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Batiste asked him for his best pearls of wisdom. Lewis answered simply, according to the same religion he has followed since he was a child, “Sometimes someone says something hostile to me and I say ‘You don’t believe that. Your mother didn’t teach you that.’” He told a story about a Klan member who visited his office at the Capitol with his son, 50 years after beating Lewis bloody during the Freedom Rides, to apologize. The Klan member wept, his son wept, and Lewis forgave him, hugged him and started crying himself. “Hate is too heavy a burden to bear. Love is a better way,” he t This Sunday, we are once again blessed by guest preacher, Rev. Lynice Pinkard, who will continue to bring us wisdom from Jesus’ parables about the power of believing and acting in faith, that there is enough for us all, in the face of overwhelming need. Rev. Lynice Pinkard Rev. Lynice is a writer, speaker, UCC minister, chaplain and public intellectual operating at the intersection of Christianity, economics, and social change. She is a graduate of Pacific School of Religion with both an MA and MDiv and is the former pastor at First Congregational Church of Oakland. As a result of her rich heritage growing up in the African Methodist Episcopal church and the witness of her parents’ commitment to social justice, Rev. Lynice developed an early and keen sensitivity to the ways in which disparities of power and forms of oppression affect the quality of the lives of people around the world. In recent years, Rev. Pinkard has co-founded several ministry-focused, community-based non-profits: Share First Oakland (addressing issues of hunger and structural food insecurity); Urban Sanctuary (building therapeutic collaborations between West Oakland activists and neighborhood residents, e.g., community gardeners and recyclers, artists and restorative justice advocates, marriage equality advocates and formerly incarcerated African American men in West Oakland neighborhoods); and Seminary of the Street (forming and training West Oakland neighborhood residents for faith-based critical justice work). Read more about Rev. Lynice HERE. Love, |
Archive for Sunday Worship – Page 2
Join us on Zoom at 10:00 AM
- Click on the zoom link – https://zoom.us/j/716026467 (this one is for Sunday service at 10 AM)
- You’ll be taken to zoom.us, and a dialogue appears, usually at the top of your screen. Click on the button labeled “Open URL:Zoom Launcher”.
- You’ll either get a box that says Wait for Host to Start the Meeting, or a box that says Join with Video / Join Without Video? Once the host starts the meeting, click either button to join the meeting – preferably with video so we can see you!
- With your cursor on the zoom screen, once you are in the meeting, you can click on the microphone icon and the camera icon (lower left corner) to turn audio and video on and off. Keep audio off unless asked to turn on your audio.
Need help with zoom? Click here for a tutorial.
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/716026467
Meeting ID: 716 026 467
Dial in by phone 1-669-900-9128
New: Access the Sunday Bulletin Here (at the time of sending this email, the bulletin is incomplete. It will be done by Friday evening, so come back anytime after that for the final bulletin!)
11:15 am Virtual Coffee Hour:
Zoom link https://zoom.us/j/716026467
This Sunday we celebrate the power and Mystery of the Holy Spirit!
She is that powerful, moving, invisible yet real presence, blowing into our lives as gently as each breath, or as powerfully as a hurricane. She is that energy heating up our lives as gently as a candle, or with the awesome power of a wildfire. Which version of the Spirit do you prefer?
This Sunday, we honor the moment when the disciples experienced the Holy Spirit and realized that they no longer needed the physical presence of Jesus. Each of them had his own inner conduit to God. So do we, if we dare to seek her.
Here’s how Luke (Acts 2:1-6) describes the moment, in the Message
When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.
There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues?
The Pentecost spirit is captured in a powerful poem by William Blake:
Unless the eye catch fire,
The God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire
The God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire
The God will not be named.
Unless the heart catch fire,
The God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire,
The God will not be known.
Dare we catch fire?
I look forward to seeing you in worship this Sunday!
Children’s Time Zoom!
This Sunday, April 19. 11:30 AM
This week, we’ll look at creation and hear about Earth Day. Here’s what’s in store:
This week, we’ll look at creation and hear about Earth Day. Here’s what’s in store:
- Story Time: Mirabella is a little fairy who appreciates all that God has created! Come along with her for a trip to see some of her favorite things.
- Jokes Junction: Get ready to laugh (or groan!) at these corny jokes!
- Art Sharing Time: Show us something you’ve made or color some of our Earth Day-themed coloring pages. Click the link, print and get creative!
- After Service Family Chat: We’ll have a time of sharing to catch up and connect with children and families.
Children’s Time Zoom Meeting Sunday, April 19 at 11:30 a.m. (PST)
https://zoom.us/j/241524878
Here we are, in April, beginning another month of sheltering in place. What a time we are living through!
Even in the midst of this there are blessings. Among them has been the blessing of communicating with you through social media: worshiping, studying, praying and yes, even sharing birthday celebrations and happy hours together.
I am grateful to the virtual teams within our faith community, rising up to offer all kinds of support within and beyond us. I hope you were able to join the zoom crowd who worshiped online this week. If you missed it, you can find it here on our website. Many of us are using zoom for the first time, and here’s a helpful tutorial to get started. You can always call me on my cell phone! All of our computers are facing buffering challenges due to the overload on various platforms and the internet in general, please be patient.
