Bayfield-Little Shemogue United

First United Sunday Service will be at 10:30 on March 3 with Tim Shaw as guest minister

We hope you'l mark your calendar, if you haven't already for our special blend of rural nourishment. We'll gather for three days of worship, learning, with Rural Cafe conversations, speaker, workshops, tasters, a variety of prayer practices and really good food!

Registration will open on https://hemofthelight.com (just hover over Rural Ministries) on February 12 and you'll be able to find information then on our schedule, content, speaker bio and accommodation.

Come with a friend or come make a friend. Don't forget to share!

Thanks to everyone who baked for the sale and those who bought the delicious food. Everything sold with a profit of $646.00.

We are hosting Bake Sale
Saturday, August 5
10 am
Keepsake Crafts
Murray Corner

Bake Sale
Saturday, July 8
10 am
Keepsake Crafts
Murray Corner

A Prayer for Canada Day

Creating God,

As we mark the anniversary of the Confederation of Canada, we remember and give thanks to the people who have been stewards of this land since time immemorial and commit ourselves to the work of justice, healing, and reconciliation.

Together we dream about the country that we hope to become, a country where all are free to be their best selves.

Amen.

https://ow.ly/FIC550P0Lcm

May my grasping and yearning
dissolve into stillness.
May my fretting and thinking
dissolve into silence.
May my worries and fears
dissolve into love.
And may my soul forever rest
in the mercy of your grace. Amen
--- Kimberly Holman

Stations of the Rural Church

Here's a bit about the "Stations". You can PM me or let me know in the comments if you'd like your congregation or small group to be part of a pilot or if you'd just like more information.

In the Roman Catholic Church there is a way, during Lent, of praying Jesus’ journey to the cross. In some instances, a 15th station, resurrection, is added.

Stations of the Rural Church isn’t really like Stations of the Cross in most ways, but it does, as they do, trace a journey, a journey of the Rural Church as I have experienced its moments and its sometimes deeply buried stories and emotions. And really, to change or to be transformed, to die with grace, to be resurrected, it is these deeply buried stories and emotions, our deeply buried stories, and emotions, we need to be in conversation with if our life of faith is to flourish.

We can tweak budgets, try new worship ideas, find a great preacher, put on the best suppers, try new church configurations but if we haven’t worked with our story; these things will be fleeting. We will be in a pickle once again.

“You cannot tell people what to do. You can only tell them parables, that is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and experiences. W.H. Auden

With Stations, I invite you to tell your own church’s parable, its particular story, nestled in the story of Jesus Christ. This is how it works.

I’ve set up few images from my experience of congregational life. Eventually there will be more. They may not be yours (that’s why I hope for your input). Please don’t dismiss them quickly though, let them work on you for a moment or two at least.

This is not a Bible Study, though delving deeper into the text and context around each of the verses you see might become one.

The stages of the stations are grouped in my mind in this way.
Beloved is where we begin.

We are told who we are:
Salt
Light
Witnesses

We meet challenges
Sale of buildings or other losses
Families who aren’t interested
Church Structures that seem far off
Fewer and older congregations
The call of creation

We feel
Uncertainty or shame
Fatigue
Grief
Anger

We are recall who we are and what we are promised and feel:
Joy
Peace
Hope

Beloved is where we begin, again and again and always

Sometimes the deep feelings in us scab over. Even the joy gets bruised, numbed. But there’s wisdom to be found in what we feel, in what we know in the deepest part of ourselves. We really can’t be whole without it.

I was listening to an interview the other day in which someone said, you can tell a story that offers people everything they want to hear or you can tell a true story.

I hope these stations encourage your true story.

Here’s our beautiful closing blessing by Sara, a member of our Team.

We have been blessed
uplifted energized inspired
by this gathering
by words and music
by stories and ideas
by the gifts of others shared in faith, with grace

May we take all of this
all of the holy energy and holy courage
all of the possibilities and curiosities
all of our hearts and hands
all of the gifts of our ancestors
back to
our daily living
our communities of faith
into a beautiful and broken world that needs more
welcome and inclusion
grace and grit
connection and collaboration
encouragement and empathy

Let us be like seeds, rooting down and rising up
Let us be like birds, spreading our wings and soaring
Let us be like the land, giving and receiving, forgiving yet reminding
A beautiful closing blessing from Sara, one of our Rural Routes Through the Holy Team.

