Archive for Events – Page 4

Easter at Skyline – Virtual Services 2020

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 March 31, 2020

Palm Sunday Virtual Service:  April 5, 10:00 – 11:00 AM

Our virtual service: a readers theater, journeying from the entrance into Jerusalem, into the Garden of Gethsemane, with the inspiring music of Ken Medema, Gabrielle Lochard and Benjamin Mertz.  Hear the stories of Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem, listen to music of God’s love, peace, grace, sorrow and beauty.

Meeting ID: 716 026 467
Dial in by phone 1-669-900-9128

Maundy Thursday Virtual Service:  April 9, 12:30 PM

Worship with the United Church of Christ. The leaders from across the life of the denomination will be leading a streamed worship service.  Register for the webinar here.  Click here for more details.  Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash
 

Good Friday Virtual Service: April 10, 2:00-3:00 PM  **Note time change**

On the most somber day of the Christian year, we gather in prayer and song to hear the Seven Last Words of Jesus, and mourn the death that changed the world.  Our talented musical team, Ken Medema, Benjamin Mertz, Gabrielle Lochard, join with Pastor Laurie and others in this solemn and beautiful service. All are welcome.

Zoom Meeting Link:  https://zoom.us/j/716026467
Meeting ID: 716 026 467
One tap mobile +16699009128
phone # +13462487799

Easter Sunday Virtual Service: April 12, 10:00-11:15 AM

The promise of the resurrection is proclaimed, even in the midst of  pandemic.There is nothing traditional about a zoom Easter Service, but we have a beautiful service planned for our expanded, loving progressive and inclusive faith community meeting via zoom. Rev. Laurie Manning, and our talented musical team of  Ken Medema,  Benjamin Mertz, and Gabrielle Lochard will be leading the service from their homes.  We are creating a special experience.  

Meeting ID: 716 026 467
Dial in by phone 1-669-900-9128

Children’s Time Easter Sunday 11:30 AM

Come along for an adventure with David G and Pastor Laurie! Here’s what’s in store: 

  • Story Time:  Have you ever had a friend who went away? Best friends Enriquita Kittycat and Edmund Caterpillar have a story to show you! Discover the meaning of friendship and reunions as we watch the tale unfold.  

  • Brain Teasers: Get ready to put on your thinking cap!

  • Art Sharing Time: Parents, print off these coloring pages for kids to color or decorate, or kids can create their own art. We will share our art at the meeting!

  • After Service Family Chat: We’ll have a time of sharing to catch up and connect with children and families.

Zoom Link 

 
Categories : Community, Events, Holiday
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Love and Anger?

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 February 13, 2020

This Sunday we celebrate love and anger, featuring guest musicians Rachel Garcia and Thu Tran, known as The Singer and the Songwriter!!  Here’s more about their music and their background.    What a perfect way  to explore on Valentine’s day weekend the connections between love and anger, especially with those we are closest to!

In addition to this worship service, Rachel and Thu will perform a 30 minute set after fellowship time at 11:30, followed by a time of sharing Skyline’s love poetry.  Bring with you your favorite person to be angry with and to love!  Enjoy hearing Rachel and Thu’s  My Favorite Person.

 

Categories : Community, Events, Messages from the Pastor
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Intentional Love in Polarizing Times

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 February 6, 2020

We’re living in polarizing times that tempt us to fall into patterns of violence, judgement, and “othering” in our words and actions.  What an opportunity to intentionally develop our capacities for love in its many forms. Here are just a few examples of what is being offered this month: 
 
