May 19 Confirmation Sunday Worship at 8:30 am

This Sunday, May 19 we will be holding our worship service at 8:30 am.  The change in time is to accommodate our combined Confirmation class.  Over the last several months youth from our church and the youth from the Congregational Church of North Barnstead  have shared confirmation class and many different field trips.

Their efforts culminate this weekend with a celebratory dinner for the Confirmands and their families on Saturday evening and then Sunday morning the Confirmands will be leading worship at both churches.  We have moved our service a half hour early to 8:30 am and the Congregational Church of North Barnstead has moved their service a half hour later to 10:30 am so the Confirmands can attend both services.

Please join us Sunday morning in celebrating these young people in their commitment to Christ.  

A Letter to My American Friends - Thought Provoking

Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili writes 

"It grieves my heart when I think that what has happened in Boston will cause yet another wave of hatred towards our Muslim brothers and sisters both in the USA and beyond. We will never know how many innocent Muslims will be humiliated, hurt and abused as a result of the violence in Boston.  This will only help the representatives of political Islam to recruit more people. This should be stopped.

All the security services of the world, police a and military forces may try their best but I am afraid they can not stop hatred and fear.  Love, forgiveness and kindness can!"

This is an excerpt from a long letter from the Baptist Bishop from Georgia (in the former USSR).   But I think it is worth the time to read the whole thing about religious intolerance, perceptions, and our call to Christian hospitality as a way of reconciliation.  His letter comes in response to the Boston Marathon Bombing.

Let us know what you think.

Gayle

Read the whole letter here on Maren's blog 

http://giftsinopenhands.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/1256/

50 Great Days Update

Update

More than half way through the 50 Great Days campaign and the World Wide UCC community is still going strong.  We have invested 104,871 hours into caring for the planet, planted 17,571 trees and written 15,072 advocacy letters. 

We all have to eat but consider for a moment what you are eating and where your food comes from.  Are your foods prepackaged, loaded with chemicals and pesticides?  Are they travelling from Mexico, Florida or even overseas to get to you?  Think about the difference on the environment and on your body that a locally picked apple has compared to a banana that comes from Mexico.  The apple is picked at the peak of freshness making it healthier

for you and travels at most 20 miles.  The banana is picked long before it is ripe so it can travel for about 4, 500 miles before you see it.  The banana doesn't get to ripen on the tree, has lost much of it’s nutritive value and has used about 300 gallons of fuel before it even arrives in the store.   

Consider ways you can reduce your food impact on the environment.

· Have one meatless day a week. 

· Shop at local farmer’s markets and eat food in season.

· Plant some vegetables either in the ground or in a container.

· Anything that comes prepackaged came out of a factory with the resulting pollution, energy use and waste products.

· Find foods as close to their natural state as possible.  Eat God made foods rather then man made foods. 

· Teach your children where their food comes from, milk from cows, eggs from chickens, fruit from trees and vegetables from the earth.