 Greetings, friends! Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for December 5, 2013, 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. This past Sunday marked the beginning of the New Year in the Church's calendar, which begins with the first Sunday in Advent, the season in which we anticipate the celebration of Jesus on Christmas. We offer you our best wishes for a year filled with growth and joy. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from Cecile Gilson, a commissioned minister of the UCC and the assistant to the conference minister. This image, found in the 11th chapter of Isaiah, may sound familiar to you. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples, the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. Peace, that elusive reality which all of us yearn to experience. Peace in our souls, peace in our community, peace in our country, peace in our world. The vision of the peaceable kingdom from Isaiah is often held up as the model for peace. The image of the wolf and lamb appears on Christmas cards and in Advent materials. Little children lead the procession in art, in film and in our worship experiences. We celebrate the birth of Jesus as the root from Jesse that comes to bring peace. One image is missing from all of the above, a picture or mirror image of ourselves. Peace begins with the acceptance of who we are as children of God and with our acceptance of our role in the world. Once we recognize our gifts and skills, we can begin the work of bringing peace in whatever way we are able. Jesus challenges us to live as He lived, to love as He loved, and to work for peace for all. During this time of Advent it is right to remember our call from God. It is right to celebrate the gifts God has given through us. Here is a prayer for this week. Forgive us, God, when we live our lives within the lines, when we say this is the shape of our work, this is the boundary of our habitation, these are the limits to our love, these are the lines of our vision, these and none other. Draw us beyond our patterns into yours, shifting, moving, curving, spiraling, many-colored, ever-changing, stretching, pushing, challenging, renaming, unsettling, disturbing, casting forth and welcoming home. Amen. The prayer for this week is used by permission of United Church Press. It is found in Night Visions, Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas. Copyright 1998 by Jan L. Richardson. In the news this week. On November 14th the full conference staff completed a first round of training in racial bias awareness and cultural sensitivity, part of the sacred conversations on race ministry. This initial training program seeks to foster discernment around language, policies and behaviors that may inhibit, diminish, or invalidate the contributions or participation of any ethnic or racial group. Maureen Service workshops lie ahead for the staff and our newly hired coordinator for the Sacred Conversations Ministry, the Reverend Dominique Atchison, will be recruiting and training conversation facilitators for local programs in our churches in the months ahead. The Asylum Hill Congregational Church UCC in Hartford partnered with Hartford Seminary this fall to create Interfaith University, intended to help members explore what it means to be Christian in a multi-faith world. In this first year participants learned about Islam in a four-week series on Muslim faith, life, and experience. They have created a program on the Bible and the Quran, which they have opened to the public and which will be held at the end of January. The Westfield Congregational Church UCC in Danielson is a lovely 19th century structure, and when he first arrived there not quite two years ago, past to the Reverend Jonathan Chapman thought it looked just like Christmas. And so for the second year, the Church is offering a series of Victorian Christmas services on the Sunday evenings of December, filling those who attend with a special dose of holiday spirit. On December 15th, before the service, the Church will host a Victorian Christmas Feast, including traditional treats such as gingerbread and sugar plums. But this season also means that the first anniversary of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown is upon us. As officials released reports and recordings this week, the Connecticut Conference offered reflective resources and a prayer. Those preparing to remember the events can find those materials on our website, and we will offer the prayer in next week's Conference Cast. For all the current headlines, and if you haven't yet had a chance to check out our Making of Conference Cast video, then make sure to visit us at ctucc.org slash news. And we're very pleased to welcome Conference Archivist John Van Epps to the studio today for another Touchstone with History. In our Conference Minister Kenselotti's presentations around our conference this fall, he has talked about the challenges of local autonomy and the need for experimentation and cooperative efforts. This is at the heart of our heritage in Connecticut. The Sabrec platform of 1708 provided for a closer cooperation among our churches than that of the Cambridge platform in Massachusetts. Indeed, the Sabrec platform was called semi-presbyterian because of the consociations with authority and oversight over the churches. Yet this stronger communion of churches may well have been instrumental in our state taking the lead in the formation of many of the cooperative missionary ventures in our nation's history. In Alexis de Tuckville's classic work Democracy in America, he said that a basic vitality of our country was the formation of voluntary associations. We've always done it that way. Our Missionary Society of Connecticut is the oldest in our country formed in 1798 to bring the gospel to the frontier lands in Vermont, Ohio, and beyond. Connecticut ministers joined with those from Massachusetts in 1812 to form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which for over 200 years has sent thousands of missionaries to foreign lands. The Connecticut Bible Society and various temperance organizations were formed in the early 1800s to meet those needs. The pastor of Litchfield, Lyman Beecher, issued the challenge to, quote, raise up the waste places of Connecticut. From that arose the Connecticut Domestic Missionary Society to raise funds and leadership for churches and communities. This effort eventually morphed into the American Home Missionary Society. The American Missionary Association was formed in 1846 with the leadership of James Pennington, pastor of what is now Faith Church in Hartford. This voluntary association raised funds for schools and colleges to educate blacks in the South. In addition to all these efforts, there were also the area and association benevolent societies to raise monies and engage in actions for wider missions. All of these voluntary associations emerged and were active before there was even a Connecticut Conference, which was organized in 1867. In the latter half of the 1800s, several area and city missionary societies were formed to minister to the newly arrived immigrants in our state and the needs of our cities. Perhaps most notable was in Hartford, which is now the Christian Activities Council. Such groups were active in ministering to the needs of Germans, Italians, Swedes and other ethnic groups in our cities. So this is just a brief survey of how our churches working together in voluntary associations have been a source of vitality and mission over the years. Please remember the Friends of the Conference annual appeal, which helps supplement the annual giving through local churches for ministries within the state. Help to local churches in the search for new pastoral leadership. Help finding resources for educational programs through the Ruth Dudley Resource Center. Answers to questions that require a specialist's expertise. And of course the profound experience of Christian community offered at Silver Lake Conference Center. Help support and extend these ministries to churches and people here in Connecticut. Make your gift securely online at ctucc.org slash donate. The Middlesex Chapter of Give Squared will hold a service event in Hartford tomorrow, December 6th, and the Christmas at Silver Lake Retreats run this weekend. Yale Law School Professor Hope Metcalf and National Religious Coalition Against Torture Policy Director Matt Hawthorne are the featured presenters at Ending U.S. Sponsored Torture Forever to be held December 11th in New Haven. On December 12th, Newtown Congregational Church UCC pastor the Reverend Matt Kreben will be among those participating in a vigil for all victims of gun violence being held at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. The last of this year's conversations with the conference minister will be held on December 12th in New Haven. In the new year, Stepping Stones returns on January 14th with Pass Them the Football, the Care and Support of Volunteers in the Southington. Hartford Seminary and Asylum Hill Congregational Church offer the Bible and the Quran on January 29th in Hartford. Comfort food for the journey to a day retreat for clergy women will be February 4th in Hartford. And mark your calendars on the 1st of March now because that will be super Saturday, a day of workshops, fellowship and celebration for church members and leaders. We're holding this in concert with the Massachusetts Conference this year and we'll be gathering in Ludlow, Massachusetts. You can always learn more about what's coming up in the Connecticut Conference by visiting us at ctucc.org slash events. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to Cecile Gilson for her 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 to 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.