A Reading for Bible Distribution to Youth

We did this Bible distribution in lieu  of the Children's Message during a Sunday service.  Each member of the Board of Worship and Education took a different segment.  It is our church's tradition to hand out Bibles at the end of the 3rd grade year so that they may bring their Bible's to church in the future and deepen their understanding of the Bible from the children's bibles that many of them may have.  

The Bible also comes with a warranty that if they wear it out, they can exchange it at any time for a new one.

Bible Distribution

Invite recipients up

Today is an exciting day.  Today you will receive a gift that has been prized since the beginning of time. Does anyone have any idea what it might be?  Why do you think this book is so important?  

Those are all wonderful reasons and here are a few more:

This story originally came not on paper but in words.  Words that were passed down from generation to generation.  Words that were memorized and retold until the next generation memorized the same stories.

When paper was made from papyrus, the oldest stories began to be written down.  The books of Moses, called the Torah in the Judaic tradition, and then the entire Tenakh (Ten-ock).  The transcribing of these stories was so special and so important that if one letter was written incorrectly, the scribe would begin again.

These stories of the Old Testament were foundational teachings even to our Messiah, Jesus Christ.  After Jesus came and then was crucified, others wrote.  There were stories of Jesus’ life, the creation of the church and acts of the disciples after Jesus’ death, letters to the new churches that were growing up, and a revelation of future times.  More was written than you will find in this book and so as a newly formed Christian church we met to decide what were the most important pieces to be included in the New Christian Bible.

This book is so important that it was the first book to be printed on the first printing press and for many years and even in some places today, it is the only book in some homes.  It is such an important book that the Gideon’s work to make sure that anyone that wants one has one and in most hotels, you will find the Bible tucked carefully in the nightstand thanks to their work.

Some people have died or been persecuted for this book.  We hope that you too will hold this book with great reverence, but not with reverence like that you might care for a piece of fine china or crystal, but like the love that many of you have probably shown to a “blankie” or favorite stuffed animal.  This book is just a book until you read it, think on what God is saying to you through it, and share it with others.  I encourage you to not just read it once, but many times.  I encourage you to read it backwards, forwards, to find favorite stories or lines.  I empower you to write in it – to underline favorite verses or note comments in the side.  I pray that this book is not just an important book for all time, but the most important book in your particular life.  I pray that you find this a helpful tool to know and understand the God that loves you madly.

As representatives from the Board of Worship and Education on behalf of the whole First Congregational Church of XXXXXXX.  We would like to present these Bibles to XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXX . . .

A Solution to Crime

I came by this during my reading of "Habits of the Heart" for one of seminary classes.  I thought that it raised a very good idea.  It certainly is not actually the solution to all crime, but perhaps some . . .

John "Winthrop saw justice as a matter more of substance than of procedure.  . . when it was reported to him during an expecially long and hard winter that a poor man in his neighborhood was stealing from his woodpile, Winthrop called the man into his prescence and told him that because of the severity of the winter and his need, he had permission to supply himself from Winthrop's woodpile for the rest of the cold season.  Thus, he said to his friends, die he effectively cure the man from stealing."

I thought that this was a wonderfully inspirational story and leads me to think about how I might embody the same idea.  I don't have anyone stealing from my woodpile, but what could I do to lighten someone else's load?  What could you do.

Something from Nothing

Sometimes we wonder what we can give to others.  This cabinet reminds us that we can always give something, even when we have nothing.  This beautiful cabinet was created out of leftover pieces of a barn.  This cabinet was created by a man who lost his home in the tornadoes.  He was so thankful for all the church had done, he gifted us this beautiful cabinet.  I would have said that he lost everything in the storm, but obviously not everything.  He clearly maintains his talent and his heart.  So when you think that you have nothing to give, look again.  Look not outside yourself, but within, and remember this wonderfully giving inspiration. 

