It was good, Beloved.  I was the lay leader (reader) this morning, and I enjoyed taking part.  We scaled the order of service back a little, and viewed only one of the videos.  It was still a long service, but very meaningful.  I especially liked the children's participation with the evergreen branches and the sprinkles of water.

It was also interesting to have communion with the common loaf, after learning about it here on wondercafe.

Hi Beloved, 

It was called Dare to Be, and it was about the history of the United Church.  There are two other videos - - one is a message from the Moderator.  We used the order of service that was created for congregations to use this Sunday.  It was written by two people in Saskatchewan, and the idea was for everyone to use it for today's worship.  I think the order of service suggested viewing all three videos, but as I said, we scaled back a little on a few things. 

Hey, I didn't realize that the early part of our service, with the remembering and the response of "Yes, we remember" was part of a national service.  Great!  Now I feel more involved.  The very first remembrance for our congregation was rather special.  The minister told us that he checked the records and found out that five babies had been baptized that summer.  As he read the names, he asked that they please stand.  First name, pause, look around, no one standing.  Second name, the same.  Third and Fourth.  Then he read the fifth name and a ripple went through the congregation as the woman sitting directly in front of me stood up.  She was invited to the front of the church to say a few words.  She pointed to her sister still sitting in the pew.  'That's where we sat.  My three sisters, my brother and me.  We had to sit there so that our father, up in the choir loft (she pointed) could keep an eye on us.'   'We came to church in the morning.  Sunday School in the afternoon.  Evening service.  Every week.'

I helped to serve communion, assisted by a girl from the middle school class.  The Sunday School children had made the bannock during the early part of the service.  It was very meaningful to know that it was being shared all across Canada. 

I'm glad to hear that other congregations used it.

Bannock was made by the youth.

We used the 'I remember" part-at least we did an "I remember" part.

The letter received from our partner congreagation was read, we used the same scriptures that were read at the founding of the UCC.

No DVDs or videos. Lots of hymns

Lovely service.

I know of at least one church here used it for communion this morning and I am sure there were others.

So Beloved why does Sunday school finish in May? I know it can be a chicken and egg question. It finshes because the kids stop coming/ the kids stop coming because there is no Sunday school.

Our sunday school is still on and will stop for July/ Aug and probably first 2 weeks of Sept.

Wasn't in church today and probably would have gone to my UU if I had. To celebrate the occasion, I'll share a verse from a hymn written by my grandfather. (Tune: Aurelia).

O come ye to the Father

O come ye to the Son

O come ye to the Spirit

And with Him be one.

Then go ye forth to others

His love with them to share,

That we may be united

With His folk everywhere.

- from "Hymn" in Pastoral Poems & Parson's Lyric, by Rev. Dr. H. W. Vaughan

Congratulations, UCC. And I, for one, do hope you're still around in another 85 years.

Mendalla

DKS - I feel bad that your congregation and others in your region did not receive the starter packets.  I'm sure the intention was to send them to every pastoral charge in Canada.  I'd ask Chris Levan about it, but he is gone, headed for his new congregation in TO. 

our anniversary celebration will be next Sunday as we gather together with six (??) other United Churches from the area in our sancturay.  I don't know how much of the national stuff we'll be doing because we have a special guest speaker (Rev. Lorne Calvert) and several musical guests.

Our congregation received the starter mix and used it in the bannock for communion. We also showed the "Dare to Be" video on our screen, despite the fact that a gaping big hole in the historical presentation was the failure to mention the joining of the EUB (evangelical united brethren) congregations in 1968.  I mentioned this beforehand to our minister (who actually came from an EUB family, as did I), so she made a big point of it in her sermon! 

Northern Lights Presbytery had a big celebration at the UCC in Grande Prairie (St Paul's?). Our presbytery is a large one, possibly the largest geographically, in Canada. It includes Yellowknife, Whitehorse, Alberta from about Valleyview north, and the Peace/Liard region in BC. Everyone was invited, but of course not all came. Five of us from our congregation attended. We decided to camp in GP last night and had a wonderful time there.