Go - with the wisdom and creativity of your ancestors
with the knowledge of your past and the potential of today
with the energy and inspiration of the Holy Spirit
with the love and peace and joy of God
and in the name of Jesus, who seeks justice, offers mercy,
and walks humbly with us all.
Shalom!
Amen!

~ written by Sara Jewell Mattinson
Camp Abegweit, June 2023

ucceast.ca

We're excited and waiting to welcome you.

You can read more about Rural Routes here https://hemofthelight.com/ruralroutes/ and Register here https://hemofthelight.com/rural-routes-through-the-holy.../

Please spread the word!

A Prayer for Mother's Day

Loving God, help us make Mother’s Day more meaningful.
Help us make it even more of a celebration of those extraordinary people in our lives we call mom, who are like mothers to us, and to people of all genders, as well as trans and non-binary persons who offer mothering care.
Help us make it more supportive of mothers who have lost children, children who have lost mothers, women who long to be mothers, and those who choose not to be mothers.
Help us make it more open to those who don’t fit the traditional model of family and feel left out during this holiday.
Help us make it more caring of single moms, new moms, and those looking after their moms.
Help us make it more aware of those whose mothering responsibilities stretch across decades to span a lifetime.
Help us make it more loving for those who want to draw closer to their mother and more healing for those who need to keep a distance.
Help us make Mother’s Day more, O God.
More generous…more open…more caring.
We pray this in your holy name.
Amen.

[Image credit: Larisa Koshkina on pixabay]

Rural Routes Through the Holy: Podcast One Learn more about Rural Routes Through the Holy, both the 2023 Gathering, and the hope from which Rural Routes Through the Holy sprung, by following this linkThere you'll hear Rev.

Gracious God of grief and of suffering,
this Friday seems ‘good’ for all the wrong reasons.
Be with us in these hours
as we gather in the shadow of the cross of Christ
and hear again the story of death and the sounds of burial.
This is not where we would choose to be, O God,
brought face to face with this symbol of death
and instrument of torture.
Forgive us, where we have sought to avoid such times:
where we have ignored the cross or denied our own pain,
or turned our backs on the sufferings of others.
Strengthen us to be here today,
that we may know that you are here with us.
You know the ways of the world, O God:
you have been there; you are here;
you have loved and cried
and lived and died
to be with us, to comfort us,
to forgive us and to free us.
For this we give thanks.
This we call ‘good.’
Amen.

-from Celebrate God's Presence [7G003]

[Image: RomoloTavani / iStock]

ENews April 2023 This is our 26th edition of our eNews, which shares information of rural ministry initiatives across Canada, mostly in the United Church of Canada.If you are missing any past ENews, please see them atwww.UCRMN.ca Lots of events and news of what is happening in the Rural Church across Canada. Past eN...

Church is canceled Sunday, March 26

Join us for Church service at First United on Sunday, March 5 at 10:30

ENews February 2023 hosting This is our 24th edition of our eNews, which shares information of rural ministry initiatives across Canada, mostly in the United Church of Canada.If you are missing any past ENews, please see them atwww.UCRMN.ca Lots of events and news is happening in the Rural Church across Canada. This EN...

Church Service at First United will be at 10:30 on Saturday, December 24th

Interesting post. Be sure to click on title “Bending into Advent” to read.

Bending into Advent Bending into Advent Nativity Lato GarciaI entered Advent as a bent woman. I could not raise my head to see the blue stem of the candle and its blossom of light. I was a woman bowed for a week and today I am straightened, unfurled.I have come to know two senses of being bent, one constricting and one...

ENews November 2022 Hi Rural Folks Across Canada! This is our 22nd edition of our eNews, which shares more information of rural ministry initiatives across Canada, mostly in the United Church of Canada.If you are missing any past ENews please see them at www.UCRMN.ca Lots of events and news is happening in the Rural ...

Bayfield Little- Shemogue Pastoral Charge is hosting Bake Sale at Keepsake Crafts, Murray Corner on Saturday, August 6
at 10 am.