Our latest offering in the Health and Happiness Series for the benefit of the health and well being of us all: 
  • Sun, Feb 9, 4-5:30 PM:  The Best and Worst of Popular Diets…How to Meet our Nutrition Needs and support Long term health for Body and Planet, Speaker: Catherine Kessler, RDN, CDE.
Our justice and witness team’s offerings during black history month: 
Love/ music/poetry in worship:
  • Music during and after church service with “TheSingerandtheSongwriter”,  Sun Feb 16th
  • Distribution of Skyline’s Love Poems in “Poetry Aplenty in 2020” Sun, Feb 16
Love of the most vulnerable, as evidenced in our justice work: 
  • Food of God, meals served to people in need, once a month (Nancy Taylor) 
  • Nueva Esperanza preschool education for children from Guatemala (Mirtha Ninayahuar)
Love of learning and growing in our faith with our spiritual life team: 
  • Learning to Pray, Rev Jerri Handy Feb 23 after service
  • Brian McLaren book study, March 1
Love  is at the core of who we are at Skyline. – it under-girds our extravagant welcome. This week we will celebrate the themes of salt, light, and righteousness… I leave you with a prayer reminding us of why we gather together. 
Let the Mystery of God draw us in:
Beautiful, Just, Merciful!
Let the Wisdom of God surprise us:
Vulnerable, Powerful, Searching!
Let the Glory of God shine through our work:
Salty, Bright and Good!
In the Mystery, the Wisdom, the Glory of God
Let us worship!

 

Categories : Events, Messages from the Pastor
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Choose the Road of Connection

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 January 29, 2020

Have a Blessed day! quipped a cheerful woman at the airport Starbucks,  to my friend Ken Medema. 

It reminds me of some messages I’ve have heard this year: “I’m feeling really hopeful about 2020 — it’s going to be a great year,”

What’s your response? Is there some resistance… some skepticism?

Sure, there’s a long list of events that happened in 2019 that could make us  embrace hopelessness or apathy, which I believe is a much easier path than hope and staying engaged. Instead of citing the heartbreaking realities you know and read about in the daily news,  I invite you to  start 2020 on a different road. One that leads away from despair, resignation and disengagement; or convincing ourselves that none of this is my fault, and therefore not my responsibility.

In the words of Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who of all people had reason to despair and disengage,  We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. His words, so powerful in his time, are as powerful today, offering us a needed corrective to the rampant individualism that erodes our interdependence. The stark truth is that when we diminish one’s person humanity, we diminish our own.

We can talk until late in the night about the character and actions of our president, “the other party,” and “other proclaimed Christians”, about whether they are really following in the ways of Jesus. But when we engage in that kind of conversation, we’re deflecting the real work of this moment, the work of asking ourselves some very hard questions about our identities as citizens and our claims as people of the “way” of love. 

Jesus said it loud and clear in the Sermon on the Mount and on several other occasions: all God’s rules for human living are summed up in the direction to love God and love our neighbor. Everything else springs from this work. To be a Christian in the way of Jesus we will, in fact, have to swim upstream in today’s American culture, embodying what Jesus had to say in that sermon up on the mount. S hare what you have with anybody who needs it. Love your enemies. Live generous lives. Tell the truth. Act toward each other the way God acts toward you. Sacrifice something big for something good.

This year, let us to choose a road that acknowledges that we are all connected. Choose the road of hope tied to action. Resolve to live into hope, into a better year.

Categories : Events, Messages from the Pastor
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Christmas Eve Candlelight Service

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 December 12, 2019

Come experience the wonder of our candlelight service and celebrate the birth of Jesus with

Carols and Singing
Scripture readings
Beautiful music performed by the Christmas Choir

The service will be followed by delicious Christmas treats, hot apple cider, and fellowship.

This is a beautiful way to celebrate the season with your entire family. ALL are welcome!

Skyline Community Church UCC
12540 Skyline Blvd, Oakland

For more information please contact the office at 510.531.8212, [email protected]

Categories : Events, Holiday, Uncategorized
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What are you waiting for?

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 December 6, 2019
The words “breath,” “wind,” and “spirit” are used interchangeably to remind us that God is always coming to us.  Become aware of your breath. Notice how breathing more deeply calms you. Notice how long you can hold your breath to remember how essential it is for your life. The Living God, or the God of Life, seeks to come to dwell within us and to give new life to us and through us. 