Last Sunday, the 29th of March, I lifted up the theme of grief, so I want to offer a helpful article for you to better understand your own experience of grief.
Please continue to check our weekly email, our Facebook page, and our website for updates.
This Sunday is Palm/Passion Sunday— please find a palm, or a leafy branch, or a symbol of gratitude for praising the heroes of our time, and bring it with you for our service. And, before you sit down to participate in the Zoom service (here’s the link), please have ready nearby elements of food and drink to share in our agape meal, remembering Jesus and all those we love that we wish were here with us, and all those in need, especially during the pandemic. Finally, David G. is leading a Zoom Children’s time at 11:30 – read more here.
Prayer for today:
You have been our strength, O God.
At the beginning of the day you brought us from darkness into light.
At the ending of the day you lead us from busyness into stillness.
In earth’s cycles and seasons you offer us new life and fresh beginnings.
Be our strength this day and the strength of new beginnings in our world.
Be our help, O God, and the help of those who cry out in need.
~ by John Philip Newell, excerpt from Celtic Treasure: Daily Scriptures and Prayer
Prayer in music & videos:
- Italian opera singer
- Spain Coronavirus: Videos Of People Applauding And Cheering For Healthcare Workers
- Wuhan volunteer team delivers cheer to medical workers amid epidemic
Inspiration
Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash
Virtual Worship, Bible Study and Prayer
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven… Now is the time for “shelter in place” here in the greater Bay Area. It is a time to refrain from embracing, i.e. physical distancing. And more than ever, it is a time for social and emotional connection.
Skyline is utilizing Zoom.us for our virtual worship services and weekly gatherings. All events will use the same zoom link. You can access the events on your computer, your smart phone, or a regular phone call.
Sunday Worship and the weekly gatherings will all be at this zoom link:
https://zoom.us/j/716026467
Meeting ID: 716 026 467
Dial in by phone 1-669-900-9128
Dial in by phone: 1-346-248-7799
- Sunday Services are being delivered by Zoom Meeting at 10 AM to 11 AM
Videos of past services are HERE. - Pastor Laurie’s virtual bible study, Weekly on Tuesdays. 10:30 – 11:30 am.
- Pastor Laurie’s Prayer, Care, and Share time, every Friday from ⋅1:00 – 2:00 pm. Join us for a time of praying, caring, and sharing! If you’re at home, you’re invited to light your own candle, so we’ll all have our candles together. We’ll gather with a little meditative music, then spend some time lifting up our prayers together. In this stressful and uncertain moment, perhaps we need to turn to prayer even more than usual. Join us, breathe deep, and trust that the Spirit will be with us wherever we are. Whenever two or three are gathered in the name of God, even gathered digitally, the Spirit is in the space between, connecting our hearts and strengthening us. Hope to see you for our collective prayer.
Last weekend Oakland celebrated LGBTQ+ Pride in a tastefully, over -the -top way!
This Sunday, September 15th, we will bring LGBTQ+ Pride to Skyline, in worship!
We will celebrate Pride with a family friendly service, featuring the Parable of the Dancing Queen, written by our very own Tim Carter, former Senior Producer at Sesame Street and winner of 14 Emmy awards!! Also featured are puppetry and costuming, from our very own David G. and Alegra Figeroid, artists extraordinaire!
After all, it’s a big year! Fifty years ago, the Pride movement began in the US. on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in NYC. Just think of it….Skyline and Pride were both born out of the liberation and justice movements fifty years ago, as part of the evolving understanding of the equal rights of women, people of color, LGBTQ people, indigenous people, and the ecumenical interfaith movement, as well as the wisdom that with our evolving understanding of science and human development, so too must our faith evolve. Ours is a still speaking God!
Have you ever felt left out? Excluded? Singled out for being different? How did you feel? Did you ever want to run away from home, from school, from church, your country, from it all? Have you ever yearned to find other people who really saw you and understood you and loved you for who you are? Have you ever yearned to be free to sing, dance, and just be yourself? I think of Jesus’s parable for this Sunday, of the lost and found coins, sheep, and people; and God’s love for each and every one of us: seeking, finding, loving, and welcoming us home, just as we are.
When the UCC, Golden Gate Association in 1972, ordained Bill Johnson as the first openly gay minister in an historical protestant denomination and to become the first denomination to support equal marriage rights for same sex couples, we were saying welcome home! You are part of the family.
When, in 2008, at the height of the debate over the Prop 8 same-sex marriage legislation in California, Skyline hung a banner in front of the church entrance, proclaiming to every passerby “Support Marriage Equality. We do.” we were saying welcome home! You are part of the family.
And when I, Skyline’s pastor Laurie, blessed same sex couples for many years before it was a legal right, and urged all heterosexual couples I married to stand in solidarity with them, until the day that this became a legal right for all people, we were saying welcome home! You are part of the family.
Read more about UCC’s LGBTQ actions and programs.
Welcome home! It’s Pride Sunday! Children are especially welcome!!
The prophet Isaiah, thousands of years ago, described God’s creative power – bringing forth new life in the midst of destruction, within and all around us:
Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,
who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.
Isaiah 43:16-21
Join us this Sunday, as we awaken to this power of love within, and all around us.
