April 11, 2021

Easter Sunday, 10:00 am

Link to Order of Service

(Please note that the links to our services are updated on Thursdays)

Sunday Worship Gathering by Zoom (Computer & Phone)

Time: 10:00 AM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

To Join Zoom Meeting using your Telephone: 

Dial 312-626-6799 

If that number is busy, you can try one of these other access numbers:

301-715-8592; 253-215-8782; 646-558-8656

Meeting ID: 966 390 616

Join Zoom Meeting By Computer:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/966390616?pwd=eXBlRC9Kc0V6S3BxM3NBQzlDaHRTdz09 

Meeting ID: 966 390 616; Password: 773088

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Sunday Worship on Facebook Live

You DO NOT need a facebook account to watch our worship on Facebook Live

Click on this link: https://www.facebook.com/LovelandUCC 

Sunday Sermon on Facebook Live

You DO NOT need a facebook account to watch our worship on Facebook Live

Click on this link: https://www.facebook.com/thandiwe.daleferguson

Vessels

Lent 2021

Lent is traditionally a season of fasting, of almsgiving (giving money to the poor), and prayer. It is a time when Christians have sought to empty themselves of those behaviors, foods, or habits that separate us from God and from who God is calling us to be. Lent can also be a time of filling. Instead of giving something up, we may add a practice of attention or intention through which we seek to see, hear and experience God’s presence more clearly or to better align our will and actions with God’s. 

But what is it that we empty? What is it that we seek to fill? 

Our bodies? Our minds and spirits? Our time? Our lives? 

This Lenten season, instead of focusing on emptying or filling, on giving up or adding on, we invite you to reflect on that which is emptied, that which is filled -- the vessel that is you. How do we open ourselves for either emptying or filling? How do we allow ourselves and our lives to be molded and shaped by our Creator? What kinds of spaces or vessels lend themselves to receiving, holding or pouring out hope, faith, peace, love? What happens when a vessel gets cracked? Leonard Cohen suggests that this can be a gift -- for the crack is, after all, where the light gets in.

We will reflect on vessels around us: literal and metaphorical containers such as pottery, buildings, sanctuaries, chrysalises, tombs, a home, family, community. What vessels hold us? Who or what shapes those vessels? What vessels promote growth or enable transformation? And we will reflect on what it can mean for us to be vessels? How do we become and co-create vessels through which the Holy Spirit can work and flow?