 Advent calls us to pay attention and to anticipate what “the God who comes to us” wants to do within us and through us. So, we wait in hope of what yet may be.  This process of waiting in hope, is active, not passive. 

 
Join us this Sunday as we continue to awaken to the new life full of hope, peace, joy, and love that God is calling each one of us, by name, into. 
 
What are you waiting for? 

Blessings,  Pastor Laurie 

 

Categories : Events, Holiday, Messages from the Pastor
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Oakland’s Draft 2030 Equitable Climate Action Plan – Town Halls

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 October 30, 2019
The Green Team and Justice and Witness Team request your attention and action:
 

To Oakland Residents:
  You are invited to either of these 2 TownHall Meetings, to review and give your comments on
                        Oakland’s Draft 2030 Equitable Climate Action Plan 
Visit this link to comment directly on the draft, and join us at a Town Hall to review and discuss the Plan as a community.
Town Hall 1: Saturday, November 2
Location: Rainbow Recreation Center
5800 International Blvd.
Time: 1-4 pm (lunch at 12pm)
RSVP: https://climatejusticetownhall1.eventbrite.com

Town Hall 2: Wednesday, November 13
Location: Lincoln Square Recreation Center
250 10th Street, in Chinatown
Time: 6-9 pm (dinner at 5:30)
RSVP: https://climatejusticetownhall2.eventbrite.com 

At the Town Hall meetings, Oaklanders will come together to dive further into the ECAP and the draft Actions, and vote on what needs to be kept, improved, or eliminated. Food and childcare will be provided. Simultaneous interpretation will be available with advanced request. Both Town Halls will cover the same material.
For more information or if you need a ride, contact Catherine Kessler via the office at 510-531-8212   [email protected].

Categories : Events, Green
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Family Easter Services, 2019, 12:00

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 April 3, 2019

Skyline Invites the Oakland Community to Attend Family Easter Services

Come celebrate the Spirit of Easter where we welcome ALL of God’s people. Join families from our church and the neighborhood for a fun hour of learning and celebrating! Families of all configurations (we are an LGBTQ+ affirming church!) are invited!

April 21, 12:00 PM

We’ll gather at noon in the sanctuary to sing Easter songs, learn a bit about the Easter story (and how eggs are connected to it!), do some art, and participate in a service project for Nueva Esperanza, a preschool for immigrant children that our church helps to support.

Kids will also be invited (by age group) to participate in a (small) Easter egg hunt. Please bring your own basket/bag!

We also welcome you to join our community Easter service at 10 AM before the hunt, if you wish. We offer a children’s program for your little ones.

Come celebrate Easter with your family, neighbors, and friends in our beautiful sanctuary on the hill with a stunning view of Mt. Diablo and the Oakland Hills.

Categories : Events, Holiday
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Good Friday Taize Service, Remembering Victims of Gun Violoence

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 April 3, 2019

We Invite the Oakland Community to Attend Good Friday Services

Join us as we honor the depth of Good Friday

We welcome ALL of God’s people

Friday, April 19, 7:00 PM

Our Music Director, Benjamin Mertz, and Reverend Laurie Manning lead an empowering, spiritually expansive candlelight, meditation and music service, in the Taize tradition.   

We will remember the victims of gun violence and hate crimes.

We will listen to and join in singing Taize chants, a form of meditative chant and silence, to quiet the mind, open the heart and feed the soul… time of quiet and solitude in the presence of God. A few words sung over and over again reinforce the meditative quality of prayer.  All are welcome.

Held at Skyline Community Church, 12540 Skyline Blvd, Oakland, 94619

 

Categories : Events, Holiday
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Easter at Skyline, 2019

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 March 27, 2019

Skyline Community Church, United Church of Christ
Invites Oakland Community to Attend Easter Services

Come celebrate the Spirit of Easter where we welcome ALL of God’s people. Experience fabulous music and an
inspiring message with a spectacular view of the Oakland Hills.

