Freelton Strabane United Church

Burn’s Supper

January 21st 2023

Heritage Hall

1565 Brock Road Strabane

Gathering 5:30pm  Dinner at 6pm

$25 a person

To order tickets please call

905 659 5435

 Join us at Freelton Strabane United Church for a Studies and Studios event on February 18th at 1p - 4pm  in the Church Hall to 

Learn the art of needle felting by creating this beautiful Winter scene. Fibre artist and instructor, Cathy Disbrow, will teach you how to needle felt a Winter landscape into a 4” x 6” wool painting, using a special needle to stab sheep wool onto a felt sheet. Students will learn a variety of needle felt painting techniques. Needles, wool, and wool felt sheet to create your painting are included in the cost. Foam felting pads are provided for students to use during class and can be purchased separately.

Cost: $60.00 Register at:

https://woollydoodles.square.site/product/workshop-ticket-needle-felt-a-winter-scene-painting/68

Refreshments are also included. 

Call To Worship

Take this moment sign and space

Take my friends around

Here among us make the place

Where your love is found me

(Iona Abbey Music book pg 122)

Call To worship

 One: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Sovereign Jesus Christ.       

All: We hear God naming our names and calling us to join the company of the saints.                     

One: We are God’s chosen ones, valued in our uniqueness and commissioned for service to all. 

All: We will turn to God for the strength we need.

   As we move through life we create our own philosophies our own way of understanding the world our own truths.   Ideas and views which we knit together into our understanding of the world. 

 We all know most of mine.  “The principle one being that wonderful phrase “We are not alone” Which I would say is the summation of my personal theology,”

 “Walter Scott Peck’s statement. As shortened by my head. Life is rough as soon as you accept the fact that life is rough it is no longer hard to deal with.”   

My classic line   “Trust in the Lord for God will provide.  I know it is all most a cliché yet it is one of the great truths of my life. “   Some carved in stone, others open to revision of editing.   I have been considering the idea of for all things that there must be balance.

 That God has created this great balance and we are called to live into this idea.  Not a philosophy not a truth, more of a growing edge.   The idea of what is in, what is out.  The driving force however ever is change. A change in the balance of things.   We don’t like change. We like the same. We long for that undisturbed balance.

It is not that we are apathetic. I think it might more be about upsetting that known balance and leaving the known for the unknown.     

  for a little science that I came across that I might have used before. 

  There is a book by Carol Tavris and  Elliot Aronson called , Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why we justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts.

The premise of the book is about Cognitive Dissidence and Cognitive dissidence reduction.

 Simply put  the mind has a blind spot. The mind has a Cognitive mechanism that blinds us to the idea that we might have made a mistake. (Usually in judgement.) It is a self-protective mechanism   It is called a cognitive blind spot. It  Blind us to a mistake, or a wrong belief. 

 It Allows us to see the faults in others but not us.  It Helps to see our ideas but not others. Helps us to be able at times to live with ourselves and sleep at night.  

 The mind does not like being in a dissident state.   The mind cannot handle two opposite or opposing ideas or opposing idea or behaviours. 

For example We know that to chocolates are bad  and  deadly to our health and yet we continue to subscribe to the chocolates of the month club . To be able to live with our selves we move to from a state of cogitative dissidence to dissidence reduction. We rationalize our behaviour.  Its my life I will do what I want with it and if it is shorter because I eat chocolate so be it . The classic Christian one is : I am angry at someone but because I am a Christian I am not allowed to be angry therefore I will have to bury my feelings to be able to live my faith. 

Once we come up with a beliefs that we are committed to We begin a confirmation bias We start see information that confirms what we believe and filter out all other information that might be in conflict. Thus dissidence reduction.  

I have always done it this way and I know that I am right. It can mean that we are Not able to accept knew ideas. It may mean that we might blind ourselves to new information. Or information that would say that we are wrong or have hurt someone.  

This is a hard wired process. It’s a part of who we are. It doesn’t mean were old and snarly this same kind of behaviour has been seen in children and chimps.  

Before we make a new decision we are open minded.  After we make the decision , dissidence reduction begins and we begin to find evidence that supports our idea and not seeing anything which might be contrary.

