Children are invited to come to the front of the sanctuary for the Children’s Moment during both services.  There are Worship Activity bags available outside the sanctuary, with books and other quiet activities for children to use during worship.

The Lord’s Supper is celebrated every Sunday during our worship service.  All are welcome to join in this feast of remembrance.   We gather around this table to remember God’s abundant love for us made manifest through Jesus Christ.

8:30 service: The Lord’s Supper is celebrated by intinction.  Worshippers are invited to come forward to receive a piece of bread and dip it in the cup to partake in the remembrance of Christ.

11:00 service: The Lord’s Supper is served to worshippers in the pews.  Worshippers are invited to eat the bread and then hold the cup to be taken communally.

The Offering is received out of a sense of blessing and thanksgiving  to God for one’s abundance.  Gifts received are used to support the ministries of this congregation in our community and around the world.

Restrooms are located off the hallway leading beyond the sanctuary.  Upon leaving the sanctuary turn right. Restrooms will be beyond the water fountain off the parlor on the right.

A Continental Breakfast is served by volunteers after the 8:30 service. Everyone who participates almost always will find some very good breakfast treats accompanied by plenty of coffee and juice. The fun and fellowship provide the opportunity for stimulating conversation, catching up on what is going on at church, as well as simply enjoying one another’s company. Visitors are always welcome to participate while getting to know the members of the congregation as well as our church staff.

Church School classes meet at 9:45 AM. There are classes for children and adults of all ages. There is a nursery, staffed with a qualified attendant, that cares for infants and toddlers during all Sunday morning services.

Campaign Overview

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Ministry Celebration Brochure

Commitment Card (side 1) Commitment Card (side 2)

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• One hand towel measuring approximately 16″ x 28″ (no fingertip or bath towels)
• One washcloth
• One wide-tooth comb
• One nail clipper
• One bar of soap (bath size in wrapper)
• One toothbrush (in original packaging)
• Six standard size Band-Aids®

Supplies can be brought to the church office and labeled “Hygiene kits”.

I was there for a series of lectures that focused on the mystics as an important resource from our Christian tradition. A mystic, as our speakers suggested, is one who has had a direct experience of God that results in a direct relationship with God, and whose experience inspires and teaches others. Mystics have lived in every century, and whether or not you know their names, they have taught and influenced us. Our lectures focused on four: St. Gregory the Great, Theresa of Avala, St. Therese of Lisieux, and Thomas Merton – all people who lived and learned and struggled with their faith.

I appreciated my experience at Christmount this week for a  lot of reasons – a chance to connect with other clergy, an opportunity to visit Christmount, a couple days of mountain air – but maybe especially this: Whenever I learn about the historical figures of our tradition, I am reminded that we are just the latest in a long line of people and communities who are trying to live faithfully in the presence of God. The way we practice our faith has been shaped by all those people who came before us. Apostles Peter and Paul, mystics Gregory and Theresa, Disciples founders Barton, Thomas, and Alexander… even those saints of First Christian Church who taught you in Sunday school, gave generously to build this building, and lifted up their prayers in our sanctuary.

That might be worth remembering as we enter this stewardship season. By now, you’ve probably received a letter from our Stewardship Committee asking you to consider your pledge for next year. As you consider how much you will give, I hope you’ll take a moment to review our ministry plan and remember all that God is calling us to do here in this time and place. What an amazing thing it is to stand here in this tradition, with all those prayers behind us, and all that promise ahead of us.

James 5:13-20
“Are any of you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.”

In many ways, the letter of James is very different from the other letters of the New Testament. But like Paul, James knows the power of prayer. Here in these closing remarks, he reminds the congregation that whatever their troubles, whatever their joys, it is good and right to take it all to God.

It’s got me thinking about prayer – what it is, what it does, how we do it. I like the idea that our ordinary words become holy words when addressed to God in prayer. I suspect that each of us has a slightly different idea of just how prayer works. I like Kathleen Norris’s definition, from her book Amazing Grace: “I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine.” That makes sense to me. What do you think? Join us Sunday and we’ll talk more…

More bread talk here from Jesus. This is important – and difficult. It takes practice, repetition, like learning long division, or the periodic table – most of the time we look at it with glazed-over eyes, but occasionally, light breaks through and you understand, something, a momentary understanding that makes the difference, for awhile, anyway.

Bread here, we are finally beginning to understand, is not flour, water, yeast… Bread here is that which comes down from heaven, sustains us in our hunger, finds us in our wilderness, brings us back to life and gives us strength for the journey.

But while our story two weeks ago made us hungry for fish sticks and last week we headed home for honey wheat loaves, this week’s passage is not one to be read on an empty stomach. It is graphic and bloody, carnal in its very nature. A stranger from outer space would think we were cannibals and would hesitate to stay for lunch. In fact, the early Christians were accused of cannibalism, eating, as they did, “the body and blood” of Jesus.

So perhaps this passage is just startling enough to catch our attention. The incredible carnality of these words might just be what we need to remember the incredible incarnation of God through Jesus Christ.

Incarnation – God really is right here with us. That’s what we celebrate each week when we come to the communion table, and eat the bread and drink the cup.

There’s a little boy in this story. He only gets one line, and of the four gospel writers who tell this story, only John mentions him, but he’s the one who had the picnic basket that made all the difference.