A Challenge to Non-Believers

My brother and I often have conversations about God's existence.  He is definate a skeptic who believes that the rest of us have created a being to satisfy our need for answers.  Certainly, when someone has such an anti perspective there is no logical agrument that is going to change their mind.  So I have asked him to try an experiment (whether this will work or not I do not know, but I know that if we take one step toward God, He'll take at least two toward you - so I am hopeful):  I have asked him to talk to God everyday for 40 days.  He needs to tell him his concerns, his faults, his questions.  I believe as this conversations unfolds, he will see that it moves from a one sided to a two sided conversations. 

It will be interesting to see if the skeptic is willing to give it a try. I encourage you to pose the same challenge to other non-believers.  I would live it if they would comment and let us know how the experiment unfolds.

Lent - Giving something up & Gaining something New

Lent has traditionally been a time of giving something up.  In our old church, Lent was celebrated more by taking something new on.  This year, I have kind of done both. 

Many people choose to give up sweets during Lent, but I don't eat that many sweets so how many times will I really be tempted - one or two during the forty days. I decided to give up coffee.  Maybe I need to explain what that means to me.  I generally get up with coffee, have at least one during the day, and my favorite time of the whole day is a coffee before I go to bed.  Now mind you, until now, this "sacrifice" was not a public thing.    I really felt like I wanted to experience this myself, I didn't want to share this plan with anyone: so I put a little codicil in my Lenten fast - I would not get myself coffee. However, If someone else bought me a coffee, I would gratefully accept it.  (Note:  I could not ask someone else to get it for me.  It had to be a random act of kindness of which I had no control.) This may seem like just wishful thinking, but I have at least two angels in my life that suprise me with coffee, so this was a real consideration. I will also note for those of you that are not familiar with Lent, that I became very thankful for Sundays which are not included in the Lenten 40 days.  I didn't over indulge but I surely did partake. 

Coffee was a really good thing to give up because it literally made me think of Lent every single day.  I could feel the temptation of Christ.  I could feel loss and sadness.  I know that sounds a bit extreme and I certainly don't mean to the extreme, but I would liken it to running sandpaper over you arm repetitively making you think about how it might feel to have a deep cut.  The feeling is not the same, but it is a little hurt that makes you ever mindful of a deeper, darker, more painful possibility.

At the same time, we took on attending our church's Lenten series of dinners with a conversation about the movies Economy of Love.  And we made our once a month Breakfast with the Bible a weekly experience.  These times of togetherness, which originally felt like just another responsibility have actually translated into the oasis of my week.  It is like swimming miles, but knowing when I touch that buoy that I will be relieved and have finished the race.

These two Lenten experiences have broadened my faith and deepened my Christian love.  I'm hoping the lessons will far exceed the 40 days of action.

What did you give up or add on during this Lenten season?  How has it changed your views or experience?

Scouting Sunday

Can you believe that she is up there again?  I may have to soon call DD, "Reverend DD".

We have started a wonderful tradition at our new church of Scouting Sunday.  This is by no means our tradition, but in fact a worldwide tradition that we have just established here.  This is the second year that we have done it up here.  We did it in our old church with much wider success as it was an established tradition.  Here, it is only in its second year; so we have had moderate participation so far.  This year was better than last and hopefully next year will be better than this one.

Traditionally, according to the Boy Scouts of America, Scouting Sunday is set as the Sunday prior to February 8th. However, variations are acceptable.  We have actually been using the last Sunday of February.  What Scouting Sunday means varies from one church to another.  For us, basically, the kids take over the entire church service.  Our daughter has actually been the one to facilitate the service and give the sermon (one of the downfalls of having parents in charge of something). All the other kids and in some cases adults do the other readings, ushering, lighting of candles, etc.  But frankly such a celebration can be whatever you wish to make of it. 

I think Scouting Sunday is a wonderful celebration to infuse the church with people that might not ordinarily attend.  It also offers the Scouts a deeper insight into their religion and may even inspire them to take a step into the clergy.  Any way you look at it, there is not too much of a down side.  I encourage you to plan an event with your church.  If you have any questions about the actual structure of the service we planned, feel free to contact me with questions.

