Goatville New Haven Tastings

In order to publicize the Goatville Community Group which will hopefully become the third site of CPC, we put on three tastings concerts.  These were concerts put on at fun local venues, featuring local musicians and local beverages.  At the first one, we tasted beer and listened to Mon Monarch at the Outer Space.  At the second, we had wines from The Wine Thief and heard Jonny Rodgers and Lamont Hiebert at The Bourse.  Last Friday, we tasted coffees from Willoughby's and had the pleasure of listening to improvisational music by Nathan Bontrager, Robert Messore, Colin Meyer, and Junius.  It was a total blast and at a great little art gallery, ArtSpace.  We hope that the community has some idea of who we are and what we are about now. 

Snow!

snow on the ivy

Here are the aforementioned snow photos!

Heading toward the front door, you can see just how deep it is

The statue on the top of East Rock and the neighbors hard at work in the East Rock neighborhood.

Junius, Jeremy, and Mook shoveling out the Audi.  Jeremy and Mook are neighbors living in the white house you can see on the right in the background

It has been a long time since I posted!

Considering I didn't post here for about a year I will try to put up the highlights of the last 12 months.

Ascension Celebration - May 16

This was the first major event shared by both the Hill and Whitney congregations of CPC.  We went to a nearby park, picnicked, and shared stories of how God has been working in our lives.  It was a sweet time bringing the two congregations together and playing together.

Junius' graduated! - May 24
After working on his PhD for 10 years, Junius turned in his book and walked!

Live at 135 - June 17

The Stacy Phillips and Paul Howard Duet on dobro, guitar, fiddle, and vocals!  It was a fun evening.  This concert CPC puts on during New Haven's International Arts and Ideas Festival.

Haiti trip - July 24-31

How to summarize?!  Well there were about 20 people from CPC (1/10th of the congregation!) that went to Mirebalais, Haiti for a week of teaching ESL, VBS, singing with, playing, and holding orphans, providing a little medical care, and worshiping with the Haitians.  We saw God at work in so many ways and were greatly moved by the peace of these people who walk long distances to get to church, who may not have shoes, but will wear their Sunday best and sing their hearts out and greet foreigners (blancs) with great hospitality.  The last photo is of me sharing about the Haiti trip with the youth group at IPC.

before

after

after

Redecorating the youth room

This room has been many things during its life at CPC and it was time for a facelift.  The ceiling which had been falling down was fixed in the summer of 2009 and then last summer, several high school students with some fantastic help from the decor team, repainted, covered the couches, and redecorated.   

CPC Jeopardy

leap frog

all feet in the air -- that is really hard to do!

model shot

Heisman

Abbey Road

Church-Wide Retreat - October 22-24
I'll now begin to jump months a little bit.  I had the privilege of putting together a retreat for the entire congregation last Fall.  It was beautiful and we had a great time together!  In addition to the talks by Dr. Rick Lints and the worship on Sunday morning, we played CPC Jeopardy (all questions being "who is (someone on the retreat)" in which learned all sorts of hilarious things about each other, we had a photo contest in which teams posed as famous statues, the Abbey Road cover, models, etc. We also played frisbee, made s'mores, and even had our own troubadour.

snow! - all winter
It was the snowiest January on record in CT and came pretty close to the snowiest winter.  There are so many good photos that I will post those separately.

Largest Joining - Feb 13
We had the largest membership joining in CPC history!  There were 29 people total.

Introduction to Spiritual Leadership Conference - March 25-26
This was also the best attended leadership conference we have ever had.  We began the weekend with a leadership appreciation banquet which featured great food, a slideshow, and testimonies about the joys of leadership in the church.  There were over 50 of our 80 leaders in attendance.  For the first time, the conference was joint, with the Hill congregation ready to train leaders.  Also we did something we titled "track two" which is a form of continuing education.  Track two was an hour and a half for small group leaders, servant leader board members & team leaders, and Sunday school teachers to interact together over common leadership issues in their respective fields of ministry.  I was very excited for all of the new leaders to have an opportunity to interact with those who have been at it for years. 

The first Hill joining was April 10!  We now have members of the Hill congregation, not just regular attendees.  The Whitney congregation joined them for a celebratory potluck lunch. 

Artstravaganza 2011

  We had a fantastic evening of music, literature, painting, photography, needlepoint, and dessert!  The music ranged from classical to operatic to pop to downright silly.  Highlights for me included a mother-daughter duet and a whole audience sing-along of Bohemian Rhapsody.  Junius shared the introduction to his novel, The Edge of Thought, for which we are currently looking for an agent.  To learn more about that, visit Junius' website.  Here is a short video I put together to give a feel for the whole concert.  Not everyone is in it, but there is a good sampling.  Enjoy!

Artstravaganza 2010

Friday night was  CPC's annual arts celebration.  Artists from within the church show off their talents in a concert and gallery opening.  There was some pretty impressive stuff played.

Sanctuary Dedication

The sanctuary dedication may be the most successful event CPC has ever hosted at getting the city to attend.  There were Yale professors, local businessmen, and gallery owners all there as well as many of the friends of CPC throughout the city like campus ministers from the various churches.  The place was packed and we had a fabulous reception beforehand and afterwards as well.  The pictures show us all praying over different parts of the sanctuary and a good one of anabaino, the painting.

Live at 135

New Haven hosts the International Festival of Arts and Ideas every June.  It is a 2 week festival with events all over town.  There are acts like jugglers and musicians on the town green complete with cart food every day and then big acts in all of our main venues.  The shows are usually a bit experimental or cutting edge and include ballets, plays, and music.  For instance, next June there will be a one man stage adaptation of Moby Dick.  There is a bit of a fringe festival that goes on at the same time with events in galleries and other venues throughout the city.  For the past couple of years we have participated by hosting a concert called "Live at 135" which is indeed our address.  This June we have Laura Usiskin, a regular attender and fantastic cellist, give two concerts on back-to-back Friday nights.  Over the course of the concerts she played the complete Bach cello suites.  Hot Off the Press provided the reception.  It was a fantastically fun event, with many from the city coming.  This is quite a lot of music for a single performer and quite famous pieces at that.   We are grateful to Laura for sharing her talent with us!