Social Justice – Community UCC Fresno

CUCC’s Party for Community — Coming of Age Celebration

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Lisa Bell

April 27, 2019

YOUR CHANCE — YOUR OPPORTUNITY — YOUR MOMENT

I bet you’ve realized what a diverse, interesting and talented group of people attend CUCC. But did you know how much fun they are?? Plan to attend the CUCC Party for Community on April 27 and you’re practically guaranteed to enjoy yourself and learn more about your church family.

We’ll be celebrating 21 years as an Open and Affirming church. Tickets will be available soon. Bring your family, your neighbors and your friends to the party for great food, great company and great opportunities.

Have even more fun when you purchase one of the many set priced future events or bid on special silent auction goodies.

TO HELP

We hope to raise over $10,000 for the operation of the church with part of the proceeds going to missions. This is a service project for all of us and there are many ways you can make it a success.

Buy Tickets for $25 and invite your friends.
Donate an EVENT that you will host sometime in the coming year. Decide what you want to do, how many guests you can host (we suggest 4-12), set a date (or offer to negotiate that with your guests), and tell Sue Hipp or Nancy Pressley what you are generously offering to do. We will set a per person price for your event. Think of providing a dinner or lunch in your home or your favorite restaurant, a guided tour to your special spot, a chance to share a Valley experience: Be creative.

Here are some ideas:

Tuscan Dinner Dessert Extravaganza
Kings Canyon Day Trip and Picnic Forestiere Underground Gardens
Tea Party Holiday Craft or Cookie Party
Halloween Party Madera Wine Country Tour
Brunch in the Garden River Rafting or Kayaking
Stargazing Mystery Dinner
Bike Tour and Picnic Papermaking Party
Hawaiian Luau ETC.

Another way you can help is to donate a Silent Auction item – these will be physical things, destination trips or events that would be better purchased by one rather than many. Perhaps a week in Santa Cruz or Hawaii, a lovely piece of jewelry, a special bottle of wine or a commissioned piece of art. We’ll set the minimum bid and bid increment for each item.

To donate or ask questions, please contact Sue Hipp (435-7153, sueandspencehipp@gmail.com)

Coming of Age Celebration: CUCC’s Annual Party for Community

Posted on February 27, 2019March 13, 2019 by Lisa Bell

Coming April 27!! Our biggest fundraiser of the year!!!!! It’s been 21 years since CUCC voted to become an Open and Affirming church – this is cause for celebration and a reason to bring back our Party for Community!!

There will be a festive atmosphere with dinner, entertainment, and the chance to bid on silent auction items and to sign up for parties, events and services scheduled for later in the year.

Tickets for the party will be priced at just $25/person with wine and beer available for purchase. A percentage of the profit will be used for local and global missions.

Start thinking now of an event you could offer or help sponsor – how about a dinner party, tea, wine-tasting, winery tour, riverside picnic, evening at the opera or Philharmonic, brunch, spa experience, class or outdoor activity?

Be creative. We want to provide a year full of congregating possibilities, chances to have fun and get to know each other. Each event offered will have a limited number of participants at a set price per person. You’ll be able to buy an individual spot at an event or you can purchase all the reservations and invite your friends!!

Offering an event at the April 27 fundraiser is a wonderful way to share your talents and treasure with your church family.

We also need silent auction items. We’re looking for high-value items worth over $50 or items that can be combined to create a unique offering.

Do you have something special that needs a new home? Do you have contacts in the community you can ask for gift certificates and donations?

A donation letter to give community vendors is available in the Narthax and the church office. Silent Auction donations can be dropped off at the church office. Any donation not used for the party will be offered at an upcoming raffle.

If you have questions or want to commit to offering an event ☺ talk to Sue Hipp (sueandspencehipp@gmail.com or 435-7153) or Nancy Pressley (npressley1944@gmail.com or 312-8621).

Put April 27 on your calendar and plan to come and Party for Community with your CUCC friends. We promise you an evening of fun and the chance to participate in A Year of Congregating Opportunities.

Sue Hipp and Nancy Pressley – Event and Silent Auction Coordinators

A New Hope

Posted on January 9, 2019January 9, 2019 by Lisa Bell

We having been praying for our neighbor, Hope Lutheran Church, for the past few months, as they studied, prepared and voted on taking the faithful step of becoming in word and deed a Reconciling in Christ [their version of Open and Affirming] congregation within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA).

The congregation voted overwhelmingly in favor of Reconciling in Christ (72% for). Now the work begins for them. There was the expected loss of some congregants. There is the challenge of maintaining the ministry and mission of the church that remains unchanged: reflecting the love of God now even more fully and faithfully.