  It helps us to sleep at night with out always having to re-examine every aspect of our lives over and over again. 

   I thought that it was important because it helps us to understand why we at times can be so rigid in our thinking.  And so resistant to change. 

Let’s be honest, the last year and well into this year is going to be a great time of change. We are going to have a lot of dissidence reduction to do.  I will not pretend that the changes we have faced as individuals and a  congregations and now as one Church have not been emotionally challenging.  Scarlett has licked her fair share of tears during this time.   

The power of the gospel lesson our hope can be found in the call stories of the disciples.  In the call stories   we see a complete rethinking of the way of thinking, a huge life change. 

Here are two people, who have followed John the Baptist been his disciple and they leave him to follow Jesus. Andrew one of them goes and gets his brother Simon.  Simon meets Jesus and says you will be called Peter. The name means “rock” 

Now what isn’t said is as important as what is said.  The newly named Peter has just left everything behind.  Has just rewrote his whole life script.  Not to mention the other two have just done the same thing.

 If the mind is hard wired to maintain a constant here we have a huge amount of dissidence that going to need a lot of reduction.  Just like us. 

They have just left everything they know. Wiped the slate clean and started from scratch.   One could argue that the first miracle of Jesus was not the water to wine bit but the ability to transform someone’s whole means of thinking by giving them a new name. 

 We have made the first, the hardest step in allowing the Holy spirit to move us forward as a community of faith. 

 We have set down a foundation of who we want to be.  We have heard Christ’s invitation.  We have such hope that we desire to act with great boldness.   We want    together to honour the over 170 years of Christian leadership and discipleship in the communities of Freelton and Strabane.  We take pride in our commitment to worship in which our faith story is told in word and song.  In our encounter with Christ in our lives of faith,   

What is “In”  to take forward the vision of a vibrant faith Church Community from the past into the future, 

 What is in: to provide a safe place of worship for all who call this their spiritual home.

What is in  to  greet people where they are in their spiritual journey and promote spiritual growth.

What is in our hope to be a place where people  will find support and recharge their faith. 

What is in? Our hope to extend hospitality and a sincere welcome to all into our Faith Family and to be a venue where local groups can meet in community.

 How are we going to build on this foundation?   For to build on this foundation requires us to not be afraid of change.  Yes we can honour the old ways but truly we must forge a new way of being. 

What is Out, thinking that all can stay the same.  What is out. The notion If we remember hard enough the way things used to be they will be the same again.  What is Out. Doing the same things the way we have done them in the past expecting them to have a new outcome. Out. 

We need to ask  What is out and What is in? We are now at a point where we truly have to some cognitive reduction to do as a community to be able to move forward. 

Yes Epiphany is about celebrating the in breaking of God’s light into our world but it is also about God’s Holy Spirit impacting us and how it causes us to work at discerning our future.  It is about the enlightenment of revelations and understanding in our lives. 

We have done significant re shaping of who we are as a community of faith. There is so much more that needs to be done as we live into who we are as Freelton Strabane United Church. We can not just let our mission statement be pretty words.  We are called. We are called as brothers and sisters in Christ united in our baptism to continue the journey. 

In all of this We go forward in faith knowing that we are not alone but one with Christ. 

Offering

We give thee but thy own.   The work of the Church continues and there are three ways you can continue to support that work.   Consider using PAR, use the donate button on our Web Site or drop your gift at the Manse.   Let us make our offering and give thanks.       

  One: Praise God who from all Blessing flow

   Prayer     

O God we offer you all the gifts we have for we know that they are an outpouring that you have given us. We offer and give ourselves and our substance to you to fulfil your coming kingdom. May all that we dedicate here, accomplish much good and bring healing to our troubled world Amen 

Sending Forth and Blessing.

One: In humility and with confidence go out to witness to your faith     

All: We pray for the insight and strength to live up to that faith.                   

One: You are supported and strengthened by God’s love and by the family of faith of which you are a part. 



VU 4

God of all places present unseen

Voice in our silence song in our mist

Send us your people knowing and sure

Called to spread the word.

amen amen amen