Our worship service begins with the Prelude.

Please use this time for quiet reflection as you prepare for worship.

* All who are able may stand + Seating of Latecomers

Leader: A great teacher once said, “When Jesus Christ calls us, he bids us come and die.” We are the people who have responded to this call.

PEOPLE: Through Christ, we want to die to the fears that keep us from loving.

Leader: Through Christ, we want to die to the stubbornness that keeps us from sharing our gifts.

PEOPLE: Through Christ, we want to die to seeking our own success and salvation in disregard for the good of all God’s children.

Leader: This is God’s promise: if we die with Christ, we will also rise with Christ. God be praised for this glorious promise of new life! Let us pray:

Gracious God, you have given us the law of Moses and the teachings of Jesus to direct us in the way of life. You offer us your Holy Spirit so that we can be born to new life as your faithful children. And yet, how often we succumb to the ways of the world; how often we are reluctant to give up the life we know. Warm our hearts with your love. Transform our hearts, that we might move from selfishness and self-centeredness to a new openness and compassion as we work with you to make this world more nearly what you would have it be. Amen.

Welcome to our Friends and Visitors this morning. Please join us for our Time of Refreshment in the church courtyard, immediately following worship. The Community Church of Sebastopol is an Open and Affirming Congregation. What this means, in the words of our Open and Affirming Statement, is..."We welcome and affirm people of every religious background, family composition, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, ethnicity, age and gender. We encourage all people to participate fully in every aspect of our church's life and ministry..." Again, WELCOME

Apple Pie Scholarships to help get to Summer Camp are available now - find out more here.

Women’s Bible Study will meet this Wednesday from 10-11 AM in the Fireside Room and begin a study on Luke. Please call Muriel Weaver with questions.

Learn About Faith-Based Community Organizing Today, following worship, community organizer, Michael Saxe-Taller and folks from our UCC congregation in Petaluma will be in the Fireside Room to share reflections, provide an update and answer questions concerning the latest organizing efforts in Sonoma County. Some of you will recall that this congregation was a founding member of the Sonoma County Faith-Based Community Organizing Project many years ago. Rev. Nelson was the first president of that organization. A new organizing effort has begun in our county and already includes a number of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish congregations. Please plan to stay for a while after worship today to learn more about this exciting outreach possibility. Refreshments will be served by our committee for Mission & Outreach.

Mission & Outreach will be creating School Bags for Church World Services and there are lots of ways you can help! Kid-friendly fabric can be donated (each bag requires ½ yard) for the project; volunteer seamstresses are needed to put the bags together (pattern and directions available) and to fill the bags, school supplies are needed!

If you would like to sew bags together, the pattern can be picked up in the church office. Your donation of school supplies can also be left in the office, in the special collection box. So that all the bags distributed contain the same supplies, here is the list Church World Services requests:

totaling 200-210 pages (no loose-leaf or filler paper) One box of 24 crayons (only 24)

This documentary tells a little-known story of young white Christian teenagers who put their bodies on the line to protect Sebastopol’s Japanese Buddhist temple, Enmanji, from hate-related arson and vandalism during WWII. LEAP OF FAITH: HOW ENMANJU TEMPLE WAS SAVED has been shown on KRCB and now you can own your own copy of the documentary that tells an important local story about our town and our own church members.

Copies are available in the church office for $15 each with a portion of each purchase going towards Mission & Outreach

As a fundraiser for our international out reach, Woman’s Fellowship is holding a free root beer float event on Sunday, August 22, 2010 after church. Donations will be accepted and the money raised will help defray the cost of purchasing “Baby Onesies” and fabric. Blankets/slings will be sewn by volunteers and will be hand carried to Africa in November by our own Kathie Mayhew. These items will be given to African woman who have just given birth so they will have something new, clean and soft and to carry home their precious gift of life. Our goal is to send at least 100 of these packages with Kathie to Africa. Please help us reach our goal – enjoy a root beer float and donate to the cause. Thank you from Women’s Fellowship for your continued support.

Check out the nifty sign up sheet in the narthex and add your name to list. Find the Sunday (or Sundays!) you plan to be here, find the position you would like to fill and then write in your name and phone number. What could be easier! Ushers, greeters and lay readers are needed throughout the summer so find a date that works for you and sign up to serve this summer!

Join Women’s Fellowship with Christmas in July and help collect gifts for our local convalescent hospitals. For the month of July the Christmas Collection Box will be in the church lobby for you to add an unwrapped present. Ideas for gifts are: lap robes, sweaters, shawls, socks, slippers, perfume or after shave, nice soaps and lotions, body powder, candies, cookies, stationery and stamps or anything that would make the residents days a little brighter. No need to hunt for your Christmas wrapping paper, just drop off your unwrapped gift and Women’s Fellowship will do the rest. Cash donations are also accepted and the ladies will do the shopping for you! For further information please contact Barbara Wilson, Chairperson.

Just an Hour or Two –Let’s meet over weeds! An hour a week with six people and it could be like a party – and you are invited! If you have just an hour or so to spare, Barbara Whitson would like your help keeping the weeds in check here at the church. Call the church office at 823-2484 for more info or send an email to: office@uccseb.org.

