Thur Apr 27 2023
- Christ is risen!
- Christ is risen indeed!
- Our Called to be the Church stewardship campaign wraps up this Sunday April 30. The team has tried to reach everyone who regularly contributes their time, talent and money to New Vision. This Sunday please remember to bring your completed response card to place on the offering plate. And remember, a completed response card is itself a positive response – a thank you to those who have given us leadership in this first campaign we have ever done as New Vision United Church. Every response to God’s love at New Vision is something for which I am thankful.
- If you are not able to attend our worship gathering in person this Sunday, or you are attending on line, you can mail your response card to New Vision United Church, 24 Main St. W., Hamilton ON L8P 1H2 to the attention of Erick Feltham, Treasurer.
- As well, if you are reading this edition of New Vision Notes, and you are not among New Vision’s identified givers (whom the team hopes to have connected with directly either Sunday morning or by mail), please accept the team’s invitation to make a special one-time donation to the campaign using our Canada Helps account.
- Another exciting date arriving at the end of this week: the congregational in-person consultation on adjustments to make to our mission and ministry Saturday April 29 in the morning concluding with a provided lunch and donation basket for the meal. We will meet in the Southwest Lounge with doors opening at 9 am and the event commencing at 9:30 am through lunch at 12:30 pm.
- Here are our goals this Saturday: a) To remember the story of New Vision United Church and, in that remembering, to both grieve what has not come to fruit and to celebrate what has, and b) To imagine what our story could become and, in that imagining, to generate real, actionable options, for the life of New Vision United Church in the coming year. (This gathering will collect these possibilities for the further work and decisions of the New Vision United Church Council, who will invite the entire community of faith into shared action.) Our facilitator will be The Very Reverend Richard Bott.
- Several exciting activities in the weeks ahead…
- On Sunday May 7 we celebrate the first anniversary of the Al Zahra family’s arrival in Canada! This will be a joint interfaith service with our partners in the project, Rockville United Church of Rockville Maryland. We’ll both be in-person connected to each other by zoom and with everyone who joins our zoom gathering. A time of hospitality will follow the worship gathering.
- May is Asian Heritage Month. We’ll mark it every Sunday, and with leadership from within our Asian circle of members and participants, we’ll have at least one Sunday gathering focussed on the themes of the Month. This year’s pan-Canadian theme, “Continuing a Legacy of Greatness,” emphasizes the rich, diverse, and historic pathways that have laid the foundation for Asian communities in Canada to thrive.
- We will celebrate Pride month with the rest of the United Church on the first Sunday of June. We are pleased to have Ward 2 Councillor Cameron Kroetsch join us and speak to us that day. Councillor Kroetsch accepted our invitation to speak on some Sunday during our anniversary month of June. Sunday June 4 was most convenient for him.
- We continue our current in-person gathering approach: i) we will form the circle again in the lower hall, distancing the seats by a metre for the time being. ii) people may join the circle if they are willing to wear a mask.
- The reason for the masks is that we will allow ourselves to sing, and masking reduces the distance air we expel travels with the increased effort singing.
- New Vision Virtual Worship is experiential, participatory, image-rich and collective, just like worship in person at New Vision! Join us on Sunday mornings 10:30 am week to week during the Covid-19 emergency by clicking here. If you want to put the link someplace easy to find each week, here it is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/782292511. Please share it with others and invite them to a “different” kind of time on Zoom from the usual.
- You can also call in to the gathering on the telephone. Call 1 647 374 4685, then, when prompted, input the Meeting ID 782 292 511 followed by the # sign. Ignore the prompts for Participant ID and Password. You are in when the recorded voice says, “You are in the meeting.” If you can only connect by video on your computer with no audio, you can use the phone connection for audio and the computer connection for visual.
- Christ has risen indeed!
I look forward to seeing you Sunday again, or for the first time –
Rev Ian