Whoever and Wherever You are, You are Welcome

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 November 8, 2018

Nearly every week, at some point in the service, Pastor Laurie tells us, “Whoever you are, and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” Sometimes, I let the sentiment fly by, but sometimes, it hits pretty hard.  That’s a profound statement.

Whoever you are… we’re all different; different backgrounds, experiences, tastes, foibles, flaws, and gifts.

Wherever you are on your life’s journey… since we’re all different; how could our journeys be the same? We come from different places, walked different roads, taken different wrong turns, and scaled different mountains.

I hope you will join me and the Spiritual Life Team this Sunday at Skyline as we explore what it means to be a pilgrim on that road and as we welcome new members who’ve decided to join Skyline to walk that road with us.

Article by Tom Manley, Spiritual Life Team

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Reformation Sunday

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 October 24, 2018

What a beautiful worship service last Sunday, lifting up the sacredness and preciousness of water in our bodies and on this planet, our deep interdependence upon it, and the infinite lessons it teaches us about movement and change and going with the flow in our lives.

Speaking of change and movement, this week our focus turns to the theme of the Reformation. Rev Sheryl Johnson will be preaching, drawing from her life experiences and her studies in her PHD program at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. The Protestant Reformation was a major 16th century European movement aimed initially at reforming the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Its religious aspects were supplemented by ambitious political rulers who wanted to extend their power and control at the expense of the Church. To learn more about the UCC’s reformation roots, read here. 

Rather than consider the reformation a one- time dramatic event that took place hundreds of years ago, we within the UCC perceive the reformation as an ongoing, life-giving process, one that Jesus was committed to, and one that we are committed to as well. God is still speaking!

I’d like to share with you a timely prayer, adapted from the Prayers of Martin Luther:

Waken our hearts, O Lord, our God;

make them ever watchful to serve You and Your purposes.

Trouble us with the smallness of our vision and work.

Trouble us with the greatness of Your command to make disciples of all nations.

Trouble us with Your great love for sinners and our own slowness to make You our greatest love.

Trouble us with the brevity of our lives and time, talent, and treasure not invested in eternity.

Comfort us by drawing us to Yourself with the cords of Your
unfailing mercy.

Comfort us, O Lord, with the assurance of our salvation and
unending glory with You when we suffer and are afflicted.

Rekindle in us a renewed desire

for the coming of Your glorious kingdom

when all wrongs will be made right,

when everything that is broken will be made whole,

and when we will trade a cross for a crown.

In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Pastor Laurie will be away at a spirituality intensive retreat and returning on Monday.  

 

 

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Alameda County Community Food Bank Drive 2018

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 October 24, 2018

Sunday, October 21 – Sunday, Nov 18

The ACCFB barrels are in the church sanctuary and in the preschool from till 11/18.  Please donate non-perishable, healthy food such as:

  • Canned Tuna                              Canned Chicken            Quinoa
  • Natural Peanut Butter              Nuts and Beans              Brown Rice
  • Canned Soup (low-sodium)    Whole Grain Cereal       Oatmeal

The food bank serves 1 in 5 residents in Alameda County.  Thank you for making this happen!  Contact Pastor Laurie through the office, 510-531-8212   [email protected].

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New Members / Inquires Class

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 October 24, 2018

Sun, Nov 4 • 11:45 am

Interested in putting down some spiritual roots at Skyline? Are you considering becoming a member or official friend of the church?

The next New Members/Inquirers Class will be held Sunday, Nov 4, 2018, in the Sanctuary after the 10 am service. Come learn more about the United Church of Christ , Skyline and how to get involved. Rev. Laurie will lead and there will be time to ask questions. Anyone interested in learning more about the church is encouraged to attend, whether or not you decide to join.  Childcare is available if you let us know in advance.

Joining Sunday will be Sunday, November 11 during the 10 am service.

For more information, please contact Pastor Laurie at the office – 510-531-8212, [email protected].

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The Sacredness of Water

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 October 17, 2018

Last week, we focused upon the miraculous sacredness and the growing scarcity of rich fertile soil.  In light of this perspective, Skyline’s Green team encourages your support in signing this petition:  for decades, oil and gas drilling has devastated Creation and harmed some of the most vulnerable communities in our state – polluting our air and water, and sickening thousands of people. We encourage you to sign this letter to tell Governor Brown it’s time to phase out oil and gas drilling in California. Many thanks, Skyline Green Team!!

Also, we celebrated our  20th Annual Blessing of the Animals, honoring the Feast of St Francis. Please enjoy the photos at the end of this letter! 

This week we focus on the sacredness and preciousness of water. Nobody thinks about water. Until there’s no more. Or, until-as is the case in the poor neighborhoods of Flint, Michigan-the tap water is poisoned. In that kind of crisis, we suddenly think a lot about water.

One of the deep spiritual truths that undergirds all of us is our connection with water. “Throughout human history, the quest for God has often been connected with a quest for fresh water,” Diana Butler Bass writes in her book, Grounded: Finding God in the World, A Spiritual Revolution.

