We worship at 10:30 am from Sunday after Labor Day until the last Sunday in June, and at 9:30 am during July and August and on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.

Communion, served either in the pews or by intinction, takes place the first Sunday of every month. We practice open communion at this Church. Christians of any age and any denomination are welcome to receive the elements.

We often hold vespers services featuring Global Music at 5 pm on the third Sunday of the month. Check the Calendar [link]

Special worship services are scheduled at 5 pm on Christmas Eve and 7 pm on Maundy Thursday. There is often an outdoor sunrise service, literally at the crack of dawn, on Easter Sunday, in addition to the regular 10:30 am worship service at the Church.

We warmly welcome you who are with us and invite you to join us for our time of fellowship following the service. Our pastor, the Rev. Carrie Bail, greets worshipers after the service at the door to the left of the pulpit.

Large print bulletins and assistive listening devices are available. Please ask a greeter for assistance.

≡ Category: Sticky, Worship | Leave a Comment

Sunday, Aug. 31

9:30 am Service of Worship, Welcome Back Students, The Rev. Rick Spalding preaching

This is our LAST 9:30 am worship for 2008! On Sunday, September 7 we return to our regular 10:30 am worship time.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Labor Day, Church Office Closed

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Kononia Meeting in the Library at 10 am

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Sudan Relief Task Force Meeting in the Church Office at 9 am.

Call Elizabeth Williams at 413-458-0121 for more information on this ecumenical group which has been supporting an elementary school for Internally Displaced Persons in Khartoum for the past seven years.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

The Senior Choir, under the direction of Minister of Music Ed Lawrence, will hold their first 7:30 pm rehearsal of the season, preceded by dessert at 7 pm, at Ed & Diego’s new home in Bennington. Please call or e-mail for directions. Please note that rehearsal will be in the Sanctuary because Fellowship Hall is being set-up for our annual Tag Sale

Saturday, September 6, 2008

TAG SALE!! 9 am- 2pm in Fellowship Hall

Sunday, September 7, 2008

10:30 am Service of Communion. Pastor Carrie Bail preaching.

There will be a children’s activity during the service.

After the service there will be Sunday School Registration and an Ice Cream Social to Welcome our new Director of Christian Education, Kathy Noble

From Noon-1:30 pm the Stewardship Cluster will meet in the Library.

LOOKING AHEAD

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Bridge to Sudan Fundraiser from 1-4 pm at the Williams Inn www.williamsinn.com.

This afternoon of “rubber” bridge with refreshments is a fundraiser for the Sudan Relief Task Force, an ecumenical group which has been supporting an elementary school for Internally Displaced Persons in Khartoum for the past seven years. Cost $15 per person ($10 of which is tax deductible.) Space is limited; individual or table reservations are recommended. Call 413-458-3343 or e-mail BridgeToSudan@gmail.org for information and reservations.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Java Jive Teen Coffeehouse in Fellowship Hall from 6-10 pm

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Meals-on-Wheels Food Preparation in the Kitchen and Fellowship Hall. Meal preparation is scheduled on Thursday this month because the ABC Clothing Sale will be held in Fellowship Hall on Saturday. Call Arletta Currie 413-458-3061 to get involved with this ecumenical program that prepares a weekend meal for Williamstown residents in need.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

ABC www.greylockabc.org Clothing Sale from 9 am-2 pm in Fellowship Hall

≡ Category: Communion, Events, Home, Senior Choir | Leave a Comment

This week: Sun., Jan. 20 10:30 am –Annual Meeting and Luncheon

Following today’s service and our Annual Meeting, there will be a delicious luncheon catered by the Williams Inn in Fellowship Hall, and then Cluster Meetings. We are doing the work of our Congregation and enjoying each other’s company. Childcare will be provided by the Habitat Crew during the Annual Meeting.

≡ Category: Home, Worship | 1 Comment

Light Isaiah 60: 1-6; Mt.2: 1-12

1st Sunday after epiphany
Three Kings Sunday
January 8, 2006

As I dropped off our Christmas tree at the dump yesterday, adding to what was already a tremendous pile of greenery, I thought about the old English custom of making a bonfire with discarded trees on the Twelfth Night of Christmas. Today we’ve read the scriptures from the day of Epiphany, two days after the actual day, so we can have our traditional celebration of the Three Kings along with the offering of the white gifts. This morning I’d like to reflect on Epiphany, the revealing of God’s light and glory in the world: what it means for us and our purpose in the world. What inspiration and direction might we gain from the great Light which would come if we had a great bonfire of the evergreens?

