March 2010

The season of Lent is confessional in nature and in our religious tradition we use Lent as a time of self examination and reflection on our past. We prepare for the coming Easter through 40 days of prayer, penitence, and alms-giving. One way we can do this is through the use of spiritual practices that have been handed down to us from ancient Christians. One of those practices is the “Examen of Conscious” given to us by St. Ignatius of Loyola. It is an intentional practice of self examination that seeks to discern God’s will in an individual’s life and helping the individual make a commitment to follow it. Examen involves looking into the past for the moments of gratitude, enlightenment, sorrow and hope. It is in examining our past that we become more aware of our identity and thus become more open to the work of God in our present and in our future.

Just as it is important for us as individuals to examine our individual histories, so it is also important for us corporately to examine our history as a congregation. What we as a congregation will be able to do in the future has a relationship with what we’ve done in the past. Our past has the ability to hold us back or push us towards a new future. For the most part, our history stays in the background sustaining the life and identity of the congregation however there are times where it is necessary to open up our congregational story in order to know who we are as a community of faith and who we want to become.

The interim process begins with the developmental task of coming to terms with our history. You have already begun that process with the leave-taking of Pastor Patrice. In the final weeks of her ministry, you’ve taken opportunities to share stories with her and each other about how her ministry has made an impact on your lives. As you said your goodbyes, you released each other to pursue new yet separate futures.

The next step in coming to terms with our history involves self study. In his book Critical Moment of Ministry: A Change in Pastors (Washington DC: Alban Institute, 1993), Loren Mead states that the goal of a self study is about telling and listening to the stories of our community of faith. He states, “You are trying to get a reasonably accurate snapshot of a community and congregation. But the degree of detail needed, the requirements of the hour, are not the requirements of a dissertation on the sociology, psychology and theology of a congregation. What you need for seeking a pastor is a reasonably fair family likeness-the kind of snapshot you see on a reasonably fair family likeness-the kind of snapshot you see on Christmas cards is good enough for that purpose.”

In the months to come, I hope we have many opportunities to share with each other the stories of Sanbornton Congregational Church, UCC. I hope to do some of this work through cottage meetings in the Spring . My hope and prayer is that as we work through this developmental task, that we as a community of faith will be freed to build a new future using the strengths of the past, gain some perspective over our weaknesses so that you will be able to choose an appropriate settled pastor for your new life together.

Shalom,

Pastor Jean

MARCH 2010 CALENDAR

MARCH 4^th : 6:00 pm Lenten Evening Prayer Service

7:00 pm Junior Choir

7:30 pm Senior Choir

MARCH 7^th: 10:00 am WORSHIP with Guest Preacher Rev. Richard Slater, Associate Minister. Confirmation Class and CE Meeting follow worship

MARCH 9^th: Elections Meals for Election Workers Undercroft

MARCH 10^th: 7:00pm Undercroft

MARCH 11^th: 6:00pm Lenten Evening Prayer Service

7:00pm Junior Choir

7:30pm Senior Choir

MARCH 14^th: 10:00am WORSHIP (Daylight Savings Time has begun)

12:15 Seniors Dinner at Second Baptist

MARCH 16^TH: 1:30 Prayer Shawl Ministry Craft Room Woodside Taylor Community Laconia

MARCH 17^th: 6:30pm Book Group Bobbi Lauterwausser’s “Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet”

MARCH 18^th: 6:00pm Lenten Evening Prayer Service

6:30pm Search Committee Meeting

7:00pm Junior Choir

7:30pm Senior Choir

MARCH 21^st: 10:00pm WORSHIP with short meeting with SEARCH COMMITTEE to

Follow prior to Coffee Hour

MARCH 25^th: 5:00pm Spirituality Group Undercroft

6:00pm Lenten Evening Prayer Service

7:00pm Junior Choir

7:30mp Senior Choir

MARCH 28^th: 10:00am WORSHIP PALM SUNDAY

12:15 Seniors Dinner Undercroft

APRIL 1^st: MAUNDY THURSDAY watch for service

SPIRITUALITY GROUP

The books for group discussion have arrived and are available in the Undercroft for $15.50 (to Arlene Ilgenfritz, who was kind enough to order them for us). We will be working with THE CIRCLE OF LIFE: THE HEART’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE SEASONS, by Joyce Rupp & Macrina Wiederkehr, beginning with Spring. We will be meeting in the Undercroft on the fourth Thursday of the each month at 5:00pm to discuss portions of the book. All are welcome!!

FROM THE MODERATOR

Greetings!

March is here and activities are already starting to really gear up! Pastor Jean has begun working with our new Confirmation class and we have begun the Lenten season with an inspiring Ash Wednesday Service and Bread & Broth meal.

