Wednesday, May 18, 2005
wed weekly May 18
wed weekly
Fairlawn-West United Church of Christ
2095 West Market Street, Akron, Ohio 44313
http://www.fairlawnwest.org
office@fairlawnwest.org
Sunday worship service May 22
We will using the format of the Fridays' Taize service. It is a much more meditative style of service. There will be the baptism of John and Julia Glass' grandson, Victor. The order will be different. The greeting will be at the end. You are encouraged to enter the sanctuary and begin to meditate in quiet.
Confirmation pictures
The pictures from last Sunday's confirmation experience for TJ Ghinder, Ian Mitchell and Ryan Critchfield are at http://www.fairlawnwest.org/confirm05.htm
Visit our web page
http://www.fairlawnwest.org
There are a variety of new things available through our web site.
Leaders retreats
Every other month, the leaders of Fairlawn-West will meet in retreat for worship, reflection and direction. This month they will meet on Saturday, May 28th at 10:30 a.m. in our courtyard. In July they will meet on Saturday the 9th at Shady Hollow pavilion in Sand Run Park starting at 9 a.m.
Will Play for Change concert Mon, June 13th
Visit the web site for this tour of which we are hosting one of the concerts http://willplayforchange.com/index.php
The money raised from these concerts will go to Mission of Mercy. We need some help in advertising and hosting. If you can help, contact dloar@fairlawnwest.org
Music Director posting
Adam Kukuk sadly submitted his resignation because he prefers moving with his wife Christina as she starts her new call as a minister in Minneapolis over staying with us. :-) Adam's last Sunday with us will be Sunday, July 10th. The posting for our Music Director position is at http://www.fairlawnwest.org/director.htm If you know of anyone who might be interested, direct them to this site, please.
New worship to start July 10th
Visit the web pages http://www.fairlawnwest.org/page2.html to learn more about this new service...6:00 p.m. in the sanctuary with cafe setting. "No Experience Necessary (or 'Turned off, burned out, and left out')". Andy Michaelic will be playing the keyboards for this service...Andy was the leader of our jazz trio for the ChristStream service. This service will not have a set liturgy. It will be focused around music requests of those who attend and the questions, affirmations and concerns of those who attend. It will be more of a conversation style, with music and prayer. We will be preparing fliers and advertising in the community for this service. If you can help with that, let dloar@fairlawnwest.org, know. If you know of folks who you think would be interested in being part of such an experience, please begin to let them know about it.
Other items
Celebrate Recovery, every Wednesday, 7:00 p.m. in the parlor
Bible study in the food court at Summit Mall, Thursday, 9:00 a.m. We are studying Ecclesiastes (see intro the book below).
Leader's Prayer for worship service and church, Sunday, Fellowship Hall lobby, 9:10 a.m.
Study of the Book of Acts, Sunday, David Loar's office, 10:45 a.m.
Cell groups are available for all. Contact dloar@fairlawnwest.org Right now we have room in Monday 7:00 p.m. and Tuesday 6:30 p.m. groups.
Ohio Conference Summer Camps
===================================================
Introduction to Ecclesiastes from The Message
Unlike animals, who seem quite content to simply be themselves, we humans are always looking for ways to be more than or other than what we find ourselves to be. We explore the countryside for excitement, search our souls for meaning, shop the world for pleasure. We try this. Then we try that. The usual fields of endeavor are money, sex, power, adventure, and knowledge.
Everything we try is so promising at first! But nothing ever seems to amount to very much. We intensify our efforts--but the harder we work at it, the less we get out of it. Some people give up early and settle for a humdrum life. Others never seem to learn, and so they flail away through a lifetime, becoming less and less human by the year, until by the time they die there is hardly enough humanity left to compose a corpse.
Ecclesiastes is a famous--maybe the world's most famous--witness to this experience of futility. The acerbic wit catches our attention. The stark honesty compels notice. And people do notice--oh, how they notice! Nonreligious and religious alike notice. Unbelievers and believers notice. More than a few of them are surprised to find this kind of thing in the Bible.
But it is most emphatically and necessarily in the bible in order to call a halt to our various and futile attempts to make something of our lives, so that we can give our full attention to God--who God is, and what he does to make something of us. Ecclesiastes actually doesn't say that much about God; the author leaves that to the other 65 books of the Bible. His task is to expose our total incapacity to find the meaning and completion of our lives on our own.
It is our propensity to go off on our own, trying to be human by our own devices and desires, that makes Ecclesiastes necessary reading. Ecclesiastes sweeps our souls clean of all "lifestyle" spiritualities so that we can be ready for God's visitation. Ecclesiastes is a John-the-Baptist kind of book. It functions not as a meal but as a bath. It is not nourishment; it is cleansing. It is repentance. It is purging. We read Ecclesiastes to get scrubbed clean from illusion and sentiment, from ideas that are idolatrous and feelings that cloy. It is an expose and rejection of every arrogant and ignorant expectation that we can live our lives by ourselves on our own terms.
Ecclesiastes challenges the naive optimism that sets a goal that appeals to us and then goes after it with gusto, expecting the result to be a good life. The author's cool skepticism, a refreshing negation to the lush and seductive suggestions swirling around us, promising everything but delivering nothing, clears the air. And once the air is cleared we are ready for reality--for God.
