Congregation

Wednesday, Dec. 29 9 p.m. on TBS "Funniest Commercials of the Year" It's always been true that some of them are better than the shows. This year's favorite commercials, chosen in an online poll, will be shown along with a few classics from earlier years. Kevin Nealon will be the host. 9:30 p.m. on PBS "The Congregation" Filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond began documenting the life of Philadelphia's First United Methodist Church of Germantown in April 2002.

katec@herald-mail.com "What I'll miss the most is the camaraderie," says Carol Mendelsohn. She and Jeanne Jacobs reminisce about spending hours with fellow members of the B'nai Abraham Sisterhood in the kitchen of the Hagerstown synagogue. They peeled potatoes and prepared food for countless events through the years. Jacobs and Mendelsohn got together earlier this week to begin cooking for another event in the temple's social hall on Saturday, Oct. 5. "Salute to the Sisterhood," will begin at 7 p.m. Last year the congregation voted to disband B'nai Abraham Sisterhood, the temple's 87-year-old women's organization.

Historic Christ Reformed Church in Shepherdstown will welcome Emma Kathleen “Katie” Morgan as the guest preacher on homecoming Sunday, Nov. 11, at its 11 a.m. service.  A recent Master's of Divinity graduate from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, Morgan is the daughter of D.L. and Tara Morgan of Shepherdstown, and the granddaughter of Mary Ann Morgan, organist and director of music at Christ Church. The church, founded in 1747, is a congregation of German Reformed heritage within the United Church of Christ.

  By RICHARD F. BELISLE / Staff Writer, Waynesboro photo: KEVIN G. GILBERT / staff photographer GREENCASTLE, Pa. - The Rev. William DeHass will lead a brief service Sunday at Trinity Lutheran Church in Greencastle, then take his congregation to Jason Drive south of the borough to consecrate an 11-acre tract of land. By this time next year, DeHass hopes bulldozers will dig into that ground to pave the way for construction of a new $500,000 church to replace the edifice at 145 East Baltimore St. The congregation began worshiping in that church in 1927 after breaking away from the Evangelical Lutheran Church on North Washington Street.

Laura Bair didn't have to take a course to become a caring person. But after a week of training in the Stephen Ministries, she feels she has strengthened her natural ability to work with people in crisis. "It's going to be a wonderful experience ... to have a chance to live out our faith," Bair said. She and Colleen Newell joined with the Rev. Terry Foor for the intense training session recently in Orlando, Fla. All three are part of St. John's United Church of Christ in Clear Spring.

BOONSBORO -- The pastor of Benevola United Methodist Church in Boonsboro has been suspended from her position for not fully disclosing her husband's status as a registered child sex offender, a church superintendent said Wednesday. David Alvin Smith, 57, the husband of the Rev. Helen Smith, pleaded guilty in 2008 to a third-degree sex offense charge after his adult daughter told authorities he had sexually abused her as a child. As details about his conviction came to light in media reports this spring, a congregation member alleged the information differed from what the Rev. Smith had told her congregation about the matter and alerted church supervisors, said John Rudisill, superintendent of the Cumberland-Hagerstown District of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church.

A local church's involvement in Operation Christmas Child's Pack A Shoebox program is proof that size doesn't matter to children in need. The nationwide effort involves filling shoeboxes with a variety of gifts, praying for the child who will receive the gift, and then delivering the boxes to the closest drop-off location, where they are distributed to needy children overseas ranging in age from 2 to 14 years old. Some of the gifts suggested include...

charlestown@herald-mail.com The area may be changing rapidly, but inside the walls of Allensville Church of the Brethren, it almost seems time is standing still. It's where decades-old traditions still exist, and members of the church prefer it that way. Women wear "prayer coverings," small white hats that stem from references in the Bible about when women should cover their heads. Church members live like family, sharing vegetables from their gardens. Members of the congregation are still baptized in nearby Back Creek and the Rev. Charles W. Green wears a collarless white shirt and black coat, which was typical among Brethren ministers years ago. "I don't like progression much," longtime church member Jane Manor said after services Sunday.

CLEAR SPRING - Recently the church school children of St. John's United Church of Christ, Cumberland and Mill streets, held a Precious Paws Mission to benefit the Humane Society of Washington County. Children from nursery school through high school participated in the project, headed by Melissa Mackley, wife of the Rev. Charles M. Mackley. "The mission was a threefold project," she said, adding that the students worked together to make homemade dog biscuits for the dogs at the shelter on Maugansville Road.

HALFWAY It's almost a nice problem for a church pastor to have -- your congregation is growing at a rate that means an addition to the current building is a must. The Rev. Robert C. Jones, pastor of Valley Assembly of God Christian Life Center in Halfway, presided over a groundbreaking Sunday morning after worship for just such a likelihood. Jones led the congregation in prayer as he ceremoniously shoveled the first piece of ground for the multipurpose addition. "We will be able to have a lot more youth activities," Jones said.