October 2020

West Parish of Barnstable

The Rooster Crows Newsletter

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY WORSHIP PLANS

Council decided, on September 28, that our primary mode of worship for the month of October will continue to be on-line for Saturdays, and on Sundays, on-line and with lawn worship at 10:00, weather permitting. Given the pandemic, this seems to be the ap-propriate route, for now. Also, Council has asked that the congregation be surveyed so we can determine its prefer-ences going forward. To that end, a survey was sent out by email September 29, and if you have received it, please click on it and answer the two questions. If you do not get email, we still want to hear from you, so please call the church office (508 362 4445) and give your answers to these two questions:

Would you attend if West Parish were to hold indoor worship services on Sundays, assuming we followed state guidelines for number of people allowed in the meetinghouse, social distancing, pre-registration, and masks?

Yes No Maybe Comments Would you attend if West Parish were to hold indoor worship services on Saturdays, assuming we followed state guidelines for number of people allowed in the meetinghouse, social distancing, pre-registration, and masks?

Yes No Maybe Comments

SOCIAL MEDIA INFO

If you are on Facebook, “like” West Parish to see photos, get an easy link to posted sermons, etc. https://www.facebook.com/WestParishBarnstable. We are on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/westparish/

You can also check out our webpage at www.westparish.org

If you don’t get our weekly e-mail, send us a line at contact@westparish.org and we will add you in, so you can get a weekly preview of the coming worship services plus reminders about current events here.

MILESTONES

DONNIE WALSH October 31, 1959 – September 27, 2020 Beloved Son of Ernie and Barbara Walsh

2 50-Year Ordinands Associated with West Parish! The Rev. Chuck Wildman celebrates 50 years of ordained ministry this year! Chuck and Anne graced us with their presence and faithful discipleship — and leadership — for many years. Congratulations, Chuck, well done, good and faithful servant! The Rev. Bob Naylor, one of our newest members (with spouse Gretchen), also celebrates 50 years of ordained ministry this year! Congratulations, Bob, well done, good and faithful servant! Both were recognized for their service at the annual meeting of the Southern New England Confer-ence of the United Church of Christ on September 26.

PRAYER GROUP UP AND RUNNING!

Our Prayer Group is up and running, with 18 folk who have agreed to weekly hold up in prayer the concerns of the congregation and the world. If you would like to join, call the office or send us an email. The format is easy – Pastor Reed will send out weekly, usually on Tuesday morning, a short video with prayer concerns and celebrations, together with a short primer on prayer and ways to pray. You can watch on your own timetable, and pray when the Spirit moves!

ATTENDANCE ON-LINE

We keep track of attendance on-line, which while a bit of an in-exact science, can lend some insights.

We put our services up on Facebook and on YouTube, and to keep the comparisons apples-to-apples, these numbers represent folk who “engage” the posts on Facebook and go to the link on YouTube. They are the average per week.

Saturday Sunday May 103 107 June 140 139 July 57 80 August 59 135 September 80 79

In terms of our in-person attendance at our 5 outdoor worship services, we average about 22 per service.

FYI, the number of people we “reach” on Facebook is 4-6 times higher than the “engage” figure used above, which means that the service shows up on many more people’s page than the numbers above rep-resent. For instance, our Easter service “reached” 3178 people; the service with Tim Miller “reached” 785 people!

The Sexton Speaks Guess I will miss all of you for a few more weeks. To let you know, I have cleaned the pens on the first floor and the pulpit area. This included repair of the "flower" table and mounting it on new "feet" to re-place the bricks.

The Foundation B&G is awaiting an estimate from a commercial cleaning company to clean the beams and, I believe, the rest of the building and wash the windows. I have been told to hold off fur-ther cleaning until the estimate is received and acted upon.

I was very grateful for Donna Murphy's assistance in clearing the bell tables from the pens so I could clean them. Donna has also given permission to move the "old" bell tables from the pen near the organ to stor-age. Ted Gould and Tripp Grohe have offered to help with this. We could use the help of at least one more person.

Join the Zoom Book Club @West Parish Led by Pastor Christie and Bobbie Jordan

First meeting, Monday, October 12th at 7:00p.m.

When The Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions

by Sue Monk Kidd Order on-line or from a local library. 2 copies are available in the church office for $16/copy.

Here is what awaits you in this book. “I was standing on the shifting ground of midlife, having come upon that time in life when one is sum-moned to an inner transformation, to a crossing over from one identity to another. When change-winds swirl through our lives, especially at midlife, they often call us to a new passage of the spiritual journey: that of confronting the lost self-our true self. They call us to come home to who we really are.” - Sue Monk Kidd from When the Heart Waits

Blending her own experience with an intimate grasp at spirituality, Sue Monk Kidd relates the passionate and moving tale of her spiritual crisis, when life seemed to have lost meaning and her longing for a hasty es-cape from the pain yielded to a discipleship of “active waiting.” Full of wisdom, poise and grace, Kidd’s words will encourage us along our spir-itual journey, toward becoming who we truly are.

There will be time for each person to share their own experiences in relationship to this story.