 It’s a truth in all world faiths, Bass tells us, and especially for Jews and Christians:  The Bible begins with the deep, when God’s spirit sweeps over the waters. From wind and the seas comes all of creation. For Christians, the Bible also ends with water: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.” The final scene in the book of Revelation is the river of God, the water that heals and washes away all sorrow. … Water in the beginning, water at the end. God is the Alpha and Omega of the wells, rivers and seas.

What role does water play in your life? When you are seeking place of renewal , do you choose to go to a river or lake or stream or the ocean?  Can you think of a time when water might’ve played at healing role in your life?   For me, as a child of the Ocean State, as someone who grew up sailing on Narragansett Bay, as someone whose ancestors lived on the shores of Ireland, water is life. Being near the water is in my DNA, the waters sing to my soul.

Join us for a refreshing, life giving worship experience in which we honor the sacredness of water, and are reminded that, as we do, we are God’s beloved children: “I love you, I am well pleased in you”. Also, join us after worship for an extended conversation about the sermon and about the sacredness of water!

Blessings, Pastor Laurie 

19th Annual Blessing of the Animals! 

Special thanks to Becky Taylor for her leadership in promoting, recruiting for, and supporting our 19th Annual Blessing of the Animals!  We were blessed with beautiful weather and wonderful visitors! Enjoy the photos!

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The Sacredness of the Earth

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 October 10, 2018

Even as more and more people are beginning to see God, not only in the heavens, but right here on the earth, we are also discovering how fragile and endangered the Earth is. 

Just consider the latest reports from the UN. Or consider the increasingly dangerous fires, droughts, and hurricanes we’ve been experiencing.  The greatest need seems to be mobilizing the spiritual and political will to stop catastrophic climate disaster.  It is, among the greatest moral imperatives of our time, disproportionately affecting poor people of color, and future generations on this planet.  The U.N.’s climate panel tells world leaders the time for dithering on climate change is over.

  
For millennia, the ancients looked to the heavens, to the light of millions of stars above, to find God.  Although the stars still move us to wonder, contemporary people are learning that the soil beneath our feet is as mysterious, complex, and awe-inspiring as gazing into the night sky.  “I was stunned by what I learned about life in the soil,” says journalist Kristin Ohlson, “that when we stand on the surface of the Earth, we’re atop a vast underground kingdom of microorganisms without which life as we know it wouldn’t exist.  Trillions of microorganisms, even in my own smallish backyard, like a great dark sea swarming with tiny creatures.”
 
In fact, the soil is sacred.  Even the most secular writers understand that the ground calls forth an ethical, moral, and spiritual response.  We are powerfully connected to the ground, and the soil is intimately related to how we understand and celebrate God.  The late Irish Roman Catholic priest and philosopher, John O’Donohue, called the land “the firstborn of creation” and the “condition of the possibility of everything.”  The Earth itself, he insisted, holds the memory of the beginning of all things, the memory of God.  When feminist theologian Sallie McFague offers the metaphor of “body” to describe the relationship between God and the world, she is reminding us of both scientific truth and a sacred mystery.  “What if,” she asks, “we saw the Earth as part of the body of God, not as separate from God (who dwells elsewhere), but as the visible reality of the invisible God?

 
In her book, Grounded, author and scholar of American religion and culture,Diana Butler Bass, writes, “Although I had observed wounded landscapes, it did not occur to me that dirt was threatened on a larger scale.  Soil was like air or water, a boundless gift of creation, always present. Yet soil is being lost at an alarming rate all over the planet.  During the last century and a half, the planet has lost half its topsoil.”  According to a Cornell University study, American soil is disappearing ten times faster than the rate at which it can be replenished; China and India are experiencing erosion rates thirty to forty times faster.  In the last forty years alone, about one-third of the world’s formerly productive soil has become unusable, and the planet continues to lose approximately twenty-five million acres a year to erosion.  This is an environmental crisis to be sure, but it is a moral and ethical one as well.
 
Something odd is happening, however, as this disaster is unfolding.  At the same time that the Earth is losing its soil, more people than ever are making their way back to the ground. Skyline’s Green team, and our Garden of God, is a great example. So are many of you! Urban gardens are cropping up throughout the world, and people are learning to respect and participate in the miraculous processes that are happening, literally beneath our feet. 
 
An atheist friend of mine is fond of saying, “I just don’t believe that God is an old man sitting on the throne in Heaven.”    Nor do the millions of people who still trust in God, yet reject this particular conception of God.  McFague calls it the “transcendent sky-God tradition.”  As Diana Butler Bass writes, “Instead of seeing God as distinct and distant from the world, we are acquiring a new awareness that the universe itself is God’s body, a complex and diverse interdependent organism, animated by God’s breath, the spirit of creation.  We are with God and God is with us because – and some people may find this shocking – we are in God and God is in us.  Maybe the far-off Heavenly Father is finally retiring, replaced by a far more down-to-earth presence, a presence named in Hebrew and Christian scriptures as both love and spirit.”  As Wendell Berry puts it “The idea of Heaven doesn’t take religion very far,” because the distance makes for too great an abstraction.  “Love,” as the very being of God, he continued, “has to wear a face.”  And that “face” is “our neighborhood, our neighbors and other creatures, the Earth and its inhabitants.
 
