The Link
The Weekly E-Newsletter of Disciples Christian Church
In This Issue
- Updated Prayer Requests
- Relief Nursery of
- Trunk or Treat Meeting
- DCC Education Department News
- Ride for the Refugee ‘08
- Women of Virtue presents …
- From The TechnoManor
- Men’s Bible Study
- Disciples Regional Assembly
- BBPS Fundraiser
- Music Notes
- Children’s Sunday School
Updated Prayer Requests
- Tom Kimball, brother of Rosie Lewallen, had open heart surgery
September 8 for multiple bypasses.
- James Bortello, son of a friend of Chuck & Nancy
Bertschi, passed
away from lung cancer recently.
- Jennifer Caughron, Rev. Diane’s granddaughter, has pending surgeries for her
gall bladder as well as a liver transplant.
- Bill Ramsey had quintuple by-pass surgery on Thursday, August
21. He’d been home but ended back
in the hospital due to an infection in his leg.
- Mike Bell will have exploratory arthroscopic surgery on Friday,
September 12 on his knee.
- Jim & Barbara Bates, worship visitors, have a son
who recently returned from
The prayer requests in The Link each week are recent
updates. A list of ongoing prayer requests appears in our worship bulletin each
Sunday.
When did you get your first credit card? More to the point, how long have credit cards
been available? I got my first one from
the old Kerr-McGee oil company right after I got out of high school: I had a
job, and that’s all it took to qualify. I was relieved from carrying a lot cash
to buy gasoline. One monthly check
simplified a part of my life.
Some years later (by now I had graduated from seminary) a
speaker at a Regional Assembly confidently predicted the end of offering
trays. Credit card ports on the back of
the pews would make offering trays obsolete!
Just think: no more forgetting to write a check to church, no more
forgetting the offering envelope, and no need to bring money to church at
all. At the appropriate point in the
worship service, with the worship leader’s prompting, everyone would insert
their credit card in the port and the bank would automatically transfer funds
from your account to the church’s account.
(This was way before PIN numbers.)
At the time I was serving a small rural congregation which, to pay my
salary, already had automatic transfer of funds from the church’s account to my
personal account. So I thought maybe such a thing might come to pass.
Well, it hasn’t. But
there are mighty interesting electronic things that happen otherwise in the
church. All of this popped into my head
as our resident computer wizard waved his magic wand and mystified the audience
at Sunday night’s computer forum. Think
about all that we can do. And I’m not thinking
about financial transfers. Look at this
Link, look at the Sunday morning worship bulletin, look at the power point
projected on the screen. That’s just for
starters. I can communicate with
missionaries overseas on a daily basis (and some of them are long-time
friends). Flow charts and graphs can be
assembled quickly.
What are the things you do?
I’m a neophyte still; many of you are much more efficient and
knowledgeable than I. WWJT? What would Jesus think? Can you imagine the ministries Jesus would
embrace and urge with today’s technology?
And I haven’t even touched on cell phones!
The church has tools.
The church has personnel. What
can we accomplish for the sake of the Kingdom Jesus proclaimed?
God bless.
GGC
Relief Nursery of
Dear Friends,
As most of you know,
because I am often excitedly inundating you with information, the Relief
Nursery of Collin County is set to open next month! After nearly two years of dreaming and
planning and preparing, we have hired
developed a Board of Directors, incorporated
with the state of Texas, gained our tax - exempt status from the
IRS, hired an Executive Director, leased
classroom space, and we are now hiring
teachers and publicizing our services in the community. We are receiving
funding from the Dept. of Family and Protective Services, but we are also
required to raise matching funds in order to receive our state funding. We are
utilizing several funding sources, including corporate grants, church gifts,
individual donations and periodic fundraisers.
On that note, I am
asking if you will please consider reading the flyer below. We are currently holding a raffle. Tickets
are only five dollars apiece for a chance to win a gift card ($25-$100 for
most) to a number of great, nationally popular businesses, such as Target, Home
Depot, and Barnes and Noble. Besides
helping us to open our doors to the families who desperately need a break from
their stresses and a chance to become stronger parents, you may win a card that
makes your upcoming holiday shopping a lot more fun! If you are interested, please email or call
me and let me know how many tickets you would like me to get to you.
Thank you for your
support! Laura Young, 972-744-9941
Relief Nursery of
Gift Card Extravaganza Raffle!!!
Celebrating
30 years of strengthening
families
and keeping children safe.
