Edwards Church

United Church of Christ | Saxonville, Massachusetts

March Announcements

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Lenten Devotional 2023: Traveling Together Toward Easter Sign up here: https://tinyurl.com/2023LentenDevotional Again, this year, Edwards Church will create our own Lenten Devotional, with a reflection available each day during Lent (via email, Facebook, and on the website). We need your creativity to make this happen! Your reflections could be in the form of a prayer, a poem, a paragraph, or a photograph. Our theme this year is “Traveling Together Toward Easter.” Your Lenten Devotion could take many forms. Here are a few ideas:
  • Tell a story of someone who has traveled beside you (literally or figuratively) during an important or difficult time in your
  • Talk about what it means to you to be a follower of Jesus.
  • Send a photo or drawing of traveling together: a road, a bridge, two or three or a crowd of people traveling
  • Send a photo or drawing of an Easter experience: a moment when you felt hope or the promise of new
  • Talk about a time you felt hope or the promise of new life, and/or about the journey to get
Each reflection includes scripture and a short prayer. Debbie and Karen Nell are happy to add those to your reflection, or you can do that yourself. Your reflection does not need to be long. If you have a picture, you might choose to have only a very few words. In general, written reflections should be 200-500 words.

INSTALL AND LEARN OUR NEW CHAT SYSTEM with a little help from your friends Training session with individual assistance including installation

Training Session on Sunday, March 19 at 1:00pm in Susan P. Dickerman Hall Watch for a sign-up! In December we began using an app (software application) called Slack to greet one another, pass the peace, and share our prayers. This is a dynamic platform that does much more than our old Zoom chat could. Slack is capable of a lot, but over the last couple of months we’ve realized there is a steeper learning curve than we have experienced before, particular for those of us who weren’t born with a smart phone in each hand! One of the early hurdles has been downloading and installing the app on our devices. Once we’re in, there are a few steps to follow to join the correct chat room and start greeting our friends. After that, it’s easy! How can we work together to get everyone through the tricky parts? Because the installation process is a bit different depending on your device or operating system, it has been challenging to create universal instructions for everyone. For this and other reasons, the installation and training for Slack really needs to happen in person. So on March 19, grab ALL of your portable devices (laptop, tablet/   iPad, and or smartphone/iPhone) and we will walk you through the process with individual assistance. We also need some volunteers to help guide people through the process. You don’t have to be an expert to help with this. If you’ve been successful installing and using Slack, you’re probably qualified for this job! Slack helps us know who is present, truly increasing the sense of community during worship. This church admin shares photos of Christian Explorers and their projects, the altarscape, choir rehearsal, etc.! You can share photos too! The announcements include live links about projects and events happening at church. Bottom line, it’s the only place to find out which two children wore the exact same outfit to church! We hope you’ll join in whether you’re at home or in the sanctuary.

Compassionate Conversations

Fourth Mondays at 7:00pm via Zoom (3/27) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88334124569 Would you like to have deep and meaningful conversations with fellow congregants? Are there topics you’d like to explore in a safe environment? Come and share your thoughts, feelings, concerns in a safe environment. We will discuss a different topic each month. For the winter, these conversations will happen on Zoom.

A New Vision for Coffee Hour

After 2-1/2 years of not gathering for fellowship after worship, we have begun having coffee hour, though with a new vision. For now, we will gather on the first Sunday of every month, as a way to continue our “communion” from worship. For each coffee hour, we need a team of 3-4 volunteers. To streamline clean-up, some teams may choose to bring boxes of coffee from Dunkin or Saxonville Mills. You can divvy up the tasks amongst yourselves in any way you would like. Our April 2nd coffee hour will follow our Palm Sunday parade, so we can use lots of help! Please consider if you’d like to help, and sign up in church or contact the church office.

APRIL STEEPLE: Call for Articles and Photographs!

Articles and photos for the next issue of the Steeple are due on March 15. Submissions should be a maximum of about 350 words (speak to Nicola if you need more space; rules are made to be broken). We welcome you or your committee/team to send more than one article.

Special Offering for March

One Great Hour of Sharing—March 5 & 12; White Helmets of Syria—March 19 & 26 This month we highlight two programs that enable healing in the face of war and disasters all over the world, while rebuilding homes and communities and  hope. On March 5 and 12, you are invited to make a donation to support One Great Hour of Sharing, a special mission offering of the United Church of Christ, to support disaster, refugee/immigration and development ministries around the world.  Through   OGHS we engage in holistic development programs including health care, education, agriculture, food sustainability, micro-financing and women’s empowerment. Because the UCC relates in mutual partnership to churches and organizations through Global Ministries and worldwide response and recovery networks, our contributions to One Great Hour of Sharing put us in the right place at the right time for the relief, accompaniment and recovery of the most vulnerable. OGHS meets immediate needs and addresses the underlying causes that create those needs in the first place. On March 19 and 26, you are invited to make a donation to support the White Helmets (also known as the Syrian Civil Defense). Here’s how they describe themselves: “When the  bombs rain down, the White Helmets rush in. In a place where public services no longer function, these humanitarian volunteers risk their lives to help anyone in need – regardless of their religion or politics. Known for their distinctive headwear, the rescue workers operate in the most dangerous place on earth and have saved more than 100,000 lives over the past five years. The White Helmets’ motto is taken from the Quran: ‘to save a life is to save all of humanity.’”