 | 10 am Service
Join us this week for inspiring music and quality preaching.
Rev. Paul Shupe preaching: "Courage to Resist"
Music at the 10am service by "Joyful Noyse"--Hancock's Early Music Ensemble including works by Handel, Vaughan Williams, and Loeillet
CLICK HERE for last week's sermon: "Heart of a Child" by Dana Allen Walsh
6:15 pm Join us @ the Well in Clark Hall.
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Wishing you all Happy Thanksgiving Blessings!
On November 25th, the JYO youth and Church School kids will participate in the All Age Advent Wreath Making Workshop in Clark Hall. They'll have the opportunity to make a wreath, ornaments and more and invite adults to take part during fellowship hour following worship. Join us for this special event as we begin Advent preparations at Hancock.
December 2nd is Manger Sunday, a long standing tradition at Hancock in support of the City Mission Society. During morning worship a special collection of gifts and donations is received and blessed. The JYO Class plays a big role in this service during the procession of gifts by helping collect and sort the donations. All children, youth, and families join in worship together on December 2nd. After church the annual Holiday Craft Fair happens in Clark Hall. JYO Youth will have a sandwich making session after worship in the conference room. (Due to Manger Sunday communion will be celebrated on November 25th, however sandwiches will still be prepared on the 2nd after worship.)
City Mission Sorting Days at the Christmas Shop in Winchester, are scheduled for Saturday, December 8th and Sunday, December 16, from 1-3pm for Hancock families. It's a great day of service, come help sort and box donations to be distributed to over 30 agencies that serve more than 1500 people in need. Email Pam at pam.cochrane@hancockchurch.org if you'd like to help. We had more than 20 Hancock volunteers, all ages, help each day last year!
December 9th, 16th and 23rd we will hold regular class activities exploring Advent themes. Reminder - All Age Caroling Party will be held in the afternoon on Sunday December 9th.
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If you have questions our programming for children at Hancock, please contact Pam Cochrane: pam@hancockchurch.org
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Junior Youth Organization
The JYO Class has had a tremendous fall. The group has discussed homelessness, concepts of hospitality and outreach and the practice of prayer in our lives. Their learning has motivated them to action. On first Sundays at Hancock the class has participated in worship and made sandwiches for the Outdoor Church of Cambridge, they have championed the sock drive that yielded over 1600 pairs of socks for the Out door Church and City Mission Society and now they begin a Charlie Card Drive for homeless individuals in Boston and Cambridge. They are an impassioned group of young people who care!
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ANOTHER WAY TO HELP!
JYO kids are invited by the Deacons to help as Greeters and Ushers. We hope all the JYO kids will take a turn in this role on Sunday mornings. It would be awesome to have two kids each week arrive at 9:45 to help.
Email Pam at pam.cochrane@hancockchurch.org to sign up for a Sunday.
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Hancock Youth Group
 Matt Edmonds, Matt Zanin, and Jack Foley at the Foley household cooking for Rosie's place!
This past weekend HYGers and their parents opened their hearts and their kitchens as they made several casseroles for Rosie's Place. The casseroles were blessed during the morning worship service this past Sunday. Rosie's Place is a safe haven for women who are in need of shelter, food, and hope. A special thanks to Marcia Gens and Linda Kilner Olivier for coordinating and taking the lead in this effort. Thank you also to the Pushak's, the Partyka's, the Sheehan/Bose's, the Gens, the Foley's, the Eddy's, the Tambone's, and the Zanin's for cooking and/or offering their kitchens. Another thank you to everyone who bought ingredients and helped in other ways to make this donation to Rosie's Place possible.
Coming Up @ HYG!
This week:
This coming Friday HYG will be spending time in Dorchester volunteering at the Coat Drive. @ this Sunday's HYG meeting, we will debrief our experiences at the school in Dorchester and discuss our thoughts on the speaker. Come to share your thoughts and listen to others.
And just in case you bring a friend who hasn't registered--do it here!:
HYG Registration
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Hancock Weekly and other Communications Deadlines
The deadline for submitting news for this e-mail newsletter each week is Tuesday at 3pm. Submissions should be sent to: office@hancockchurch.org
Kindly send text and images as separate attachments. Thank you!
Click Here for the Communication Deadlines resource sheet.
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Celebrating Gifts & Community on Faith Promise Sunday: We are blessed!