“Fast Facts”
•
The Relief Nursery program is being launched in two
•
The Relief Nursery of
•
The RNCC will play a significant role in the prevention of child
abuse and neglect in our community through early intervention that focuses
on building successful and resilient children, strengthening parents and
preserving families.
•
Once fully operational, the Relief Nursery will provide following
services to individuals and families in
•
Therapeutic childcare (the first such facility in the state);
•
Play therapy;
•
Individual skills development;
•
Alcohol and drug recovery support services;
•
Parent education;
•
Home visits;
•
Mental health assessments;
•
Counseling for children and families
•
Relief Nursery of
•
Fabulous gift card prizes include $100 gift cards to Mignon restaurant,
Target, Elizabeth Red Door Spa, and others including Mobil, Macaroni Grill and
Barnes and Noble.
•
The Relief Nursery of
•
Your $5 donation per ticket will benefit the Relief Nursery of
Trunk or Treat Meeting
We will have a Trunk or Treat meeting following worship service this Sunday morning. Hope everyone can attend and hear about the
exciting things that are happening. We
will meet in the parlor outside the office.
Will be looking for you!
Nancy Hall
DCC Education Department News
by
Youth News
- THIS Saturday, September 13 – Movie afternoon for DCC and
FCCC youth starting at 11 am.
Details to follow.
- Sunday, October 5 – Bowling at Plano Super Bowl
immediately following worship.
- Saturday, October 18 – Habitat for Humanity
starting at 9 am. More details to
follow.
- Saturday, October 25 – Trunk or Treat event at DCC
at
- Saturday, November 1 – BBPS Rummage Sale in DCC
parking lot.
Adult News
n A Christian Men’s Fellowship group is being organized. Contact Mark Mueller for more information.
n Saturday, October 18 everyone is encouraged is participate at the Habitat for Humanity worksite. More details will follow.
n Saturday, October 25 DCC’s annual Trunk
or Treat event will take place on the front lawn.
Ride for the Refugee ‘08
Greetings to all,
It is quickly approaching the time to roll with the Ride for the Refugee
’08! We still need your help. We are rolling with over a dozen riders and
two semi trucks with trailers this year!
We still need your help. We need
money for gas! We need supplies for
SWGSM, and we need you to participate in the ride itself! Please check out the website http://www.fccpampa.org/RideForThe
Refugee/RFTRMain.html. I know the
dates are last year’s but you can still read about the ride and register to go
with us. You can also see the list of
supplies needed for SWGSM. The dates
this year are OCTOBER 1st – OCTOBER 4TH! Won’t you please come along side us in
ministry and help the neediest of the needy?
If you have any questions please call me at 806-669-3225.
Shalom, Barry Loving
“… on earth as it is in heaven …”
www.docblov.com
Women of Virtue presents…
The Women of Virtue group is
presenting their fourth monthly relationship conference for women and men. The topic is “Accountability” in
relationships, finances, and the future.
The speaker is Regina Renee Napper, a life coach, advisor, counselor,
teacher and motivator. The conference
takes place on Saturday, September 27 at
From The TechnoManor
From the TechnoManor
I found
this in my Inbox a few days ago:
My new computer was great, but
lately it has become increasingly slower and more difficult to use. What can I
do to get my computer to perform better and faster?
This is a
common issue with computers. There is no
single (easy) answer. So, this week,
I’ll talk about the various causes of computer slowness. Next week, I’ll give specific tools and
techniques to ferret out some of the culprits.
I’ll focus
on Microsoft Windows computers. Most of
these causes affect Apple Macintosh computers, too.
Following
are common causes of slowness, with an explanation of each and approaches to
test or solve the cause.
Insufficient
memory (RAM)
Most
computers ship with enough memory to run the operating system and a few
applications, comfortably. This also
makes the computer a little more affordable.
Trouble is, once you add other software to make the computer safe and
usable (i.e., security software and Adobe Reader), “enough memory” becomes not
enough memory. Your computer slows down
while trying to find space to run all the programs.
So, the
more memory you can have in your computer, the faster it can run. How much memory should you have? My rules-of-thumb advice:
Windows
XP: 1
GB, minimum
2
GB if you can afford it
Windows
Vista (32-bit): 2 GB, minimum
3
GB, if you can afford it
Windows
Vista (64-bit); 2 GB, minimum
4
GB, if you can afford it
Extra
memory costs about $100 per 1 GB.
