|
|
Latest information from Barrington Congregational Church, UCC
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you missed any previous emails, they are being posted to our website
at this link for easy access. Some of the things that are
NEW in this email:
- Bulletin, Hymn Sheet, and Announcements for April 19th live-stream worship service
- Sunday morning after worship Zoom Coffee Hour
- Result of Emergency Congregational Meeting
- Problems with livestreaming on Sunday mornings
- Building safety
- Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day with action
|
|
Church Office is CLOSED until further notice
All in-person worship, meetings and activities at church are suspended or postponed until further notice. However, some things are happening virtually.
Thurs, Apr 16
4:30 - 6 pm Happy Hour via Zoom
Fri, Apr 17
Linda on call for pastoral emergencies
Sat, Apr 18
9:30 am 'Llama Pajama Time with Andrea' (live-streamed)
Sun, Apr 19
11 am Coffee Hour via Zoom
11:30 am - 1 pm Confirmation Class via Zoom
Mon, Apr 20
11 am Lay Visitation meeting via Zoom
Tues, Apr 21
11 am Staff meeting via Zoom
7 pm Deacons meeting via Zoom
Wed, Apr 22 Earth Day (50th Anniversary!)
7 pm Mission and Justice Team meeting via Zoom
Thurs, Apr 23
4:30 - 6 pm Happy Hour via Zoom
Fri, Apr 24
Dale on call for pastoral emergencies
Sat, Apr 25
Sun, Apr 26
11 am Coffee Hour via Zoom
11:30 am CEYM meeting via Zoom
Please note that looking ahead, cancellations and suspensions of meetings may not yet be noted in the on-line calendar as we don't know what the future holds.
|
|
Some of you have been hand delivering contributions to the office. While we appreciate your doing so, please do not enter the building, for your safety and for the safety of the limited staff that must work from the office. We encourage you to either mail your contributions to the church or leave them in the "church mailbox", located at the top of the steps leading to the office - on the wall on your left. The US mail and the church mailbox are checked daily by a staff member. Thank you.
|
|
Join us for our (virtual) Sunday worship
|
|
We are going on week 6 of our virtual worship services and we hope you will worship with us.
Those who tried joining us at 10 am for worship last Sunday (Easter) discovered that we weren’t able to livestream our service until almost 45 minutes later as so many other churches were trying to livestream their services at the same time and there just wasn’t enough bandwidth to carry them all! Thanks to everyone who stuck around to watch the service live. We don’t know
what’s going to happen in future weeks, but we’re going to try to get in the ‘queue’ to go live a little earlier so hopefully will be able to begin our worship service at 10 am as planned. If not, we’ll begin as soon as we are able, so please be patient. Hopefully you can stick around to join us live, but if not, regardless of when the service is actually livestreamed, there will always be a recording of it that you can watch later at the links listed below..
We hope you can join us live, but if not, you can watch a recording later at the same links.
Resources for this week's worship service are at the following links:
|
|
Opportunities to get together (virtually)
|
|
NEW! After worship coffee hour on Sundays
|
We are going to be hosting a Zoom coffee hour after church each Sunday
starting this Sunday, April 19th.
Beginning shortly after the ‘livestream’ worship ends,
around 11 am
, all are invited to log onto zoom and chat with your fellow church members and friends. We hope to see you there - but you'll have you bring your own coffee!
The zoom information needed to join this coffee hour was included in the email sent out 4/16/20 but isn't included in this version going on our website for security reasons (to avoid zoombombers).
If you're new to zoom, see below for instructions.
|
|
BCCUCC Happy Hour on Thursdays
|
All are invited to stop by the BCCUCC virtual Happy Hour with Dale every Thursday anytime from 4:30 - 6 pm via Zoom.
T
he zoom information needed to join this happy hour was included in the email sent out 4/16/20 but isn't included in this version going on our website for security reasons (to avoid zoombombers).
So grab your favorite beverage (beer, coffee, water, wine, seltzer, you name it), sit down with your computer, tablet or smartphone, and hang out with your church friends for a while. You’re welcome to drop by (virtually) for as long or short a time as you’d like – we miss you and hope you’ll join us!
