Author: lakewooducc

Don’t miss this special screening of the film, “This is Home.” It will be shown on Saturday, March 2nd at 5:00pm at Allendale United Methodist Church (3803 Haines Rd N). Come to see this critically acclaimed documentary about 4 Syrian families, relocated to Baltimore, and their struggles to rebuild their lives in the United States.

The 90 minute film will be followed by a presentation given by Tampa Bay Refugee Task force member Ghadir Kassab, who is a former asylee from Syria and now the director of our community partner, Radiant Hands.

Our very own Lakewood United Church of Christ is now an official Creation Justice Church under the Minister for Environmental Justice Office of the UCC!  Congratulations to all of us for the time and effort required to reach this milestone.  After a two-year six-step process, approval of our Creation Justice covenant statement on November 11, 2018, and submission of a detailed form requesting Creation Justice church status on January 18, 2019,  we  received word of our new status from the Rev. Brooks Berndt, Minister for Environmental Justice for UCC on February 12, 2019.

We will soon receive a banner with the logo seen above and are asked to take a group photo with it to publish in the UCC online newsletter, the Pollinator.  Stay tuned for more details, including deciding on a prominent place in our church to display our new banner!

The UCC’s Creation Justice Church program works to help local churches better care for our interconnected world, all living creatures, and every economically or racially marginalized community that suffers from environmental harm (http://www.ucc.org/pollinator, , 2/1/2019).  So as we discern our higher calling to care for creation and seek justice for the oppressed, our work has really just begun.  Let us we move forward together to fulfill our covenant and make a positive difference in our church, community, and world.

Thanks to everyone and the congregation as a whole for supporting this achievement!

Please thank the Florida legislators who are sponsoring 2019 legislation to end the use of the Death Penalty: Sen. Gary Farmer, Jr for sponsoring SB 472 – Death Penalty and Rep. Joe Geller and Rep. Dotie Joseph for sponsoring HB 6013 – Death Penalty. These bills would end the use of the death penalty in Florida. Please show your appreciation. It means a lot. Here is their contact information:

Senate Bill #472 – Death Penalty
Sen. Gary Farmer, Jr.
(850) 487-5034
farmer.gary@flsenate.gov

House Bill #6013 – Death Penalty
Rep. Joseph Geller
(850) 717-5100
joseph.geller@myfloridahouse.gov

Rep. Dotie Joseph
(850) 717-5108
dotie.joseph@myfloridahouse.gov 

The City of St. Petersburg declared Feb. 15 Ray Charles Day.  Lakewood UCC took the opportunity at the service on Sunday Feb. 17 to celebrate the music and legacy of Ray Charles. This was the contemporary reading that Sunday.

Looking back over what I’ve heard and seen, I can’t say I’ve witnessed much progress in the world. If you tie up my hands and then release one finger, I don’t call that progress. And that’s the only sort of advances I’ve seen man make in the past forty or fifty years.

Actually, I don’t think man’s made much progress-other than scientific progress-since Biblical days. The Bible’s my main book, the only thing I’ve read twice. And when I tell you I’ve been over it twice, I mean slowly and carefully-from the first word in Genesis to the last word in Revelations.

I don’t believe everything in there-far from it. I don’t analyze or interpret the Bible. I never think, “Well, it says this, but it means that.” I just nod my head yes or shake my head no.

But I think the Bible’s basic. It describes men and women the way they are. It shows people acting according to their true nature. It tells the truth ’bout the way we behave. And it proves to me that we haven’t changed much.

Bring me today’s L.A. Times, give me a few minutes, and for every, major news story I’ll find a comparable tale in the Bible. I rest my case.

The Bible say, “Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars.” And that’s the truth.

We’ve learned very little, and if we’ve learned at all, we’ve learned very slowly.

If someone has something we want, we just go ahead and grab it.

If someone does something we don’t dig, we just go ahead and stop it. That’s if we’re stronger. We pry and push, dictate and declare our superiority. And it don’t matter none if it’s a person or a country I believe in leaving people and countries alone. Impositions and interferences, zealots and evangelists, cats coming down on you for this, chicks trying to convert you to that-man, it’s all wasted energy as as I can see.

Let people be who they are.