One Great Hour of Sharing
supports partners in countries with ministries that fund health, education and agricultural development, emergency relief, refugee ministries and both international and domestic disaster response, administered by Wider Church Ministries, Global Sharing of Resources.
This offering is received on the Fourth Sunday of Lent – March 11, 2018.
Featuring: Cantori, a an acclaimed after-school training choir for the Grammy Award winning Pacific Boychoir Academy Troubadours –http://www.pacificboychoir.org/choir.
Sunday, March 18, 2018 @ 10 a.m.
At Skyline Community Church, UCC
Come to listen to these young people’s beautiful music with a soaring view of the Oakland Hills to Mt. Diablo as a backdrop. The concert is in the midst of and following a special abbreviated service. Chocolate protein bars given to singers and the first 20 children in attendance. The first 80 adults receive a novelty mini-carnation.
Would you let a friend know about this?
Free will offering to support the homeless in Oakland, including St Vincent de Paul & St Mary’s.
Co- sponsored by the Interfaith Council of Alameda County (ICAC)
If you can help by donating food or money, please contact the office (510-531-8212 [email protected])
See you there and bring a friend!
Donors: Trader Joe’s, Skyline Church UCC
We live in time, where, if you’re paying attention it is easy to become cynical. What’s needed in these messy, empty and unsettling times; beyond reason, beyond doubt, beyond fear; is faith. Join us as we walk together, not in certainty, but in faith.
Blaise Pascal, 17th century
“It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.”
Khalil Gibran, 20th century
“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.”
Anne Lamott, 21st century
“I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me–that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.
Augustine, 5th century
“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”
This year, Lent begins on Valentine’s day, inviting us to consider the relationship between love and our own mortality. I believe that facing our own 
impermanence brings with it the gift of awareness of how precious everyone and everything is, and the urgency to love now. Join us this Wednesday (yes Valentine’s day) for a short and beautiful beginning to our spiritual journey of Lent, to strengthen our soul’s capacity to love. And, join us this Sunday as we enter the wilderness together.
In the words of the Hebrew scripture’s Psalmist, “Create in us, a clean heart oh God”, I leave you with the beautiful words of the poet, Mary Oliver, and the Psalmist from the Hebrew scriptures.
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.
“There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?”
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“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
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“to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
by Mirtha Ninayahuar
Work Opportunities
Opportunity to Help Asylum Seeker by Offering Odd Jobs: Caregiving, gardening, handyman services, and more. Mount Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church’s immigrant accompaniment team is assisting a young Nigerian man, Justin, who recently fled his country to escape violence against his family. He has applied for asylum and is awaiting his verdict. Meanwhile, we are soliciting offers for temporary work or odd jobs to help him support himself. Raised on a farm and holding an Australian nursing degree (experienced with the elderly as well as disabled adults/kids), he could provide caregiving, babysitting, pet sitting, gardening, and handyman services. Please contact: MDUUC accompaniment team member Will Dow at 925-639- 2708, [email protected].
Immigrant Preschool Needs Volunteers
The Nueva Esperanza Preschool for the Mam-speaking families from Guatemala at the Iglesia de Dios Church, 3315 Farnam Street, in the Fruitvale area is looking for volunteers. The preschool meets each Sunday from 3–5 pm. Volunteers should be able to commit at least one Sunday a month to help in interacting with the children, organizing the snack time and setting up and breaking down the items associated with the preschool. The children speak both Mam and Spanish and some speak some English. English-only speaking volunteers are welcome as well as Spanish speakers (at any level).
Please let Mirtha Ninayahuar if you are interested or would like more information via the office at 510-531-8212 [email protected].
Feb 14th at 7 – 7:30 pm @skylineucc.org
A brief service with Pastor Laurie and Music Director Benjamin Mertz.
Meditation, Taize music, prayers, ashes, candlelight
Transfiguration …the indescribable mystery and beauty of standing upon the mountaintop, in radiant glory, and seeing for one brief moment the place where heaven meets earth, God incarnate. Savor the words of Pulitzer prize winning poet Mary Oliver that speaks of our desire to behold Jesus in the flesh. Join us this Sunday as we seek to experience Transfiguration as well. Also, join us for a conversation after the service to explore Transfiguration more deeply together. Childcare is provided, if needed.
The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist – by Mary Oliver
Something has happened
To the bread
And the wine.
They have been blessed.
What now?
