Old Dutch Church, Kingston, New York

All Saints Day 11/1

TODAY Join us for a free community pumpkin carving event 10am - 2pm At the Old Dutch Church......This year we'll be masked and distanced...indoor and outdoor carving spaces available! Pumpkins & carving tools provided. All ages welcome

An annual invite for community pumpkin carving is being offered on Halloween! Join us Saturday, October 31 from 10am - 2pm in the Old Dutch Churchyard for FREE pumpkin carving! All ages welcome!!! ODC is Grateful for our collaborators in building community: www.KingstonFarmersmarket.org, and www.SeedSongFarm.org Hope you will join us for this masked and socially distanced event.....clean tools and pumpkins provide!

10/25 The Journey Home

Bulletin for October 25

10/18 "Pay Your Taxes"

A Prayer for the People* God of birth, God of joy, God of life We come to you as people hungry for good news.... We are longing for the day when we will take off our masks, to hug and kiss more freely again, touching one another when speaking, breathing the same air without fear. We are longing for the intimacy we took for granted with one another, and also with you. We don’t mean to complain, God, it’s just that we are starving for good news; for the light at the end of this tunnel, for the peace that passes all understanding, for love to actually overcome fear and death in the here and now, when indeed this shroud that is cast over all peoples, this sheet that is spread over all nations will be gone for good. God of birth, God of joy, God of life, Even as we look to you to set things right again, we find you looking back to us, calling us to be your ambassadors of love and your agents of grace in the world, in this very time and in this very place. And so we pray now for our emergence from this present darkness in a way we haven’t known for awhile, whirling to a fresh time, and unused space, set free from the tyrannies of complaining and blaming, to see, as if on the first day of creation, the miracle of life and being, and to hear again the constant hum of your grace unfolding to meet all of our needs, unexpectedly and surprisingly, urging us to press on in faith to whatever is next in love. God of birth, God of joy, God of life, help us to believe in beginnings, to make a beginning, to be a beginning, to begin going out of our minds into fresh dreams. To begin forgiving, that we may experience mercy. To begin risking, that we may make peace. To begin loving, that we may realize joy. Help us to be a beginning for others, a singer for the songless, a befriender to the forgotten, the beginning of hope for the despairing, assurance for the doubling, reconciliation for the divided, gentleness for the angry. God of birth, God of joy, God of life. Help us to believe in beginnings, to make a beginning, to be a beginning, So that we may not just grow old, but grow new each day, in this wild, amazing life you call us to live, with the passion of Jesus Christ, the one who taught us when we pray to say, Our Father. . . *With grateful acknowledgement to Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle (Augsburg Books, 1981). This prayer borrows language from three prayers in this collection, and was first offered at Old Dutch Church during worship on October 11, 2020.

10/11 Yah, You Can Wear That