Sign up by emailing contact@westparish.org or call or text Christie 508-494-6409.

I have always thought that change, although sometimes difficult, can also be a good thing. We have all experienced just that over the past several months and, hopefully, most of us have adjusted and recentered our lives into new patterns and habits. This week heralded another new “change” for me and others when a good number of handbell ringers returned to the Meetinghouse and with bells in hand we practiced. It was a glorious sound to hear for me and just to see faces (or most of them as they were all wearing masks!) was a welcome sight. I’ve learned that eyes can tell a lot and speak very loudly to express what is on the mind of someone. It is easy to detect sadness as well as joy, intensity in concentration and I could even hear counting of the rhythms through the masks! It was all so wonderful and it did not matter that we were not perfect or rhythmically correct – we were THERE and that is what was most important. A “Peanuts” cartoon has Lucy leaning on the piano listening to Schroeder playing and she asks, “What would you say if I moved away? Would you miss my smiling face? - kind of like wearing a mask. (Schroeder – “I could stand it.”) Now Lucy doesn’t smile all that much and she does yell a lot – surely Schroeder can perceive her emotions just by looking at Lucy’s face, hence why he most likely ignores her most of the time! Faces can tell us a lot and even the eyes and with sharp perception we can feel one’s emotions and respond to them accordingly. And giving someone a chance to “shine” or at least an opportunity is im-portant. Choir members do not have to be experts in singing and ringing, they just have to love music and participating. I was faced with a situation a number of years ago after arriving on the Cape. I loved to play tennis and had played at several clubs in Connecticut, just for fun and exercise. When I inquired about where to play here, I was contacted by a woman’s group in town and went one day to join them in playing dou-bles. It turned out to not be a pleasurable experi-ence, as again I was not a pro, I ran hard and made some great shots, but had my share of misses. I was corrected and criticized for my stance, my swing, my serve and just about everything else and then

given a suggestion of another place I might be able to play! I was disappointed in the attitude of the others, but realized that I really did not wish to play with them either going forward. And, I felt sorry that they could not accept the imperfections of someone who tried hard and loved what they were doing. I read an interesting story recently about a little boy whose uncle called him “Sparky” after a comic strip horse named Spark Plug. This boy was all but a failure in school and his record in sports wasn’t any better, although he made the golf team and then lost the most important match of the season. He was socially awkward, other students just did not care much to befriend him and he learned to live being a “loser”. One thing that was important to him was drawing but it was rejected by the high school year-book, by Walt Disney Studios, so he decided to tell his own life’s story in cartoons. The main character would be a little boy who symbolizes the perpetual loser and chronic underachiever – what Sparky knew best. His cartoon character went on to become a cultural phenomenon and people readily identi-fied with this “lovable loser” and soon became fa-mous worldwide: Charlie Brown. And Sparky was the highly successful cartoonist Charles Schultz and his strip “Peanuts” continues to inspire. It is a re-minder that life somehow finds a way for all of us, even the losers. We face difficulty and discourage-ment from time to time, but we also have a choice in how we handle it. If we’re persistent, if we hold fast to our faith, if we discover and develop the unique talents that each one of us has then there is no limit to our potential. As Charles Schultz said, “In the end, there are no ‘losers’. Some winners just take longer to develop!” I now miss one thing that I have a passion for – the senior choir – who unfortunately cannot join together in song and practice to offer music for the worship services. It is with great hope that “sometime” in the future we may come back togeth-er, just as the handbells have so that I can nurture and teach and look into those eyes to see and feel the emotion from each of them and their true love of music. All are winners in God’s eyes and I hope in the eyes of all who hear. Peace and blessings ~ Donna

“Notes” from the Loft

from The Music Director

ON THIS DATE in the earlier years of our church:

October 11, 1639 - The Rev. John Lothropp and nearly 25 families arrive in Matakeese from Scituate joining the settlement that would become known as the Town of Barnstable. Some made the forty mile journey by sea and others traveled the sixty miles over land bringing cattle and household goods. It is believed that one of their first acts on arrival was celebrating Communion using the an-cient pewter vessels that they had brought with them from England. The site of this sharing of the Sacrament of Communion is still recognized as Sacrament Rock located on 6A across the road from the entrance to Barnstable-West Barnstable Elementary school. The still existing communion ware is presently safely stored in a bank vault and brought out for special occasions at West Parish. Records indicate that three weeks after their arrival in Barnstable, Abigall, daughter of John Lothrop, Martha, daughter of Bernard Lumbert, and Mary, daughter of Robert Shelley were baptized. The same pewter baptismal bowl also brought with them from England is still used today at West Parish for baptisms.

October 19, 1814 – Mercy Otis Warren, poet, playwright, historian and activist, dies at the age of 86. As a young girl Mercy would walk to the Meetinghouse with her brother James Otis, Jr. for school-ing sessions with her Uncle, the Pastor Jonathan Russell. The Otis homestead was located on 6A across from the present day West Barnstable Post Office.

