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Phones: 253-7698 • Phone/Fax: 253-8668 Email: chccucc@myfairpoint.net • Website: www.chccucc.org | ||||
Pastor.................................................................................... Reverend Carol Asher Home Phone: 744-7864 E-mail: clsasher2@aol.com Ministers.............................................................................................. All Members Director of Music.......................................................................... Secretary......................................................................................... Nancy Lemieux Ukama/Partner................. |
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This Week in Our Church Family
Boldface = Church-sponsored events
Sunday (12) 8:30 am BOCE & Teacher Meeting
10:00 am Worship and
11:00 am Fellowship and Refreshments in Gilpatric Hall
11:25 am Missions
Monday (13) 5:30 & 8:30 am Boot Camp (Mon.-Fri.)
Village Preschool Mon, Wed, Fri 8:45-11:45 a.m.
8:30 am T’ai Chi
Tuesday (14) 5:30-6:30pm
7:30 pm Trustees
Wed. (15)
Thursday (16) 6:00 & 7:00 pm T’ai Chi
Friday (17)
Saturday (18) 8:00am Al-Anon
Sunday (19) 10:00 am Worship and
11:10 am Fellowship and Refreshments in Gilpatric Hall
Mardi Gras
Thank You to Today’s Volunteers
Ushers: | Dave & Lynne Sias | Nursery Care: | Gabby Smith |
Liturgist: | Kent Warner | Greeters: | Joe & Diane Crawford |
Acolytes: | Fellowship Hosts: | The Warners |
February 12, 2012 10:00 a.m.
Morning Worship
Large print bulletins available—please ask an usher.
An asterisk (*) indicates “Please stand if you are able.”
Gathering for Worship
PRELUDE “O Savior Sweet, O Savior Kind” Bach
IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH (announcements)
PREPARING THE WAY
Entering into Worship
CHORAL INTROIT
RESPONSIVE CALL TO WORSHIP
L: We are on a journey of faith.
P: We travel with Jesus Christ as our guide.
L: The promises of God shine like stars before us and give us strength for the journey.
P: But still, in the wilderness, we become impatient and rebellious, and we lose our way.
L: We gather, seeking to learn the mysterious ways of discipleship and to rediscover the paths of righteousness.
All: O God, your Word is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path and a guide to our lives. We come to learn from Jesus. We come to worship you.
*OPENING HYMN “All the Way My Savior Leads Me” Hymn #559
*GATHERING PRAYER (in unison)
Compassionate and all-merciful God, we thank you that in love you sent Jesus Christ to share our earthly life with its joy and suffering. Help us to follow Christ’s model of living that we may grow in our faith-lives. Give us grace, that we may come to you and receive your instruction and blessing with open hearts, that we may more fully be your faithful disciples. In all ways, may we serve you with joy and thanksgiving. We pray together as Jesus taught us, saying “Our Father...”
*LORD’S PRAYER (using “debts”)
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
CHILDREN’S STORY “Anything You Want…”
(the children will leave to go to their
PASSING THE PEACE OF JESUS CHRIST
*HYMN “We Are Walking (Siyahamba)” Hymn #442
A Time of Sharing
ANTHEM “Sing A New Song” Pethel
PRAYER JOYS AND CONCERNS
Fall on your knees and grow there. There is no burden of the spirit but is lighter by kneeling under it. Prayer means not always talking to God, but waiting before God till the dust settles and the stream runs clear. (F. B. Meyer)
CALL TO PRAYER
“Lord, listen to your children praying; Lord, send your Spirit in this place.
Lord, listen to your children praying. Send us love, send us power, send us grace.”
PASTORAL PRAYER
CHORAL RESPONSE
MOMENT FOR
OFFERING
Organ Offertory “Fill The World With Love” Edwards
*Offering Response #382 (sung by the people)
We give thee but thine own, what e’re the gift may be.
All that we have is thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from thee.
*Prayer of Dedication
Reflecting on God’s Word
SCRIPTURE Matthew 6: 16-18 p. 6 NT
SERMON “Go Fast… and Live!”
Sending
*CLOSING HYMN “O Master, Let Me Walk With Thee” Hymn #602
*BENEDICTION
ORGAN POSTLUDE “Trumpet Tune” Young
(in these few minutes during the postlude, sit quietly and soak up the
love and grace of God that will help you through this coming week.)
Announcements
Welcome
We warmly greet all who have come to worship God. Your presence will enhance our worship experience and our fellowship together. Sincere thanks to each of you for your participation in the service and our time of sharing afterward. Blessings!
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Mardi Gras
You are invited to join the fun of Mardi Gras celebration next Sunday, February 19th right after worship. Mardi Gras is the last “fling” before the somber season of Lent begins. We will enjoy a pancake luncheon, make some banners, and have a grand Mardi Gras parade. Please sign up in Gilpatric Hall and take a mask pattern to decorate for the parade.
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Ash Wednesday
The forty days of the Lenten preparation season begin on Ash Wednesday, February 22nd. We will gather in the sanctuary at 7PM to begin the journey with Jesus to
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Mission Trust Fund—February Special
The Mission Trust Fund is a trust in our own church, begun years ago by Trudy Matthes. She envisioned a fund which would perpetually augment the generous mission giving of our members and friends. Each year, the interest from this fund is used to match proportionally the giving to various special missions during the previous year. Thus, your generosity is even bigger. Obviously, the larger the principle of this fund, the more can be given to the missions we consider important.
