This Sunday marks the beginning of the season of Advent. And with that comes some special practices. The lighting of Advent candles, for one. If you have never created an advent wreath before, check this out. It doesn’t need to be fancy! We’ll be lighting the first candle this Sunday. If you have yours ready to go, we can do that together as part of our gathering.

This season we’ll have a guest cellist Eli Bender joining us, so you can anticipate special music. 

Please jot a note to me by Saturday evening with the prayers you would like included in our prayer time.

Rev. Karen Dickey Email Karen
[email protected]

Our culture has required, if not demanded, a level of competency from us. This is part of our inheritance from our hard-fought beginnings on this continent. We cling to our self-reliance and our need to master the environment around us. We reject our perceived weaknesses, our frailties and even our most human desire to need one another. Ultimately, we are enslaved by our own "addiction to competency". When life shows us how little control we have, we shun our broken hearts. Let's bring this broken heartedness to the table. Let's embrace our vulnerability and allow the heart to break us open to who we truly are.

Please watch out for this coming week's ENews for more information and ZOOM links for these special Advent gatherings. If you can't zoom, they will also be streamed on YouTube via a private 'unlisted' link.

Advent Morning Prayer ~ Thursdays at 8am

Come join others (via zoom) in this contemplative soulful practice of morning prayer.

Drawing on Philip Newell’s Celtic prayer, we begin with music and continue with an opening prayer, scripture with silence, and an opportunity to pray for the coming day and the life of the world.

We’ll begin at 8 am, concluding around 8:20.  

Magnifying the Light ~ Wednesday evenings 7pm

a 4 week series with video and conversation

Advent is the time of year we remind ourselves that God is coming toward us, dwelling among us.  And our task is to make room through our lives to bear and birth God’s movements of grace and caring into the world.

Each week, via zoom, we’ll view a 5-6 minute video featuring an articulate, progressive person of faith whose Advent reflection will lead us into thoughtful conversation with each other.  We’ll begin next Wednesday at 7pm.

Have you taken a scroll down the home page of the JBUC webpage recently? Give it a once over, and you just might find that missing link.

"That was a wonderful choir concert tonight!
We love this church, it has such great agnostics!"