CUCC Weekly eNews

Notes on Encountering the Wisdom Jesus--June 24 Session Three: The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You What did Jesus actually teach? How often do you consider the teachings as a whole? Over familiarity with Jesus in our culture may get in the way of appreciating Jesus’ teaching. One Texas theologian remembers Sunday School teaching: Jesus is nice and he wants us to be nice too. Bourgeault recommends the book: Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality , Jim Marion (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads, 2000). Title is direct quote from St. Paul. The tendency to relate to Jesus through belief is characteristic of Western Christianity. But it was not necessarily the emphasis of the early church. Moreover, relating to Jesus through beliefs is not necessarily the only way for us today. The central challenge that Jesus offered was finding a new way of seeing the world and in “right practice.” How do we put on the mind of Christ...

Over the next two weeks (by July 15!), please call, email or send to Jane sketches of your ideas for painting the Youth Room. Here is what you have to decide. 1) Bathroom color 2) Main room color & trim 3) Decorations for the half wall 4) Small room color Favored colors so far - red, lime green, light blue, a color from the half wall (NOT TOO MUCH WHITE) Debate: Do you keep the crosses and add to them OR does each youth group decorate the half wall in a new way? June 24 workday The ceiling is almost done and we made a good start on drywalling the new doorway.

Mary Pruneau has turned up a bundle of old newspaper clippings that paint a dramatic picture of an era that is growing faint in the memories of even our most senior members. I'm just starting to work through this, but in particular I want to share some photos from a full page spread in the Raleigh Times (afternoon companion paper for N&O) from February 17, 1951. The text on the page states that the Institute of Religion is in its "twelfth year", which would put the startup as having been in 1939. Take a look at our past ... communityucc.org/archive/institute/

Notes on Encountering the Wisdom Jesus Audio Course by Cynthia Bourgeault Session One: Jesus as a recognition event (June 10) Our task is meeting Jesus through insight , not hindsight. This series presents a new take on Jesus, as Wisdom master. What do we believe about Jesus? In Western Christianity, we tend to focus on who he was, what he did. For example, from the Nicene Creed: We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the...

The CUCC website will soon have a feature and photo gallery on the Celebration at Lake Wheeler today. In the meantime let's make do with the proverbial "a good time was had by all" and a small sample of pictures of CUCC folks from later in the afternoon. More to come. http://picasaweb.google.com/CUCC.Photos/LakeWheelerCelebration

(posted for Marcy Halsted) We are fine and have seen lots of sights (churches galore, catacombs, ancient Roman ruins) but a real big event was that we were in the right place at the right time and saw the Pope, about 20 feet away from us in a processional. Also saw cardinals, religious orders, nuns, etc in the processional and then heard him deliver a prayer to the crowd. This was at a basilica in the neighborhood where we have been staying, not at St. Peters where we spent today. Sistine Chapel is amazing! We are on to Umbria tomorrow and looking forward to a more relaxed atmosphere. Rome is a bundle of energy! Our Love to All, Marcy

Gary Smith and I decided to begin a special blog dedicated to the CUCC Global Climate initiative which was approved by the Congregational Meeting on May 20. The Climate Initiative also will include a special feature of the CUCC web site .

I have recently gotten a DSL account with new email address, 7sawsam@bellsouth.net . I still have the old dial up and old email address but please use my new email address for correspondence to me. Sam