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. 

Update

We are half way into the 50 Great Days campaign.  Over the last 25 days the World Wide UCC community has invested 80,535 hours into caring for the planet, planted 14,528 trees and written 13,823 advocacy letters. 

Update

Almost three weeks into 50 Great Days the World Wide UCC

community has invested 25, 314 hours into caring for the planet, planted 5, 731 trees and written 2, 754 advocacy letters. 

This week we’d like to think about our trash impact on the

environment.  An average American person produces about 4.5 lbs of trash every day.  We don’t think about it, just send it off to the transfer station and it is no longer our problem.  But what really happens to our trash at the transfer station? 

It is more economical to sort and sell trash for recycling then it is to pay dumping fees.  It costs about $75 per ton to transport and

dispose of trash. 

· Paper and cardboard get sent to China and Canada to get turned back into paper. 

· Plastic gets recycled and turned into new plastic products,    carpet and lumber.

· At the BCEP glass is ground up and sent to Chichester to be used in making roads.

· Vegetable oil can be cleaned and burned for fuel.

· The actual trash can be sent to a landfill in Rochester or sent to an incinerator. 

· One of the most significant costs that is incurred comes from food waste.  Because it is wet and heavy it costs more to dump and it isn’t something that transfer

stations can compost themselves. 

Our Easter Celebration in Pictures

Our Easter Celebration in Pictures

Welcoming the Sunrise

Our youth, leading the Sunrise Service.

He is Risen!

Easter Breakfast

Easter Worship

Lighting the Candles

Sacred Dancers

Easter Communion

Rev. Gayle Murphy sharing with our children

Holy Week

Easter was a wonderful celebration of the power of God and the wonder of this community. Thanks to all who worked so hard to make Holy Week events so meaningful. Special thanks to Jo Chase and Jane Roberts for creating a garden for our Maundy Thursday service. For the Deacons for staffing and setting up the Good Friday Vigil. For Deb McCann for organizing the beautiful Easter plants. For the youth of the church and Michael Magoon for leading our Sunrise Service. For Billy McGowen, Ken Flesher, Dan Ferguson, and Michael Smith for cooking us breakfast. For the choir, led by Judy Frase for delighting us with music and Peggy Kofer and the Sacred Dancers for expressing the wonder of praising God. For Victoria Marcotte for getting all the bulletins done and keeping the church together.  And for Gayle who leads us. 
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

50 Great Days

The United Church of Christ is launching Mission 4/1 Earth: 50 Great Days.  This links together Easter (March 31), Earth Day (April 22), Arbor Day (April 26), and Pentecost (May 19) in an shared effort to offer more than one million hours of earth care, plant more than 100 000 trees and send more than 100 000 advocacy letters. 

Over the 50 Great Days there will be links and posts on facebook, on our blog and in the announcements with suggestions, ideas and information about living a more environmentally friendly life.  Sustaining our Earth for future generations shouldn't be painful or difficult.  It isn't about radical change, it is about small shifts that make big differences.  It is about developing awareness around your everyday choices.  We are a small church but every little bit helps. 

For more information check out the website at http://www.ucc.org/earth/

As a church we already do some things to reduce our impact on the environment.  We recycle our paper, after using both sides as much as possible.  We turn the heat down and the lights off when we're not here.  The lights in the bathroom are on automatic switches.  We recycle our ink and toner cartridges from the copier.  We use mugs for coffee hour instead of styrofoam or paper.  We worship in Fellowship Hall during the colder months, yes it saves us money but it also means less fuel used.  

Send us an email, leave us a comment or post on facebook to tell us what you're already doing to conserve the Earth's resources and to limit your impact on the environment.