Download the Worship Bulletin Here: Worship Outline 7-26-26.docx

As they have grown, Youth Villages now assembles the backpacks at their Woburn office…and we can help them by providing supplies.  Here’s how it works.

• Youth Villages has supplied this link  https://a.co/0gTLVn0U to their wish list.  You can help a Youth Villages kid by purchasing some items on this list. Amazon will then send those directly to Youth Villages in Woburn.
• Alternatively, you can buy the same item somewhere else and deliver it to Youth Villages at 12 Gill St in Woburn.
• Items need to be to Youth Villages by August 3rd

Please reach out to Betsy Goodell (or call/text 781-389-8745) with any questions or if you need help with the drop off.

Thanks for making that first day of school happy for some kids who need a kind hand at their back.

Halfway through our week here, we have already experienced extraordinary grace, beauty, suffering, and compassion.

The reservation — The Rez — is a hard place, by design. Centuries of genocide, oppression, and deprivation have made sure it is so, and continue to this day. This is one of the poorest places in the United States, where many people live without running water, heat, electric power, or adequate — let alone healthy — food. The people here are suffering economically, physically, mentally, and spiritually. There is every form of injustice. And yet we are hearing from our Lakota relatives that there is a renaissance unfolding. People are re-learning their heritage: their language, traditions, songs and ceremonies and prayers. As we offer our labor to build and deliver beds, safety ramps, and outhouses — outhouses! — they generously reciprocate with their life stories, both trauma and hope. It feels important to contribute, as Nancy put it, concrete interventions to problems that go way beyond the concrete. And it feels equally important to gratefully embrace our Lakota relatives as beloved family, to join with them in heartfelt prayer for peace, justice, and an end to White Supremacy.

As hard as it is, The Rez is also a profoundly beautiful and sacred place, as Branda captured in her poem, and as you can see in some of the numerous photographs we have taken. In our nightly closing session, we have reflected on how each day’s experiences have kindled our spirits with gratitude and wonder. There is so much more to share with you, much of which will take us time and discernment to fully process.

Thank you for sending us here with your love and support. Please continue to pray that God will work through all of us — those of us here in Pine Ridge this week and all of you at home — to re-member creation, to heal and make whole that which humans have broken.

In love —

Julianne, on behalf of Andrew, Branda, Henry, Jodie, Maggie, Michaela, Nancy, Petra, Sonia, and Rev. Will

Badlands by Branda Wilhoite

Painted desert,

desiccated to fading,

Crumbly underfoot,

Framed by wide, blue skies.

A ribbon of green, swaying grasses

Swathed at its feet

A dry creek bed- the memory of a river-

A trickle, a shrinking puddle,

In the hot afternoon sun.

Rock spindles stand like tall sentries

Guarding “The Bowl”

Unlikely life- sage, paintbrush, and thistle,

Breathe hope into this desolate,

Beautiful place.

Re-Member

To make whole that which is broken.

As a prophetic preacher and activist, Howard Thurman chose the word “disinheritance” with great intention.  Consider that when one is denied an inheritance as an individual, they fail to receive what is rightfully theirs.  Yet when committed collectively, the consequence of disinheritance is graver: rights, property, benefits, protections, and blessings are unjustly denied to many.

When he wrote Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman linked severe inequities to the heart of the Gospel. Addressing systemic racism against his people, Thurman showed that Jesus’ ministry focused on the ruthlessness the Roman occupation imposed on the vulnerable. The “religion of Jesus,” he said, should be a survival technique for the oppressed.  Thus, though first published nearly eighty years ago, the book is as relevant now as it was then, exposing the thin veneer that had constituted nativist Christian ideology then, as it does now.

So where does this leave us, as congregants of FCCW and as folk who identify as followers of Jesus?  As put forth by our ministerial leadership, the challenge is to live out the Gospel’s message in a society that all too often tragically celebrates power over mercy. We must ask: How do we practice survival for the oppressed when we ourselves are not the target of oppression?

While we do what we can to look after one another, I would suggest that being followers of Jesus calls us to be nothing less than ambassadors and vanguards for the least of these, including the earth itself. To courageously stand for and with those excluded from the benefits of healthcare; those who live in fear of deportation, those targeted for who they choose to be and love, and those denied the basic necessities of shelter, protection, and food. To fiercely protect the natural world and its creatures who need our voices against hoarding and misuse; while fearlessly advocating for all the world’s children, including the diseased, the infirm and the aged.

In this Season of Pentecost, may the Spirit boldly lead us to reclaim what has been disinherited from the Gospel’s message in our time.

Jessica McArdle

for the Justice Ministry

We would love your support in preparing and serving a summer meal at the Dwelling Place on June 20th from 4:30-6:00pm. We tried breakfast for dinner last month for the first time and it was such a hit! So we thought we would try a meal we haven’t served before…hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hotdogs and other summertime favorites. The grilled food is taken care of but we need pasta salads, desserts, snacks and milk. We so appreciate your ongoing support of the work we do each month at The Dwelling Place. With any questions or suggestions please reach out to Michelle Stewart at michmarcstewart@verizon.net or by cell 781-835-9203.

Dwelling Place Sign up for June

9:00 AM-12:00 PM in Chidley Hall

Signups are open for our next Repair Café on June 20 starting at 9 am in Chidley Hall.

• sewing & knitting repairs
• knives or scissors sharpening
• electronics and lamp repair
• furniture fixing
• We also repair childrens toys including stuffies

Sign-up Here for a Repair

As an open and affirming congregation, we celebrate and include people of all identities and life journeys into the full life and ministry of our church. This commitment to radical hospitality is lived out not only in worship, but in the everyday spaces we create together.

Whether neighbors stopping to chat, families gathering after services, or passersby taking a quiet moment, these chairs are a simple, visible sign to all who pass by that there is a place for them at FCCW.

Join us in creating a space of welcome, connection, and belonging for all by sponsoring a $220 chair or buddying up with a friend to sponsor a chair.

Dear Fellow Congregants, the annual Summer Picnic is just around the corner on June 14^th, and the Justice Ministry want to make it another delicious celebration this year. We are hoping that some of you would be willing to help contribute to the feast; we have the basics covered, but we’d love it if you would be help fill in the gaps with snacks, drinks and yummy desserts.

Please sign-up here to bring more scrumptiousness to Picnic Day.

We hope to see you there, bring blankets and a good appetite.

-Your friends from the Justice Ministry.