A message from Pastor Sharon for the beginning of Advent.

A Message from Pastor Sharon

7:00 pm, Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship, 1207 Ellsworth Street, Bellingham

A community celebration of gratitude with a variety of voices

Words and songs of thanks of many faiths in several languages

Favorite traditional American Thanksgiving hymns

The Interfaith Holiday Joy program providing Christmas gifts for children/youth is transitioning from a gift delivery event to a holiday gift store where parents can come and shop for their children. The gift store will be at FCCB on December 9/10. You can help in two ways – Choose a gift to shop for from the Advent Tree starting November 20th or contact Kate Eifrig or Mona Slagle to become a Christmas Elf for the actual event. 

First Congregational Church is starting a tradition of sharing the ingredients for a November feast with the Ground Floor and Family Promise families. This is an opportunity for our congregation to reach out and ensure that those who lack food security can enjoy the same table we do for the holidays.

Come for our Gratitude Sunday Celebration of pledges and possibilities then stay after worship for a potluck! This will be both on Zoom and in person—we’ll be able to interact with one another both ways. Bring soup or goodies to share and your 2023 pledge (or mail it or fill it out online or on Breeze) and celebrate with us all the possibilities of our ministries together. Thanks be to God!

In the book of Esther, Mordechai persuades Esther to take a moral stand that required great courage and considerable risk. He said to her, “For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14 NRSVUE)

We are planning an in-person Men's Retreat this year. We'll meet at Pilgrim Firs the weekend of February 3-5. The topic is “Gratitude and Practices to Enhance Gratefulness”. In the spirit of a back-to-normal retreat, there will be music, singing, a wisdom circle and an optional silent retreat Thursday evening (February 2) to begin the weekend.