Prayer for the New President and New Congress

O God, we pray this day for all of our newly elected leaders.  Grant wisdom and courage to out new President and the Congress as they grapple with the many challenges facing our nation.  May our country begin a new era of compassion and partnership that will create hope and opportunity for those in thie country and around the world who live in hunger and poverty.  Inspire all of us to ecercise our citizenghip on behalf of all those in need.  Amen.

Bread for the World newsletter, November/December 2008

Food Pantry

The East Corinth Congregational Church has a "food pantry" that it runs to help those in need.  This is not a replacement for the West Topsham Food Shelf.  This is a complement to it, as they are to us.  This year has been an extremely difficult one for many with the cost of food rising, gas and oil prices soaring.  One of our missions is to reach out and help our community.  If you have a need for food, please go to our church and help yourself to the food there. There are signs showing you the way.  There are no hours and no income guidelines, you know if you have a true need or may know of someone else who does.  If you need emergency assistance, contact Nancy Frost (East Corinth Post Office) or Barbara Clark .  We will attempt to assist you or refer you to what you need.  We have an open door Food Pantry. Please don't go hungry.  Rev. Michael Caldwell is available Sunday, and either Wed or Thurs in the village. 

Chili Contest
“The most fun you can have in church on a Saturday!”
January 24, 5:00-7:00 PM

Start roasting those peppers to get ready for a different kind of church supper – a chili contest!

Join us for the seventh Annual East Corinth Congregational Church Chili Contest, a competition for the title of ECCCCCC (East Corinth Congregational Church Chili Contest Champion) and win the coveted Chili Champion’s Apron.  This may be the only place you can hear Willie Nelson and Johann Sebastian Bach in the same evening.

Here’s how it will work.  Chili Cooks from far and wide will bring their special chili to the Church vestry on January 24^th.  Diners will sample and vote on their favorite chili.  In addition they’ll be able to chow down with a bowl of your favorite recipe.  We’ll provide beverages, salad, corn bread and dessert.  Price is by donation.  Preschoolers eat for free.

We’ll need cooks and, most importantly, diners.  Call or email Hal Drury 439-6931 or hdvt_79@hotmail.com if you plan to compete or if you have any questions.

Church Web Page          www.eastcorinthcongregationalchurch.org

You may have noticed if you’ve been online, our web site, while not unattractive, looks like it was designed by an old guy with a white beard – NOT Santa.  Your Webmaster would like some help to modernize it a little.  We don’t want blinking Apostles or dancing Prophets, but could use some advice and hands-on help with photos, links, and transcripts of sermons.  If you’d like to help, please contact Hal Drury, hdvt_79@hotmail.com or call at 439-6931.

A nice thing to do this winter

As this is written (December 24), the snow is falling again and the drifts are about “February height”.  That means that the road crews are again working long, cold hours.  There’s a very good chance that your local general store or convenience mart is providing them with coffee and food (both general stores in Corinth are) at their expense.  The next time you are in a store, ask if they are doing this sort of thing and, if you can, give a little money to help defray the expenses.  If you really want to be nice, drop off some brownies at the town garage.

Annual Report

In anticipation of our annual meeting on February 8, the Echo staff will be producing the church annual report.  If committee chairs – or their designate – could get their reports to Hal Drury by February 1, he’ll have the time to get the report ready for the 8^th. 

Celebrating our new sign!

            We give thanks to the Trustees and Church Administrator Hal Drury for all the behind-the-scenes work that went into the design, production, and installation of the new sign on the front of our church.

Wake up and smell the coffee! (and remember the donations jar.)

            This past year we’ve been introduced to “Fair Trade” coffee at fellowship hours, breakfasts, and suppers.  This is quality coffee from farmers who are paid a living wage, mostly shade-grown rather than with industrialized agricultural practices which aren’t good for the land.  “Equal Exchange” is the church-based brand that removes unscrupulous middlemen who exploit coffee farmers.  Here’s where the rubber hits the road in the church’s activist mission.  Here’s where we transcend charity and do justice.

            This coffee is more expensive, and donations aren’t keeping up. Even fifty cents a cup helps, and you can feel good about your justice-making with every sip!

Listen takes beds “rescued” from Atkinson Center!

            In October, the Vermont Conference auctioned the contents of the Atkinson Retreat Center.  Many of the beds and bedding were going to be thrown away.  Ever the penurious New Englander, Hal Drury couldn’t let that happen so he brought as many as his truck could hold – and his back could handle – to his barn to await a need.  After a fire in Lebanon, NH, the need was evident and on December 18, one week before Christmas, Listen, the Lebanon, NH, shelter picked up the beds for distribution to the fire victims.  We rejoice in this behind-the-scenes outreach.

 “We’ll meet at the church”

The statement has several layers of meanings, each defining the role of the church in our lives.

Geographic point

This is the easiest and most superficial.  Our church is the most recognizable place in the village.  It is an easy gathering point for meetings or to organize car pools to go somewhere else.

Community Center

Along with the library, our church is the center of our community.  The food shelf and a pre-school are here.  It is probably the only unlocked public building in town – a wonderful statement about us and the town.  There have probably been meetings that we never know about, and private moments of meditation that we shouldn’t know about.  When items need to be passed from one person to another, it is common practice to say, “They’ll be on the table at church.”