The body leans forward
To receive the gift
From the priest’s hand,
Then the chalice.
They are something else now
From what they were
Before this began.
I want
To see Jesus,
Maybe in the clouds
Or on the shore,
Just walking,
Beautiful man
And clearly
Someone else
Besides.
On the hard days
I ask myself
If I ever will.
Also there are times
My body whispers to me
That I have.
On the eve of the State of the Union address several young people (young is a relative term, right?!) in their 30’s and 20’s sought me out to set up a time to walk and talk, and of course I happily agreed.
1. The twenty year old shared with me, “I’ve been thinking about my legacy, what I am called to do with my life?”
2. The father of two in his mid 30’s shared with me, “I’m happily married, I have my wife and kids; we have our jobs and a house, and all of our basic needs are met. I’m searching for something more. There must be something more that has to do with why we’re here, why I am here, and what’s my purpose in this life?
3. Another woman in her mid thirties shared with me, “sometimes the world seems so competitive and divided, and at its worst, religion can exacerbate it. Can we find another way to live with one another?”
To me, these are profoundly spiritual questions. Asking these questions is a sign of being alive; questions that we need to ask throughout our lives, individually, and as a society. Join us this Sunday as we explore these questions of meaning in our lives. And, if you’d like to explore more after the service, join us for our Inquirer’s Session from 11:30 am -12:30 pm. Childcare is provided.
I’d like to share with you a few responses from various traditions to these questions:
Paul Tillich, 20th century: “Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.”
Rabindranath Tagore, 20th century Nobel Prize-winning poet: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
Albert Schweitzer, 20th century: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
Booker T. Washington, 20th century: “Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”
Martin Luther King Jr., 20th century: “Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
Fred Rogers, 20th century: “Life is for service.”
Since President Trump has been in office, ICE reports that arrests are up 40%. However, the president’s policy has also inspired a renewed resistance, of which our denomination – the UCC, and Skyline are a part.
On Sunday, January 21st Skyline Community Church, UCC unanimously voted to become a sanctuary congregation to advocate, support, and stand with immigrants facing urgent situations.
As an inclusive, progressive Christian community, Skyline upholds the sacredness of each person, and advocates for the rights of immigrants. Over the past few years, volunteers from Skyline have provided education, advocacy, donations, and accompaniment to immigrant families in need. Our hope is to offer even more support in the future.
The most recent threat about an ICE sweep in Northern California is part of a larger anti-immigrant movement, rooted in xenophobia and racism. 800,000 young people with DACA could also be at risk for deportation and separation from their families. Immigrants are a vital part of our communities, and the breaking up of immigrant families is one of the most critical social justice issues of our time.
By voting for this resolution, Skyline denounces this latest threat against the well-being of our communities. While Skyline is not offering physical sanctuary, if the threatened ICE sweep is implemented, our Justice and Witness Team is committed to finding ways in which we can offer support to protect the families whose safety and well-being is being endangered. Now is the time to come together and act on our sacred values of compassion and justice.
At our best, as followers of Jesus, we are supporting a countercultural vision of our world, which Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven. At our best, we are supporting the thriving of a real sanctuary. We are a sanctuary for people of different genders, races, backgrounds and ethnicities who are rightly afraid today. We are a sanctuary for all those bonded to them in love. We are a sanctuary for change makers. So many of us in this community are working in one way or another for the most vulnerable and for the delicate ecosystems that sustain life itself. From my vantage point as a minister, seeing the outpouring of energy and commitment from all of you in recent months, I know that this congregation is a powerful force for good in this world.
We lift up a different image of God – God as compassion, God as love, God as friend, God as the power of liberation for the oppressed; God who became one of us, born as a refugee, and born in a barn stable much like the story of so many undocumented people in this world, and in this country; born as a nobody from nowhere, whom we remember and we follow 2,000 years later.
Thank you Skyline, for your faith in action. I invite you to read this article about ways Skyline is already taking action for inspiration.
With love, Pastor Laurie, Nancy Taylor, Mirtha Langewis-Ninayahuar and the Justice and Witness Team
Sunday, March 11, 11 AM – 2 PM
Featuring: Chris & Lee who will be moving to Redding California to begin a new life!
To help food planning, please RSVP to Catherine – via the office at 510-531-8212; [email protected]. But if you forget, please come – we want you there!
Planning team:
Catherine Kessler , Nancy Taylor, Tom Manley, Carolyn Noble, Pastor Laurie
