Gathering Music (Mary Bopp) (Begins at 9:50)
Welcome and Announcements
Prelude
Chalice Lighting and Opening Words
“Shout for Joy”
excerpt from Psalm 65
#643 in Singing the Living Tradition
You make the outgoings of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.
You visit the earth, watering it, making it very rich.
The great river swells with water, filling the ridges, blessing the growth of grain.
You crown the year with your abundance.
The pastures are perfumed with dew.
The hills deck themselves with joy.
The meadows adorn themselves with flocks.
The valleys gown themselves with grain.
They shout for joy.
They join in song.
Opening Hymn
“People Look East”
traditional French carol; words by Eleanor Farjeon
#226 in Singing the Living Tradition
People, look east. The time is near of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able, trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today: Love the Guest, is on the way.
Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare, one more seed is planted there.
Give up your strength the seed to nourish, that in course and flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today: Love, the Rose, is on the way.
Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim, one more light the bowl shall brim,
shining beyond the frosty weather, bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east and sing today: Love, the Star, is on the way.
*****
New Member Welcome
Introductions (Membership Committee co-chairs)
Jennie Purcell
Sue Myers
Jerry Myers
Victoria Bassett
Laurel Hennebury
The Charge (Minister)
As you take up membership in the Unitarian Universalist Society: East, I charge you to share with us who you are. Share your creativity, your experiences, your questions, your doubts, your beliefs, and all your discoveries of life’s meaning. I charge you to shake us up with your ideas, to stir us up with your conscience, to inspire us with your actions, and to stimulate our hopes with your dreams of what life can be.
Congregational Welcome (Congregation)
We welcome you as companions in the search for truth and meaning. We invite you to share in our mission of caring for one another, encouraging each other in spiritual growth, working for justice and peace in the wider community, and living in harmony with the earth. We join our gifts with yours, trusting in the power of community to bring freedom, healing, and love.
New Member Affirmation (New members)
We join the Unitarian Universalist Society: East out of a desire and willingness to participate in a liberal religious congregation. We pledge to share our time, energy and gifts; to diligently seek our spiritual truths, and to strengthen the bonds of community.
Responsive Hymn
“What is this Church?”
words adapted from Eugene Sander
Music by Jean Sibelius
What is this church?
A place of love and gladness.
Where all may meet, to seek the common good.
A source of strength, to face each doubt and sadness.
Where every dream is known and understood.
What is this church? Ask those who came before,
And found themselves, by crossing through its door.
*****
Joys, Concerns, Introductions
Musical Meditation (Mary Bopp)
Offering
“We do not gather our gifts only for ourselves, but to share with the larger community.” Continuing our practice of sharing our gifts with the community beyond our walls, fifty percent of our Sunday plate collections for the month of December will go to three area shelters: McKinney Men’s Shelter (Hartford), East Hartford Community Shelter, Cornerstone Shelter (Rockville).
Offering Music
Reading
excerpt from “Joy”
by David Whyte
Musical Meditation (Mary Bopp)
Sermon
“Dare We Make a Joyful Noise?”
Rev. Josh Pawelek
Closing Hymn
“Angels We Have Heard on High”
words by Earl Marlatt
music, French Carol
Angels we have heard on high sweetly singing o’er the plains
and the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strains.
(Chorus)
Gloria, in excelsis Deo.
Gloria, in excelsis Deo.
Shepherds, why this jubilee? Why these songs of happy cheer?
What great brightness did you see? What glad tidings did you hear?
(Chorus)
See him in a manger laid whom the angels praise above;
Mary, Joseph, lend your aid, while we raise our hearts in love.
(Chorus)
Extinguishing the Chalice
Closing Circle
May faith in the spirit of life
And hope for the community of earth
And love of the light in each other
Be ours now, and in all the days to come.
Postlude
Greeting each other / Online Breakout Rooms
