Singing valentine fundraiser!

One of our members, Jim Brunner, is part of a barbershop group, The Gentlemen Songsters. This group is offering singing Valentines for the upcoming holiday!

If you would like to order a singing valentine, please click through this link: http://lowellvalentine-burlpres.eventbrite.com . Our church will get $10 for every singing valentine ordered through this link!

Sermon for 1/30/2010 – Jeremiah the Prophet

Jeremiah The Prophet

This week’s sermon was an excellent discussion on prophecy and listening.

February Crossroads

Deacons Corner

People Helping People is now associated with the Boston Food Bank which will help to provide some of the food needed. The Burlington Food bank has 187 registered clients and 143-150 active clients. Remember to bring donations on the first Sunday of the month or anytime you remember.

A reception is planned for January 15 at St. Mark’s Church to honor Roberta Damelin for her ten years of service to the food bank. A collection is being taken for a gift.

The winter weather and other factors have caused a number of health problems within the congregation. Thanks to everyone who provided meals and other assistance for those in need of help.

The Deacons’ Class of 2013 will be welcomed at the February 3 meeting. Thanks to retiring Deacon Beth Denier. The third member of the Class of 2010 was the late Whitey Graham. Dayse Doliver will be returning to the board for a second term. The newly elected Deacons are Anne Denier and Vida Owusu-Afriyie.

Ash Wednesday Service
February 17, 7:30 p.m.

Join the church family, and help us welcome others, to this traditional service marking the start of Lent. There will be ashes and an opportunity for placing them on our foreheads as the sign of our humility and dependence upon God’s grace (use of ashes will be voluntary). We will gather around the table for communion. The choir will sing.

This can be an important start, in the right spirit, to the journey of Lent toward Holy Week. Please plan to make it part of your life.

A Lent Workshop for Everyone
features “Health Kits for Haiti”

Sunday, February 28 after worship

Donations needed!

This church family event on the second Sunday in Lent will combine several things: a light lunch, a little learning about Lent, a hands-on project for children and adults, and the handing out of One Great Hour of Sharing resources (including fish banks!) for this year’s offering.

The project will be putting together health kits for Church World Service – a simple activity for kids and grownups, and one way we can respond to the need in Haiti (and/or future assistance somewhere in the world). Between now and February 28, we will be collecting these items for use in the kits:

*hand towel (approximately 16″ x 28″, no fingertip or bath towels)
*washcloth
*wide-tooth comb
*nail clipper (no metal files or emery boards)
*bar of soap (bath size in wrapper)
*toothbrush (in original packaging)
*Band-Aids® or other adhesive bandage strips
*One-gallon plastic bag with zipper closure

You may bring any of these – we’ll update the congregation on Sundays about what more is/isn’t needed.

The lunch and program will start promptly after worship, and end no later than 1:15. See you there!

Rod and David (Family Ministry Coordinator)

The Snowflake’s Art

It’s been a very full month at our church. There were the annual meeting, officer training, and ordination and installation. There has been pulling together of several activities to respond to earthquake-stricken Haiti (including a community-wide “Help for Haiti” concert for which we helped provide music and Haitian rice and beans and an upcoming Lent workshop to prepare disaster hygiene kits for Church World Service).

In times which feel hurried and turbulent, we also need to be able to step back at times, to know that God is present – and not only in the arising needs which call for our attention, but also in the ongoing rhythms and patterns of life.

Yesterday, with the ground well blanketed with white, more snowflakes fell – gently, not intensely enough to tie up traffic or cancel events – but hour after quiet hour. It reminded me that I had come across a poem I hoped to share at such a time. It is from a wonderful collection titled Earth Prayers from Around the World, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon:

How shall the mighty river
reach the tiny seed?
See it rise silently
to the sun’s yearning,
sail from a winter’s cloud
flake after silent flake
piling up layer upon layer
until the thaw of spring
to meet the seedling’s need.

Make tender, Lord, my heart:
release through gentleness
Thine own tremendous power
hid in the snowflake’s art.

Antoinette Adam

Peace,

Rod

Recognizing Jesus – Sermon for January 24, 2010

Scripture Fulfilled – The sermon from January 24, 2010, with bonus Bob Dylan reference!

