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eSpirit...weekly news from Beach United ChurchThis weekly enewsletter is sent every Friday and lists upcoming events happening at Beach United Church plus a message from one of our ministers.
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What do the Ten Commandments, infant baptism, and world wide communion all have in common?
Well, one thing they have in common is that all three are part of this Sunday's service. Oct 2 is world wide communion, a yearly celebration to promote Christian unity and ecumenical cooperation. How appropriate for us to reflect on ecumenical cooperation when we are shortly heading to St Aidan's Anglican Church as an interim space.
Along with our sacrament of communion we will also celebrate baptism, our second sacrament. We will baptize Camille Goncalves and Harrison O'Neill, two beloved infants being welcomed into our United Church and the family of God. In baptism, Beach United Church will make promises to support and nurture these children as they grow in faith.
And lastly, we will reflect on Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20, a scripture that offers God's commandments to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. Being given these rules of living as a community brings a disparate group of wanderers into a sense of being one people of God.
So aside from these three things happening on the same Sunday, all three are reflections of God's grace. Long ago, God's spirit drew a motley crew of Hebrew peoples into a desert trek that cemented them as a people and gave them a rule for living as people of God. And God's spirit continues to be present to us through our two sacraments of communion. World wide communion cements our sense of belonging to God and to one another around the world. Baptism cements our sense of belonging to God as beloved children whether we are a newborn curious about our place in the world, or worldly-wise with age.
Let us celebrate God's love for us this Sunday and in every moment of our lives.
Shalom, Abigail
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Congregational Meeting Update: What’s Next?
Last Sunday following worship, our congregation met to look at four options to address our financial gap in our HOMe reconstruction budget. Jim Winn created a process that gave everyone an opportunity to hear about all four options, to voice pros and cons, to suggest remedies, and to vote on preferences. In addition, we were able to hear from each other and get a sense of varied opinions and approaches to considering these options. Attached is an outline of all the data collected.
On Tuesday, two days following our meeting, Council looked at this collected data and discussed how to move forward. Some of the comments that you will see on the attachment, received significant agreement while others were not as widely endorsed. In addition, a few comments are based more on perception than accuracy. So Council will need to take this into consideration during the implementation stage. As a result of our conversation at Council, we came up with the following actions:
1. Based on your responses to the two options: “Sell South Lot" and “Take on Mortgage,” Council will not consider selling the South Lot property or exploring a mortgage. In addition, Council will continue a process of looking into possible uses for our South Lot.
2. Based on your responses to the two options: “Use Manse & Memorial Funds” and “Use Wider Ministry Funds,” Council will be considering how to use a combination of these funds, as well as other smaller funds.
3. For our next Council meeting on October 24th, the Council Chairs Circle will meet over the next two weeks to draft a proposal that outlines how to use portions of all our funds perhaps as loan or gift.
A hearty thank you goes to all who planned and prepared our Congregational Meeting. Special thanks go to Amy Truscott for organizing our lunch, Jim Winn for preparing our conversational process, Wendy Johnston, Marney Winn, Karen Dale, and Abigail Johnson for facilitating the four option groups, and Jane Dickson and Lee Muirhead for their visioning, planning, and leadership. Most especially a huge thank you goes to everyone who attended the meeting and offered wise and thoughtful input.
Please Note: A chart outlining all the data collected from the congregational meeting can be found HERE and on the home page on our web site: www.beachunitedchurch.com
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