Church guide

At South Acton Church we have a tradition of praying with our feet on Mother's Day. Every year, we join in with the Mother's Day Walk for Peace hosted by the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. We raise funds to support families in our city whose lives have been altered by gun violence. We show up, we hug the family members who have said goodbye to a loved one, we sing and pray and walk with friends and neighbors and strangers. Yesterday was cold and rainy. I didn't realize how cold and rainy it was until we were standing on the steps of the Boston City Hall and I couldn't feel my fingers. Still, I stood there, unable to tear my eyes away as groups of people continued to arrive at the end point. The mass of people grew and grew and grew. They just kept coming. Sometimes we feel like we are working alone, advocating on our own and then we catch a glimpse of wider picture. We catch a glimpse of the cloud of witnesses who stand up and show up and dream of a better world and it gives us strength and hope and our hearts are filled as we keep moving forward. I am reminded of St. Paul's message to the Galatians, "Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ...and do not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time if we do not give up...."

In worship yesterday, one of our members absolutely talked about what a blessing this community is in her life. Her words reached into my soul and touched that tender space. There is a warmth to the welcome in this place with these people who really mean it when they say everyone belongs here. This church is a church of welcome. This church is a church of blessing. We bless one another through our shared faith, our prayers, and our community. We bless prayer shawls and baby blankets and show up with love, again and again and again. May I just say, "Thank you to each of you for LIVING the love of Jesus."

Dear Friends, "Hate must not win. We must reach within and summon the courage to love in the face of hate, indifference, anti-semitism and religious oppression." Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows Our prayers are with all who mourn the act of hate and violence at the synagogue in Poway, CA. We lift our hearts in prayer for the healing of Rabbi Goldstein, Almong Peretz, and a beautiful 8 year old girl. We lift our hearts in prayer for the family and the friends who are grieving the death of Lori Gilbert-Kaye. As Christians, we proclaim the message of Christ is to love our God and to love our neighbors. We stand with our Jewish neighbors around the world and our friends at Congregation Beth Elohim. We say in the clearest and strongest language that all forms of hate including anti-semitism are NOT Christian. We ask that God hear the prayers of our hearts and bless the actions of our feet. Rev. Amy

Pause for Peace continues. Drop in today between 5:00- 6:30. Make space to pray, listen, meditate. We are always being made whole.

See you tomorrow! I can hardly... 💜Rev. Amy

A Blessing for Holy Saturday by: Jan Richardson Thou who breathed in the womb, who dwelled in the tomb, mercy, have mercy on us who wait.

Blessed Good Friday, Friends These are the darkest moments of Holy Week. Receive this blessing into your heart. Let it carry you into the coming hours. We will gather together on Easter Morning. 💜 Amy There they crucified him. --John 18.18 You will know this blessing by how it does not stay still, by the way it refuses to rest in one place. You will recognize it by how it takes first one form, then another: now running down the face of the mother who watches the breaking of the child she had borne, now in the stance of the woman who followed him here and will not leave him bereft. Now it twists in anguish on the mouth of the friend whom he loved; now it bares itself in the wound, the cry, the finishing and final breath. This blessing is not in any one of these alone. It is what binds them together. It is what dwells in the space between them, though it be torn and gaping. It is what abides in the tear the rending makes. by: Jan Richardson

A Maundy Thursday Prayer If You really must go let me at least say it’s made a difference knowing You walking with You learning from You, so thank You for that. It’s meant the world to me but more than that — You’ve changed me with Your generosity of time, of humanness, of loving recognition. I’ve not always shown it perfectly (sometimes not at all) but because of You I’ve grown, because of You I’m trying to be more of who I am without reservation with unrestrained joy. I know You know how I dislike change but I wouldn’t turn back time or return to what was; where You’ve brought me is amazing (also hard, for the record) but amazing because of You. So if You really must go let me at least say thank You.

Join us Thursday night at 7:00p for a Taize inspired Maundy Thursday service. We will gather at the table of Christ and journey together to the foot of the cross during the holiest season of the year. Everyone is Welcome. (Nursery care is provided)

Pause for Peace - Wednesday 5:00p - 6:30p Stop in and breathe. Allow the peace of this sacred space fill your soul

Friends we lift our hearts in prayer this Holy Week as we lament the loss of Notre Dame, Al Aqsa Mosque, three churches in Louisiana and all houses of worship. They become our sacred spaces that bear witness to our joy and pain, they seem to reverberate with our prayers. After seeing Notre Dame burn today, I am reminded that our God was not immune to pain or destruction. As Holy Week teaches us again and again, the pain, the destruction, the heartache are never the last words. Let us journey together with our sorrow and shock and the fragments of our broken heart as we hold firmly to the stubbornly persistent belief that seeds of hope continue to fall and new life is ever growing. 💜Rev. Amy

Join us on Sunday at 10:30 for our Palm Sunday service. We will tell the story of Palm Sunday complete with songs and palms. And, I know I am biased but the music is EXTRA this Sunday. You won't want to miss it. Everyone. Everyone. EVERYONE is Welcome!

We are going to have some church on Sunday. Don't miss it.

Pause for Peace - Wednesday 5:00p - 6:30p Drop in this afternoon: Pause, reflect, stop and breathe - resist the temptation to do and embrace the invitation to be.

A thought for today: "Do not worry that your life is turning upside-down. How do you know the side you are used to is better than the one to come." ~ Rumi

Join us tomorrow morning at 10:30a for a Communion Service as we talk about living boldly. Sometimes living in faith is not about staying in our same comfortable patterns. Sometimes living in faith is about the unexpected, unthinkable act. Everyone. Everyone. EVERYONE is welcome!

Stop in and Pause for Peace Today - 5:00p- 6:30p

Do you have a case of the mid-week "blahs"? Is the noise of life getting to you? Join me tonight at Pause for Peace from 5:00p - 6:30p. You are welcomed to drop and pray, sit in silence, meditate, read a few poems, practice mindful coloring. Stop in and Exhale. You are welcome.

We are going to have some church on Sunday. Don't miss it.

So let the ashes come as beginning and not as end; the first sign but not the final. Let them rest upon you as invocation and invitation, and let them take you the way that ashes know to go. May they mark you with the memory of fire and of the life that came before the burning: the life that rises and returns and finds its way again. See what shimmers amid their darkness, what endures within their dust. See how they draw us toward the mystery that will consume but not destroy, that will blossom from the blazing, that will scorch us with its joy. By:: Jan Richardson

Join us on Sunday morning at 10:30a as we gather in prayer and worship as a fatih community. ALL are Welcome.

"Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live, a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive. Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace; here the love of Christ shall end divisions: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place. Let us build a house where prophets speak, and words are strong and true, where all God’s children dare to seek to dream God’s reign anew. Here the cross shall stand as witness and as symbol of God’s grace; here as one we claim the faith of Jesus: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place. Let us build a house where all are named, their songs and visions heard and loved and treasured, taught and claimed as words within the Word. Built of tears and cries and laughter, prayers of faith and songs of grace, let this house proclaim from floor to rafter: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place." ~Marty Haugen

Aaaand... the winter view.

We are located a short walk from the South Acton station on the Fitchburg commuter rail line. Here is the view from the train.