Now, you campers probably know that when camping we go into slow gear. As a result, we got to the church about five minutes late. I am not sure what happened during those first five or so minutes. We did not see any DVD's. There were several clergy in attendance, from GP, Yellowknife, Valleyview, Spirit River, Beaverlodge and one other who was from Alberta somewhere I believe. They all participated. There was a large choir which may have included people from the area.The music was wonderful and was a mixture of old and new. I loved the new hymns I learned from More Voices. The minister of the GP church did a reflection on the history of the UCC and the minister from Yellowknife who is also the chair of Alberta and Northwest conference, gave the main reflection. He spoke of how things have changed since 1925 and about "Singing our Future". The entire service took about two hours. It did include a communion and I believe the bread for the communion was the shared loaf.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to celebrate the anniversary of the UCC actually. I have been pondering how we seem to be more interested in celebrating an institution and worshipping a church rather than being followers of Christ. My "we" includes more than UCC people because it seems that all the churches seem to be this way. It is human nature. Anyway, I am glad I attended. It really reminded me why I attend the UCC and for me, highlighted the principles and values we share, or are supposed to share in the UCC.....social justice, inclusiveness, etc. It made me wonder what our ancestors would say about the state of the church they created.

Our congregation is having a retreat next Saturday to start to figure out where we want to head in the future. I feel like I have more to bring to that retreat, at least for myself anyway.

I do wonder at the same time about the future of our UCC. There was an awful lot of grey hair in the congregation today. I would imagine over half the congregation was over sixty. At least I was not one of the youngest people there at age 53.

Well, I think it was pretty fine.  I baked the bannock--could have asked a member of the UCW but wanted the privilege myself--it felt kind of special.  I used some of the resources, massaged to fit our circumstances; people seemed to enjoy the 'we remember' part.  I used one of our more old-fashioned communion inserts, we served in the pews and I mentioned the manner of partaking all at once as a further sign of unity.  We used several of the older hymns and our organist "cranked it"--we have a good electronic organ that sounds fantastic when it's set as a big organ--and we loved that.  The bannock was o.k. for communion; but after the service we had a BBQ for board members and their families and we served the remainder in chunks with a jar of apple jelly to add to it and THAT was GOOD. Will try having it for breakfast tomorrow too! 

The church is so special to me, I couldn't help but enjoy the celebration.  Our history is so big now we can't begin to know it all, but it's good to glance at it and remember who we are.

All of the United Churches (four) in our city have large pipe organs (two are Casevants and one is one of the first Casevants installed in Ontario) and many competent people to play them. So do the Anglicans, Lutherans and Roman Catholics.

First St. Andrews, the UCC I attend, has a beautiful 1960s era Casavant and an excellent organist to play it. Problem is, I seem to be losing my taste for organ music or something. I find it too loud (that may be his fault, of course) and a little bombastic at times. They also have a nice baby grand at the front and I wish they'd use it a bit more and ease off on the organ a bit.

My UU Fellowship has a nice little electric piano and two good pianists to play it (one a student at the local Faculty of Music, the other a grad of said faculty) and I quite like that approach. I don't miss the organ at all.

One of the reasons I keep doing both is it gives me a bit more variety musically.

Note to Tabitha: my Dad was part of the group who got a new organ for our family church in Kitchener (late eighties). I don't recall that there much fuss over the expenditure, but the choir did do a lot of extra fundraising to pay for adding a trumpet stop that wasn't covered in the original project budget. Funnily enough, Dad became Lutheran after he remarried in the late nineties and ended up on their organ committee. Deja vu all over again.

Mendalla

We are celebrating this Sunday coming, and the one following.  It is anniversary Sunday for one of the points in the charge, and we have a fantastic guest preacher coming.  She will be preaching about Ashton's anniversary, but I am told she intends to weave in threads about the denomination, as I will do in the prayers.

We only do Communion when it can be celebrated in both communities, though, so it will be the week following.  We will use the bannock mix.  It is our last service before shifting to summer routine, and before I go away for three weeks, so that will be part of the package.  Oh, and a baptism :)

Why did so many people make bannock?  We had bread baked with the flour we received. 

The recipe that came with the flour was for bannock.  We are planning to just follow it.