Helping at the Walk for Hunger

Members of HSPC's confirmation class went to help out at the Walk For Hunger. They staffed a table sponsored by A Place to Turn at checkpoint three. They were a little chilly but they were cheerful. A few photos are below.

HSPC gets a YAV!

HSPC and “A Place to Turn” (APTT) are hoping to bring a YAV (Young Adult Volunteer of the Presbyterian Church) to work with us on issues of food justice.  APTT, which is housed in the building at the end of our parking lot, is a food pantry, which also supplies clothing and other essential goods for people in need who mostly live in Framingham, Natick and Marlborough.  Our church has been integrally involved with the food pantry since 1981. 

The Young Adult Volunteer program is a one-year service opportunity for young adults from 19 to 30 years. YAVs live together in Christian community, deepening and developing their faith while serving in communities of need. The YAV program has sites around the United States and around the world, and YAVs serve for one academic year, August - July.

The YAV will work between 30-35 hours a week, which will be split evenly between both our church and APTT.  The YAV will work with the congregation and with our young people to help us become more aware of issues of hunger in our community and ways that we can address the issues.  We are hoping to also begin our community garden with at least a few plots that will be used to grow food for people who come to the food pantry.

The church will be forming a small committee to work with the YAV and the community garden.  The committee will help to welcome the YAV, guide the volunteer’s work and coordinate work around the community garden.  If you are interested in being involved, please speak with Pastor Eric.

Pastor's letter for March 2013

Dear Friends,

There are many journeys in the Bible.  Sadly the first is Adam’s and Eve’s journey out of the Garden of Eden and into a foreboding land.  Next Noah makes a remarkable journey across open water with a boatful of animals. God calls Abraham and Sarah to leave their home, their family and all that they know to go to a land that God will show them.  Not long thereafter Jacob steals his brother’s birth rite and heads out on a journey that will last for many years to escape his brother’s wrath. 

Moses life begins as a journey down the Nile in a basket sealed with bitumen and he ends up leading the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to a 40-year journey in the wilderness where he dies even before the journey ends.  The story of Jonah in the Bible is a story about his fateful journey to Nineveh where he learns more than he ever wanted to know.   And the prophet Elijah travels extensively throughout his days.

The New Testament begins with a journey.  Mary and Joseph must leave their home in Nazareth and go to Bethlehem, where Mary gives birth to Jesus.  John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher.  Jesus’ ministry begins with a journey into the wilderness and from thereon he is “on the road”.  He says in Matthew 8:20: "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."  The great evangelist Paul’s ministry starts with a bolt of lightening while traveling to Damascus and like Jesus his ministry is defined by his travels from town to town as he founds churches throughout the Greco-Roman world.

Clearly the Bible ties together journeys and faith.  Why are these two things so closely related?  Perhaps there is a danger in being too comfortable.  We can become so attached to what we have and to that sense of safety that we won’t let anything new break into our lives.  We don’t want anything to change, but God is always calling us to change, to deepen our faith, to seek new things. Life is change.  Life is a journey.

Again, and again the people in our Bible set off on journeys.  Outside their homes, outside their areas of comfort, in a changing and unknown world, there is one safe place they can turn, for hope and for direction, God.  Each of our Biblical characters strength, wisdom, and faith grow as they travel at times thousands of miles and often for years at a time.

Our church is made up of members coming from Cameroon, Brazil, Canada, Taiwan, Costa Rica, and India.  When we leave all that we have known and travel to a new land we need a center for our lives.  We need to find a place to draw strength and a place that will give us comfort.  God is always there with us, no matter where we come from and where we are headed.   But even if we do not come from another country or a distant point on the map, life itself is a journey. From the day we are born to the day that we die we are on a journey, a journey through time, a journey of growth, a journey back to our creator.  The question is how will we make our journey?

We will be studying some of the journeys in the Bible during our Lenten Bible study on Wednesday evening at 7:00pm and you are invited to join us.  But also remember that our church needs to be moving to new places and doing new things.  We need to take on daring projects and do things we have never done before.  The session of the church has just voted to begin a new journey.  One that will help us explore the plight of the hungry in our community, but one that will also help us come closer to our Creator and the one who calls us on journeys.  Please read the article below (“Exciting New Program at HSPC”) and choose to join this new leg of the trip, and please come and be with us on Wednesday evenings.

Peace,

Pastor Eric

Pastor's Letter for December, 2012

Dear Friends, As I sit down to write this article, it is a few days before thanksgiving. Soon families and friends will be gathering across the United States to give thanks to God our creator. In other cultures and other countries it may not be on the same date and it may not be done in the same way, but for countless generations people have gathered together to give thanks for life, for family, for the beauty that surrounds us all of which has been given to us by God. Psalm 106:1 says, “Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever.” The Bible asks us to thank God for what He has given us, but also for what He will give us, for God’s “steadfast love” will be there for us always. But there are times when giving thanks can be very difficult. Life is not always fair, losing one’s job, a health crises, or the loss of loved one can make it very hard to look back and count the blessings we have been given or to try and imagine a good future. However that may be the most important time to give thanks. When things become difficult, pain is around us and the future looks dim we tend to turn inside ourselves and look only at how bad things are. Negative thoughts pile up and soon there seems to no hope anywhere. And that is a very dangerous place to be. When we sit down, take stock and find whatever it is for which we can give thanks, we open ourselves back up to the world, to friends and to God’s love and what may have seemed like a very dim future can at the least hold beams of hope and possibility. It is also important as a people and a nation to give thanks. Just like an individual, it is not hard for a nation to get to a place where we can see nothing good coming out of the current situation that we are in. Giving thanks can seem like a fruitless endeavor and we can head even deeper into a sense of anger and division. After the American Revolution when there was much building to do and the country faced an exciting but uncertain future, President George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and single favors of Almighty God" Thanksgiving is also a doorway that opens into Advent and Christmas, a very special time for the Christian Faith. It is during this season, as the days grow darker and the wind blows cold, that we celebrate the warmth of God’s love and the light that comes into our world in the form of a baby – God’s only son, Jesus Christ. It is interesting that Christmas comes just at the time that seemed utterly bleak and completely hopeless for ancient northern cultures. The land lay dead and the cold, like the hand of death, gripped all living creatures. For many it seemed that there was no hope, but as Christianity came into these lands it brought a message of hope and warmth in the middle of this most difficult time. People gathered together to celebrate and give thanks for the greatest gift ever given, God’s son born into our midst bringing hope and possibility for all. Over the years it has been the celebration of this most blessed time that has given us reason to give thanks and reason to have hope. As we finish the observance of Thanksgiving let us hold the essence of this holiday in our hearts as we head into the beautiful season of Advent and Christmas. In the midst of a topsy-turvy world where answers are hard to find and pain and loss is never far away, let us keep the warmth and light of thanksgiving glowing in our hearts as we embrace God’s love expressed to us through His son, Jesus Christ, whose love will endure forever. Peace,
Pastor Eric

December calendar of events

Happy Advent! Here is our schedule of events for December 2012:

Sunday, December 2: First Sunday of Advent; congregational tree trimming (after service)

Sunday, December 16: Annual Christmas Pageant (service begins at 10 AM). HSPC's youth present an original script and musical performances by several youth and our Youth Choir.

Sunday, December 23: Annual Christmas Choral Worship service (begins at 10 AM), with guest artist David Summer on flute and trumpet

Monday, December 24: Christmas Eve Candlelight Service: Lessons and Carols (service begins at 7:30 PM)

Tuesday, December 25: Cameroonian Christmas Day Service (service begins at 10:00 AM) 

We invite you to join us at any and all of these services!