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New Year’s Day Service
Sunday, January 1 @ 10:30 am - 11:30 am
Join us this morning for an all ages service celebrating the start of a new year. We will celebrate with stories, songs, and learn how to prepare for the coming year like mother earth does. We will sit quietly and rest and dream. LeAnne Struble leading.
How to Attend
This service will take place in Spring Hall, located in the Education Building.
We require masks in all buildings. We encourage all in person participants to be vaccinated. Read more about our In Person Guidelines here.
• To virtually attend, please Zoom in using room number 989 3107 9078, passcode: chalice.
• To phone into the service, call 669-900-6833, Meeting ID: 989 3107 9078.
For those joining, please mute as soon as you enter the room, so everyone can hear. Please note, the services will be recorded, but at this time, there are no plans to share the recording.
More Information
There is no Religious Education this Sunday. For more about the program, you can click here!
If you don’t have a chalice, but want to light one, check out our Making a Chalice at Home page.
Both virtual and in person services are followed by coffee hour.
Children’s Story
Sermon Audio
New Year’s Day Service
Sermon Text
The world would like us to believe that since Christmas is over and the new year is upon us then winter is over as well. That it is time to get going and do more. It asks us to make resolutions on how we are going to be for this year ahead. It asks Have you made your new year’s resolution?
Have you sent out all the thank you cards from the holidays?
Have you packed up your decorations for the year? Have you returned the sweater that you were given that is the wrong size, wrong color, just too much?
The world seems to forget that winter is just beginning. We here in Washington know well that winter doesn’t really start until February. So then what do we do about it? We turn to mother nature and we follow her example. In the winter time the trees, plants, animals, all slow down. They rest, and they don’t feel guilty about doing any of those things. Mother nature slows down in order to prepare herself for the coming of spring and the work that will be done then.
But in a world that asks us to do more and move faster, how do we slow down?
I have 10 simple things to help you slowdown. 10 things that you can cross off your todo list and feel that you have accomplished many things and still slow down. These are not mine originally, they are a list I have found in many forms that helps me especially to slow down and enjoy the dark.
- Do one thing at a time. Multi tasking just wastes your energy in the end it does not accomplish more.
- Do it slowly and deliberately. No matter what task you are doing, take it slowly and appreciate all the aspects of it. Dishes to do means you had a lovely meal. Loads of laundry, means you have people in your life.
- Do it completely, finish and check it off your list, and look at how many things you accomplished today.
- Do Less, We can’t all be bears and nap for months on end but we can do less and find joy in that simple thing.
- Put space between things. Finish the dishes and take a moment to appreciate that they are done, don’t just turn and start the next task.
- Develop Rituals. Rituals relax us because we know what is coming. We like the feeling of the familiar. It does not have to be a big ritual, it can be sitting with your cup of coffee each morning or writing in a journal in the morning or night.
- Designate a time for certain things. When will you check work email, designate a time and don’t let it control when you do things. When will you focus on you? When will you reach out to friends? Designating a time for these things helps to keep other things in our life from pushing them aside.
- Devote time to sitting. This one is hard for many of us, and maybe to start you can only do a few minutes but sit quietly for a few minutes, look back at number 2 and 3. When you sit, do it slowly and completely.
- Smile and serve others. Time and again studies show that helping someone else makes us feel better. Studies also show that smiling can raise your own good feelings and those of people you pass.
- Make cooking and cleaning become meditation. If you are as old as I am you know that Mr. Miagi taught this with “wax on” and “wax off”. If you are not old enough to understand that reference, talk to someone older or google it. It will change your life. When cooking, slow down, smell each spice stir, mix, enjoying the sight, the smell of each step. Watch how the flavor is enhanced by this.
Now this is not a list made so you can do more. It is a list made to help you do less and still feel like you have accomplished enough each day.
As spring approaches then write your resolutions and prepare for the coming of spring and the work that we will put in to grow into the new and beautiful creatures that mother nature knows we can be.
