A TASTE OF WINCHENDON 2025

I love this little town in Northern Massachusetts and the community it is practicing Our church had the opportunity to participate in The Taste of Winchendon festival. We played a part in the tie-dye table, the face painting table, the welcome table and a few other spots as volunteers. Above Lisa Johnson and Pastor Amanda are setting up the face painting tables.

Below Debby Parker is setting up chairs in the auditorium. She and her husband Ray, who is one of our new deacons helped set up and break down the tie-dye room. Debby stayed all day to help people tie-dye.

Heavy rain drove us inside to the Winchendon Senior Center for this event. What a wonderful venue. It was not lost on any of us that this building is one of the buildings that will be shuttered by June 30th if the town budget is not ratified to include the override.

Below is tie-dying team number one: Sandy Freeman, Debby Parker, Sean Taylor and Shaun Brierly.

The face painting crew. Herb Scott, Wendy Brouillet and Lisa Johnson.

More of our face painter Dani Taylor and Dawn Sandoval.

Pastor Amanda frying empanadas for the town luncheon.

Paul Hackett started the day manning the welcome center.

Our church DLT and outreach coordinator, Carrie Hackett posing with Morton Converse AKA David Alexander.

Below is my daughter-in-law Kristine with her friend Athena who is visiting from Australia.

My son Joe is buying some raffle tickets.

Deacon Michelle Ramos and friend Jessica Walker came into help with tie-dying too.

Later in the day Paul put on another of his hats and helped man the transportation table along with Walter Lahood and Walter’s wife Natalia.

My daughters share a moment over the uncommonly good cupcakes.

Sam and Mandi pictured below came in to have their faces painted and then stayed to help us clean up.

Here is the yearly community picture of the taste of Winchendon crew.

What kind of events does your community have coming up?

Conversations

So back in a post just after New Year I said….”My goal this year is two-fold: Community and Stewardship. I intend to build community… and I intend to steward all my artistry towards kingdom provision.

This was in a blog entitled ….You May Have Noticed.

I mentioned in there somewhere that in order to build community I had to write blogs that were better conversation starters. Well in that I have succeeded.

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The conversations over the last few weeks have been just awesome. Thank you! Thank you to everyone who has been engaging in this on line community experiment called Lillie-Put 2021!

I feel like one of the things the world needs more of is civil discourse, more community engagement that doesn’t involve shouting, name calling, or armed revolt.

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Here are a few of the folks I have been engaging in conversation these last few weeks.

Deborah Ann

GS

Lisa M Boyd

Patricia

VJ Knutson

New Lune

Melanie

Paul

There are others as well, but this is just the beginning of a list showing what a community can be built here in the blogosphere if we just put in a little time working with each other and sharing the love.

Thanks everyone!

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Stewarding Artistry

I wrote this line yesterday. ” I intend to steward all my artistry towards kingdom provision.”

It came out of me, but I am not really sure I was the thought’s origin, because I am not sure I really know what it means.

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Does that ever happen to you?

As I have considered revamping Lillie-Put my main thought was about doing something to deepen my community outreach:

BY CREATING MORE CONVERSATIONAL PIECES.

BY BEING MORE FAITHFUL TO READ THE COMMUNITY’S WORK.

BY BEING MORE ENGAGED BY FAITHFULLY POSTING AND COMMENTING ACROSS MY MEDIA PLATFORMS.

BY ASKING BETTER QUESTIONS.

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But as I began to write that my heart knew that something was missing. In reaching inward I found the line.. I intend to steward all my artistry towards kingdom provision.

So what does it mean to steward my artistry towards kingdom provision?

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Here are some thoughts fresh of the presses of my brain. Stewarding artistry towards kingdom provision means:

GIVING ALL THE ART MORE SPACE IN MY LIFE.

GIVING ALL THE ART MORE TIME.

FOCUSING NOT ON QUANTITY BUT ON DEEPENING THE QUALITY OF MY CREATION

FINISHING THE WORK THROUGH THE POINT OF COMMUNITY RELEASE, AND BY THAT CREATING PROVISION FOR ME…FOR THE VICARAGE…FOR THE CHURCH…FOR THE KINGDOM.

Can you add to this list?

Quotes & Discussions About Community Pt. 2

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Leaders in the past could not make decisions because they had too little information. Leaders in the future will be unable to make decisions because the will have too much information. Editing and efficiently accessing truly relevant information will be a key challenge in the future.- The Community Of the Future p. 102

Tell me what you think. Is this true?