He almost didn’t go that day, I like to imagine. He almost stayed home, where there were chores to do, a baby sister to look after while his mother was up to her elbows in laundry and his father was off working in the field. He almost stayed home, but his mother sees him standing longingly at the doorway, watching people from the town head out to the hillside.

“Go,” she says, “I’ll pack you a lunch.” He grins and scampers back inside to find the basket.

“Take a little extra,” his mother says. “You might need to share with someone.” And she reaches up to the top shelf where the bread is kept. There isn’t much, but she gives him everything she has, and wraps it in a cloth. She kisses him on the head and tells him to be safe, then turns back to the baby and the laundry. The little boy takes the basket and heads out the door.

When he gets there, Jesus is already speaking, and the hillside is already crowded, so the only place he can find to sit is right up front, on the ground. When his mother asks him later what he heard, he can’t remember, exactly, except that it was good.

The little boy is close enough to hear the conversation between Jesus and the disciples when they realized the crowd is getting hungry. He hears Jesus tell the disciples to get the folks something to eat, and he hears Philip say, “We could work for six months and not earn enough money to feed all these people!”

And then the little boy feels a hand on his shoulder. It’s Andrew, and he pulls the boy into the conversation. There’s this boy here, he says, and he has some food. And then there’s this little murmur of possibility, until Andrew says, “But it’s only five loaves and two fish. And what is that among so many people?

And the boy looked, too, at the hungry crowd, and wondered the same thing.

Over and over again, we say to God in despair: What is this among so many?
And God says: What do you have?
We say: Two fish and five loaves.
And God says: Then that will be enough.

The unemployment rate is up; food pantry supplies are down. Everywhere, people are hurting. What is this among so many?

What do you have?
We have two fish and five loaves of bread.
We have a sanctuary where we gather to worship and rest.
We have a small garden where food is growing.
We have a table set with a feast where all are welcome.
We have a passion for the gospel.
We have a commitment to justice.

We have two fish and five loaves of bread.
Then that will be enough.

I’ve discovered a wonderful little book called Longing for Enough in a Culture of More. Just the title says it all for me. The author says this:

“…What do you long for? When you feel like you’re hungry but know you’re really not, what are you really ‘hungry’ for? When you think you’re short on purses or power tools but have a closet full of each, what are you really short on? This sounds kind of backwards, but I often think that the more we indulge our appetites, the deeper our longings grow. It may be precisely the closet full of purses or power tools that leaves me with a vague sense of needing something else. Is it another purse? Another power tool? Another promotion? Another partner?

“Perhaps one of the most rudimentary longings we ever feel is the longing for enough, or rather, for enough to be enough… I tend to think that the urges that lead us to acquire more and more and more – purses, power tools, promotions (oh, yes – and chocolate) – are at least partly urges for the very opposite, longings to shed some of those accretions and walk on through life less encumbered and more attentive, less self-absorbed, and more aware of the world around us, richer, finally, for what we have chosen to let alone… When we’re longing for this, that, and the other, chances are what we are really longing for is a sense of enough.” (Escamilla, Paul L. Longing for Enough in a Culture of More. Abingdon Press: 2007; pg. 38-40)

It is, after all, a miracle story, what happens there on the hillside with those five barley loaves and two dried fish. The people are filled – beyond anything they could ask or imagine – with the fullness of God.

What is this among so many?
What do you have?
Then that will be enough.

The little boy should have gone home, probably, after they’d all eaten. He should have gone home when it started to get dark. He knew his mother would be worried. But he stuck around after the crowds had gone, and followed the men down to the lake. He went quietly; they didn’t know he was there. Jesus wasn’t there yet, either – he’d gone off by himself when the crowds had gotten too demanding. So the little boy watched the men climb into the boat and head into the sea.

And he watched as the wind began to blow, and he huddled under a tree when the rain began, but he could still see the boat tossing and turning in the storm. And then – this was the most amazing of the amazing things he’d seen that day – there was Jesus, who’d been speaking on the hillside just that afternoon, walking across the water, floating, almost, even in the middle of the storm. He could see him come to the boat, though he couldn’t hear what he said, and then he climbed in, and the winds calmed, and the water settled, and the boat went on its way.

There didn’t seem to be much else to do – the people were gone, the storm done – so the little boy turned to head home and nearly tripped over something. It was his basket, and the cloth next to it, filled with leftover bread and fish, more than he’d come with. He picked it up, and headed home, and though it was the dead of night, the path didn’t seem dark at all.

Then Saturday morning, we held our first work day as part of the Summer of Service. Three work groups went out and spent the morning doing some home maintenance, working at Beacon Place Hospice Center, and working in our church garden.

On Wednesday, we welcomed Rev. Nancy McLean to speak at our Third Wednesday Fellowship dinner. Rev. McLean is the director of Joseph’s House, which provides a safe home for homeless young adults. We’re looking forward to doing a work project with Joseph’s House in July.

In many ways, it has been a difficult week as well. For many months, we have been praying for two members who have been battling cancer, and last week, the struggle ended for both of them. As we grieved their loss and celebrated their lives, we gave thanks that God walks with us through all our days. Our prayers continue for their families.