Lesson: Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20
Message: Why We Do What We Do
WELCOME BACK!!
This Sunday is UPA’s Welcome Back Sunday when we “Welcome Back” all of our families and friends from a summer of travels, connecting with family, relaxing, and renewing our energies. It’s when we start up our Sunday School programming for children 6th grade and younger and our Youth Group programming for kids 7th – 12th grade. It’s when our Bible Study, book studies, monthly “First Fridays”, and Contemplative Practices begin again in earnest. It’s when UPA leadership across all of the boards check in once again and dream again what this church can be and do by God’s call and vision for us.
All of this and more and I can confirm: the JOY is palpable!!
…but there’s even more than these this year! Beginning this Sunday we will be welcoming our new student minister, Anine de Grood, to our community and staff! Anine graduated from Boston University with and MDiv just this past May and will be beginning her work of discernment towards ordination with the Central MA Assoc. of the Southern New England Conference of the UCC this month. Matt and I are so excited to introduce Anine (pronounced: A-nee-nay) to all of you including her significant gifts for ministry.
Finally, a faith community is a place where all participants get to share in the ministry, faith, and fellowship of the church. One of this community’s FAVORITE pieces of our worship is, what we call “Coffee Hour!” UPA’s community board has devised a way to allow for every single member, friend, and visitor to participate in preparing for this weekly feast. Together we collected names of folks who are regular participants, semi-regular participants and still local though maybe we haven’t seen in a while. We split this group into 6 (large) “teams” and named the teams something fun and faith related. Each team will have a designated captain who will be Community Board’s contact and will get the email chain/text chain rolling when it’s your team’s turn to prepare! Don’t like cooking brownies? No problem! You can set up tables, prepare coffee, or even pop by a teammate’s house to pick up THEIR outstanding brownies. I fully expect competition between teams for the best cheese and cracker display!
So much news! So many wonderful things happening at the UPA! Can’t wait to see you all this Sunday!
Peace,
Cheryl
Music:
Prelude: “Fugue in G, III:7 ” Johann Pachelbel
Anthem: “Mighty God” African Am. spiritual
Meditation:“Sweet is the Name of Jesus” Michael Haydn Sung by Marina Khankhalaeva, mezzo soprano
Postlude: “Voluntry in G” John Stanley
Live Stream Information
We will continue streaming our worship on both Zoom and Facebook Live. Please share these links with your friends. Bear in mind that we cannot share the Zoom links publicly (to keep from being Zoom bombed), so please share it person to person rather than posting it on Facebook/Twitter, or other public social media. It’s fine to share the Facebook link broadly and publicly. For Zoom login please reach out to Pastor Cheryl at cherly@newtonchurch.org
Note: that we continue to work on streaming as we make improvements to the sanctuary sound system.
Zoom Link: UPA Sunday Morning Worship
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81334929545?pwd=S1lsRlRmSnlkTUE0cHRlWWQwWUJndz09
Facebook Livestream Link: https://www.facebook.com/upanewtonma/live