Just for fun, how about going to a baseball game? We have secured 45 tickets and a bus to take us to AT&T Park to enjoy a baseball game on Saturday, August 28 – the San Francisco Giants vs. the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The game starts at 6:05 PM and we want to be there a bit early to have a potluck tailgate party and take in some batting practice – bring your mitt and you just might catch ball. We will probably leave Sebastopol around 2:30 PM.

The cost is $50 per person and includes transportation from the Community Church, drinks and snacks for the ride, bridge and parking fees and a seat in the view box section overlooking the third base line. Sign up by in the church office or call the church office at 823-2484 or send an email to office@uccseb.org.

Baked Goods for Sunday Coffee Hour We need to stock up with goodies to share during our Coffee Hour! If you have cookies, cake or a some kind of treat we can serve after church, please bring it by the church wrapped for the freezer and we can save it for next Sunday. Thanks!

Grief Support Group The Grief Support Group meets on Thursdays at 7 PM in the Fireside Room. Call Harry or Susanna at 829-7769 if you have any questions.

Apple Pie Scholarships! Now is the time to register for Summer Camp and claim your Apple Pie scholarship. You can earn up to $150 towards camp just by signing up to work our big Apple Pies Event August 13-15 when we prepare hundreds of Gravenstein apple pies for the Gravenstein Apple Fair. There is a job for everyone in the family at our Apple Pies event, no matter what your age or abilities. Call Karin in the church office for more information at 823-2484 or send an email to office@uccseb.org.

Family Camp for the Community Church is scheduled for September 3-5 at Camp Cazadero. Mark your calendar now and send in your registration. Registration forms are also available in the church office.

Did you know we have available for your use, a listening device to help enhance the sounds and voices speaking in church? Just ask an usher for a listening device and they will show you how it works. You can sit in any of the pews and the listening device will improve the sound quality for persons who may be hard of hearing. Give it a try!

Community Church Book Group will meet September 14. If you want to get started reading, the book will be Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. This book will be available after August 1 at the Sebastopol Library. All readers are invited to join the Reading Group in the Fireside Room this fall starting September 14. The group will also meet October 5 (Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijue Daiand) and November 9 (The Good Earth by Pearl Buck). Please contact Rosemary Manchester: R_manchester@comcast.net with any questions.

Recycle Empty Ink Jet Printer Cartridges Your empty cartridges will help Mission & Outreach provide funds for the Habitat for Humanity build projects here in Sonoma County. You may also pick up pre- paid mailers to send your ink cartridges directly to the recycler and the Community Church still gets credit. You will find the mailers in the church office – please help yourself! Please note: we are not able to take any laser print cartridges at this time.

Levee Town, by Nancy Cavers Dougherty is a collection on original work based on her experiences with two mission trips to help with Hurricane Katrina recovery work. The books are available in the church office for $10 and all proceeds go towards future mission trips.

Ukesters Ukulele Group....join the fun! All adults who play ukulele or want to learn to play the ukulele are welcome. Ukulele group is held twice weekly, Thursday evenings at 7PM and Friday mornings at 10 AM. Pick a time/day that works best for you and join us at the home of Vicki Reno. Call Vicki or email at vreno[at sign here]comcast.net for more information.

Recycle Ink Jet Cartridges in the church office – please put the used cartridges in a plastic baggie and leave them in the green recycle box just inside the office door and Mission & Outreach will take care of the rest. Money earned will help with our local Habitat of Humanity build projects.

MDF the Minister’s Discretionary Fund, has been in great demand and funds are very low. The money is used to help our community with emergency needs, such as helping to prevent a PG&E shut off, provide bus passes to services in Santa Roa and other family emergencies. If you can help, please make a check payable to the Community Church and note “MDF” in the memo line.

Need Help? If you are finding yourself overwhelmed by financial crisis, job loss or other large issues in your life, remember that your pastors are here to help. Gene can be reached at 823-2484 ext 12 and Kristen is at ext. 14.

Director of Music, Brian Plaugher has requested that you take a few moments and jot down the titles of your favorite hymns to help with future worship planning. Please leave this in the collection plate or in the church office.

Your name________________________________________________

Favorite Hymns________________________________________________

________________________________________________

Portraits of your child are in the process of being created by our very talented Edythe Briggs. Please bring a recent, very clear photo of your child to Kristen and then wait to see what happens!

Recycling Please notice the blue recycling bins in Fellowship Hall, Memorial Hall and in the kitchen off of the Fireside Room and in Room #4. The coffee cups we purchase are recyclable so please dispose of them in the blue recycling bins. There is a list next to each of the blue bins as to all the items that can be recycled – let’s all pitch in and do our part to help save the earth!

Worship Service Now on CD! If you would like a copy of today’s worship service on CD, or a copy from a previous Sunday, please fill out the form below and drop it in the offering plate or leave it in the church office along with payment. Each CD is $2.00.

The Community Church

August 1, 2010 Communion Sunday