If you're new to zoom, see below for instructions.
|
|
New to Zoom? Here's what you need to know
|
Zoom is pretty easy to set up and use. If you are using a tablet or smartphone (iPad or Android) there are apps to use. You should be able to find the app “Zoom” in your App Store.
If you are using your computer (ideally with a camera, like most laptops have) when you click on the link from your weekly church email, it will take you to a website and ask to install Zoom on your computer. Say “yes”. It is a very small and pretty quick download and install.
Once installed, whenever you click on a zoom link it will automatically launch zoom and log you into the meeting. If it doesn’t log you into the meeting automatically, you can manually type in the meeting ID into the Zoom app (on computer, smartphone, or tablet) and then the password, and it will take you to the meeting.
|
|
Thank you to everyone who showed up - via video or phone - for the Emergency Congregational Meeting held last Friday, April 10th via Zoom. Following discussion, the congregation voted to approve the actions of the Church Council regarding applying for a loan under the CARES Act to maintain our staff during this time of worldwide pandemic. Some of the meeting's participants are seen in the photo above (Photo credit: Richard Staples)
Special thanks
go out to those involved in getting together the large amount of financial and other information needed in order to apply for the loan. These include members of our Finance Team, our Treasurers, and our Financial Secretary, Pat Stoddard.
|
|
'RIP Medical Debt' offering
|
Thanks to the generosity of our congregation, even during these very difficult times, we have collected $1,495 for the R.I.P. Medical Debt program. Our Mission & Justice Team committed to using some of their dedicated funds to meet their goal of $4,000. This $4,000 gift will eliminate $400,000 of medical debt in some of the neediest communities in our area! This initiative, organized by the Southern New England Conference of the UCC , is more important than ever during this pandemic time.
The M&J team will continue to take contributions for a little longer,
so if you haven’t yet made a donation but would like to, please send it a.s.a.p. to the church office. Please make checks payable to ‘BCCUCC’ with ‘R.I.P. Medical Debt’ in the memo line and mail them to the church office at 461 County Road, Barrington RI 02806. To learn more go to:
https://www.sneucc.org/RIP-medical-debt
. Thank you.
|
|
Easter Sunday Worship - thanks to all involved
|
Many thanks to everyone involved in putting together the Easter Sunday (Virtual) Worship service. A great deal of time and effort was put in ahead of time, as well as behind the scenes on Sunday morning - by Dale Azevedo and by members of the Worship Technology Team, by Erik Ela and members of the choir, and by those who recorded segments for the service. Special thanks go to Dale for his vision for the service, and who is currently taking some much needed (prescheduled) time off this week. Hopefully he will have fully recovered from the stress of not being able to get the Easter service to livestream as planned, by the time he returns!
|
|
Celebrate 50th Anniversary of Earth Day - April 22nd
|
|
We're planting some trees!
|
We’re expressing our Love of Creation by participating in the
Three Great Loves
Tree Planting Campaign
!
Your Mission and Justice Team (M&J) has joined the UCC’s campaign to plant over 50,000 trees in the ten days from
April 17th - 26th
in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22nd. 100 trees will be planted by the Arbor Tree Foundation from a donation made in the name of Barrington Congregational Church, UCC. “Trees, one of God’s precious gifts, provide us not only with beauty, but we depend on them for the air we breathe and the stable climate we inhabit.” This effort is also a result of a partnership with Interfaith Power and Light as part of their Faith Climate Action Week. Interfaith Power and Light (IPL) is the largest faith-based organization in the country devoted to addressing the climate crisis.
|
|
Participate in an online 'march' for climate action
|
Your Mission and Justice team invites everyone to
make a sign
and join Interfaith Power and Light’s online
‘Love Made Visible Climate March’.