Hope Lutheran is a strong and faithful congregation. They have an excellent hunger ministry. We take our contributions of food for our narthex to their pantry for distribution to those in need.

We had the great opportunity and privilege of contributing testimony of our experience at an informational session at Hope a couple of months ago. We hope to be an encouragement to our sibling congregation through prayer and anything else they need during this moment of transition. Please pray for them ceaselessly.

Note: We of Community United Church of Christ will be celebrating our 21st anniversary of our faithful response to God’s call to be Open and Affirming at our COMING OF AGE banquet on Friday, April 26, 2019 beginning at 6 p.m. in Hayden Hall.

Peace,

Pastor Ara

Four weeks of Advent projects

Posted on November 21, 2018 by Lisa Bell

Each year the Missions and Social Justice Team plans Advent projects for the four Sundays in Advent, beginning this year on Sunday, Dec. 2. The committee picks four organizations that will benefit, and the congregation can bring requested items for each week’s project.

Here are this year’s recipients:

Dec. 2 — Cash Donations or gift cards for teens in foster care through Uplift Family Services. Many younger children in foster care receive gifts from things similar to the snowflake tree, but there is usually an age limit and the teens get left out. For this Advent project, bring $10 gift card to anywhere a teen may want to shop — Jamba Juice, McDonald’s, Target, Walmart, Claire’s, stuff like that.
Dec. 9 — Snowflake tree to buy gifts for underprivileged elementary-aged children at Robinson Elementary, our neighborhood school. Students have been identified by their teachers. The tree will be up for people to pick a child’s name on Dec. 2, return gifts by the Dec. 9.
Dec. 16 — Collecting small gifts for senior residents of Twilight Haven retirement facility, like mittens, socks and scarves to help residents stay warm.
Dec. 23 — Cash donations to buy bus passes for residents of Dakota EcoGarden, a transitional homeless shelter with an environmentally-friendly approach.

For more information, contact Felicia Rocha at flearocha82@gmail.com.

Our neighbors have started down a path we took 20 years ago

Posted on October 31, 2018November 14, 2018 by Lisa Bell

Last week, four members of our congregation — Sharon Powers Smith, Robin Carlson, Lisa Boyles and Pastor Ara Guekguezian — visited our neighbor, Hope Lutheran Church, on Wednesday, Oct. 24.

Their congregation is going through the process to consider becoming Reconciling in Christ (RIC), the Lutheran Church’s equivalent to our denomination’s Open and Affirming process (a public covenant welcoming into their full life and ministry to persons of all sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions). We were invited to share our experience about making that change in our church’s fabric in 1998.

We spoke to one of Hope Lutheran’s adult education classes. About 15 people heard our stories and recollections from that period. They asked us questions — many of the same questions we had when we went through the process.

“Listening to their concerns and fears reminded me of us 20 years ago,” Robin said. “I think it was helpful for their church to hear that we had those same fears and concerns and that we listened to our Still Speaking God and chose to walk in the ways of justice and love. We chose to become an open and welcoming church and we are still here, still doing church 20 years later.”

Sharon described the steps we took on our own journey, led by our co-pastors at the time, the Reverends Gail McDougle and David Brown.

First, we did a book study of “What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality” by Daniel A. Helminiak. Then Gail and David led four congregational meetings after worship on Sundays. The first two were biblically based, reviewing some of what we covered in the book study.

The third week was a powerful discussion with two children of our church — a young man and woman who told us what it was like to grow up coming to terms as a gay man and lesbian woman.

One question that comes up during this process is, “Why do we have to go through this? We are open and welcoming. Why do we have to take this official step?” But hearing from children who grew up among us disputed that, telling us that our informal acceptance didn’t feel very accepting at all.

The final week of those sessions was decision time. After going through the process — all of which took more than a year — we had to decide where to go from there.

The thing about going through all this turmoil is that you are going to lose some people either way. Some will leave if you go through with it, but if you don’t, after all that, some will decide that they can’t abide with staying if we can’t grow.

“We acknowledged the cost of faithful following as well as the cost in merely entering into the discussion,” Pastor Ara said. “The aim is not to make everyone happy, but to faithfully fulfill God’s will for God’s people.”

Some of the discussion at Hope Lutheran centered on what a different place we, as a nation, are in now compared to where we were 20 years ago. But that societal progress is not set in stone.

Lisa brought up President Trump’s recent move to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people. Our country may be a different place than it was in 1998, but in today’s political climate, the presidential administration is taking us backward every day. It’s more important than ever to take a stand for what’s right.