Also, our Pastoral Search committee has begun their work and the new Bylaws committee is beginning their job to take a serious look at our Bylaws and Constitution. Both of these committees actually have something in common, and that is both will probably reach out at some time over the next year to the congregation as ask you for your opinion! Whether it’s about church history, the direction you think our church should be heading in, or what committee structure you might think best for our church, your input will be needed. Although it’s not Reality TV (which is probably a good thing), this will be each of our chances to actively participate in the process.

I hope that you contribute to the discussions as you can, whether it’s a church meeting, a one-on-one conversation, or a survey. The more input these 2 groups get from us as a congregation, the more accurate their assessment will be of what the congregation desires from a new minister or a new set of bylaws.

Thank you in advance for your thoughtful and honest feedback to support these two committees in their efforts to make us an even stronger and closer faith community!

Faithfully,

David Henderson, Church Moderator

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION NEWS

Winter Outreach Project: Our Church School has been collecting baby food for the Sanbornton Food Pantry. Patsy Wells organized a trip to the Pantry which is located in the Old Town Hall next to our Church. After Church School on February 14th, Patsy accompanied the children and teachers for delivery of the food we collected and the collection of soups and food that our Church collected for February ‘Souper Sunday’. Karen Ober, a volunteer for the Food Pantry, gave us a tour of the Pantry and explained how it was organized. People in need come to the Sanbornton Food Pantry once a month and to the First Fruits Pantry (near the Second Baptist Church) once a month. The Sanbornton Food Pantry and the First Fruits Food Pantry are vital resources for the Sanbornton community. We thank all who supported the

Church School for this outreach to our community.

Welcome Michelle: The Christian Education Committee has a new member, Michelle Chapman. Thank you Michelle; also, the Christian Education Committee has Sarah Harbrook, Sue Long, Mary Morris, Marg Whedon and Shirley Strauch as members. We will miss Shirley Powers who has been part of our Committee for several years—thank you Shirley for your inspiration and support.

Spring Quarter: Our classes continue to use “Rock Solid, Building a Heart of Faith.” This quarter our lessons are centered on Jesus as Teacher; the Easter Story; early Christian leaders like Paul, John, Barnabas, Lydia; and Pentecost. Our classes will be sharing some of the stories and songs they have learned during our 2009-2010 Church School year at Church Worship on Children/Youth Sunday, May 23, 2010.

From the Minister of Music

Each Sunday in Lent, the senior choir will be singing a different setting of the fourteenth-century text "Ave Verum Corpus".   The most famous and widely-recognized setting is that by Mozart, a piece we have sung many times over the years.  There are other beautiful settings, however, by the Belgian composer Flor Peeters (1903-1986), by Edward Elgar (1857-1934), William Byrd (1540-1623), and contemporary Geoff Weaver.  We hope you will enjoy these very different pieces.

Work on the organ continues.  We seem to have settled on a four-person team, consisting of Katie Bossey, Dave Henderson, Jean Surowiec, and myself.  We've been "operating" on Saturdays, and are now getting near the end of our work.  Two or three more sessions should bring us to a place where the mechanical problems are all resolved for the time being.  Tuning will follow.  We've clocked 231 hours to date.  Thanks to all who have helped.  We began this job with a big group, but that proved somewhat awkward, and a slower pace seems to have worked better.

Remember, we're always on the lookout for singers, from first grade on up (and up is quite a distance, as we have an age span of over 75 years in our choirs!).  If you or your child has an interest, please let me know.

Missions Committee

On the first Sunday of every month, March 7^th this month, we collect money and food for both the Town of Sanbornton Food Pantry and First Fruits Food Pantry as part of our on-going support of our Local Hunger Relief mission. Also, our church, through the great work done by Michele Chapman and her daughters, still serves a meal four times a year at the Bread & Roses Kitchen in Franklin. Michele is always very appreciative of any help in keeping this important work alive.

On Sunday, February 7^th, we once again celebrated "SOUPER Bowl" Sunday. We collected a dozen grocery bags full of soups, stews, chowders and crackers! This is a fun tradition in our church and we are inspired just being a part of it. The Sunday School children also collected several bags of baby food. All of this food was donated to the Town of Sanbornton Food Pantry. Volunteer Karen Ober met us on Sunday, February 14^th, to open the pantry and to explain to the children exactly who it operates and all the people it helps. The children asked some very good questions.

On Sunday, March 28^th, we will join U.C.C. churches in taking a special collection for the “One Great Hour of Sharing.” This collection helps the U.C.C. here in New Hampshire and across the nation to come to the aid of people in need around the world. Where it is the earthquake in Haiti, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or floods in the mid-West United States, the U.C.C. is there along with other rescue agencies to aid and comfort. Please prayerfully give as you are able.

