January 23, 2018
Dear LABC,
Three major events await us on the last weekend of January. There is a PAUSE worship experience on Friday night between 6:00 and 8:00. The LABC memorial service for David Bartlett is Saturday at 2:00 with choir rehearsal at 12:30. The annual meeting of the congregation follows worship on Sunday.
In my sermon on Sunday the pioneering environmentalist and author, Rachel Carson, will be our example of leadership. In her classic work, Silent Spring (1962) Carson, both an author and a marine biologist, courageously and while very ill herself, documented the harm the widespread use of the pesticide DDT was causing the natural world calling on the nation to pay attention to the well being of the environment.
In an interview with CBS journalist Eric Sevaried she summarized her central thesis. “Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and to destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself…Now, I truly believe that we in this generation must come to terms with nature, and I think we’re challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”
Our central scripture will be Matthew 6: 25-33 in which Jesus bids us to “Look at the birds of the air” and “consider the lilies of the field.”
Prayers of the Congregation
- Anthony Marshall and Leslyn Henry (Anthony is in hospice care)
- Jesus Portillo for Merle, Max and family
- The Wilkinson family for Gloria Joseph
- Barbara Hunt for John and family
- Cecil White for his niece and nephew
- Ruben for his mother-in-law
- Angela Sherman for family and friends
- Larry Sims for his family
- Sandra Lee as she concludes her work in the insurance industry
- All who are ill
- All who are grieving
- All who live in fear
- All who are making decisions that affect others
- All are homebound members
- All the homeless members of our community and those who minister to them
- Thanksgiving for our youth and young adults
- Thanksgiving for the ministry of PAUSE
- Thanksgiving for the ministry of St. Mary’s Center
- Thanksgiving for the ministry of the American Baptist Seminary of the West
- Thanksgiving for the ministry of the Evergreen Baptist Association
The Reverend Douglas Avilesbernal, the new Executive Minister of the Evergreen Baptist Association, takes office this week. We welcome him even as we bid farewell to The Reverend Dr. Marcia Patton as she retires.