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Prepared to Serve
Our NH Conference offers a wide range of workshops on many different topics. Information and registration forms are in the church office. Registration (including lunch) is $40.
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Holly Fair
A few “fair ladies” have already met to begin planning for our Annual Holly Fair – which will follow tradition by being held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving (Nov. 17th). On Monday, February 20th from 9:00am-11:00am there will be a craft workshop. For more information speak to Sally Humer, Lynne Sias, or Ellen Weeks.
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In Letting Go, We Face Our Real Enemies (Marsha McCabe Standard-Times)
On the first Sunday of the new year, the minister of my church asked us to make a single resolution. He asked us to “let it go.” This is quite different from the usual New Year’s resolution in which we promise to “give it up.” Giving it up usually involves taking control of our greedy little selves, which is hard enough. But letting it go is a bigger and more demanding task, for it involves our relationships with others.
Letting go means relinquishing the old grudges and humiliations. It’s letting go of our effort to control others. It’s the hardest kind of giving up, for the behavior of those irascible colleagues, devious spouses, unfaithful lovers and other rascals impinges on our lives.
The wife of an alcoholic cannot control her husband’s drinking. She can nag him and rage at the world. She can enable him to continue by covering up for him. She can deny there is any problem at all. Though she can support him if he decides to change, she cannot change him. For her, letting go may mean staying put and making her peace with the devil… or it may mean moving on into a new life.
In comparison, letting go of a grudge seems easy. But a grudge is hardened in place. The wrongdoer is given power by the grudge-bearer. She may even have fled long ago, she may even be deceased, but when the wrongdoer visits in the night, we rage. Rage is necessary for a while, but if allowed to run beyond its natural course, solidifies into a mean, ugly grudge. And when we bear the grudge, the enemy controls us.
Given our own addictions, weaknesses and bad behaviors, we have enough enemies inside us to keep us on full-time alert. Nevertheless, we send in the rescue squads and the reform troops to try to put down the enemies in other people. For a time, it is necessary that we confront the drug-addicted wife, the gambler husband, the kleptomaniac mother, the workaholic father, the agoraphobic sister, the manic-depressive brother, the promiscuous daughter, and the entire pageant of people who affect our lives. But there is a time to try and a time to let go.
When the minister asked us to “let it go,” he was calling on us to do one of the most difficult things we would ever be asked to do: To accept what we cannot change. For if we cannot change someone else, if we finally and forever give up that ghost, then the eye of the camera focuses on us.
On this, the first Sunday of the year, the minister had placed a cauldron up front similar to that employed by Macbeth’s witches. Slips of paper were handed out and we wrote down what we wanted to let go. Our responses, which were kept confidential, were then collected and set ablaze in the caldron. I thought of all the people who went up in smoke that morning: mistresses, philandering husbands, ex-wives, ungrateful children. In that cauldron were other people’s addictions, behaviors, weaknesses; in that cauldron were rages, old grudges and great sadnesses.
It was wonderfully liberating to see the old enemies put to rest, but the catharsis was temporary. In this symbolic cleansing, the burden of freedom was put on the parishioner. The minister knew we could not achieve such freedom on a single Sunday morning, but he wanted us to take the first step: to face the enemy, write down its name, and watch it turn to ashes.
What we saw in those ashes was startling. Our enemy, once in our stars, was named and out in the open and visible. And now that we could see that enemy, we could control it and, finally, let it go.
Truly freeing ourselves would take months and years; freedom does not come easy. First we must rage. When our raging is done, we must grieve. When our grieving is done, we must change our lives to fit the new knowledge. And when we change our lives, the world shifts into new formations and perspectives. We will be born again.
Fasting and Feasting
We will soon begin the season of Lent—the forty days before Easter. We don’t count Sundays in those forty days. Lent is a serious, reflective time, but those Sundays are still days of rejoicing and celebration. Someone said that we should just have forty days straight and not worry about the Sundays in-between. But Lent should be more than just a time of serious fasting; it should also be a joyous time of feasting. Lent IS a time to fast from certain things, but in place of fasting, there needs to be times of feasting in other things.
Lent is a season when we should:
FAST from judging others; FEAST on the Christ dwelling in them.
FAST from emphasis on differences; FEAST on the unity of all life.
FAST from apparent darkness; FEAST on the reality of the true Light.
FAST from thoughts of illness; FEAST on the healing power of God.
FAST from words that pollute; FEAST on phrases that purify.
FAST from discontent; FEAST on gratitude.
FAST from anger; FEAST on patience.
FAST from pessimism; FEAST on optimism.
FAST from wastefulness; FEAST on God’s providence.
FAST from complaining; FEAST on appreciation.
FAST from negatives; FEAST on affirmatives.
FAST from unrelenting pressures; FEAST on unceasing prayer.
FAST from hostility; FEAST on non-resistance.
FAST from bitterness; FEAST on forgiveness.
FAST from self-concerns; FEAST on compassion for others.
FAST from personal anxiety; FEAST on external truth.
FAST from discouragement; FEAST on hope.
FAST from facts that depress; FEAST on verities that uplift.
FAST from lethargy; FEAST on enthusiasm.
FAST from suspicion; FEAST on truth.
FAST from thoughts that weaken; FEAST on promises that inspire.
FAST from shadows of sorrow; FEAST on the sunlight of serenity.
FAST from idle gossip; FEAST on purposeful silence.
FAST from problems that overwhelm; FEAST on prayer that sustains.
A Fast
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter? When you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (Isa. 58:6-7 NIV)