Gathering Center

This is particularly poignant to me and my family.  We host Thanksgiving every few years and the family comes from many different parts of the country.  It is always a logistical challenge to get people from airports in Boston, Hartford, or Burlington to a house on Pike Hill.  Twice in our time living here, people have been coming in at the same time as our Ecumenical service.  Several years ago, my sister arrived, jetlagged from several connections from Alaska, during the service.  During one of the hymns, she just showed up at my side in the pew – a wonderful reunion.  This year, our niece left in Hartford in the late afternoon, and arrived and was greeted with hugs from our whole family just before the service on Tuesday night.  Neither of these reunions were as emotional as the kind Norman Rockwell painted, but to me, were pretty close. 

Spiritual Center

This is written on a Saturday afternoon before we head down to say goodbye to John Byrne at his memorial service.  Tomorrow we will have our annual Church School Christmas Pageant, and on Christmas Eve we will attend the service of Carols and Candles.  John’s service will be bittersweet.  We will celebrate his life, laugh and cry a little at the stories, and gain strength as a community by being together.  Sunday we will enjoy the kids presentation, smiling at the antics of some, but also watching them grow a little more as part of our church community.  Each Sunday we are also challenged and inspired by the sermon and our participation in the service.  On Christmas Eve we will be comforted and moved by a service and sentiment that has changed very little over the years.  In microcosm, this week we will be moved, united, challenged, amused, restored, and comforted – not bad!

Focal Point

I never drive through Reading, Massachusetts without going past the church I attended as a kid.  I’ve only been in there twice since 1964 (they lock their doors), but I always go past.  It’s just good to know it is still there.  In January I’ll try to visit Westminster Presbyterian Church in Gulfport, Mississippi, remembering that church’s welcome of us as relief workers in 2006.  For a few months, that church “housed” up to 200 people a night as a center of the early relief efforts.  Later in January, the three Drury siblings will attend church at Immanuel Presbyterian in Milwaukee, the church that is a major part of the extended family for my brother and sister.

So, there it is.  The church is a building certainly, but that’s its least important feature.  The real value is what happens inside those walls.  We can find value at any level of involvement.  We just have to let in happen.

Happy New Year

Hal Drury

12/20/08

John Thomas’ Letters to Senator McCain and President Elect Obama   From ucc.org

Dear Senator McCain:

As General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, I write to express the gratitude of many in our church for your willingness to offer yourself for public service in the highest office of our land. As a church that has historically been committed to the role of faith for the shaping of public life, we honor all those who seek to serve the common good as public officials.

Entering a campaign for public office inevitably places one in a vulnerable position. After many months of a strenuous campaign that exposed you to intense public scrutiny, these are days that are undoubtedly marked by deep disappointment. From many in our church I have heard words of appreciation for the gracious and generous tone of your concession speech, and for the way you have encouraged us all to join together in solving the profound challenges facing our country and the world. Thank you for calling us to the shared tasks that lie beyond this historic election.

Please know that you will be in my prayers as you continue in your office as a United States Senator, offering your strong and principled perspectives on how we can live out our best values as a nation committed to justice and freedom for all.

Sincerely,                     John H. Thomas                      General Minister and President

Dear President-Elect Obama:

As General Minister and President of your United Church of Christ, I write to congratulate you on your election as the next President of the United States. As a church that celebrates the vocation of public service as an honored way to express and embody one's faith, we are grateful for your willingness to take on the demands of this unique office and pledge our prayers as you seek to use that office for the common good. The agenda before us is daunting. Among them are poverty, the environment, and a just and peaceful global community.

The global economic crisis presents you with an immediate and urgent challenge. While needing to address the problems of financial institutions as well as the deep anxieties on Main Street, members of our church would also urge you to give attention to the needs of poor people who have suffered long before the present crisis and whose circumstances are now even more desperate.  Your church is eager to be a strong partner with you in long term strategies to ensure that all Americans have access to adequate housing, nutrition, health care, and education. Poverty is not just an economic or political problem. It is at its core a moral issue demanding our commitment to God's justice and compassion.

Equally urgent is the future of God's fragile creation, long abused by our indifference and greed.  Your presidency comes at a critical moment for people around the world facing the devastations of climate change. Today our stewardship of the earth demands sacrifice and political decisions that are difficult. The God who calls the worlds into being and who grants us dominion over the earth bestows on persons and nations an enormous responsibility. May your presidency reflect a relationship to the earth in which dominion is exercised as servanthood for the sake of future generations.

During the days preceding the election I was in South Africa meeting with church leaders from around the world.   Interest in your candidacy was dramatic, reminding us both of the historic nature of your election as a man who is, in part, a son of Africa, but also of the reality that America has a remarkable capacity to shape the world for good or ill. Two hundred years ago your forebears in the United Church of Christ established the first foreign mission agency in the United States and, since that time, we have nurtured a global perspective that listens with deep respect and care to the hopes and concerns of church partners around the world. Shortly before his death Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that we live in a "world house," and warned us that we face the daunting choice between chaos and community. On behalf of our church and its global partners, I urge you to attend quickly to the peace process between Israel and Palestine, to the AIDS pandemic, to the crushing poverty faced by so many in the world, and to the establishment of a respectful and collaborative foreign policy that sees U.S. interests inextricably linked to the interests of the entire global family.

Because of your membership in the United Church of Christ we have watched you with pride and hope, grateful for the role Trinity United Church of Christ has played in your faith journey. We are also aware that this office involves an enormous burden for you, Michelle, and your daughters. Let me reiterate a commitment made to you last spring, offering the hospitality of our congregations in Washington as places of nurture, sanctuary, and encouragement, congregations where in the midst of all you face can remind you that "God is still speaking." Above all, know that my prayers, and the prayers of your fellow members, will surround you.