday, September 28.

When? Every other Wednesday at 8:00 am

Where? On Zoom, click here to join (or join by telephone: 203-432-9666; Meeting ID: 961 0888 6279)

Dinner Church is around a meal in your home over Zoom

Wednesday nights beginning at 6:00 pm

Click here to join on Zoom

From your kitchen or dining room table beginning at 6:00 pm, Dinner Church is framed by prayer, informal and guided conversation, prayers of thanks over bread and wine, and eating together virtually. Have something on hand similar to bread and wine. Come to be with or meet friends from Bethesda and its community. Look to reflect on scripture and spiritual readings. All this provides a kind of communion liturgy over the course of a meal.

The theme for our autumn gatherings is Vocation.

Questions? Ask Pastor Keyl.

Forum Sunday, September 25 at 11:00 by Bethesda’s Youth

This Sunday, Bethesda’s Youth will give a presentation with a slide show on their July mission trip in Chicago. Come, learn about all their projects, and how they navigated mass transit throughout their week. The Forum meets in the Parish House Living Room.

On Sunday, October 4th, Pastor Keyl and Prisiclla Melendez will speak about our connections with the New England Synod and the ELCA. Pastor Keyl attended the Churchwide Assembly and a Peace Not Walls Conference in August, and Priscilla Melendez serves on the New England Synod Council.

Stewardship Series begins on Sunday, October 12 with a discussion on the book Giving to God: The Bible’s Good News about Living a Generous Life, by Mark Allan Powell.  This will be led by Bethesda’s Stewardship Committee: Blair Goodlin, Calli Micale, Dianne Witte, and Pastor Keyl.  Order your books on your own or by contacting Leigh Cromey at [email protected].

Apple-picking Sunday, September 25 following Learning/Fellowship Hour

Bethesda’s somewhat annual apple-picking will follow fellowship and learning hour on Sunday, September 25, and is for any and all who want to come. Bring your own lunch and eat it with others in the Campanius Room after learning/fellowship hour at noon. We will leave around 12:30 pm and car pool to Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, a half an hour drive from Bethesda. You pay per bag which is provided. If there is time and interest, we can hang outside the farm store where there are cider donuts and kettlecorn, and other things to eat for sale. There is also a corn maze for an additional cost.

RSVP’s will be helpful, but not necessary. Send them to Leigh at [email protected].

Upcoming Commemorations

Michael and All Angels

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Michael the archangel, captain of the heavenly hosts, is remembered on this day along with the other angels and archangels. The word "angel" means messenger, and in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, these beings have a fully spiritual nature and no physical body.

Jerome, translator, teacher, died 420

Friday, September 30, 2022

Jerome was a biblical scholar and translator, but rather than translating the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures into classical Latin, he worked in the commonly-spoken Latin of the day, creating a version called the Vulgate.

Prayer Requests

For healing and strength: Carole DeVore; Johannes Bollmann (YDS exchange student from Copenhagen); Brian Witte, nephew of Dianne Witte; Mary Ricketts, friend of Chris Wigren; Kathryn and Karolyn Lee, aunts of Chris Lee; George Arndt, father of Lynn Arezzini; Michelle Lee, friend of Christina Castañeda; Mark Barnett, nephew of Becky Lerud; Marie Gray; Sonja Krummrey; Maureen Anderson; Natalie Denardis, granddaughter of Gail Denardis; Shirley Farm; Anne and Lee Keck; Kay Leone; Molly Dinneen; Karen (Starbranch) Blitch, daughter of Chuck Starbranch.

For those serving in the military.

For our partners in the Gospel: the congregations and schools of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) and LuMin Campus Ministry.

For Bethesda New Haven: that God continues to guide us into the future with ministries of witness, service, hospitality, and care while building up our community in all its diversity.

For those in candidacy for rostered leadership in the ELCA: Natalie Benson and Calli Micale.

For those who mourn: Blair Goodlin and family, at the death of his brother-in-law Robert Gritz on Tuesday, September 20; Lorraine Peterson at the commendation of ashes for her mother, Mary Peterson Sunday, September 25 at Camp Calumet’s Memorial Chapel.