Fairlawn-West United Church of Christ
2095 West Market Street, Akron, Ohio 44313
http://www.fairlawnwest.org
office@fairlawnwest.org
Sunday worship service May 22
We will using the format of the Fridays' Taize service. It is a much more meditative style of service. There will be the baptism of John and Julia Glass' grandson, Victor. The order will be different. The greeting will be at the end. You are encouraged to enter the sanctuary and begin to meditate in quiet.
Confirmation pictures
The pictures from last Sunday's confirmation experience for TJ Ghinder, Ian Mitchell and Ryan Critchfield are at http://www.fairlawnwest.org/confirm05.htm
Visit our web page
http://www.fairlawnwest.org
There are a variety of new things available through our web site.
Leaders retreats
Every other month, the leaders of Fairlawn-West will meet in retreat for worship, reflection and direction. This month they will meet on Saturday, May 28th at 10:30 a.m. in our courtyard. In July they will meet on Saturday the 9th at Shady Hollow pavilion in Sand Run Park starting at 9 a.m.
Will Play for Change concert Mon, June 13th
Visit the web site for this tour of which we are hosting one of the concerts http://willplayforchange.com/index.php
The money raised from these concerts will go to Mission of Mercy. We need some help in advertising and hosting. If you can help, contact dloar@fairlawnwest.org
Music Director posting
Adam Kukuk sadly submitted his resignation because he prefers moving with his wife Christina as she starts her new call as a minister in Minneapolis over staying with us. :-) Adam's last Sunday with us will be Sunday, July 10th. The posting for our Music Director position is at http://www.fairlawnwest.org/director.htm If you know of anyone who might be interested, direct them to this site, please.
New worship to start July 10th
Visit the web pages http://www.fairlawnwest.org/page2.html to learn more about this new service...6:00 p.m. in the sanctuary with cafe setting. "No Experience Necessary (or 'Turned off, burned out, and left out')". Andy Michaelic will be playing the keyboards for this service...Andy was the leader of our jazz trio for the ChristStream service. This service will not have a set liturgy. It will be focused around music requests of those who attend and the questions, affirmations and concerns of those who attend. It will be more of a conversation style, with music and prayer. We will be preparing fliers and advertising in the community for this service. If you can help with that, let dloar@fairlawnwest.org, know. If you know of folks who you think would be interested in being part of such an experience, please begin to let them know about it.
Other items
Celebrate Recovery, every Wednesday, 7:00 p.m. in the parlor
Bible study in the food court at Summit Mall, Thursday, 9:00 a.m. We are studying Ecclesiastes (see intro the book below).
Leader's Prayer for worship service and church, Sunday, Fellowship Hall lobby, 9:10 a.m.
Study of the Book of Acts, Sunday, David Loar's office, 10:45 a.m.
Cell groups are available for all. Contact dloar@fairlawnwest.org Right now we have room in Monday 7:00 p.m. and Tuesday 6:30 p.m. groups.
Ohio Conference Summer Camps
===================================================
Introduction to Ecclesiastes from The Message
Unlike animals, who seem quite content to simply be themselves, we humans are always looking for ways to be more than or other than what we find ourselves to be. We explore the countryside for excitement, search our souls for meaning, shop the world for pleasure. We try this. Then we try that. The usual fields of endeavor are money, sex, power, adventure, and knowledge.
Everything we try is so promising at first! But nothing ever seems to amount to very much. We intensify our efforts--but the harder we work at it, the less we get out of it. Some people give up early and settle for a humdrum life. Others never seem to learn, and so they flail away through a lifetime, becoming less and less human by the year, until by the time they die there is hardly enough humanity left to compose a corpse.
Ecclesiastes is a famous--maybe the world's most famous--witness to this experience of futility. The acerbic wit catches our attention. The stark honesty compels notice. And people do notice--oh, how they notice! Nonreligious and religious alike notice. Unbelievers and believers notice. More than a few of them are surprised to find this kind of thing in the Bible.
But it is most emphatically and necessarily in the bible in order to call a halt to our various and futile attempts to make something of our lives, so that we can give our full attention to God--who God is, and what he does to make something of us. Ecclesiastes actually doesn't say that much about God; the author leaves that to the other 65 books of the Bible. His task is to expose our total incapacity to find the meaning and completion of our lives on our own.
It is our propensity to go off on our own, trying to be human by our own devices and desires, that makes Ecclesiastes necessary reading. Ecclesiastes sweeps our souls clean of all "lifestyle" spiritualities so that we can be ready for God's visitation. Ecclesiastes is a John-the-Baptist kind of book. It functions not as a meal but as a bath. It is not nourishment; it is cleansing. It is repentance. It is purging. We read Ecclesiastes to get scrubbed clean from illusion and sentiment, from ideas that are idolatrous and feelings that cloy. It is an expose and rejection of every arrogant and ignorant expectation that we can live our lives by ourselves on our own terms.
Ecclesiastes challenges the naive optimism that sets a goal that appeals to us and then goes after it with gusto, expecting the result to be a good life. The author's cool skepticism, a refreshing negation to the lush and seductive suggestions swirling around us, promising everything but delivering nothing, clears the air. And once the air is cleared we are ready for reality--for God.