Extra
(unwanted) programs running in the background
I have an
Apple iPod. I listen to music on
it. It connects to my desktop computer
to get those songs. On my computer is
its partner program, iTunes.
But when I
installed iTunes, I got more than only 1 program. 4 programs were installed and all claim they
have to run so I can use my iPod. Huh?
Many
applications that you install these days bring along more than you bargain
for. Some of these programs are
necessary, others are not. Each program
takes up memory and wants its share of the computer’s time. Thus slowing things down. Do you need all of them?
Many
times, no, you don’t.
How can
you tell which programs aren’t needed?
Well, that’s the trick. There’s
no easy way to make this assessment and it takes some time.
Sit back
and think for a moment. Do you remember
installing a program recently and shortly afterwards discovered a slower
computer. If something comes to mind,
then that’s where you need to begin your work.
Otherwise,
we need to spend some time looking for unwanted programs. I’ll tell you how, next week.
“Bad
citizen” program
Although
we all complain how bad Microsoft’s Windows seems to be, there are some truly
poorly-written programs. I dub them,
“bad citizens.” These are programs that
consume computer resources and bog down the computer. They don’t play nice with the other programs
running in the computer.
You tend
to know about their bad behavior the first (or second) time you run them. Unless you really need them, you should
uninstall them immediately. If you
really need them, check with their support Web site to see if there is a newer
version that fixes their bad behavior.
I’ll defer
to next week to show you how to find these bad citizens and show them the door.
Infection
Another
possible cause of a slow computer is that it has been infected with
malware. Malware can be a virus (that changes or replaces native Windows
files with broken ones), or spyware (that takes over your computer for
malicious purposes). Malware can cause
your computer to run slower.
What can
you do?
Verify
that your security software is turned on and current. Run a full scan of your hard drive, too.
Run one of
the free, Internet-based scanners to get a “second opinion.”
From
McAfee: http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp
Click Scan Now
Follow the prompts
From
Microsoft: http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm
Click Full Service Scan
Follow the prompts
Cruft
This is a
term I use to mean “the gunk that accumulates in the corners of the operating
system.” It’s sort of like the stuff
that has accumulated in the corner of your garage after about seven years! This could be forgotten files in temporary folders,
stale entries in the Registry, knowledge of long defunct printers, memories of
old USB devices once connected, and other obscure digital detritus.
Cruft
causes computers to slow down after a few years. Windows has to slog through all this old junk
to do its work. On a new computer, this
shouldn’t be a problem.
Getting rid
of cruft isn’t fun. The surest way is to
erase your hard drive, reinstall the operating system, all the programs, and
reload your data. Essentially you are
starting fresh.
This
should only be done on a computer that’s a few years old.
Failing
piece of hardware
Sometimes
a rogue piece of hardware will cause a computer to slow down. This could be a printer that is failing, a
USB flash drive that is wearing out, and so on.
This device is tapping the computer on the shoulder every few
milliseconds, asking for attention. This
distracts the computer and slows it down.
To solve
this problem: Turn off your
computer. Unplug everything except the
bare essentials to run a computer: a
monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Then start
your computer. If the computer is still
running slowly, then this isn’t the problem.
However,
if things are running much better, then you’re on the right track. Turn your computer off. Plug one thing back in. Turn your computer back on. Observe.
If things continue to work properly, repeat. Keep doing this until you’ve plugged in
something that causes the computer to bog down.
Then
you’ve uncovered the failing piece of hardware.
Disk
Full or Fragmented
When the
computer has to huff and puff to find files or free space for files, you feel
the impact in a slower computer.
Make sure
you have sufficient free space on your hard drive. My rule of thumb is that you should have at
least 10% of the hard drive’s capacity as free space. The more, the better. When you’re below this figure, you should do
some serious housecleaning, and think about upgrading to a larger drive.
A similar
concern is disk fragmentation.
We think
of files as a series of connected pieces on a hard drive. In reality, these pieces are broken up and
scattered around the hard drive. When
these pieces are too scattered on the drive, the hard drive is said to be
“fragmented” The more fragmented a hard
drive, the longer it takes to find a file or space for a new file. This extra time shows up as a slower computer.
Next week
I’ll tell you how to defragment your hard drive.
Computer
ok but surfing the Web slow
If you use
your computer mostly to surf the Web, it may be your network connection, or
your favorite Web sites that are slow, not your computer.
Again, I’ll
tell you next week of some techniques to give you a better sense if this is the
problem.
