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Serving Beyond Santa Clarita
by Linda Bonar
At Christ Lutheran Church, we believe strongly that our mission does not end at our property line. This past summer, we sent a humanitarian aid team to work with Syrian refugees in Zahle, Lebanon. As part of their work, the CLC team assisted at a medical clinic and got to know several young women who were being trained as health care workers to help their own communities.

In June, our high schoolers went to Black Mesa, Arizona, to help with building projects on the Navajo Reservation. The team worked closely with Pastor JR of the House of Joy Church and came home eager to continue supporting HOJ's ministry to the people of the Navajo community. As a result, we will be holding a coat drive this October with a goal of collecting 500 coats that we will deliver to the Reservation. To help us achieve this goal, we are inviting the community to participate! We will be collecting donations during our Harvest Fest on October 19. Even if you aren't able to contribute to the coat drive, we invite you to be a part of this fun, family-centered event.

As we look forward to fall, CLC is busy planning our next international mission: sending a team to Cairo, Egypt - our fifth mission to the Middle East! We invite you to visit CLC where you can follow Jesus and find family!
Linda Bonar is the office manager and Middle East Mission Coordinator for Christ Lutheran Church. 259-0200

"Transition" Holidays Remind Us to Slow Down & "Be"
by Jay Siegel
Fall is a time of transition for countless people. In fact, this is why many of the season's holidays celebrate transition.

Transitions happen and they happen fast - before we know it, time has passed. When my son was very little, many people told me to appreciate the time I had with him. "It goes really fast! Before you know it, he'll be out of the house!" I heard that many times from many different people, so I made it a point to try and appreciate the time and make the short amount we had meaningful. I tried to focus more and take a moment to be present. I tried to be aware that those moments went fast and would soon be memories.

One way to be present is to stop, pause and be with those you love. The Jewish High Holidays are approaching and Jews across the world will be with family and friends celebrating, praying and having meals together. These moments provide the perfect opportunity to stop, pause and spend time with those you love. In the fast-paced atmosphere of our daily lives, where do we have the time to simply sit next to our family and friends and "be?" Simply putting on hold our active daily lives for a moment and being with our family and friends - that's the perfect way to celebrate. These moments of presence don't make the time go slower, but they certainly add value, meaning and create wonderful memories. May this holiday season be a time for celebrating family and friends and being present to those around us.
Rabbi Jay Siegel of Congregation Beth Shalom. 254-2411

Moving Beyond Perfectionist Thinking
by Nicole Reilley
Do you struggle with perfectionist thinking? Perfectionist thinking shows up as a desire to please everyone, being highly critical of others, striving for success at a high cost, not sharing one's self with others, being defensive when given feedback and feeling you are "not quite there yet." You may experience some - or all - of these if you suffer from perfectionist thinking.

Recently, I started to work on my book. It's been a dream of mine for a long time - yet I never made time for it. What kept me from working on it? It was perfectionist thinking. I thought: it has to be great! It has to be a best seller! These perfectionist thoughts stopped me.

Recently, in prayer, God helped me see that in my perfectionist thinking there are both fear and anxiety, and that if I wanted to move forward, I needed to see there was another choice: faith.
Faith helps me to do hard things. Faith helps me believe when I cannot see. Faith gives me the strength to move forward, even when I am struggling because of my own inner voice.

There is an old story of the two wolves that live within each of us. One wolf is the negative within us; the voice that tells us we are not enough. The other wolf is the positive within us; it speaks words of faith. Which wolf wins? The one we feed.
Join in worship with us as we feed our faith, increase our hope and find God's great love for us all.
Reverend Nicole Reilley is the lead/teaching pastor at Valencia UMC. umcv.org