How Church can stop your worrying

Last night and this morning, my neurons have been firing at an amazingly rapid rate.  Strangely, this is something that happens to me often just before my period.  PMS for me may mean a little testy, but it also means very productive. Sometimes the rapid fire, can make me a little giddy / punchy so I hope that you will get a bit of a laugh at the comic that I created after listening to this morning's sermon.  Take the time to read the scripture and take it cum grano salis.

Here's hoping you can find the real message and worry not : )

Looking for a Sunday School Curriculum

Our church is unique in that our Sunday School is all in one.  There are no grades and not too much room to separate even if we wanted to, but I believe that a strong Sunday School makes for a strong church.  Thus, as usual, open mouth and instead of inserting foot, I add a commitment to my calendar.  I also kind of believe that if you are going to complain, you better be willing to do something about it.  Therefore, I am on the committee to help out with the Sunday School. 

This year we started working with an online curriculum called The Whole People of God.  The unique thing about this program is that you pay according to the number of people in your congregation.  It is available all online which means that we can have multiple people access the curriculum and no one can forget to pass the book along.  They are lectionary based and have lessons weaved throughout the congregation.  We even took our Christmas Pageant from the curriculum with some adaptations.  They have multiple levels to pull from, but since we teach the masses, I usually just use the Primary level and adapt from there.

If you are looking for a curriculum to use, after several months now of using it, I can highly recommend The Whole People of God.  Now, I can only pray that they don't stop publishing like the last one I really liked, BibleQuest.

Making LINKS with the community

DD is off to KY on a mission’s trip with our old church. This is a momentous occasion for so many reasons. Certainly as a mission trip she is acting as God’s hands on earth, but also this is somewhat of a rite of passage for her. As a family, we have done this mission trip several times before, but this year she is doing it alone. Ok, alone with 75 of her closest friends. DD has done camp before so going away is not foreign to her, but this is more than camp. This is a way for her to spread her wings. She is out of state and will be treated as an adult and expected to work like one too. I think she is probably handling the whole thing better than I am; although, I have already heard from her 4 times by phone and she has only been gone since Saturday morning. I’m hoping this trip brings her the independence that she is seeking and helps her to see her faithful powers. God’s miracles happen everyday, especially if you are willing to listen to His call and help them come to fruition. Please pray for the safe keeping of my DD and all those of the United Churches of Durham that have traveled to KY.

If you are interested to help those in need, check out LINKS. You will get back far more than you give.

Catholic School for Protestants? or shall we continue to protest?

The table was set and the meal prepared. We waited for the Father to arrive. We had decided that DD wanted to go to the Catholic School. We understood that this meant that she would go to mass daily and undertake religious education and were ok with that. She was confirmed this year in our Congregational denomination, so I was fairly confident that while she was still developing her belief system, she was founded in a strong basis that would not waiver beneath this Catholic system. It crossed my mind that this would not be the limit of what was expected of us, and I was correct. It was asked that the entire family begin attending mass on a weekly basis.

On a cursory view this may not seem like much of a request. We are both Christians. We already attend church on a weekly basis. But such a request is bigger than that . . .I tried to make an analogy for my husband. Imagine as a Yankee fan, you got a job at Fenway. Such a job meant that you were able to watch baseball almost daily, but you were never able to see your favorite team in action (yes, I know the analogy breaks down here because the Red Sox and the Yankees actually do play each other, but I think you get the idea). It would be unlikely that as a family we would attend two church services a week and so such a choice would stop us from practicing our own religion. And I think that there are enough differences, that we would not feel completely fulfilled in the Catholic religion. My husband thinks that we would adapt and maybe even eventually convert, but I don’t . There are too many issues that I feel too passionately about. Frankly, I wonder too, how it will feel to always be excluded, always be the outsider. Is participating in and of itself, supporting something I don’t believe is right. Is this too high a price to pay?

It is interesting to think that we often think of different religions as being Buddhist vs. Christian, or monotheistic vs. pantheistic, atheist vs. believer, but truthfully there are many times in my life that differences in religion lie on much closer paths like this Catholic vs. Congregationalist consideration.