Perception
Sometimes
your computer isn’t slow at all. At
least, not technically.
I have 3
computers. My oldest is 5 years
old. Based on its specs, it’s the slowest. When I use it, I grumble to myself about its
sluggishness. Yet I’ve done all the
suggestions I’ve listed above. In fact,
it’s performing about the same as the day I bought it.
Why is it
slow? Because I have a faster, newer
computer to compare it with.
If you are
exposed to a newer computer, or become accustomed to the one you have,
sometimes it starts to feel slower to you.
I attribute this to your perception of the computer. The computer in fact may be working properly.
I’m not
saying perception is always the case.
It’s just something you need to be aware of when you think your computer
is slow.
Remember,
next week we’ll focus on tools and techniques to zero in on slow computer
culprits. Bring your “propeller caps”
along this will be a techie article!
In the
meantime, be sure to send me your computer and Web questions at
I’ll
attempt to answer one question each week in
Dave
Gillen
Men’s Bible Study
Calling
all men! Come join us at IHOP (
The 2008 Regional Assembly for the Christian Church in the
Southwest will take place October 17-19 at University Christian Church and TCU
in
BBPS Fundraiser
BBPS Fundraiser … The “Frosty
Friends” catalog and order form will be on the Welcome Table through Tuesday, September
14 for those interested in purchasing candies, gift wrap, magazines, and
gifts. The money raised will be used
towards the purchase of an awning over the preschool entrance. Make checks
payable to Bright Beginning Preschool.
Feel free to put your payment in Jan’s top drawer of her desk in the
church office.
Music Notes
by Laura Young
Chancel
Choir
Wow! It was wonderful to have you back in the choir loft,
and you did a beautiful job on the first anthem of the season. It is not too
late for others to join us. We meet from 6:30-7:30 in the sanctuary on
Wednesday nights and we warm-up at 9 a.m. Sunday mornings in the sanctuary
before Sunday School. We have members as young as middle school up through
senior adults. Music reading is not required (but don't be surprised if you
find it easy to learn as we go). If you can carry a tune in a bucket, as the
old saying goes, and you love to sing for the Lord, we have a place for you. In
the past year, four new people have joined us, and we could not be more
pleased.
Handbells
will meet seasonally, beginning in plenty of time for Christmas. So far, we have several
returning members and three new ones! If you would like to participate, please
let me know this week so that I can plan music for the number of ringers we
have available.
Children's
and youth choirs will also meet seasonally. Please let me know if you have a child or
grandchild who would enjoy singing with us! I have not heard from anybody yet
who has a child or youth wanting to sing. Please let me know this month if your
child/youth/grandchild is interested in singing during the Christmas season. We
will rehearse in November and December. Thank you!
Upcoming
local concerts:
The
Plano Symphony Orchestra will present a concert on Sat. Sept. 20th at the
As always,
if you know of local concerts or school arts events which you would like to
have publicized in the "Music Notes" column in "The Link,"
please let me know. Thank you!
Laura Young,
Music Director, 972-744-9941
Audiences may know
Victoria Jackson from her years on Saturday
Night Live and her appearances on The
Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.
But people may not know that
Her performance
will take place on Saturday, September 20 at 8 pm at the McKinney Performing
Arts Center (at the historic Collin County Courthouse). Tickets are $20, $27 and $30. Group discounts are also available. For more information, visit www.mckinneyperformingartscenter.org
or call 214-544-4630.
Children’s Sunday School
ALL PARENTS,
GRANDPARENTS, AND KIDS!! A SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS FOR
PRE-K
THROUGH 5TH GRADERS MEET, AT 9:30 A.M. SUNDAY MORNINGS
ALL KIDS WELCOME
BIBLE
STORIES, ACTIVITIES, FUN, MAKING NEW FRIENDS
=
LOTS OF LEARNING AND GROWING!
For more information contact pharbaugh@verizon.net
The
In order to follow Jesus and worship God, we will serve our neighbors. We will
minister to our fellow Christians. We will live and tell the good news of Jesus
Christ in all we do.
Disciples Christian Church Staff
Diane & Galen Clark, Co-Transitional Pastors
Laura Young, Music Director
Linda Gulick, Preschool Director
Julie Chen, Pianist
Jan Carter, Administrative Assistant
Dave Gillen, Webmaster frenchygrey@gmail.com
Amanda Prince, Nursery Attendant
email: theoffice@dccplano.com
phone: 972-398-2240