Advent 2025: Be Amazed!
Joe Hayward
This year, as we move through the four Sundays in Advent towards Christmas, we will encounter confounding stories in the Bible that lead to Jesus’ birth. We invite you to engage with these scriptures and the narrative of Christ coming to live beside us with new eyes. Bring your childlike wonder and approach these stories as though you are hearing them for the first time. Awaken all your senses to experience the sights, sounds, and scents of these wondrous accounts!
Visuals will take a larger role in worship for this series. During the music for meditation each week, we’ll display scripture verses with an image to meditate on. The star at the front of the sanctuary will grow and change as we move closer to Christmas. Let these visuals enhance your anticipation of celebrating Emmanuel, God with us.
The children’s stories during worship will be lively and interactive. We invite you to be as open to these retellings as you would be to the Scripture reading and the sermon.
Our celebration of Advent will culminate in a pageant on Christmas Eve (followed by a time of fellowship) and a service of lessons and carols on January 4. So set aside what you think you may know about the stories we will encounter this Advent season, and challenge yourself to “Be Amazed!”
In This Issue
Advent Giving Project
Katrina Baugh
As we observe Advent this year, we stand in solidarity with our immigrant siblings. Jesus’ parents traveled a long journey for him to be born in Bethlehem; they were also forced to flee the country in Jesus’ early years because of political violence. As Jesus himself faced displacement and was a refugee, we know that we find Christ himself in those who are refugees and immigrants in our midst.
In that confidence, our Advent giving project is going toward Immigrant Solidarity DuPage, some local food resources that make provisions for our immigrant neighbors, and our dear brother and sister Ana and Berclin.
Immigrant Solidarity DuPage has been doing some truly miraculous work in protecting our most vulnerable neighbors and setting prisoners free. In addition to the physical presence that many in our congregation have provided to our immigrant siblings through showing up at Broadview and taking shifts patrolling for danger, we will bolster the leaders of this movement and their work through our financial contributions this holiday season.
We also want to extend a genuine reminder of our love and solidarity to Ana and Berclin. Though they are no longer in our neighborhood, they remain part of our community. A small portion of this season’s Advent giving will go toward a gift for them, which Kelly W. will hand-deliver as she travels home for Christmas. Her presence, along with our gift, will reassure them of our continued care.
How to Give
We’ll collect donations at LMC for our Advent Giving Project through December 28. Click the GIVE NOW button to contribute via Church Center. If donating via Zelle (to [email protected]) or by check, write “Advent Giving” in the memo field. You can place checks in Katharine’s mailbox or the offering box.
You are also welcome to pick up a few much-needed items for the local food pantry and place them under the Christmas tree in the narthex. Their top requests are breakfast cereal (hot and cold), pasta and pasta sauce, pancake mixes and syrup, rice, canned and dry beans (especially black and garbanzo), canned tomatoes and corn, and tuna. Thank you for participating generously!
Finishing Strong
Eric Nelessen
What a difference a month makes. In my November Vital Signs article, I reported that we were in a bit of a cash crunch, and I invited you to make donations earlier than you might have been planning to. So many of you responded that we’ve had our highest November offering ever at $64,428!
We still have a ways to go—we need to receive around $80,000 or 20% of our General Fund Income budget by December 31—but your generous November contributions have given us a flying start. And we’ve been able to pay some of the expenses we were delaying.
As of November 28, our faith community has given $325,336 to LMC’s mission, while recording $361,943 in expenses. After other income, the net result is that we’ve spent $30,791 more than we’ve given.
Thank you to everyone who has donated this year to support LMC. And a particular thank you to those who contributed in November! For information about ways to give to LMC, please see Jeremy Kropf’s article further down. And as always, just let me know if you have any questions or if there is anything I can clarify for you. Please keep LMC’s financial needs in your prayers.
Thanksgiving Comes Before Christmas
Barbara Krehbiel Gehring
I’m a big fan of Christmas, so I’m torn this time of year. Do I want all the Christmas hoopla to begin the day after Halloween, if not sooner? Advent doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving, and church tradition marks it as a season of anticipation.
In the hype of both Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving doesn’t get much attention. It’s a complicated holiday. It purports to celebrate the generosity and harmony between European settlers and Native Americans as they shared a meal. Sharing is good, and so is thankfulness. But the history I grew up learning was a happy sliver within a generally gruesome story.
I remember one Thanksgiving spent on the road traveling. We saw Christmas things everywhere. Our small daughter expressed her righteous consternation. It’s not Christmas yet, she exclaimed! Why aren’t people celebrating Thanksgiving! When we reached her grandparents’ house, the TV showed a choir dressed as pilgrims singing Thanksgiving hymns. “FINALLY,” she shouted.
We met with a group of pastors recently, some of whom lived and worked in neighborhoods ravaged by ICE raids and harmed by the loss of SNAP benefits. As they spoke about their work, they shared how heartbreaking these times were even as they were also times of such amazing gratitude. The gratitude came in the acts of generosity and compassion that arose amid such hardship.
Our calendars are as complicated as our history. Maybe expecting to find good that isn’t mixed with bad is as futile as expecting us all to align our celebrations. We live among diverse stories. This holiday season, I am deeply grateful for each story shared.