Out of our love and care for our neighbors, and to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, IPL won’t be hosting a real march but instead invites you to make and then share a climate march sign
on social media
during Faith Climate Action Week April 17th – 26th to continue bringing awareness to the climate crisis. The theme is "
Love Made Visible: Engaging in Sacred Activism
" to protect the people we love who are most impacted by climate change. People are more vulnerable to COVID-19 in communities where there are high levels of air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels. We need to continue to fight for clean air especially in light of the present pandemic. Your Mission and Justice team is asking you to take part in this virtual march by making your own sign based on this year’s theme, then take a picture of you or someone else holding the sign, and send it to the church office
office@bccucc.org
for posting on the church’s Facebook page during that time (April 17th – 26th). You are also encouraged to post it on your own Social Media! IPL has a suggested sign where you fill in the blank – saying
“ For Love of
(blank)
I stand for Climate Justice. #FaithClimateActionWeek ”
Thank you
|
|
Book Group will meet via Zoom
|
The Book Group has chosen
A Woman of No Importance' by Sonia Purnell to discuss at their April meeting which will be via Zoom on
Tuesday, April 21st, at
1 pm (note the later time)
.
All are welcome.
The zoom information needed to participate was included in the email sent out 4/16/20 but isn't included in this version going on our website for security reasons (to avoid zoombombers).
Some people were unable to get hold of a copy of this month's book, so they are invited to share information about another book that they've been reading instead. More information from Helen Schall at
helenschall@hotmail.com or 245-4724.
|
|
'Llama Pajama Time with Andrea'
|
If you're not able to watch live, you can always watch a recording later on the
live-stream page of our website.
|
|
Stay connected with each other - and call the ministers if needed
|
During this time of separation, we are all encouraged to keep in touch with each other. If there’s someone in the church you’d like to reach out to - maybe someone living alone - but you don’t have their contact information, please call the church office and leave a message (401 246-0111 x 101) or email
office@bccucc.org
Christine will then get their contact information to you.
If you’re in the hospital, a nursing home or rehab, or you’re simply staying home as required, but would like a visit with a minister, please don’t hesitate to call them and they’ll be happy to visit with you over the phone during this time of restrictions. Their numbers are Dale (401) 246-0111 x 103; Linda (401) 246-0111 x 104. Leave a message and they'll get back to you.
|
|
Dale and Linda are including Prayers of the People during each Sunday's worship service. They invite you to email or text them prayers (to
dale@bccucc.org
or
linda@bccucc.org
), or leave a message on the church's answering machine (246-0111)
a
ny time prior to 9:00 AM on Sunday morning
so they can include them in the live stream. Please be sure if you are mentioning people, to confirm that they would be comfortable with being lifted up in public AND that you don’t include full names. Perhaps just mention first names. We want to be respectful of peoples’ privacy as we hold them in our prayers.
|
|
Church Offering - please continue to give if you are able
|
Thank you to those of you who have already mailed in your contributions to the church. If you are financially able to do so at this time, we encourage you to mail in your regular contributions or use online banking if that is available to you. This will allow our cash flow to remain stable and for the church to be able to pay its bills and meet payroll. We appreciate your efforts! If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Financial Secretary, Pat Stoddard, at
pat@bccucc.org or 246-0111 x 102. Thank you.
|
|
Ways to watch our live-streams
|
We are doing our live-streams using 'Facebook Live' and there are two places to watch it online:
- On the church’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/bccucc
- On the church's webpage www.bccucc.org at the 'BCCUCC live-stream' link from the home page, where the feed will be embedded.
For Facebook live, simply go to
www.facebook.com/bccucc
to watch. You don't need a Facebook account to see it. If you do have an account, search for the church's Facebook Page which is 'Barrington Congregational Church UCC'. If you 'Like' our page should then get our news feeds, and also be able to comment on our posts and the live feeds.
If you're not able to watch live, you can watch a recording later, on the
live-stream page of our website.
|
|
The office is closed but you can still reach us
|
|
Following recent recommendations, the church office will be closed for the foreseeable future. However you can still be in touch with the ministers and staff. You can either send an email or leave a message on the answering machine at the person's extension. Both emails and voice mail messages will be checked regularly. Our contact information is:
As Dale says in his most recent blog "
if you need support, strength, or help in these days, please don't wait for Linda, me, or someone else from the church to call you. Reach out to us. We're still here and we'll be there for you in the ways that we can!
"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