Join us this Sunday at 10 am  as we continue this revolutionary spiritual journey, drawing from the wisdom of Genesis, Jesus’s parable of the sower, Diana Butler Bass’s book, Grounded,  and Forrest Pritchard’s book, Gaining Ground.
 
After worship, food and fellowship, our conversation will continue from 11:45-12;30. All are welcome! Childcare is provided!
 
peace, Laurie . 
Categories : Messages from the Pastor, Sunday Worship
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“Won’t you be my Neighbor?”

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 October 3, 2018

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?   Mr. Rogers

This Sunday at 10 am, come and experience the Parable of the Good Samaritan, not only in a sermon but also in a fabulous children’s skit based on the gospel according to Fred Rogers! 

The skit is written and performed by our talented,  Emmy award winning, Tim Carter who is a former Senior Producer with Sesame Street  http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Tim_Carter, and David Guerra, an artist and award winning costumer who is creating special props and puppets.  Join us for a wonderful day in the neighborhood, filled with inspiring music, delicious food, wonderful people, child-friendly programs, and an interesting discussion about our local and global neighbors.

It’s also a time to join us later in the afternoon as we celebrate the end of the ICE contract with the West County Detention Facility, and as we continue to support undocumented men, women, and children, as our neighbors. We will also be receiving a special collection for the UCC’s justice ministries supporting our local and global neighbors in need. 

Come join us, neighbors!!   

Categories : Messages from the Pastor, Sunday Worship
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From Detention fo Freedom: Celebrating 7 Years of Prayer Vigil at WC Detention Facility

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 September 26, 2018

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Staying Grounded while Living on the Fault Line

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 September 26, 2018

SERMON SERIES: STAYING GROUNDED WHILE LIVING ON THE FAULT LINE

Dear Friends,

I’m back from sabbatical! 

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday!

I invite you to join me in the spiritual revolution!

This spiritual revolution rests upon a simple insight: God is the ground, the grounding, that which grounds us. We experience this when we understand that the soil is holy, water gives life, the sky opens the imagination, my roots matter, home is a divine place, and our lives are linked with our neighbors and with those around the globe. This world, not heaven, is the sacred stage of our times. (from “Grounded”, By Diana Butler Bass)

Have your views of God evolved over time? Mine have!  I “believe” less, but have more faith. I bet I’m not alone.

Do you find yourself seeking to stay grounded, while living on the fault line? Literally, as well as spiritually? Me too!

This fall, come believing as you do.  Find God, not in a far- away heaven, but here and now, within, between, and everywhere, more present than you ever imagined. 

Together, let’s open to the spirit of love and justice that shines within & around our sanctuary and radiates out into the world. Together, let’s co-create new things– new ways of talking about God, new ways of worshipping, new ways of connecting. 

Come, be inspired, be uplifted, and share your inspiration with others. Your presence matters. Being together matters.

Peace,

Laurie

P.S. It’s Homecoming Sunday– time to reconnect, and enjoy a celebration lunch after the service!

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An Unending Symphony- Farewell from Pastor Ruth

Posted by Administrative Coordinator on
 September 20, 2018
Wow!  What great weekends we had on the 8th, 9th and 16th with the Climate March, Pride Parade, and Pride Sunday.  But why am I surprised?  Skyline Community Church not only talks the talk about justice issues but also walks the walk, often literally!  My not being free to take part in the Pride Parade reminds me once again that it is impossible – for humans, anyway! – to be in more than one place at a time.
 
I’m sure you have all had the feeling that there is so much work to be done to help heal God’s world.  Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start, and sometimes it feels like you’ll never finish.  I received some good advice today (Thank you, Nancy M.!),  Instead of being overwhelmed by all the injustice, prejudice,  and poverty that calls for a response, we should think like members of an orchestra.  Just pick up YOUR instrument and start playing!  When we each do that, when we each do what we can, our combined efforts can create some beautiful music.
 
However, we are playing an unending symphony.  Life is an unfinished business.  I am very aware of the unfinished business that I leave with you at the end of this month.  For instance, a conversation that began in response to the defacing  of our Black Lives Matter sign must continue.  Hopefully, those of you who have been reading the book “White Fragility” will share with each other what you have gleaned from your reading.  And hopefully you will be joined by others who wish to work together, looking inward as well as outward to strengthen your effectiveness in righting the wrong of prejudice wherever its ugliness appears.
 
As I get ready to pass the baton back to Pastor Laurie on Sept 26, I want to thank you all for your kindness, your passion, and your faith.  I have no doubt that the path you are taking as a congregation is leading toward the vision which God inspires in you: a world that more fully experiences the love that God has for all God has created.

 

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