On Sunday, November 18th, at both the morning and evening worship services, our congregation celebrated our annual Faith Promise Sunday. The procession to return pledge cards, the linking of hands and the responsive benediction created a wonderful sense of community. Yes, we are blessed! With each pledge of financial support, our church gains more certainty about plans for worship, education, mission, congregational care and outreach in 2013. Thanks to the 151 pledges returned by November 18th, we have have a sum of $491,942 dollars pledged for 2013. A full 80% of Hancock's Annual Budget comes from pledges and plate offerings, so your participation makes a real difference. There are 3 ways to participate: You may mail or drop off your yellow pledge card to the church office, OR, you can submit your 2013 pledge commitment via email. To email your confidential pledge, send an email message including your name, address and your 2013 total pledge to: financial.administrator@hancockchurch.org. Questions? Contact any member of the Stewardship Task Force: Robin DiGiammarino, Bess Deck, Bill Erickson, Louise Halderman,Skip Irving, Manual Navia, Julia Potter and Dean Rutila.
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Stephen S. Clark has died
Stephen, son of Ruth Clark and longtime Hancock minister Henry H Clark, died Saturday after a three year struggle with cancer. His memorial service will be held on Sunday, November 25, 2012 in the Congregational Church of Topsfield, 9 East Common Street, Topsfield, MA at 2 p.m. Assisting the family with the arrangements is the Peterson-O'Donnell Funeral Home, 167 Maple St., (Rte 62) DANVERS. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to: Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, 383 Main Avenue, 5th Floor, Norwalk, CT 06851
His obituary was published yesterday in the Boston Globe. Read it here for more information: Stephen S. Clark, Obit.
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Order Christmas Poinsettias Now through December 7th!
Every year, the sanctuary is filled with beautiful poinsettias in memory or honor of those loved by members of the congregation at Hancock. Dedicate a poinsettia to a loved one in your family by submitting this form no later than Friday, December 7th. Checks made out to Hancock United Church of Christ can be left in the church office. The suggested donation for each memorial plant is $10. Click HERE to place your order on-line!
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Troop 119: Wreaths for Sale Now through November 25th (this Sunday)!
 Boy Scout Troop 119 is wrapping up its annual wreath sale this Sunday, November 25th. Members of the Troop will be at coffee hour one last time, ready to take your orders for a beautiful, 20" to 22" diameter holiday wreath. This is the Troop's only annual fundraising activity, which generates funds to purchase equipment, subsidize camping trips and summer camp, and to provide scholarships.The wreaths can be picked up on December 2nd in room 205, just in time for Advent.Please consider supporting Troop 119 with the purchase of a wreath. Wreaths are $15. Thank you very much for your support of Scouting!
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Sunday, November 25th come join in Hancock's Advent Wreath Making Workshop
Children and youth will gather for a special Advent Program from 10:15 - 11:00am to get things started. After worship, an all age event begins in Clark Hall for fellowship hour. Come make an advent wreath, share a Christmas story or make an ornament as we share in the preparation of the Advent season. Greens, wire frames, and candles, will be provided along with other decorating projects and tips for bringing Advent home.
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Hanging of the Greens: Sunday, November 25th
The Christmas season will be upon us very soon, and our church will be filled with the wonderful pine scents of garlands and wreaths. Please join the Music and Arts Committee for the Annual Volunteer Wreath and Garland Hanging Sunday, November 25th after church at 11:30am. We need your help attaching ribbons to the 14 beautiful wreaths to be hung around the church, and hanging garlands across the balcony and along the walls of the altar. Hope to see you there! There will be music, refreshments and holiday comraderie as we prepare the church for Advent and Christmas!
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Cookies for Sale! Proceeds to benefit Christian Service Missions
The Christian Service Committee will be selling plates of homemade Christmas cookies, for the benefit of Women's Lunch Place, a day shelter providing meals and services for homeless women in Boston.We are taking orders for plates of homemade Christmas cookies at coffee hour (see Amy Swanson or Linda Kilner Olivier) or email Linda at LAKilner@aol.com. Each plate of 18 homemade Christmas cookies costs $10. Please pay at time of order or during coffee hour. You pick up the plates on December 2, at the Holiday Fair at the Women's Lunch Place table. Everybody needs homemade cookies over the holidays for one's family, for entertaining at home, as hostess gifts for parties, as potluck contributions, for Yankee swaps, taking to work for colleagues, and for giving as gifts. If there is enough interest we will also sell plates on Sunday, December 16.
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143rd Manger Sunday: December 2nd, 2012
Please join us for Manger Sunday, December 2nd. Please bring new, unwrapped gifts or gift cards to be delivered to City Mission Society's distribution center in Winchester. At the distribution center they are sorted and distributed to families in need. Volunteers needed to help deliver the gifts to Winchester after the service on Sunday, December 2nd from 12:30-1:30 PM, and to help sort at future dates. For more information, or to volunteer, please contact Kristen Eckler at kristen.eckler@gmail.com or 617-372-6474. Thank you!
