Welcome to the First Church in Ipswich ~ HOLY WEEK & EASTER 2020

Please take a moment and read our Easter letter for 2020 Easter Letter April 4,2020

The Church grounds are a public park of the Town of Ipswich and they are open all the time. Come, walk and pray. Please help us keep our neighbors healthy, and if you see a cluster of people, give them six feet of breathing room.

Palm Sunday 2020  We offer palms for your prayers as we give thanks for Christ who walks with us through loneliness and fear, and yet was holy and strong, and shares this holy strength with us. These palms are disinfected with Sanidate 5.0, a food-grade disinfectant for viruses and other pathogens.

Rev. Tom Lenhart, Ms. Lynn Lenhart, James Turner, and Rev. Christine Hribar offer a Palm Sunday worship service, via You-tube and local Ipswich Cable TV, at 10 am.

Maundy Thursday 2020  Professor Mark Allman offers a Maundy Thursday meditation on You-Tube and the local Ipswich TV, and Christine and Mark follow it with a Zoom gathering around everybody’s kitchen tables for the sacrament. Please pour a vessel to share at your own table, and prepare a loaf we can break virtually. On this sacred night we honor the miracle of memory and the courage of our God, embedded in the miracle of the breaking of the bread for our salvation.

Good Friday 2020  The church grounds are open all day for walking and prayer. Please observe the international guidelines for health this spring with the 6 feet of separation. Good Friday walking meditation guides are HERE  Individual Prayer Hike For Good Friday with Four Stops .Bring an ugly stone back to the church grounds if you are able, and help us as we seek to cover over the devil’s footprint as one would cover a poison ivy vine: with newspaper and a few scattered stones, plenty of time, space, and neglect

Rev. Rebecca Pugh and Anna Brown offer a Good Friday reading of the seven Last Words with seven prayers, on You-Tube and on local Ipswich TV. With music by Lucas Callahan.

Easter Sunrise 2020  The state parks and the Essex County Greenbelt properties are open for your prayers and walking meditations, as are the Ipswich town properties. Please rise early and pray for the coming of salvation. Zoom sunrise worship with Rev. Christine at 8am.

Easter Holy Worship 2020  10am: Worship by Ipswich Cable TV and You-Tube: see links on the Church website; with Rev. Tom Lenhart and Ms. Lynn Lenhart, and with Tom and Lisa Palance

Please know that we will all join together to flower the cross on the first day of the end of the Covid-19 Separation, when social distancing is over, when our sanctuary is open again.

If you are looking for an AA meeting, they have been moved to Zoom for the short term. Call the church office at 978-356-2211 for the addresses, or call AA Central Service: 617-426-9444

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A message from Rev. Rebecca

Dear First Church friends and family:
I am half-back from Sabbatical and grateful for all the messages that you are sending, blessing and being blessed.

A Prayer for Heavenly Accompaniment:
Kind and powerful Maker of the galaxies and the cells in our bodies and the minerals in the land,
Hear our longings for your power.
We offer you this: our washed hands, lifted to the skies.
We offer you this: our quiet breath, stretching our torsos as we breathe.
We offer you this: our grateful hearts, beating in small ways.

Kind and powerful Creator,
We ask you help: for the nurses and doctors, the scientists and hospital cleaners, the brilliant minds, the generous workers, the tired devoted ones, who are at the front of this challenge. Some are afraid. All are heroes.
May they be filled with health and light and love.
We ask for your comfort: for their families and all of us, as we vigil at a distance.
We ask for your company: for those isolated in institutions and for those with no homes.
We ask for your calm: for those with too much work.
We ask for your calm: for those with no work.
We ask for your serenity:  for those anxious.
We ask for your restlessness: for those who are complacent.

Kind and powerful Healer,
Hold us all, your children, all the species of us, of all the continents of your planet.
Hold us and remind us of your hands, of all the creatures of your creation.
You are our shade at our right hand. Help us remember.
Amen.   — Rev. Rebecca