This Week at Tabernacle
THIS WEEK AT TABERNACLE CHURCH, UCC
November 16th, 2025
Join us in the Sanctuary, Sunday, November 16th for Stewardship Sunday and the dedication of the pledge cards.
Remember to bring yours with you.
The Deacons for the month of November are Michele Parr and
Jan Roberts- Breslin
The Lighting of the Steeple for the month of November is provided by Rachel and Rob Lutts in celebration of their 40th Wedding Anniversary.
CALLING ALL TABERNACLE SINGERS!!!
Please contact the office (email: office@tabernaclechurch.org Please include your contact information) if you would like to be a part of the choir!!!
First rehearsal is 2 weeks away!!!
A Message from Reverend Joe….
Dear Members and Friends,
By now you know that “Dreaming God’s Dream” is the theme of this year’s Stewardship Campaign. If you were in worship this past Sunday you heard me say that after Beacon Communities began making their presentation and eventually their offer to purchase and repurpose our property, I literally kept pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming because their offer met all three of the goals we set for ourselves when we began the visioning process 8 years ago. Talk about dreaming what we hoped was God’s dream, and not just ours. So many mainline churches have dwindled in numbers to the extent that a growing number are even closing. This Sunday you are invited to join me and others from Tabernacle at 2nd Church in Beverly where they will be holding their closing service celebrating their history and legacy. They are the last of 4 UCC churches in Beverly. Over the past 10 years I’ve heard a number of rumors around Salem, sometimes including from our own members, that Tabernacle would also be closing. Our vision, our dream believing it to be God’s dream, has never been to close! We were determined to find a way to continue our legacy since 1629 to worship and praise God and be in mission to the community.
Part of my dreaming for older downtown churches struggling for survival comes from a case study I did while in college. My then fiancé and I travelled to New York City to study a church in Manhattan, as part of a religion class. St Peter’s Lutheran Church had been written up for its unique ministry with jazz musicians. It all began when Pastor John Garcia Gensel spent his free time in jazz clubs listening to musicians’ stories. Encouraged by Ruth Ellington, Jazz Vespers was first held in October 1965 at Gensel’s Upper West Side church. Weekly liturgies started when he moved there in May 1966. Since then, Saint Peter’s has become a spiritual home for jazz musicians and fans across the lifespan. The First Church of Jazz, as St. Peter’s has been called, is more than history. Their statement on their web site today says, “It is who we are and a legacy we continue to honor, now and for the future.” We began our venture by attending the morning worship service, which was similar to us today: huge, stone church with only a few members attending the old, traditional, Lutheran liturgy. Then the pastors and those attending all went to a local pub for brunch. We were cordially invited and enjoyed the joviality of this otherwise staunch crowd. We returned in the evening for the Jazz Service, which for 1967 was something else! Wow. Nothing like the morning service.
The older congregation had a large endowment which allowed them to maintain the building while the Jazz ministry began taking in lots of new attendees. Obviously, St. Peter’s was a church unafraid of reaching out to their community, trying something new (dreaming God’s dream). The update on their website states a team of preservationists guided the 2020 restoration already following the guidelines of the United States Department of the Interior, with attention to modernist details characteristically under-appreciated by most. The current urban complex stretches the entire city block between Lexington and Third Avenues and 53rd and 54th Streets and includes an office tower, an atrium, a public plaza, a low-rise office building and the church building. While integrated, the Sanctuary is free-standing.
I continued my search for churches willing to use their history, tradition and endowments to be brave about their future. I studied a church in Milwaukee that razed their historic building that was beyond repair or was prohibited in cost for restoration, so they built a smaller worship space under ground which protected the facility from the harsh midwestern winters and cost practically nothing for heat and a/c. The Milwaukee Historical Society posted: The new church has a green roof, and passive solar including mirrors to reflect the sun from the steeple to the altar. Lots of history lost which is sad, but it also led to the creation of a progressive new building. Our visioning task force visited United Church of Christ in Worcester that deeded their huge building to the City Missionary Society in return for the dwindling congregation to continue worshipping in a small classroom in the building. Today, eight years later, that congregation is no longer dwindling, but growing!
That’s my vision, hoping that it’s God’s vision. With the excitement of our partnership with Beacon Communities, I’m dreaming God’s Dream, as I quoted in our Hebrew Scripture Sunday: “The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts, and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.”