October 5, 1948 – A group of women of the Church and Parish gathered upstairs in the 1717 Meet-inghouse to discuss the need for a Parish House where the church could gather for worship during the impending Meetinghouse Restoration. Ruth Gilman was the first chair and led sixteen charter members of the “West Parish Women’s Guild” who over the next few years would organize suppers, fairs, auctions, sales and other projects to raise money to build a Parish House. By May 1952 the building was underway and by December 10, 1952 the Parish House was ready for the Guild’s Christmas sale. In 1953, the Church began holding services in the Parish House as the Meetinghouse Restoration work began.

October, 1999 - West Parish became “twinned” with St. Mary’s Church, Etton, East Yorkshire, England in a special service honoring the heritage of the Rev. John Lothropp. Rev. Lothropp was baptized at St. Mary’s in England on December 20, 1584. Twinning documents hang in the entrances of West Parish and St. Mary’s Church.

October 16, 2016 – A service of Celebration and Rededication was held in the 1717 Meetinghouse on the 400th Anniversary of the “newly gathered Congregational church” in England led first by Rev. Henry Jacob in 1616 and then the Rev. John Lothropp in the Borough of Southwark, London, Eng-land before the nucleus of the congregation came to the New World and over time to West Parish.

Mindy Abbott, Church historian

West Parish Family School

Pre-K - Miss Anne, Miss Laura, Miss Coco, Miss Madison, Miss Hannah, Miss Nicolle

It has been a great start to crazy times in out world. We learned about ourselves by graphing our hair and eye col-or. We measured how tall we are and figuring out who was the tallest and shortest.

We learned what primary colors are and that by mixing two of them you create a new col-or. We learned about the artist Vasiliy Kan-dinsky, and made our own abstract art. We read the story of Little Blue and Little Yellow and Mouse Paint. We love to paint at the easel with the primary colors.

We learned about transportation. We had to decide where each vehicle went on the land, water or air chart.

We walked over to the Meetinghouse Farm to see the plants and vegeta-bles growing. We met Miss Debbie over there and walked through the farm.

Preschool - Miss Morgan, Miss Jessica, Miss Devan, Miss Srijana

Preschool started off this new school year by talking about germs, rules/routines, and getting to know each other.

We made a glitter craft to show how many germs can be on our hands and the importance of hand washing and wearing our masks!

We have been getting to know each other and ourselves including dis-cussing emotions and how to handle them.

Toddlers - Miss Sherri, Miss Gina, Miss B, Miss Raquel, Miss Sue, Miss Lynn, Miss Nicolle, Miss Sharon, Miss Christine

We are so happy to be back at school even though everything is so different. The students and teachers have adjusted well. This month we focused on the color red and circles. We have figured out how to have sensory bins for each child and they have loved it! Our favorite book this month was Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. We have many of great things planned for October and will send along pictures of what we are doing.

Happy Birthday To our West Parish members and friends who are celebrating birthdays this month

3 Macayla Washburn

3 Jim Miller

4 Cassie Etsy

4 Jessica White

6 Donna Grohe

7 Bruce Benwood

9 Ryleigh Sheppard

10 Tripp Grohe

12 Elisabeth Adams

14 Laurel Jenkins

16 Michael Smith

19 Brad Haven

22 Layla Lesinski

23 Marie O’Neill

24 Bruce White

25 Mary McCormick

27 Bill Breisky

28 Bruce Cook

30 Sandy Howard

30 Lilia Sprague

If you’d like to have your name included, please contact the office with your information.

HANDS OF HOPE OUTREACH CENTER A program of the Cape Cod Council of Churches

49 RT. 28 , PO BOX 387, WEST HARWICH, MA 02671 508-432-1312 churcheshoh@comcast.net

Please consider helping the Food Pantry with the following items:

Stew, Hash, Spam

Granola or Oatmeal Canned Tuna

Coffee or Tea

Hamburger Helper Crackers

Jelly

Cereal Ketchup or Mayo

Pasta Sauce

Hamburger, Chicken or Tuna Helper Chef-Boy-R-Dee Products

If anyone has any handheld can openers they are not using please send with do-nated food. We have so many requests from our pantry patrons.

Thank You! The Outreach Yard Sale on Sept. 12 was

A Great Success!

We brought in over $1500 to be split 50/50 between Habitat for Humanity and the Outreach general fund.

We would like to thank all who donated, shopped, and worked hard to put the yard sale together in these Covid times.

West Parish Outreach Board

Office Hours Monday-Thursday 9:00 am-2:30 pm

Friday 9:00 am-1:00 pm 508-362-4445 contact@westparish.org

NON- PROFIT

ORGANIZATION

U.S. POSTAGE PAID

West Barnstable, MA 02668

PERMIT NO. 6

West Parish of Barnstable

2049 Meetinghouse Way

P.O. Box 219

West Barnstable, MA 02668

Rooster Crows Newsletter information is due to the office for the November 2020 issue by Thursday, October 15th at noon.

Email contact@westparish.org, call 508-362-4445, or mail it in to P.O. Box 219, West Barnstable, MA 02668

DATED

MATERIAL

PLEASE

DO NOT

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The Rooster Crows Crafting Group getting together for a social, yet physically distant luncheon