How was church today?

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Looking forward to church tomorrow. Our regular morning service will be a special service for Fredericton Pride Week. We've advertized in the local paper and in info put out by the parade committee - I've seen it listed among events on facebook.
In the afternoon I will be riding in the Pride parade with people from my Affirming church. I've spent part of today pumping up balloons and tying them in bunches - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple (the closest I could get to indigo and violet).
After a dry month, it's rained off and on today and thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow. I hope that they hold off or skip our town for the afternoon.
 
Seeler said:
Looking forward to church tomorrow. Our regular morning service will be a special service for Fredericton Pride Week. We've advertized in the local paper and in info put out by the parade committee - I've seen it listed among events on facebook.
In the afternoon I will be riding in the Pride parade with people from my Affirming church. I've spent part of today pumping up balloons and tying them in bunches - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple (the closest I could get to indigo and violet).
After a dry month, it's rained off and on today and thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow. I hope that they hold off or skip our town for the afternoon.
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What's the name of the church that you attend in Fredericton?
 
Seeler said:
Looking forward to church tomorrow. Our regular morning service will be a special service for Fredericton Pride Week. We've advertized in the local paper and in info put out by the parade committee - I've seen it listed among events on facebook.
In the afternoon I will be riding in the Pride parade with people from my Affirming church. I've spent part of today pumping up balloons and tying them in bunches - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple (the closest I could get to indigo and violet).
After a dry month, it's rained off and on today and thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow. I hope that they hold off or skip our town for the afternoon.
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Hope it's a good day and a fun parade Seeler!
 
Church was nice this morning. I was reading, so I read from the Inclusive Bible, thus excising at least five Lords from the text. If I had to read an alt passage from the lectionary (1 Kings 9:9-18), not sure why we couldn't also have excised the last little bit of the text about the political machinations Yahweh would like Elijah to put in effect. *le histrionic sigh* Hebrew scriptures without context... Especially when she based her talk on the first bit - about answering Godde's call and what it might 'sound' like.

My old guy came with me, which is rare, and was nice. Supply preacher was a woman whom I have known for a long time; I first met her as congregant, and later minister, at the Metropolitan Community Church congregation that met on Sunday afternoons in our sanctuary for many years until it disbanded.

And as a nice addition, a tenor in our choir, also a bit of the "class clown" of the congregation (and our current board chair), sang a solo which was very well done and much enjoyed.
 
Its why one should know a large array of strange words ... so you know what the legalist (layers) and instituted (priested) are thinking about the losers ...

They believe Christ was a loser because he disagreed with the Gods of Roaming Power ... thus he was nailed ... or so the myth goes ...
 
crazyheart said:
@Jae, why don't you just say "Baptised as a baby"
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Because I don't really consider paedobaptism to be baptism. You're free to feel otherwise of course. I don't consider myself to actually have been baptized until I was immersed as a public profession of my faith.
 
I went back to the same church. Again, there was low-key praise music being sung by a different resident musician, with a guitar, sounding a little Neil Young-ish. He didn't write these songs but I enjoyed the music, and the lyrics were thoughtful.

The lead pastor talked about.."Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God", and being peacemakers, wherever, whenever, however we can...starting in our own lives. He is a universalist believer in the afterlife (and not necessarily everyone is, but he is) - that everyone will be reconciled to God, and that he hopes to be hanging out with his favourite atheist - Christopher Hitchens - drinking scotch that doesn't burn holes and smoking safe cigarettes. lol. He quoted Hitchens saying, "There is no God, so relax." And countered it with, "There is a God, so relax." I like this church. Good vibes, good humour, good message, good music, and they don't leave their brains at the door. The philosophy and faith group starts in a couple of weeks.
 
Jae said:
Because I don't really consider paedobaptism to be baptism. You're free to feel otherwise of course. I don't consider myself to actually have been baptized until I was immersed as a public profession of my faith.
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Come on Jae ... get your feet wet in life ... a learning empiric about how not to do things as devised by Pharisees and Haggises ... with experience you may catch the variance in phonetics in traditions ...
 
Kimmio said:
I went back to the same church. Again, there was low-key praise music being sung by a different resident musician, with a guitar, sounding a little Neil Young-ish. He didn't write these songs but I enjoyed the music, and the lyrics were thoughtful.

The lead pastor talked about.."Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God", and being peacemakers, wherever, whenever, however we can...starting in our own lives. He is a universalist believer in the afterlife (and not necessarily everyone is, but he is) - that everyone will be reconciled to God, and that he hopes to be hanging out with his favourite atheist - Christopher Hitchens - drinking scotch that doesn't burn holes and smoking safe cigarettes. lol. He quoted Hitchens saying, "There is no God, so relax." And countered it with, "There is a God, so relax." I like this church. Good vibes, good humour, good message, good music, and they don't leave their brains at the door. The philosophy and faith group starts in a couple of weeks.
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God is a great abyss ... go figure!
 
Luce NDs said:
Come on Jae ... get your feet wet in life ... a learning empiric about how not to do things as devised by Pharisees and Haggises ... with experience you may catch the variance in phonetics in traditions ...
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Get my feet wet Luce? I've both been sprinkled and immersed brother. That should be wet enough, don't you think? Have you been immersed Luce? Have you given such a public profession of your faith?
 
