Join us this Sunday, 11/20/22, for a short worship service and Harvest Feast to follow at the Glendale New Church. Lay-leader Gloria Toot will present a sermon entitled, “A grateful heart” at 11:00 am. We will share a delightful potluck Harvest Feast after. Come and be grateful.
Thank you to the Swedenborgian Church of North America for their recent email with the following text from Emanuel Swedenborg:
For everything that flows from the Lord… is freely given. The Lord does, it is true, demand humility, worship, thanksgiving, and much else from a person, which seem like repayment, so that His gifts do not seem to be free. But the Lord does not demand those things for His own sake, for the Divine derives no glory at all from a person’s humility, worship, or thanksgiving. It is utterly inconceivable that any self-love should exist within the Divine, causing Him to require such actions for His own sake. Rather, they are required for humankind’s own sake, for if someone possesses humility they are able to accept good from the Lord, since in that case they have been parted from self-love and its evils which stand in the way of their accepting it. Therefore the Lord desires a state of humility in a person for that person’s sake, because the Lord can flow in with heavenly good when that state exists in them. The same applies to worship and thanksgiving.
Emanuel Swedenborg
We are grateful to have been able to share a virtual/in-person hybrid church service on Sunday, the 21st of November, 2021. Our congregants had either received the Covid vaccine, or had had Covid previously. We prayed and sang together, and listened to a sermon by our local minister, Rev. Dr. Sherrie Connelly. We were joined by our friends near and far over zoom. We even had Sunday School where the kids brainstormed ideas of subjects they’d like to study in future weeks. Below are the sermon notes from Rev. Connelly. The readings are referenced.
“Blessed Thanksgiving for All Things,” Sermon notes by Rev. Dr. Sherrie Connelly
Psalm 47:1 to 2, 5 to 9
Oh clap your hands everyone together express your joy adore the Lord on high.
Joel 2:21 to 24 to 26
The threshing floors are filled with autumn green because I had and rejoice in your God.
Matthew 6:25 to 33
Your life is full of abundant blessings. There is nothing to worry about. Worrying gets you nothing. It is merely negative meditation. Let it go…
The flowers of nature grow abundantly and naturally as God has ordered. So too you will grow into the fullness of your being.
ES: AC (Elliott,) n. 10655
We are thankful that the divine human has been raised, thus saving human beings from evil. There is much to be thankful for.<TBTG>
“ Blessed Thanksgiving for All Things“
As our Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we are celebrating a harvest feast together today. Together, in person for the first time in a very long time. Hallelujah we are grateful! Let us look at different sorts of blessed Thanksgiving.
1. during the first year of a child’s life, from loving conception through gestation and burst. A new child is born and comes to us as a miracle. Thanks be to God.
2. During the learning years we develop skills, expand awareness, and have experiences that mature us into full adults. Thanks be to God.
3. As we age, get gray hair, creaky knees, and disabled parking permit, we are grateful for the abilities that do remain. Thanks be to God.
4. As we embrace worlds of many different languages lands and cultures and opportunities to travel across the states and abroad. Thanks be to God
5. As we prepare to share in this delicious and bountiful Thanksgiving harvest feast. We are so grateful for each other’s contributions. Thanks be to God.
6. As we anticipate our first snowfall in the coming of winter, we are grateful for warm clothes, mittens, coats, hats, boots, and people who shovel snow for us. Thanks be to God.
7. As the season of Christmas and baby Jesus’ birth come near, once again we celebrate a newborn child, and the coming new year. He is blessed and born. Thanks be to God.
8. For everyone of our blessings including both gifts and challenges, may we be abundantly grateful. Amen.
The image of living on the earth in harmony with creation and therefore the Creator, is a helpful image for me… Each day we are given is for Thanksgiving for the earth. We are to enjoy it and share it in service of others. This is the way to grow in unity and harmony… It allows for diversity within the unity of the Creator… There are many teachings in the aboriginal North American nations that use the symbol of the circle. It is the symbol for the inclusive caring community, where individuals are respected and interdependence is recognized. In the wider perspective it symbolizes the natural order of creation in which human beings are part of the whole circle of life. Aboriginal spiritual teachers speak of the reestablishment of the balance between human beings and the whole of creation, as a mending of the hoop.
James Treat, Native and Christian: Indigenous Voices on Religious Identity in the United States and Canada (New York: Routledge, 1996), 54-55.
Count your blessings.
Blessing Cards from our Harvest Feast 2019
Since heaven comes from the human race, then, and since heaven is living with the Lord forever, it follows that this was the Lord’s goal for creation. . . . The Lord did not create the universe for his own sake but for the sake of people he would be with in heaven. By its very nature, spiritual love wants to share what it has with others, and to the extent that it can do so, it is totally present, experiencing its peace and bliss. Spiritual love gets this quality from the Lord’s divine love, which is like this in infinite measure. It then follows that divine love (and therefore divine providence) has the goal of a heaven made up of people who have become angels and are becoming angels, people with whom it can share all the bliss and joy of love and wisdom, giving them these blessings from the Lord’s own presence within them. He cannot help doing this, because his image and likeness is in us from creation. (Divine Providence §27:2)
We are thankful…for our church community. This family that sustains and tends to our spiritual needs. That listens as we question and find answers that lay hidden deep within our hearts.
We are thankful that our bodies are nourished and, we have energy to help others.
We are thankful for new days and new opportunities to find those voices that call us, that need us. So that we find our use and are thankful for it.
Give thanks. #HappyThanksgiving
This evening, at 7 pm, The New Church of Montgomery will be co-hosting the annual Glendale Village Thanksgiving service with the Glendale New Church.
Other churches participating are First Presbyterian, Christ Church (Episcopal), St. Gabriel, and the Transfiguration Spirituality Center. Clergy from each group will be involved in leadership and we will celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with prayer and choir music.
Hope to see you there.
Please join us Sunday, Nov. 18th at the Glendale New Church for our annual Harvest Feast.
If you are new to our church, this is a time where we come together to share a meal and count our blessings; we value each other! You are welcome to bring something to share to contribute to the meal, or to just come chat and eat!
We will enjoy a short service at 11 a.m., by our visiting minister, Rev. Jenn Tafel, Religious Advisor for Q-CROSS at Michigan State University. Afterwards, we will feast and enjoy a time of fellowship!
Sometimes it’s nice to dwell on the past; especially when it involves good food and company! Here are some pictures from our Harvest Feast yesterday. We had a great turnout and there were lots of scrumptious dishes to share. Rev. Jenn Tafel’s service cultivated our thoughts and engaged us in the idea of spirituality as a garden; we became seeds, cracked to allow the sun and light of Divine Love and Wisdom into our lives.
We will be happily sharing food, worship and time at our annual Harvest Feast this Sunday, November 19, 2017. It will be held at 11 am at the Glendale New Church, 845 Congress Avenue. Rev. Jenn Tafel will be our visiting minister. The New Church of Montgomery will provide the turkey. Please bring something yummy to share with others if you are able. We look forward to this delicious event.
Kindly RSVP to: newchurchofmontgomery@gmail.com
Nothing says Thanksgiving like two pans of stuffing! Vegetarian and Regular.
New Church of Montgomery, in Glendale 