Gayle is Published on Maren Tirabassi's Blog

Visit Maren Tirabassi's blog Gifts in Open Hands to see what Gayle has to say.

Maren posted: "On Mondays I am sharing liturgical writing focused on the Luke passages for each Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary. This week Gayle Murphy of Northwood, New Hampshire shares a confessional resource and following that is a Call to Worship and Invocation that I am offering."

http://giftsinopenhands.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/1448/

Strawberry Festival June 22

People have been out in the sun picking strawberries.

They have been sitting in the kitchen hulling strawberries.

As the temperature climbs to over  80⁰ they have been slaving over their ovens making shortcakes and pies.  

People have been digging through their closets for yard sale items.  

Bubbles has been practicing his tricks.  

The tent has been raised.  

Why???  Because it is our Annual Strawberry Festival, complete with yard sale under the big top, Bubbles the clown for entertainment, pancakes for breakfast and all the strawberries you can eat.  

Tomorrow from 8 am till 2 pm we will be here with our freshly picked strawberries, just waiting for you to come by.  Have some shortcake, eat pancakes for breakfast, lunch on the grill or both!  Buy a pie to take home and search for a treasure at the yard sale.  

We hope you join us, bring your family, your friends and your neighbors for some fresh picked strawberries. 

Annual Meeting

This Sunday, June 9,  immediately following our worship service we will be holding our annual meeting.

Please join us to hear what our church has done this year, what our plans are for the coming year and to vote on our budget. 

We need all our members to be present and we are happy to have other join us to discover what we are doing as a church. 

We look forward to seeing you.

Check out our new page

We've added a new page to our website.  Our missions page shows you what we've been doing as a church to put our faith into action.  Take a moment to check out our new page and click on the links so you can learn more about the different organizations we support.

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.