BetteTheRed said:
If it's all about public profession of faith, then how is adult baptism structurally different than "confirmation"?
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Well, aside from the dunk tank thing. I don't recall being drowned as part of confirmation. :D

And, to be honest, why not have baptism take place at confirmation? It's a question I wrestled with as a Christian. Paedobaptism didn't make sense to me if baptism is about you accepting Christ (which it appears to have been for the early church). It makes it more about the community accepting you and a naming and dedication such as we have in UU churches does that just as well. To me, it felt like the family and church were making a spiritual decision on your behalf and that didn't sit well with me. If I return to a Christian church, I may want to be baptised again even if it isn't required, just on principle.
 
Good service today - held jointly with the other downtown UCC on Pride Week Sunday. I saw a few unfamiliar faces, but I sit near the front so it was hard to estimate how many might have come especially today. And conversely, with irregular attendance through the summer, impossible to tell if anyone had stayed away.
Unless you were pretty much 'in-the-know' it might have been difficult to tell anything different about this service. We started by lighting the Christ candle - and the rainbow candle for diversity - but we do that every week. Music chosen was familiar to me and some favourites:
#1 More Voices "Let us build a house"; #567 "Will You Come and Follow Me" and #420 "Go to the world". Again, only those who know them would have noted that the people who read scripture and led the prayers of the people were both from the LGBT community as well as being members of our church.
Ironically, while I was posting this I had a call from one of our organizing committee. She felt that this was a weakness in the service - we had promoted this as being a special service - she, and others, had invited friends - but it came across as pretty much a usual summer service. The fact that part of the service was taken up with a baptism split the focus. We don't do a lot of baptisms, often less than one a month, and unless there was some reason why the parents requested this particular Sunday, I don't see why it couldn't have been scheduled at a different time. The baby was only two weeks old - we seldom have a baby that young.

The parade was fun. Our first time participating. Lots of balloons, rainbow flags, hats and umbrellas (the rain held off and the sun actually came out). And a good turn out from our congregation to walk (ride a bike, or a scooter) behind our large banner with the Affirm symbol and the name of our church - followed by a car for those of us who might have trouble with the distance, decorated to the nines. Greeat fun waving and acknowledging the people lining the route to the park.
 
Attended Knox Presbyterian today. Sermon was by Derek Cook who is from the Mennonite faith tradition. Sermon was on the parable of the enemy who sowed weeds in the night into the wheat field. The theme of the sermon was that it is no easy task to separate the weeds from the wheat and that religion has often set up exclusionary rules to try and keep out the "weeds." The us versus them approach never works however. Even Jesus spent more time communing with the folks his society considered weeds than he spent with the "righteous" folks who set up rules to keep themselves pure. Another problematic layer in the separation of weeds and wheat is that, if we are honest, all of us have weeds and wheat as part of our persona. Us and them is a false separation since we are all "both." Must say I have been lucking out with some really great sermons this summer. Again thankful to have been in worship this day. And more to be thankful for, as I attended the Dragon Boat races after worship and my sister's team of breast cancer survivors won a silver and a bronze medal in two of the races. :)
 
You just never know said:
Attended Knox Presbyterian today. Sermon was by Derek Cook who is from the Mennonite faith tradition. Sermon was on the parable of the enemy who sowed weeds in the night into the wheat field. The theme of the sermon was that it is no easy task to separate the weeds from the wheat and that religion has often set up exclusionary rules to try and keep out the "weeds." The us versus them approach never works however. Even Jesus spent more time communing with the folks his society considered weeds than he spent with the "righteous" folks who set up rules to keep themselves pure. Another problematic layer in the separation of weeds and wheat is that, if we are honest, all of us have weeds and wheat as part of our persona. Us and them is a false separation since we are all "both." Must say I have been lucking out with some really great sermons this summer. Again thankful to have been in worship this day. And more to be thankful for, as I attended the Dragon Boat races after worship and my sister's team of breast cancer survivors won a silver and a bronze medal in two of the races. :)
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Reminds me of our lesson about: "Damned if you do and also if you don't"! If the us's don't get you ... them will!

Then our minister told of three ministers gone fishing and 2 walking on water ... because they knew where the rocks were ...

It is a hard parable to get through ... but do those that don't mix with the hard problems ... skip over the top ... just observing and not absorbing much ... a higher level of teaching for those put down to drowning in life? Charles Baudelaire satirized this process ... in Be Drunk ... if somewhat high ... could one be a mean medium. Justifies half-way houses ... for those not quite there yet ...

Some take mediums to be psyche and you know what a lot of hard cases believe about psychic, sol and minds ... "love don't think!" Thus approaching the magic land of Shambhala ... the great abysmal state where one has a great void into which one can store thoughts and wisdom if the emotional stuff is dunked ... some ancient Wahl 'r ...

So much to gather before the mental leap ... Canah/Cana' may come with the bounce and considerable whine in the night spaces ... an occult operation ... when the mind reorganizes itself while the bodily self is out of ID ... Ide being a primal power ... archaic they say ... as that vast emptying sensation ...
 
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