Mid-Week Message - October 1

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you!

Last weekend, I spent a couple of days in Halifax (meetings at the Atlantic School of Theology on Friday and Saturday), and have been thinking a lot about community. Over the course of the weekend, I was involved in two different groups made up of individuals working together (as a community), dedicated to keeping the university running.  (I also stayed with a friend and her family, so go to enjoy that community too - a community that involves shared meals and laughter and board games and hospitality.)

Our churches are also a community, and around the church we often talk about the Body of Christ - each part of the body serves a different function, but all of the parts of the body come together to serve the mission of the whole body.  Some things all of us do - things like prayer and worship and serving the world.  Other things are more specialized - singing in the choir, installing new electric sockets, decorating the sanctuary. Don't ask me to install an electric socket - I'd likely burn the church down in the process! And if I was in charge of decorating the sanctuary, it would look the same every Sunday of the year.  But I'm happy to do my part - preparing and leading worship, offering pastoral care, and leading bible study.  It takes the gifts of all of us to keep the church running.

We've got a couple of projects going on in the church right now that have also had me thinking about community.  This Saturday is going to be the Artisan's Market, coordinated by the Harvest Garden leaders.  The four of them are providing the idea and the organization and the coordination of the event.  They are drawing in other volunteers from the church to help with the set-up and clean-up.  And then many of us from the church will be in attendance as either vendors or buyers (or both!). (This morning, I fed my sourdough starter an extra-big feed in anticipation of doing a larger-than-usual batch of bread over the next couple of days!)  The market will be on Saturday from 12-4 at Westfield United Church - you aren't going to want to miss it!

Thank you to Natalie, Cathy, Marijke, and Marlene for your dedication and coordination of this project, and to everyone who will be a part of it!

And this market is in service of the work of God's church - the work of realizing God's vision of a world where nobody is hungry.  The money that the group makes will help buy soil and seeds to plant next year's garden.

The other project that is a good example of community or the Body of Christ is the upcoming choir concert series.  The very dedicated choir members have been putting in extra hours beginning last spring - learning music, tracking down sponsors, printing and distributing posters, and selling tickets.  Everyone can then be part of the event - 4 concerts over the next 8 months.  And because of the sponsors, all of the money from every subscription or individual ticket sold will go directly to support the work of Westfield United Church.

Special thanks go out to Bertis for his leadership, Cindy for her work with sponsors and posters, and our two series sponsors - Paige Danaher, realtor, and Emergency Solutions International (ESI)!

It isn't too late to get your series subscription!  The choir has set a goal of selling 100 subscriptions in support of the church.  They will be selling them at the artisan's market on Saturday afternoon, as well as after church this coming Sunday. A $100 subscription will get you into all 4 concerts - cash only please, so you have a couple of days to get to a bank machine if you need to!

The concerts will be on October 9 ("My Grateful Spirit Sings"), December 18 ("What Did the Star See?"), March 19 ("The Best of the Best"), and June 4 ("Hold Me, Rock Me"). You can download the concert poster by clicking here - please feel free to share it with your friends and family!  The more, the merrier!  (You might even consider gifting an early Christmas Present to someone who would enjoy the concert series...)

It is beautiful to see the Body of Christ at work! When we all come together, we can be more effective in serving God's mission of loving the world.

Moving on to announcements for this week:

• Worship on Sunday will be at 9:15 at Summerville and 11:15 at Westfield and on Facebook Live. This week, we will be celebrating communion at both services as it is Worldwide Communion Sunday, and we'll be reading Luke 17:5-10 - a passage that tells us that it only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to be able to do great things!

• Harvest Garden Market - a second reminder in this email - don't forget to stop by Westfield United Church on Saturday afternoon between 12 and 4 to pick up baking, crafts, and information from non-profit organizations. I just found out that Astronomy By the Bay will be there - I hope that I have a chance to talk to him, in between selling my bread!

• Choir Concert Series - another "second reminder" in this email! The first concert is coming up next week on October 9 at 7pm. Series subscriptions can be purchased from any choir member up to October 9 - following that, individual concert tickets will be $30 each at the door.

• "Copy and Paste Volunteers" Needed - this request is going out especially to folks who join worship on Facebook Live. In 2020, when we first started livestreaming worship, Donnie and Irene Michaelsen started pasting all of the words to the prayers and the hymns in the comments on the Facebook Livestream. This made it much easier for people watching the livestream to participate in the service, instead of needing to juggle back and forth between the livestream and another document. 5 1/2 years later, Irene would like to take a break from this ministry, so I am hoping that someone will step forward (or a couple of people who can take turns) to offer to do this.  You would receive the full order of service as a Word document ahead of time, then you just need to copy and paste it into the comments.

• Office Email - this is just a reminder that if you are sending church things to Elaine, please send them to the office email address - wuc@nb.sympatico.ca - rather than her personal email address!

• Bulletin Covers - related to the previous announcement, Elaine welcomes all pictures - photographs or other art forms - as bulletin covers. Thank you to everyone who has submitted their pictures!  Right now, she is especially looking ahead to some upcoming church special dates - Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day, Advent, and Christmas in particular. If you have pictures that might be appropriate, please send them to her at the church.

• Upcoming Dates for your Calendar:

  Oct. 15 - Session meeting, 7pm, Westfield

  Oct. 21 - Asking the Big Question - 4:30pm, Westfield

  Nov. 11 - Turkey Dinner at Westfield - more details to come later!
  

Thank You Corner - anyone who was in worship last Sunday won't be surprised to hear that this week's thank you goes out to our two scripture readers:  Dick Fullerton at Long Reach and Daniel Wheaton at Westfield. There were A LOT of names for you to get through in both the scripture reading and the Minute for Mission, and you both earned the round of applause that your churches gave you!  (And I will extend this thank you to all of you who serve our churches as scripture readers and greeters - this is such an important ministry of the church that you are a part of.)

For a closing thought this week, on Monday I spent part of the day scheduling all of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation posts that appeared on the Two Rivers Pastoral Charge Facebook page yesterday.  (Alas, Facebook didn't post a couple of them, as they were considered to be "news" articles.) I want to share one of the videos that appeared on our Facebook page yesterday, when we turned the page over to Indigenous voices, just in case you didn't see it yesterday.

Notorious Cree is the stage name of James Jones, a Nehiyaw (Cree) performance artist from Tall Cree First Nation in Treaty 8 Territory (northern Alberta). You may have stumbled across his short videos on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok - he often combines traditional dance forms with modern aesthetics. This video is a vlog from the 2025 Native American World Hoop Dance Championship - in it, he talks about the history and philosophy of hoop dance, and shows his performance in the competition. You can watch the video (it is only about 10 minutes) by clicking here.

Blessings to you and yours, today and always!

Kate.

Rev. Kate Jones

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

(506) 757-2201 (office)

(506) 343-1307 (mobile)

www.tworiverspastoralcharge.com

Pronouns:  she/her/hers

"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?"

Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself."

(Matthew 22:36-39)