This Sunday we will dedicate our pledges for 2026. As Stephen Parthum pointed out on Sunday, the money Beacon put into escrow is not ours until we close the deal at the end of 2027. For 2026, we still have all the expenses we always have: utilities, staff salaries, upkeep, repairs, commitments to Our Church’s Wider Missions, and local missions. So, please, consider pledging the best you can so that we keep this dream called Tabernacle alive for 2026 and the future!
If you cannot be here Sunday, mail or drop off your pledge card and we will put it in the offering plate for the dedication during worship.
See you in church or on zoom!
Reverend Joe
Special invitation to join Second congregational church in Beverly as they gather to reflect and honor all that Second Church has meant to so many over the years.
SATURDAY NIGHT
Nagly Benefit Concert
North Shore Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth.
December 2nd at 7pm in the Sanctuary
Featuring
The Jubilate Choir
under the direction of Mary Jodice
and
The Salem State University Chamber Orchestra
under the direction of Cynthia Napierkowski
All proceeds will go directly to benefit NAGLY
Donations accepted at door
December 6th, 10-2 in the Sanctuary…
Carols, Creches, Cookies and Cocoa!!!
Mary Jodice and the Jubilate Choir (Rev Joe is a part of the choir) will be singing carols and leading those of you who would like to sing along.
In addition, we will have creches on display. If you have a crèche that you would like to display for this event please let Betsey Bennet know (508-843-5780). We will be setting up during the week before, after the Nagly/World Aids Fund Raiser on Dec. 2.
We will need donations of cookies to go with the cocoa. Contact Betsey….
Calendar
Sunday, November 16th, 2025
10:00 a.m. Worship service and the Dedication of the Pledge Cards in the
Sanctuary and via Zoom
11:00 a.m. Fellowship Time in the Bigelow Room
Monday, November 17th, 2025
7:00 p.m. Alanon Meeting downstairs in the dining room
Tuesday, November 18th, 2025
10:30 a.m. Threshold Singers rehearsal in the Bigelow Room
6:00 p.m. Zilber Beatles rehearsal downstairs classroom
7:30 to 9:00 p.m. Jubilate Choir rehearsal in the Bigelow Room
Wednesday, November 19th, 2025
7:00 p.m. Bible Study via Zoom
Friday, November 21st, 2025
6:30 p.m. AA meeting downstairs in the dining room
Sunday, November 23rd, 2025
10:00 a.m. Worship service in the Sanctuary and via Zoom
11:00 a.m. Fellowship Time in the Bigelow Room
COMFORT FOOD SUPPLIES FOR THE SALEM PANTRY
Missions Action Group has designated September, October, November, and December as comfort food months for the Salem Pantry so others can enjoy yummy treats for the holidays of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
We are asking for donations of spices, flour, cooking oil, sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, molasses, dried milk, evaporated milk, and cans of pumpkin.
Reasonably priced spices can be found at Walgreens, Market Basket, and Ocean State Job Lot. You will find baskets in the Narthex to place your contributions.
Thank you as always for your support.
Missions Action Group
AND WE ARE STILL COLLECTING …..
Missions is collecting plastic tabs from bread and fruit bags, and the pull tabs from cans. Collection Jars are in the Bigelow Room.
WE NEED HELP SERVING LIFEBRIDGE MEALS
CHOOSE YOUR MONTH TO SERVE
4-6- P.M. the fourth Monday of the Month
Sign up Sheets are on the board in the Bigelow Room
or
CONTACT MARTHA BAGBY (mhbagby@gmail.com)
WITH OUT VOLUNTEERS WE CANNOT MAKE THIS MOST IMPORTANT COMMUNITY SERVICE HAPPEN!!
Bible Study tonight
November 12th, 2025
7:00 pm via Zoom
Tonight’s Readings are:
Isaiah 65:17-25
New heavens and a new earth
65:17 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
65:18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight.
65:19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress.
65:20 No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime, for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
65:21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
65:22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat, for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
65:23 They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD– and their descendants as well.
65:24 Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent–its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Do what is right
3:6 Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the tradition that they received from us.
3:7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not irresponsible when we were with you,
3:8 and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you.
3:9 This was not because we do not have that right but in order to give you an example to imitate.
3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
3:11 For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work.
3:12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
3:13 Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
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978-744-3164