Sermon: The good wine

Here is the sermon from Burlington Presbyterian Church for January 17, 2010 called “The Good Wine”.

The Good Wine

Our first-ever podcast

One of the projects the Hospitality Committee at Burlington Presbyterian has been working on is recording and podcasting some of our sermons. The very first trial run was the Stewardship skit by Ray and Adam back this November. The audio quality on this recording isn’t perfect, but the skit is just as funny as I remember.

Hopefully other podcasts will follow in this space, so that those who have to miss the sermon for any reason can hear it!

So, with no further ado, here is:
Ray and Adam’s Stewardship Skit

BONUS! I’ve only succeeded in capturing one full sermon so far. Here’s one of Rod’s Advent sermons.
Roadwork for the Lord

Watch Night

We can think of a lot of New Year’s Eve traditions – few of them spiritual in nature. But if we had grown up as part of the African American church, or possibly Methodist, we would likely be familiar with the Watch Night Service.

Watch Night is a gathering of the faithful in church (that’s right, church) on New Year’s Eve, anywhere from 7 p.m. or 10 p.m. until midnight.

New Year’s is not an observance on the Christian liturgical calendar. Instead, Watch Night grew from the experience of African Americans who “crossed over” from slavery to freedom. Tradition says that on December 31, 1862 (also known as “Freedom’s Eve”), Americans of African descent came together in churches and other gathering places, waiting anxiously for the moment when the Emancipation Proclamation would usher in abolition of slavery as law. At the stroke of midnight, January 1, 1863, according to Lincoln’s promise, all slaves in the Confederate States were legally free. The great day was greeted with shouts, prayers and songs of joy.

Rooted in this memory, folks still gather to usher in the new year in this way, rejoicing in the freedom God gives, praying to the One who will cross over with them into the time to come.

We don’t have a Watch Night service planned for this New Year’s Eve at BPC. But wouldn’t it be a fine thing to do sometime?

Meanwhile, let our own experiences of this new year’s beginning hold something of the meaning of Watch Night – and of the powerful news that the Lord is with us now and through all time.

Peace,

Rod

January Crossroads

Annual Meeting – Come All Ye!
January 16 – 2:00 p.m. Fellowship Hall
(Ice cream sundaes – 1:30 p.m.)

(If weather appears to be a factor, there’ll be a message on the answering machine by 11 a.m.; snow date: January 23).

The Annual Meeting of the Congregation and Corporation of our church is one of the most important times we gather outside of our regular Sunday worship. All members of our church family are most Presbyterian-ly urged to come, for business and fellowship!

According to church bylaws, the meeting is held on the third Saturday of January. It is in the afternoon, for easier winter traveling and to avoid a late evening for families with young children. Childcare will be available.

Moderator Rod MacDonald will call the meeting to order. Following brief devotions there will be reviews of the life of our church in the year just past, election of officers (candidates for elders, deacons, trustees, Nurturing Nest Preschool board, and member-at-large to next year’s Nominating Committee will be presented by the Nominating Committee); review of the budget for 2010 and approval of pastoral terms of call. Chairperson of the Trustees, Brad Morrison, will conduct the meeting of the Corporation.

Annual Reports will be available to the congregation by Sunday, January 10 thanks to the coordination of Session Clerk Jane McIninch and our fabulous El-primo secretary Linda Benson. Nominees for office to be presented by the Nominating Committee will be included.

Deacons Corner
Thanks to everyone who participated in the People Helping People Wish Tree and the pajama and underwear project. Many children will receive gifts as a result of your giving.

The recent snow and cold weather reminds us that many people may be cold and hungry this winter. Donations to the church Emergency Fund are needed.

All Elders and Deacons
(newly-elect or ongoing in active service)

Annual combined meeting and training time will be Saturday, January 23, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Please mark calendars now!

There will also be an opportunity for (required) training of new officers in our Safe Child Program.

And on Sunday, January 24, our worship will be highlighted by the most Presbyterian of liturgical acts: the ordination and installation of these new officers, whom we believe to have been called by God and the church for their special service.

Do not travel on 1/3/2010

The winter has it in for us! Session is recommending that no one travel to church today, 1/3/2010 because of the poor condition of the roads. Stay home, stay safe, and if you can’t wait to worship with us, remember that we have a Wednesday 9 pm service.