Grace and peace to you, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  We will again be in the sanctuary tomorrow morning, as well as next week for our 250th anniversary worship celebration!  This weekend, while we pray for our neighbors in Puerto Rico and elsewhere who have been ravaged by Hurricane Fiona, as well as for other southern neighbors in their journey and plight to find safe haven, we will ask ourselves what we can do.  In the Gospel lesson from Luke, we meet poor Lazarus, who teaches us as do our forebears in faith.  Come, let’s pray together and put our minds and hearts together in order to know best how we can serve our neighbors.  Isn’t this our most significant calling?  

Blessings and peace, Lisa

Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ! With the threat of showers in the morning along with some chilly air, we will worship in the sanctuary tomorrow!  Please do bring a mask, as we will continue to sing hymns inside!  Our text from Timothy invites us to consider when and how we pray, and Psalm 113 is essentially a command to praise God.  We will consider how we may encourage one another to pray more frequently and more fervently, as we move toward making the actions of our hands “holy.” 

Blessings and peace, Lisa

OPEN THE DOOR FOR THREE
in our return to hosting the Vanderkay Concert Series, co-sponsored by WERU radio.
Saturday, October 1st at 7:00 p.m.
Admission $20 at the door with audience capped at 175; vaccines and masks required to protect the most vulnerable in our community.

Be sure to add this concert to your calendar as we are poised to be entertained by a group described as “A road-tested, audience-approved, high-octane, fist-in-glove, laughing-out-loud trio of Irish musicians…” You may listen to samples of their music as well as read more of their exceptional biographies on their website https://www.openthedoorforthree.com/.
You will also be able to listen to them on WERU, our co-sponsor, in the weeks ahead with a chance to win free tickets as Matt Murphy highlights their music on his New Potatoes program, Sundays from 4-6:00. Be ready to bring some joy into your life!

On this lovely day, we look forward to another tomorrow when we gather for worship in our woodsy sanctuary, where we can sing our hymns out loud!  Following worship, we will gather for our annual meeting, most likely in Fisher Hall so that we can hear one another well.  Please do make time for this important meeting as we look forward with excitement to our ministry together in the year ahead!

Blessings on this beautiful day, Lisa

Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  We welcome our own Lin Parker to the pulpit this Sunday while Pastor Lisa is away to lead a friend’s memorial service in MA.  Lin and Anne, too, will lead us in music as well as in the Word, and we are grateful for their sharing their talents.  Lin will ask us to consider a familiar admonition from Hebrews, to “show love to strangers, for by doing so we may be entertaining angels unawares.”  As the summer wanes, we continue to celebrate our worship in the shade of our back yard trees.  Join us!

Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Holy Healing . . . What does it look like?  How did people in Christ’s time and before recognize it and how do we foster it?  Do we allow our skepticism and our doubt override our desire for healing and our faith in God’s power?  Are there ever any easy answers?  We might all sing a resounding “no” in answer to that question, but we may also sing and shout together that we have known healing and we have hope for a future that includes God’s redeeming of this, God’s world.  Come together this Sunday as we sing of freedom, of healing, of peace and grace, and hear the words of scripture that challenge us to raise our voices in hope. 

Peace and blessings, Lisa