Every Time You Feel The Spirit

There is a strange characteristic of New England Congregationalists – restraint. Where you may think of Southern Baptists hands raised praising “Alleluia”; New England Congregationalist are the picture of restraint. Rarely do we even clap or a good hymn or a blessing we have heard. Severe and quiet do we sit with our puritanical ancestors keeping us in line. Today, this tendency actually became comical when the minister tried to teach a lesson in the Children’s Sermon about enthusiasm – literally translated from Greek meaning to be filled with God’s spirit. He encouraged them to share how they cheered for their favorite sports team. The wide eyed children looked queerly at the Reverend. He egged them on. Meekly one girl said the words, “Go Brimfield. Go.” But the voice was so quiet and respectful in the Sanctuary.

“Is that really how you say it? Or do you say it louder?” The girl eyed him. You could see t in all of their eyes – Noise in church? They had been taught well.

There is an animal behavior experiment by Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad (as told in Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover) in which monkeys were put in a cage with a tall pole on top of which sat fresh ripe bananas. Of course, the monkeys were eager for the favorite food. They made easy work of the pole but just as they were about to reach for the prize the researchers blew the monkeys off the pole with a strong burst from a fire hose. After a few times of this the chimp gave up and stopped trying for the banana. More interestingly, when new monkeys were introduced to the cage and enticed by the same bananas, it was not the fire hose which halted them, but their fellow monkeys who pulled them down. Eventually, each of the original chimps was replaced so that no animal had experience the fire hose deterrent. Even so the monkeys continued not to eat the bananas. They had learned that the bananas were off limits.

Were these children the same? Had all these generations later had the descendents of the Puritans remained reserved to avoid the stockades? Even ministerial permission they no longer could be spiritually enthusiastic.

I must side with the minister on this one and believe it may be time for us to reach for the bananas. If the spirit moves you . . .

Finding A New Church

We may have found it – a church. Due to his back, dear husband did not go, but the kids and I went down to Brimfield to check out the church. We are Congregationalist, but I have come to find that the term Congregationalist means a wide variety of things. Certainly there are core beliefs that we all hold, but how that translates into action is varied based on the local minister. The first church we tried was pleasant, but just did not seem to fit our needs. This one though had strong scriptural basis. It had a bit of a contemporary lean, but not quite as strong as the one we had been to previously. I have to admit that I tend to have a conservative bent and really enjoy the old hymns.


Today was surely a full day at church as they had a baptism, joining of new members, and installation of church board and committee members. We did get a little time to speak to the minister afterward. We asked questions about confirmation, Sunday School, missions, and Bible Study. Not everything matched what we were looking for, but I was impressed with a minister that said that when he was looking for a church, when he was interviewed, he was asked what the most important part of the church was. He relayed that he responded, “The church doors as they were the way out into the community.” I was hooked. I think we’ll be going back next Sunday. And as an extra bonus, it meets my daughter's criteria of having a steeple that you can see reaching above the trees as you drive into town. Actually, it eerily looks like our old church.




Here is a sample of why we loved our church:

Cut Adrift - Finding Excuses to go to Church

Before we moved, we were regular church goers. Now it seems we’ve gone once since we’ve moved. Twice, if you count the day my husband and kids went to our old church. They were back down there picking up my son from a Scouting Camp. We are going to try another church this week, but it just doesn’t feel the same and not having that strong connection makes it too easy to skip. In fact, in our old church that was one of the reasons I started volunteering: too often life would get in the way. Once I started teaching in the Sunday School, I had to go. This was before my husband used to come to church, so he would often cajole me with “why don’t you just stay in bed”, “it is such a beautiful day why don’t we get something done in the yard”, “why don’t we go . . . instead”. It was very hard for me to refuse such offers. When I began teaching though, there was no choice, I had to be there.

If you are looking for an excuse to go to church, here are some jobs that many churches look to get done on Sundays:

-greeters
-offertory volunteers
-helpers with communion either behind or in front of the scenes
-bakers of the communion bread (depending on the church)
-Sunday School or Nursery Volunteer
- Choir member
-Coffee Hour Host or Hostess