ITLOTC
(In The Life Of The Church)
Ordinary Time
All Saints (by jamie)
Greetings. As you may know, yesterday was All Saints Day, and we had our first ever All Saints Liturgy. For those of you who didn’t have a chance to attend, I wanted to use the newsletter to offer you the main takeaway you missed, because, like most stuff we’d get together to liturgy about, it’s applicable outside of that 40 minute window.
All Saints Day invites us to take the time to notice what we already know to be true: our experience of Christ, both what we come to know about Jesus, and how we experience his love, is, in large part, passed on to us by other people. Even if you had some kind of experience where you simply read the Bible on a desert island, having a Bible to read at all is possible because there were people who experienced the Event of Christ who were so-moved to talk about it, and people who were compelled to pass these stories on and preserve them.
But this is a Story that evades mere informational transference; it poses a question to us about the way we conduct our ordinary lives. Will we seek to set our stumbling feet on the Way of Christ or not? And what does that feeble dance look like in our time and place? And alongside the story itself, we are offered the ways that people have answered those questions; sometimes propositionally, and sometimes via them reflecting Christ to us in ways great and small.
We might encounter these voices from afar, benefitting from their art or thought through the written word or digital reality, or we might encounter them in the embodied presence of ordinary living. But many, if not most, of these Lights we encounter slip past our defenses in a way that might require us taking the time to reflect upon them to notice the gift that they have been to us.
This is part of what the All Saints Liturgy invited us into. We gathered to remember those who have gone before us and to re-member ourselves to those at our sides.
All people die, including the ones who have been flashes of Brilliance to us. But even absent of the body, they have a home in our memory, shaping the contours of our imagination in concert with the Spirit, still standing as beacons that invite us into the question of what it is to be the Body of Christ in the world. In remembering, we draw what might be passive influence to the surface for renewed engagement and deliberate gratitude.
The business of re-membering is similar, and equally important. Ours is a world full of noise, and if we aren’t careful, the flashes of Light that line the paths of our ordinary days will be lost in this aimless sea. The All Saints Liturgy invited us to think about the voices, the relationships, and the happenstance exposures, that offer the Light of Christ to us day to day. This act of reflection allows us to embrace the beauty around us and deliberately claim it as part of us—to re-member these voices to our selves.
So, if you couldn’t make it last night: who are the people who have reflected the Light of Christ to you? And what will do you with the Light you have received?
—
As always, if you want to talk further about any of this, you can email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org—I’d love to get together.
Cesar Chavez Halloween Festival
Friends, CCMS needs our help! They are having their annual Halloween Festival this Tuesday, and they still need two things:
- Candy - please bring any and all candy to UBC on Sunday to help with their festival
- Pumpkins - they will have a pumpkin painting station at the festival, and they would like a pumpkin for every kid. please bring a pumpkin to UBC on Sunday as well.
OOTP Boys/Girls Night:
Friday, November 9, from 6-8 pm the 7th and up graders will have a boys/girls night! The boys will be cooking food over fire and the girls will have a dance party (maybe even a fashion show). We can’t wait!
Random Pic To Generate Clickbait Traffic
Parishioner of the Week
Bridget Heins for planning “My family is coming to church breakfast.”
Work is Worship
Greeters: Walters
Coffee Makers: Clarks Mi Casa
Mug Cleaners:
Money Counter: Newman
Welcome Station:
Announcements
Sermon Text:
11-9 Youth Boys and Girls Night (7-12)
11-18 Youth Sunday
11-4 Bring Parents to Church Day
12/5 Pre-Pancake Party Mens and Womens college group
12-9 Last Sunday of the fall semester/Christmas Youth (5-6)
12-12 Last Wednesday of fall semester/Christmas party Youth (7-12)
Leadership Team
If you have a concern or an idea for UBC that you’d like to share with someone that is not on staff, feel free to contact one of our leadership team members.
Chair- Adam Winn: adamwinn68@yahoo.com
Byron Griffin: byrontgriffin@gmail.com
Kerri Fisher: Kerri_Fisher@baylor.edu
Emma Wood: emma.wood@yahoo.com
Bridget Heins: bheins@hot.rr.com
Jeremy Nance: Jeremy Nance
Joanna Sowards: jo.sowards@gmail.com
Student Position: Samuel Moore: samuel_moore2@baylor.edu
Student Position: Anna Carol Peery: anna_peery@baylor.edu
UBC Finance Team
Do you have a question about UBC’s financial affairs? Please feel free to contact any of your finance team members.
JD Newman: JD_Newman@baylor.edu
Hannah Kuhl: HannahKuhl@hotmail.com
Justin Pond: pondjw@gmail.com
Doug McNamee: douglas.mcnamee@gmail.com
Catherine Ballas: catherine@refitrev.com
UBC HR Team
If you have concerns about staff and would like contact our human resources team, please feel free to email any of the following members.
Josh Blake: joshnblake@gmail.com
Ross Van Dyke: Ross_Vandyke@baylor.edu
Jared Gould: jared.gould1@gmail.com
Rebekah Powell: rpowell671@gmail.com
Kristen Richardson: wacorichardsons@gmail.com