 Greetings, friends! Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for October 31, 2014, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. To begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from Tim Hughes, Executive Director of Silverlake Conference Center, read this week by your podcast host. In the 22nd chapter of Matthew, an expert in the law asks Jesus, what is the greatest commandment? Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. At Silverlake last weekend we had our fall action cleanup. We gathered on Friday night with a charge to love God, love your neighbor and love yourself, something we remind ourselves to do regularly at Silverlake. Seventy-five or so folks of all ages, young to not so young, came for the weekend to help out with doing chores around their home away from home. Just like our usual homes, there are always lists of things to do at Silverlake. Generally, our lists contain more tasks than we have time to accomplish. So we chip away at the list and try not to let anything get to the point of crisis. Leaky faucet repairs, leaf raking, wood splitting, doing the wash, painting, planting, and don't forget feeding and paying the bills. They are all things that cycle through, and they will need to be done again on that seemingly ever shrinking timeline. All of this can get overwhelming if we think that we are doing it alone. But the miracle that happens each fall and spring at Silverlake is those folks who come to help out at their home away from home. They come together to clean up God's backyard for the season and put the garden to bed for the winter, to fix the things that have been worn out, to make changes, to improve things that support the ministry that has touched so many lives. So even if our arms are tired of raking, or of scraping, or of painting, or chopping food, or fixing machines, we find that in the embrace of that sacred and sometimes silly community we can still keep going. The connection to one another brings us life, love, and laughter. And suddenly, those tasks seem to fly by. As we spend some time together in worship at the close of the weekend, already sad that our time together is almost over, we realize that this work we've been doing, the leaves, the cleaning, the painting, the wood splitting, and everything else. All of this is God's work. The sore muscles and tiredness are good reminders that we are alive and helping God to accomplish God's plan here in this great holy experiment we call humanity. And God saw what had been accomplished, and lo, it was good. Here is a prayer for this week. Creator God, we thank you for the places we feel at home. We thank you for those people who help make it a home for us. We know that it is when we open our hearts to others and invite them to make a home there that we are loving you, loving our neighbor, and loving ourselves. For this we are deeply grateful. We ask that you remind us to see our lists and the aches and pains of life as reminders that you are always with us, urging us to keep on going, and that you are still doing amazing things through each one of us on this home we call Earth. Amen. We ask this week that you hold in prayer the friends and family of the Reverend Robert E. Doober. Over a 36-year career, he served churches in Massachusetts and New York as well as in Bloomfield Falls Village and Thompson, Connecticut. He died on Wednesday at the age of 68. Well, I hope you enjoyed our not Halloween at the top of the show. The American holiday springs in part from a Christian practice of honoring the saints who have gone before us on November 1st called All Souls Day or All Hallows Day. And in fact, that's where the name comes from. All Hallows Eve becomes Halloween. For Christians, it's a day to celebrate what we frequently call the communion of saints and which the letter to the Hebrews calls the Great Cloud of Witnesses. So we invite you in your prayers today, this week, at any time. To recall and give thanks for those who have surrounded you with love and care, the people who have been the saints to you, and on whose behalf you may bear witness to their humanity and their goodness. In the news this week, tonight the youth of First Church of Christ Congregational UCC in Farmington will play host to ghouls and ghosts in the annual Halloween Against Hunger Haunted House for local children. They'll be collecting items for the Farmington Food Pantry and the first 100 visitors who bring a donation tonight will each receive a free hot dog. Youth Minister William Vibret says the food pantry is in particular need of healthy snack foods such as granola bars or trail mix and of household products like wipes and paper towels. This is just one of five service projects the young people will participate in this year, with the next one being Tent City the weekend of November 15th and 16th. Learn more at firstchurch1652.org. We've been industriously posting videos from the Connecticut Conference annual meeting this past week and you'll find them all on our website and our YouTube channel youtube.com slash ct UCC. There's a highlights video and you'll also find the full presentations of Conference Minister the Reverend Kent Silotti. So my sisters and brothers in Christ I would invite us to journey together. I would invite us to be bearers of the fruits of community, compassion, love and justice. We can't make it without each other. We are connected. We are interdependent. Thanks be to God for this great gift. The Sermon of Conference Preacher the Reverend Stephen Camp. Being part of the body of Christ is about knowing that I can depend upon you and that you can depend upon me. It is knowing that my gifts are welcome at the table not because I am or you are worthy to be at the table but because we have come to the table being interdependent about knowing that we swim the rough waters together and knowing that we will rise as one together because we are called as Jesus said to be one. It is a better way, a way that must be faithfully embraced. And the two theological reflections of the Reverend Dr. J. Mary Lutie. But I have sensed in this hall tonight a willingness to be forbearing with one another and if there is a virtue that will help us take the journey it is that one forbear and love one another but forbear bear one another's burdens carry each other's bags all will be well. Dr. Lutie also picked up on something that Nancy Crouch one of the recipients of the Living Waters Award had said that it was in a Bible study that she found the support and inspiration which led her to found a health care center in Uganda which now cares for 5,000 children and women each year. Who says that you can't build a clinic and care for 5,000 Ugandan women and children too? Who says you can't do that and maybe you can so please Connecticut conference go to church go to Bible study the world could change you'll also find we've posted the video of a panel discussion held in the New Hampshire conference last weekend which included all six of New England's UCC conference ministers and general minister and president of the Reverend Joffrey Black you'll find it along with all the current headlines at ctucc.org slash news. The fancy camp Gala is tomorrow night at First Church of Christ Congregational UCC in Farmington and I hope to see you there for an evening of celebration for all the work of outgoing Silverlake Conference Center co-director and Hughes and to support the life-enriching outdoor ministry which happens each summer and all year at your conference center in Sharon. We change lives at Silverlake by providing youth for the place where they can find themselves find good friends and find God. Author and Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spawn will speak twice in West Hartford on November 4th at noon and at 7 p.m. Boundary training for authorized ministers is November 6th in Milford learn about leadership and the Enneagram in Hartford on November 7th and 8th. The first of this year's confirmation retreats is the weekend of November 7th at Silverlake. The preaching of the Reverend Dr. Frank Reed of Baltimore will kick off a week of celebration at Liberty Christian Center International in Hartford at worship on November 9th. Stepping Stones returns with a workshop on radical hospitality with youth on November 10th in South Glastonbury. Author Brian McLaren will speak that same night in Hartford. Learn about meeting the needs of returning veterans on November 13th in Danbury. The Connecticut Association of United Church Educators gathering nurturing faith with a new generation features Ivy Beckwith in West Hartford on November 15th. And you can learn about social justice and faith-based organizing at a Saturday morning workshop in Meriden on that same day. Looking further out there's a workshop on transforming conflict on November 20th in Bloomfield and the Christmas at Silverlake weekend retreats for 5th and 6th graders and for 7th and 8th graders December 5th through the 7th. To learn more about these events or to register visit us at ctucc.org slash events. Our spirited Wednesday thought comes from the Reverend Lindsay Peterson pastor of the Buckingham Congregational Church at CtuCC in Glastonbury. Imagining the scene where Jesus steps away from the crowds to climb a mountain then sits and begins to teach she writes the movement away from the crowd is a movement toward God. Jesus is about to speak strange things like blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. The conviction to say such a thing comes from a centered in God place. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to Tim Hughes for his reflection and to GarageBand for our music. Primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission basic support changing lives through the United Church of Christ. This is Eric Anderson the minister of communications and technology for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ praying that your days this week may be filled with the presence the guidance and the grace of God.