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First Church Sandwich, UCC
Mental Health Awareness Sunday
Baptism of Lane Ruth Pacheco
May 16 2021
Video Announcements
Welcome & Welcoming Statement
Here at First Church we are a warm and welcoming Faith Community, open to all who wish to join with us in our faith journey. In the spirit of Christian love, we affirm the dignity and worth of every person.
We offer each individual the opportunity to participate in every aspect of our life and to share together the costs and joys of Christian fellowship regardless of their social or economic condition, race, ethnicity, physical or mental abilities, age, gender, martial status or family structure, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, theological or political ideology.
As a Christian congregation, we affirm that all people are created equal before God, that each individual is a child of God, and that we love one another as Christ has loved us.
Gathering Music “Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace”
Mental Health Awareness Moment Kathleen Bridge
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Let’s Reduce Stigma!
Talking about mental health and education about mental health is vital to reducing stigma.
Mental health stigma refers to societal disapproval and generalized beliefs that are often inaccurate, negative, and offensive. For instance, people living with depression are often stereotyped as lazy, while some judge those with anxiety as cowardly. Many people fear being labeled “crazy” for simply seeking support from a therapist.
People with mental illness are often stereotyped as violent or dangerous. In fact, a small minority of people living with mental illness commit violent acts. They are actually 10 times more likely to be victims of a crime, making them a vulnerable population that should be protected instead of feared.
Stigma can cause a person to feel alone. The effects of stigma can include social isolation, low self-esteem, hopelessness and shame, avoiding treatment, worsening symptoms, lack of criminal justice, discrimination at work and unemployment.
Public education to increase knowledge around mental illness is paramount, since the majority of stigma comes from a lack of understanding and misplaced fear.
Everyone has a role in diffusing mental health stigma. Through education and understanding, we can eliminate the stigma around mental illness.
Education – Advocacy – Support: Learn more at namicapecod.org
Opening Prayer
One: God invites us to co-create communities of radical belonging for all.
Many: We are creating communities of radical belonging for people living with mental health challenges, conditions, and illness and their loved ones.
One: Jesus shows us how to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Many: We are loving our neighbors who experience mental health conditions, challenges, and illness and their loved ones. We are loving ourselves no matter where we are on the spectrum of mental wellness today.
One: The Spirit empowers us to create communities of radical belonging for people with brain diseases and disorders, and people living with substance use and addictions and their loved ones.
Many: We are co-creating with God communities of radical belonging and love for everyone. May our worship inspire and empower us for the journey. Amen.
~Rev. Dr. Sarah Lund
Song: “Down to the River to Pray”
Sacrament of Baptism
Invitation
Rev. Tina Walker-Morin: Dear friends, as we come to this font of the living water, let us recall the meaning of baptism. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
People: For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free- and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
Rev. Tina Walker-Morin: Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Rev. Jennie Valentine: Story of Jesus’ baptism
Rev. Tina Walker-Morin: The sacrament of baptism is an outward and visible sign of the grace of God. Inasmuch as the promise of the gospel is not only to us but also to our children, baptism with water and the Holy Spirit is the mark of their acceptance into the care of Christ’s church. In baptism, God works in us the power of forgiveness, the renewal of the Spirit, and the knowledge of the call to be God’s people always.
Questions of the Candidates
Rev. Tina Walker-Morin: Jenna and Michelle, do you desire to have Lane baptized into the faith and family of Jesus Christ?
Parents: We do
Rev. Tina Walker-Morin (to parents and Godparents): Jenna, Michelle and Matthew and Cristina: Will you with God’s help to guide and encourage Lane by counsel and example, in prayer and with love?
Parents & God parents: We will
Rev. Tina Walker-Morin (to parents and Godparents): Do you promise to seek out our still speaking God at work all around you in the beauty of nature, in the love of family and friends, in the wonder of the ways God’s love saves us from hopelessness, and restores us to our true and authentic selves, and to show love and justice to others? If so say we will with the help of God.
Parents and Godparents: We will, with the help of God
Rev. Tina Walker-Morin (parents and God parents): Do you promise, through the grace of God, to seek to live as a follower of the Christ, to show love to all people & to work for justice, and to witness as best as you are able to the work & word of the Christ? If so say we will with the help of God.
Parents and Godparents: We will with the help of God.
*Congregational Assent
Rev. Tina Walker-Morin: Jesus Christ calls us to make disciples of all nations and to offer them the gift of grace in baptism. Do you, who witness and celebrate this sacrament, promise your love, support and care to the one about to be baptized, as she lives and grows in Christ?
People: We promise our love, support and care.
Prayer of Baptism
Bless by your Holy Spirit, gracious God this living water, which flowed through the streams of your world coming to the town of Sandwich.
By your Holy Spirit watch over those who come in the name of Jesus Christ. Create new life in the one baptized this day that she may rise in Christ. Glory to you, eternal God, the one who was, and is, and shall always be, Amen.
Act of Baptism
Prayer For the Baptized
Gracious God, you have filled the world with joy by giving us the gift of Jesus. Bless Lane. May she be filled with joy; may she grow in faith and curiosity. Give Lane strength for life’s journey, courage in time of suffering, the joy of faith, the freedom of love, and the hope of new life; through Jesus Christ, who makes us one. Amen.
Scripture: Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29 Judy Kaechele
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! 2 The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? 4 Did you experience so much for nothing?—if it really was for nothing. 5 Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?
6 Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” 7 so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” 9 For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.
Galatians 3:23-29
23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Offering
Invitation Judy Kaechele
Song “I am Light”
Dedication
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer` Rev. Tina Walker-Morin
Sending Forth Song: “Break Dividing Walls”
Benediction Rev. Tina Walker-Morin
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