Pastor Jean made a good comment the other day. People want to see the church change lives. Through our Mission work we do help everyday to do just that – together we make a difference.

Respectfully submitted,

Ann Emerson-Knott, Edna Hansen & Patsy Wells - The Missions Committee.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

The first item of business was to elect officers and representatives for the current church year. Wally drew the short straw and will continue as Chair. Jean Suroweic will continue as Vice-Chair; Michael Harbrook as Secretary; Dave Hart as Council representative; new Trustee Susan Bayer as representative to Cemetery Committee; and Dave Hart as representative to the Personnel Committee.

The Trustees appoint members to the Cemetery Committee. Those appointed and willing to serve: Liz Merry, Millie Shaw, Edna Hanson , Brendan Morrison , Frank Baker, Ken Wood, Jean Suroweic, Wally Strauch and Susan Bayer.

Projects to be looked at this year include: bathroom repair at the parsonage, painting of the steeple and back side of church, review of possible water system improvement, lighting fixtures in the Undercroft (ballast replacement, etc.) Other projects will come along during the year as well. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions for facility improvement, etc., please let the Trustees know!

Peace,

Wally Strauch, Trustee Chairperson

AN INVITATION FROM YOUR SEARCH COMMITTEE

Please join us immediately following worship on March 21, 2010 to hear a brief word from the Search Committee, receive some information we have to share with you regarding our work for you, and to hear about the kinds of thoughts, prayers and hopes as to the future mission of Sanbornton Congregational Church UCC that you will be asked to share with us in future as our search moves forward.

CHANGES

There are new faces just inside the doors of the church on Sunday mornings. Phil Nichols and Rea Alkema have retired as our ushers after many years, at least 12 for Rea and more than twice that many for Phil. Harry Anderson, who took Rea’s place in winter in the past two years, is still our permanent winter usher. But his seconds are now a series of “Ushers on Call,” fifteen members who have agreed to fill in as needed. We are grateful to Harry and to Patsy Wells, Michelle Chapman, Marty Merry, Dana Nute, and Lee Hart, who will have ushered on a Sunday with Harry, by the time you are reading this, to Jonathan Marchant, who will usher on March 7, and to the other volunteers who can expect a call soon: Frank Baker, Arlene Ilgenfritz, Bob Ilgenfritz, Susan Long, John Max, Liz Merry, and Tracy Wood. Kara Downes and Mary Morris have also volunteered; they will usher in the summer when they are no longer teaching in the church school.

Our ushers and our greeters are the first faces that visitors and members of the congregation see when they enter our church. Their welcoming smiles and greetings are important! Ushers have some housekeeping duties in addition to handing out bulletins and taking the collection; but these are not onerous: turning lights and the sound system on and off, folding the bulletins, unlocking and locking the handicapped entrance to the right of the organ, seeing that the candles are lit and extinguished, setting out the baskets for prayer requests or local hunger relief, carrying a portable microphone to those making announcements or speaking about celebrations or concerns, and taking attendance (counting the house). If you can stand on your feet for a half hour before the service, climb the steps to the altar, and walk up and down the aisles taking the collection, you too can be an usher. Think about it. You might be asked!

We owe Phil and Rea more than a vote of thanks for their many years of quiet service. We wish them many more happy years in our church, sitting down front, enjoying the sermons!

HISTORICAL TIDBITS By Milly Shaw, Church Historian

On February 5, 1800, President John Adams recommended the observance on February 22^nd to the people to publicly testify their grief for the death of former President General George Washington (who died Dec. 14, 1779) by suitable eulogies, orations, discourses and public prayer.

Town Selectmen Chase and Moody chose a committee to make necessary arrangements for the commemoration to be observed in memory of Washington, who had “wrested our nation from impending oppression, making us a free, happy and prosperous people.”

The town voted to comply with the recommendation. The town Militia organized and on Feb.22 marched up to the Meeting House on Tower Hill, as John Perkins remembered. He was then a young man of 16 who had just joined the ranks of the Light Infantry Company. He tells:

“Capt. Asa Currier was then commanding the company, and Esq. Nathan Taylor being a Revolutionary officer, came up to his house a few days previously, where the company were assembled, and drilled them in such military tactics and services as would be appropriate to the funeral solemnities, --marching with reversed arms, etc. On the morning of what proved a pleasant winter’s day, the procession formed at Andrew Lovejoy’s store marshaled by Capt. Currier, consisting of the town officers committee of arrangements, and citizens generally, and marched with muffled drums up to the meeting-house, where the soldiers opening to right and left, their heads mournfully resting on the breeches of their muskets, the rest of the procession filed through into the meeting-house. There a discourse was preached by Rev. Mr. Woodman, with other appropriate exercises.”