Volunteer Sign Up

Please let the Hospitality Committee know if you want to help. Complete this short form or email church office at allsaints@metrocast.net

Name:_______________        8 or 10 am attendee:_________

Email:_______________        Phone:____________________

Coffee hour:__________        Greeter:___________________

Bake only?_________              Assist only? ________

I would like to host with?       I would like to greet with?

____________________        __________________________

Let us know your preferences as we are making up schedules. Thanks so much for helping us be a welcoming church community.

Please give completed forms to a committee member.

Thank you, 

All Saints Hospitality Committee 

Prue Fitts, Pat McLaughlin, Martha Cross, Mary Haeger, Anne Hunt and Susie Walker

Thank you for remembering Life Ministries Food Pantry. We welcome donations of non-perishable items. Please place them in the basket in the narthex. Other items needed are supplies for babies and mothers (diapers size 3-5, wipes, toothbrushes/paste, personal hygiene items, shampoo and clothing for children).

At my ordination as bishop I also made the vow before you "boldly to proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ, enlightening the minds and stirring up the conscience" of the people here in New Hampshire. A matter of community concern has arisen that calls upon me to do just this as the State Legislature considers a bill to repeal the death penalty. This bill represents an important moment for us to come together in our witness to work for a more holy and just society. It is not by accident that I address you on a day when we hear the Gospel account of Jesus' own execution on the Cross on a hill outside Jerusalem. I am heartened that my colleagues, (Roman Catholic) Bishop Peter Libasci and (Lutheran) Bishop James Hazelwood, and several other Christian religious leaders are also considering this matter on this day.

 Allow me to share something of own journey. My home town in Connecticut, where my parents still live, was the scene of the one of the most grotesque and horrible home invasions in our nation's history. Two young women and their mother were brutally violated and murdered, as their father and husband was bludgeoned unconscious and bound helpless. The actions of that day in July 2007 were even more incomprehensible by the fact that they were so random, making the whole community aware of its vulnerability in the face of human sin and the fragility of our sense of security and normalcy.

The immediate impulse of my family, including myself, was to join the chorus demanding for the quick conviction and execution of the assailants. Our private determination only intensified when we became aware of the utter lack of remorse of one of murderers. However, soon we discovered that the effect of their sin, so unutterably horrible as it was, was beginning to have a sickening effect on the state of our souls. Hatred, its lack of dignity for life, was infecting our hearts. Such is the contaminating effect of sin. The impulse-so human-to exact retribution and to inflict suffering is itself a kind of violence.

As we hear in today's gospel, to satisfy that impulse is not the way of the Cross, the Way we as Christian are called to embrace as the way to true security, freedom, and life. To be like Jesus often means to allow our basic, human instincts and impulses to be transformed into the attitudes of godliness, holiness, and mercy.

Debate surrounding the death penalty is so serious and so emotionally charged because everyone engaged in the topic upholds the sacredness of human life. We are justifiably horrified and outraged when we hear of any assault, and we are especially enraged when we hear of such crimes that are aggravated and result in physical or emotional impairment or death. We are right to be angry, and we are right to demand a reckoning and a response for the sake of the victims, their families, and for the whole of society. Our penal system relies on the certainty of incarceration, in some cases, incarceration for life without possibility of parole for the sake of justice and for the public's safety.

However, to take another life out of a need for retribution is not justified by our faith. As we are committed to learning the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, we believe that killing a human life for the sake of retribution is equal to what Jesus called the unforgivable sin, that of "grieving the Holy Spirit." This is because the death penalty precludes any possibility for the offender to repent, to amend his or her life, to seek God's forgiveness and those most affected by their crime. Faith tells us that we are always to hold up the possibility of this Spirit-led change of heart, perhaps even especially, in the face of all evidence to the contrary when remorse seems impossible and not forthcoming from the convicted. In a society that is increasingly marked by anger, hatred, revenge and violence, to hold out the possibility for repentance and forgiveness is hard-- even offensive. Yet, for the Christian, to hold out such hope is the Way of the Cross.

 Though the human instinct is to seek retribution, people of faith are called to the much more difficult path of joining accountability with mercy. For this we look to Jesus who freed a woman from being stoned to death by demanding those who condemned her to examine their own complicity in sin. (John 8:1-11) Additionally, all four Gospels relate how Jesus took place of a condemned murderer, Barabbas. We hear the account of Jesus's crucifixion on Christ-the-King Sunday to remind ourselves how the sovereign power of God's conquering love renders punishment by death a futile means to build a just society.

Practically speaking, the death penalty neither deters others, nor brings the perpetrator to understanding. The death penalty rarely leads a criminal to understand the magnitude of what he or she has done. Instead, because capital punishment is state-sponsored homicide, it reinforces the obscene notion that there is no offense in the taking of a human life. It only perpetuates the cycle of sin and violence from which our churches prayerfully struggle to be free.  

I urge our parishes to discuss in parish forums, Bible studies, and education sessions the issues that are associated with capital punishment. Among these issues are: the inequality by which the death sentence is sought and delivered as a consequence of race or economic class; the increasing frequency of exoneration of those sentenced as a result of DNA or other evidence; the cost of administrating the death sentence in a state where a death chamber would have to be constructed and where our schools are still underfunded; and the decision on moral grounds of drug companies to refuse to supply of the chemicals used for lethal injection to those states where the death penalty is exacted.

I encourage the people of this diocese to appeal to the conscience of our Representatives and Senators and to call for the repeal of the Death Penalty in New Hampshire. We may take courage and hope in the fact that members of the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the United Church of Christ, the Methodists, the Society of Friends and others in the Christian tradition are joining us in prayerful consideration of this issue on this same day.

We have lived without capital punishment being administered since 1939. I pray we will always live without its particular stain on our consciences and souls.

 Faithfully Yours in the Crucified and Risen Christ,

The Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld

Bishop of New Hampshire 

Sunday

2:00 p.m. AA Meeting

 6:00 p.m. AA Meeting

 7:00 p.m. Photo Club

Monday

7:00 p.m. Al-Anon - Library

 8:00 p.m. AA - Stevens Room

Mon/Wed/Fri

10-2 Wolfeboro Senior Center & Meals

Mon & Thurs

4:00 p.m. ASSTG

Mon.- Fri.

7:30 a.m. AA Meeting

Tues. & Fri.

7:45 a.m. Step Aerobics

Tuesday

6:30 a.m. Women's Worship

 1:30 p.m. Scrabble Club

 5:00 p.m. Weight Watchers

Wednesday

4:00 p.m. Bible Study

 6:00 p.m. Table Tennis

 7:30 p.m. Women's AA Group - Chapel

Thursday

7:30 a.m. Men's Bible Study

 10:00 a.m. Holy Eucharist

 10-3 Lord & Tailor

 5:00 p.m. Dinner Bell

 7:00 p.m. Wolfeboro Stamp Club

Friday

10-3 Lord & Tailor

Fri. & Sat.

8:00 p.m. AA Meeting

Saturday

10-1:00 Lord & Tailor Shop

10:00 a.m. AA Meeting

 8:00 p.m. AA Meeting