Light. It is the underlying theme of the whole season, from Advent to Epiphany. In Advent the light is more of a longing, a memory, a wistfulness as we observe ever-increasing darkness and hold on to a fierce, if tiny, hope that God will come into the world again to dispel our darkness. In the season before Christmas, especially amid the commercial nightmare we have made out of it, the light feels very fragile, one lone little candle or one tiny star twinkling defiantly in the night sky. The hope takes constant nurturing in order to be sustained. Then on Christmas Eve it bursts into a blazon of great light, a flaming beacon in the sky, accompanied by songs and angels and a sea of lighted candles. That is the turning point, the moment when the light begins to push back the darkness, the days lengthen. Christmas season is longer than one special night. In each one of those twelve days the light grows stronger and stronger and makes itself ready for a third stage, the season of Epiphany.

Read more

≡ Category: Worship | Leave a Comment

Anyone of any age can be baptized at our church. We recognize all Christian baptism, and so if you have already been baptized you cannot be “re-baptized.” We will be glad to accept you as a member. Baptisms are usually held publicly, during the regular Sunday worship service. If infants or children are to be baptized we usually require that the family be active participants in the life of our church.

≡ Category: Baptism, Worship | Leave a Comment

Our Minister of Music is Edwin I. Lawrence, B.Mus.
Ed is Adjunct Teacher of Piano, Organ and Harpsichord, and Teaching Assistant in Theory and Eartraining in the Williams College Music Department.
Ed holds the B. Mus. degree (magna cum laude) from SUNY Fredonia, 1969.
His teachers include Gabriel Chodos for piano and Preethi de Silva for harpsichord. He is Music Director of the Bennington County Choral Society. Ed is a founding member of the Consortium of Vermont Composers. He has guest conducted the Vermont Symphony. In 1990 he received the Citation of Merit from the Vermont Council on the Arts.

≡ Category: Sing, Worship | Leave a Comment

Welcome to our website!

We hope those of you who are surfing through our pages might venture out to meet us some time at our 10:30 a.m. Sunday worship service, or at one of our many other events open to the public. Although we sit right in the middle of a busy college campus, too many people are unaware of all the activity going in and out of our doors! Once a month there are weekend meals prepared and delivered to seniors in the community through the hands of our volunteer families. Once a year our high school youth take a mission trip to help Habitat with Humanity after having spent previous months doing service projects in our local community. Once a year there is a beautiful candlelight worship service on Christmas Eve crowded with returning family and friends and visitors. There are classes and choirs for both adults and children; and lots of good causes which welcome your creative energy. And every Sunday morning we join in worship.

We care about our church family and friends. And we care about you, our potential visitors! We care about our environment and global warming and have been active with other local organizations taking action. We care about peace and have lifted our voices to say so. We care about justice, and work toward alleviating injustice in many different ways. We care about ensuring that everyone receives an equal welcome, no matter what their race, class, or gender identity. No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.

Carrie Bail, Pastor

≡ Category: Home, Worship | Leave a Comment

The Rev. Carrie Bail is pastor of the First Congregational Church of Williamstown United Church of Christ where she has served since the summer of 2000. Born, raised, and educated in New England, after a B.A. degree in anthropology from Yale, she spent some years migrating south and west, living first in Mexico and then Hawaii. In Honolulu, singing in choir of the Lutheran Church, she met her husband, Darius Jonathan, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii from southern Sudan. After attending seminary at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. she was ordained and served her first church, Ka Hana O Ke Akua United Church of Christ in Wai’anae, Hawaii beginning in 1987. All three of the Jonathan children were born into the loving “ohana” (family) of that congregation.

In the mid-nineties, economics and elderly parents prompted the family’s return to New England where Carrie served Canaan Congregational Church (UCC) in the New York Berkshires until 2000. Since settling within yards of the Haystack Monument in Williamstown, her life-long fascination with multiculturalism has been reignited by the story of how the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was born here. (In 2006 First Church hosted the Haystack Bicentennial Celebration.) She is challenged by imagining what form global ministry might take in the present, especially living right in the middle of a college campus. A visit from her mother-in-law, Raile Daffala, deaconess and Church Mother in Khartoum in the Anglican Church, inspired her commitment to mission anew.

Carrie loves music of all kinds, especially singing sacred choral music and listening to jazz as performed by her son. She enjoys children’s literature, writing, swimming (especially in the Pacific ocean), and being a soccer mom. She is a committed activist for peace and justice, most particularly around issues of mental health, climate change, and education in and about the Sudan.

≡ Category: Connect, Worship | Leave a Comment

We practice open communion at this Church on the first Sunday of every month. Christians of any age and any denomination are welcome to receive the elements. Communion is a special moment for all of us. In consideration of those around them, please help your little ones to think of this as a time to quietly feel God’s presence.

For communion served by the deacons in the pews:
• Bread may be eaten as soon as it is received.
• The cup shall be served soon thereafter, but should be kept until all are served and the pastor invites all to drink together as a sign of unity.
• Cups of grape juice will be placed on the outer portion of the tray and may be distinguished from the wine by its darker color.
For communion by intinction: after receiving a small piece of bread, you may dip it into the cup of grape juice.

≡ Category: Communion, Worship | Leave a Comment