How to Give to LMC
Jeremy Kropf
At Lombard Mennonite Church, our shared ministry is sustained by the faithful generosity of our community. The Administration Commission invites you to review the various ways you can give, whether you worship in person or from home. To support different needs and preferences, LMC offers several convenient options for contributing to the church’s ongoing work.
Church Center (or Stripe)—You may donate any time via ACH bank transfer or credit card. You can also set up recurring donations. By providing predictable cash flow, recurring donations via bank transfer greatly help the church finances. For the participant, it aids in the practice of regular, faithful giving.
Cash and Checks—We have a wooden offering box in the narthex for giving by cash or checks on Sunday mornings. If giving by cash, ask Katharine for numbered offering envelopes so she can track your donations and issue you a tax-deductible receipt in January. Remote worshippers can mail a check to the church.
Zelle—This program, offered by many banks and banking apps, is a free, fast, and safe way to send money. We accept Zelle donations to [email protected]. Zelle offers the convenience and flexibility of Church Center or PayPal without the church incurring any fees. You can also set up recurring Zelle donations to aid in faithful giving.
Stock Gifts, Qualified Charitable Distributions, & Donor-Advised Funds—We accept gifts of stock, as well as Qualified Charitable Distributions from your IRA. Contact Katharine to learn more. We are also eligible to receive donations from donor-advised funds that you might have with Everence, Fidelity, etc.
Credit Card and PayPal—Donations via PayPal or a credit card can be made on the church website. LMC incurs a small fee for these donations. Thank you!
Mission Grant for Menno Haven Camp and Retreat Center
Lyle Bohnert
Camp Menno Haven enjoyed a rewarding and busy 2025. Attendance for their summer camping program has increased each year since the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. This summer, over 200 youth and family campers participated, many of them from Lombard Mennonite. Weekend camping programs also filled nearly the entire 2025 calendar.
During 2025, Menno Haven undertook major renovation and improvement projects throughout the campground. Staff and volunteers focused heavily on landscaping upgrades and developing the North Park Family Campground. Campers now have access to electrical service and water at each campsite. Another enhancement was integrating a solar panel into the campground’s electrical grid, which helped curb growing electrical expenses.
A major project that carried over from 2024 involved installing high-speed internet throughout the camp facilities. The upgraded network now serves the Lodge, staff housing, motel rooms, the Eagle Wing Activity Center, and the workshop. The camp also began major renovations on the outdoor pool. Workers removed deteriorated pool surfaces and applied new paint and caulking, as well as installing a water-monitoring system in the pool house.
Menno Haven faced rising costs this year, especially for food supplies, operating expenses, utilities, and camp insurance. LMC played a significant role in reducing overall expenses. LMCers with electrical and networking expertise completed much of the high-speed internet installation and electrical upgrades. Many other volunteers from LMC spent weekends working at Menno Haven.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this LMC mission grant. Donors raised $2,000, matched by another $2,000 from LMC. Menno Haven staff are truly grateful for the LMC grant funding and for the volunteers who shared their talents. Their support—along with aid from many other congregations—has helped Menno Haven serve as a beacon of light that provides faith formation and spiritual grounding, intentional solace for the sojourner, and a space for hope to all that attend.
Remembering Mel
Linda & John Hayward
Ed. Note: Our brother Mel G. died on September 15, 2025.
For more than 40 years, John and I have counted it a blessing to be part of Mel and Beulah’s church family. In that time, we grew to understand certain priorities in their lives. They were a team, so to write about Mel, we also have to include Beulah. We observed three areas of consistent service: professionally to their patients, to their relatives—including significant care for extended family—and to members of their church community.
Mel and Beulah and their daughter Jacqui had a medical practice specializing in geriatrics. When Mel and Beulah traveled overseas, they brought back gifts for many people, including the hospital’s custodial staff, as Mel valued the contributions made by every person there. Though my eldest son wasn’t geriatric, Mel provided support for him at critical times when he was not covered by insurance.
Family stood at the center of their lives. Each child and grandchild knew how deeply Mel and Beulah loved them. They supported their interests and enjoyed spending time together—whether at the kids’ homes or at Mel and Beulah’s places in Illinois, Indiana, or Mexico. Extended relatives also knew they could count on Mel and Beulah for help and encouragement whenever needs arose. Their love consistently showed itself through action.
Over the years, Mel and Beulah blessed my family in many specific ways. When our twins were born, they hired a teen that lived a block away to come in and help with housework and the boys. Kirk still has a teddy bear they gave him; we have Joe’s to pass along to one of his boys. We enjoyed fellowship with them at Wednesday night dinners and Tuesday’s Lunch Bunch. During these meals, Mel would answer questions about staying healthy. To this day, I do things he recommended.
John and Mel connected through their shared experience of working on older cars during their youth. Mel also shared with John how he listened to different kinds of talk radio to get a sense of what other segments of society were thinking. He genuinely wanted to understand a broad range of perspectives.
Mel and Beulah shared their gardening gifts generously with LMC. Last month, Beulah planted a tulip tree in Mel’s honor. Together, they modeled how to use their gifts to encourage and strengthen the many lives they touched.