The Hope Lutheran members we spoke to seemed very appreciative of our viewpoints as they weigh this step for their congregation.

“Hearing from one another from different places on the journey of faith was a great blessing to me,” Pastor Ara said. “As the four folks from Community shared our story and engaged in dialogue as questions were asked and answered, it was clear that the Holy Spirit continues to move in a powerful way among bodies and hearts that are open.”

Hope Lutheran’s congregation will take this issue to a congregational vote on Wednesday, Dec. 5. Let us hold them in our prayers as they thoughtfully consider this step.

~ By Lisa Maria Boyles, communications/marketing liaison for Community UCC

A letter to the UCC Family of Faith: We can’t let evil prevail

Posted on October 29, 2018 by Lisa Bell

This call to action comes from the Conference Minister of the Penn Northeast Conference UCC, with the affirmation of the denomination’s National Officers and the Rev. David Ackerman, Conference Minister of the Penn West Conference UCC:

The news over the past weeks has revealed an undercurrent of hate within our culture and our country. Between the assumption that immigrants walking nearly 2,000 miles seeking asylum are seen as a threat to our security; the pipe bombs mailed to those who oppose our current political administration; the massacre of 11 Jewish citizens during services at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; and the shooting of an African American man and woman in a grocery store after a failed attempt to enter a church of Black worshippers, it is hard to find cause for hope in our nation.

The rhetoric of hate and divisiveness calls for a response from the faith community. While we should not advocate for candidates or political parties, we must advocate for justice, humanitarian treatment of our neighbors, and for safety in our places of worship. We are a diverse nation and until recently that diversity has been seen as a strength. We, in the Church, must stand as moral authorities proclaiming peace and hope, compassion and justice.

Wherever and whenever you have the opportunity to provide wisdom and comfort, inspiration and compassion, I urge you to do so. To be silent is to let evil prevail and we, as people of faith, cannot do that, any more than Jesus could do it in his time and culture. Find a way to bring peace and hope to your faith communities, your communities, our state and our nations.

Today we are asking our members to write prayer notes or notes of compassion to our siblings at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Mail them from your local church to them at 5898 Wilkins Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15217.

Participate in a vigil or a peaceful worship process in any one of your communities and if there isn’t one, please plan one.

If you are able, this would be a wonderful way to demonstrate solidarity with our Jewish siblings.

By all means, pray but above all do not fail to speak out or to act. As Martin Niemöller wrote:

“First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”[1]

We are called to be people of prayer, but we are also called to remember that “The Spirit of the LORD is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free (Luke 4:18). May we each and all do our part to make our communities, state and nation places of hope and peace.

Faithfully,

The Rev. Bonnie Bates, Conference Minister

Penn. Northeast Conference United Church of Christ

Vote Common Good’s final stop before election will be at Community UCC

Posted on October 16, 2018October 17, 2018 by Lisa Bell

The Vote Common Good national tour is coming to town. It’s final rally stop before the critical midterm election will be at Community United Church of Christ in Fresno.

What: Vote Common Good Rally
When: 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2
Where: Community United Church of Christ, 5550 N. Fresno St., Fresno, CA 93710

Volunteers are needed! Contact Felicia Rocha (flearocha82@gmail.com) if you can help with this event.

Vote Common Good is a group of religious leaders, authors, speakers, and musicians who are part of a bus tour traveling across the U.S. Vote Common Good hopes to share the good news of God, which should be good news for all people, and to shift the national conversation from fear to faith.

Christian speakers, musicians and thought leaders are inviting fellow believers to flip Congress for the Common Good in 2018. Nationally renowned speakers will lead a lively event giving reasons why evangelicals should switch their votes this year.

Come out to hear John Pavlovitz, Frank Schaeffer, Doug Pagitt, Christy Berghoef and other speakers accompanied by awesome music from the Rev. Vince Anderson.

Behind the fun, Vote Common Good sends a message: In the 2018 election a follower of Jesus can’t help but know that Congress must change. The Trump administration’s practices go against the biblical Jesus.

Doug Pagitt explains: “The way they treat children; the way they treat refugees and immigrants; the way they treat the disadvantaged; the way they treat our overall sense of kindness and goodness; their seeming total commitment to cruelty, crassness, and corruption” stand in contradiction to Jesus’s teachings.

It is an opportunity to come together and try to live out the teachings of Jesus, not just in our everyday lives, but in the voting booth as well.

For more information: https://www.votecommongood.com/events/fresno-california/