Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Preached by Winton Boyd on September 23rd, 2007
Text: Matthew 6 (see end of sermon)

As a young parent with growing children we faced one of life’s daily dilemmas, and the source of many great family squabbles. “Who has to sit in the middle of the back seat of the car between their two siblings.” For reasons that children throughout the ages have known, our children quickly surmised that sitting by the door was far more fun. Sitting in the front was even more fun, but somewhat dependent on if both mom and dad were in the car, or on the even more rare occasion, might be venturing to the back seat themselves. I always took comfort when I saw, and heard, other families squabbling in parking lots at the grocery store, at church, at school, leaving friends’ homes, and at the doctor’s office. Continue Reading »

Preached by Winton Boyd on September 16th, 2007
Text: Acts 5

One of our pleasures and sorrows as parents has been taking our oldest son to college. As Tammy and I took him up for his second year, it was fun to think back to his first year. Like many students, he did not know his roommate prior to arriving on campus as a freshman – a roommate he didn’t share much in common with. As we were driving up for year two, I couldn’t help but remember the line that late night comedian Conan O’Brien shared at a commencement speech a year ago - “Be warned, everyone (at college) has a weird roommate. If you don’t have a weird roommate, then you’re the weird roommate.”

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by co-chair Barb Hummel

You may be one of the 130+ of our members who looked at how we could develop our church over the next 15-20 years to move even more deeply into our vision statement of Spiritually Alive, Joyfully Inclusive, Committed to Justice. That discernment process resulted in the formation of a mission team to strengthen and deepen our faith through expanded programming for all ages.

The Next Generation Initiative (NGI) mission team is co-chaired by Helene Nelson and Barb Hummel and includes: Kythie Boyd, Winton Boyd, Gary DeClute, Paul Evans, Charlene Gallagher, Ellery Hamann, Paul Hedges, Racheal Lancor, Ruthanne Landsness, Ralph Petersen, and Sara Roberts — and we’ve been busy! We have had 6 meetings since July. Here are the highlights of some of our work to date:

• We recognize and honor the current strengths—both existing mission teams and activities—that we already have. In looking at our existing programs, we developed some criteria that helped us look at what else might be possible or desirable. The criteria included:

• How experiential are our programs? That is, how much do they allow us to go beyond talking about God to actually feeling God’s presence, and evoking the mystery of God and our faith?
• How participatory are they? How actively do our programs engage people?
• How well do our programs go beyond the realm of words and intellect to engage all our senses?
• How do our programs allow us to connect with other people at varied, but significant levels? Are there multiple age groups for leadership and participation? Are groups easy to enter, particularly for newcomers?
• How well do our programs connect faith to justice?
• Are our programs consistent and well organized?
• What is the commitment level required to participate in our programs?

• There was a consensus that we need to define the NGI in a way in which the goals and themes of spirituality, community and justice all are part of the strengthened programming to deepen our faith.

• We see our recommendations as a supplement to the important work that our ongoing mission teams have. In that vein, we are looking at the congregational ideas that are “bigger” (i.e., may take longer to accomplish than one year, or represent some new directions).

• We spent three meetings delving into what each phrase of our vision statement could mean or look like for us 15-20 years from now, beginning with a look at the next five years. A few consistent priorities or “levers” emerged:

1. Improving programming for children and youth.

2. Strengthening programming for families, as well as inter-generational/multi-generational activities

3. Community through activities linking music and spirituality

4. Community through a focused series of Faith in Action adventures & retreats with in-depth programming in smaller groups.

5. A series of experiments with meditative/other spiritual experiences

6. After many experiments with programming, to understand how space and design of our church may need to be changed

We are far from done with our task! We are in the process of creating a more specific report, but wanted to let you know we are trying to serve you diligently and faithfully. We welcome your comments and inquiries!

Preached by Winton Boyd on September 9, 2007
Several years ago, I was visiting a retired pastor who was dying in the hospital. He was a sweet, generous, and caring man. For a number of years, we both had shared the struggle of Alzheimer’s – he with his wife, and me with my mother. In fact, his wife had died only a few months earlier.

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On September 9th, Sunday School for children through 6th grade resumes at 9:00 a.m.  These reflections are from our Interim Pastor for Children and Youth and Families, the Rev. Tammy Martens.

A Wonderful Discovery: The Way of the Child

“In helping the child’s religious life, far from imposing something that is foreign to him, we are responding to the child’s silent request: ‘Help me to come closer to God by myself.’”
–Sofia Cavelletti, The Religious Potential of the Child

“It always amazes me to think that even the tiniest acorn holds everything in it needed to develop into the grandest oak tree. However, the acorn will never become all that it was created to become if it lands on some cold, concrete sidewalk where it is crushed under someone’s boot. It must be planted in the kind of soil which will provide the nutrients to its becoming.”
–Killian Noe, Finding Our Way Home

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