Good Friday Service: Friday, April 19, 7:00 PM

Our Music Director, Benjamin Mertz, and Reverend Laurie Manning lead an empowering, spiritually expansive candlelight, meditation and music service, in the Taize tradition.  During the service, we will listen to and join in singing Taize chants, a form of meditative chant and silence, to quiet the mind, open the heart and feed the soul… time of quiet and solitude in the presence of God. A few words sung over and over again reinforce the meditative quality of prayer.  All are welcome.

Easter Sunrise Service: April 21, 6:30 AM with OEBGMC

Rise and shine to the uplifting music of the Oakland East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus! Experience sunrise from our Sanctuary which rests on the summit of the Oakland hills and has windows spanning 30 feet high! As you look out on a stunningly beautiful view listen to inspiring preaching, heavenly music and feel welcomed into the warmth of a loving progressive and inclusive faith community.

Rev. Laurie says, “The music in this service sings out about a God of love, of freedom, of liberation… and that the world is more wonderful with the great diversity of all of humanity. This is good news!”

Easter Sunday Traditional Service: April 21, 10 AM

Skyline’s sanctuary windows overlook Redwood Park to Mt. Diablo Here we have a traditional Easter Service as a loving progressive and inclusive faith community. Rev. Laurie Manning , the choir and orchestra (directed by Benjamin Mertz) and the people fill the sanctuary with joy, celebration and love. Today’s service will have drama, singing, prayer, and a special honor garden for loved ones. And to top it off, all are welcome (especially families) to a family service that includes an Easter egg hunt for children of all ages: 12:00 noon.

Family Easter Egg Hunt: April 1, 12:00PM

Join families from our church and the neighborhood for a fun hour of learning and celebrating! Families of all configurations (we are an LGBTQ+ affirming church!) are invited!

We’ll gather at noon in the sanctuary to sing Easter songs, learn a bit about the Easter story (and how eggs are connected to it!), do some art, and participate in a service project for Nueva Esperanza, a preschool for immigrant children that our church helps to support.

Kids will also be invited (by age group) to participate in a (small) Easter egg hunt. Please bring your own basket/bag!

We also welcome you to join our community Easter service at 10 AM before the hunt, if you wish. We offer a children’s program for your little ones.

_____________________________________________________

Skyline Church UCC is a community faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ. We acknowledge the worth of all beings, regardless of ability, age, ancestry, family or economic status, gender, sexual orientation, spiritual path, cultural origin, or any other visible or invisible difference. We invite all who wish to enter our Sanctuary and the full life of our church family. Ours is a God of justice and compassion, and our church lives in covenant with God to do its utmost to pursue justice and compassion, as an Open and Affirming congregation.

For more information please contact our office at:

Skyline Community Church,
United Church of Christ
12540 Skyline Boulevard
Oakland, CA 94619
510.531.8212

Email Skyline Office

Categories : Community, Events, Holiday, Worship
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Worship service information

At Skyline, we’re committed to nurturing the spiritual development of children and youth by equipping them with the tools they need to discover faith-filled answers… for themselves.

Justice and Witness

God has no hands but your hands, no feet but your feet, no face but your face. Join us in cultivating a more just and compassionate world, working together to understand and meet the real needs of our local community (Food Bank) and beyond (Sierra Leone School).

Programs for Children and Youth

At Skyline, we’re committed to nurturing the spiritual development of children and youth by equipping them with the tools they need to discover faith-filled answers… for themselves.

Green church supporting environment justice

We recognize the fragility of the earth and our own capacity to do harm. It is urgent that, as earth’s stewards, we make a commitment to our children and future generations to minimize our impact on the earth. We are working locally and globally in these efforts.