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Sunday, December 2nd--12th Annual Hancock Holiday Fair with Gifts that Care
Hancock's popular Holiday Fair with Gifts that Care, will be held on Sunday, 12/2. As always, the Fair will be held in Clarke Hall and the Dining Room, with shopping hours from 11a.m to 1 p.m. You can buy distinctive and unique gifts that will benefit 26 local and international charities, while enjoying entertainment and refreshments. Bring your friends! For more information, contact Sandra Shaw at sj.shaw@verizon.net. Also--visit the Holiday Fair Facebook page and "like" it to be entered into a drawing for coffee or hot chocolate with Dana:)
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Joyful Noyse: "Disarming Pachelbel" December 2nd
Songs of Praise and Exaltation
This year, A Joyful Noyse's Advent concert will focus on a composer who is known by almost all for his Canon in D, but whose other works have been rarely performed or recorded.
Born in 1655, in Nuremberg, Germany, Johann Pachelbel was extremely popular and respected in his own lifetime. Considered to be the last of the great southern German baroque composers. he worked in many of the music centers of southern Germany, including Vienna, but returned to the city of his birth to spent the last years of his career, 1695 - 1706.
A number of interesting connections between Boston and Pachelbel exist. In 1940 the first recording of his incredibly popular Canon was made by Arthur Fiedler's Sinfonietta. In 1733 one of his sons, Charles Theodore Pachelbel, was a Boston resident. In that same year he helped install the new organ at Trinity Church in Newport, RI, later moving to New York City where, in 1736, he organized what is considered to be the first public classical music concert in NYC. On the program was his Magnificat for double choir, which will also be presented by A Joyful Noyse and special guest choir the Three Rivers Chorus, directed by Ellen Oak.
In this concert a number of J. Pachelbel's works will be heard for the first time in the Boston area, including his Magnificat in Eb for strings and voices. The program will end with the grand Lobet den Herrn, for chorus and soloists and an orchestra of strings, oboes, trumpets, trombones, harpsichord and organ.
The concert will take place at 3:00p.m., on Sunday, Dec 2nd, in the Sanctuary of Hancock Church. The concert is free, but a donation of $10, to support the music programs of Hancock Church, will be accepted.
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Pastor's Class welcomes Special Guest Mohammed Salem this week.
The Pastor's Class is pleased to welcome a guest on Sunday, November 25. Mohammed Salem is a friend of class member Jim Martin, a Lexington resident, and is coming to share about Islam, his faith. He comes to speak about what his faith means to him, and to his family. The Pastor's Class meets at 8:30 am in the Pearson Room. Mohammed Salem was born and schooled, in Mombasa Kenya.
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Bagels and Bible every Sunday 9-9:45 am in the Wilson Room: will not meet during Thanksgiving Sunday, 25 November 2012. We will resume class on 02 December 2012.
Join us in the Wilson Room at 9am as we continue our investigation of the parables. We'll explore the cultural context of first century Judea, trace connections between the Old and New Testaments, and examine the rich symbolism of Jesus' most instructive stories. We will provide the resources to start the conversation but we're most interested in hearing your personal interpretations. This discussion-based group is designed for individual adults or families with high school aged children. Childcare is available for younger children. Drop in for a single session, a couple of meetings, or the entire six weeks.
If you would like to learn more about Bagels and Bible, please contact Kerra Fletcher at harold3513@hotmail.com or Jason Troutman at j.e.troutman@hotmail.com.  |
Donate Your Old Instruments to Hancock Music Programs
We are looking for a few instruments to help us in our music program her at the church. Specifically, we are looking for a french horn, electric bass, and percussion equipment. We are happy to entertain other possibilities as well. So if your child used to play something and that instrument is now sitting in a closet taking up space, donate it to the church and get a tax write off to boot! Please contact Mark Morgan at mark@hancockchurch.org or 781-862-4220 ext. 212.
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Hurricane Relief Fund
Thanks to the Christian Service Committee's Hancock Response Fund, established to help in times of crisis or disaster, Hancock has made a donation to the UCC's efforts to aid those affected by Hurricane Sandy. Through the One Great Hour of Sharing and the UCC National Disaster Ministries, people are receiving aid in the Caribbean as well as in states such as Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania and others. Funds provide blankets, hygiene kits, clean-up buckets as well as helping those in Brooklyn with grants for getting emergency food stamp credit, among many other ways the UCC is responding. If you would like to donate, please visit their web site: http://www.ucc.org/disaster/hurricane-sandy-update.html |
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Gearing up for this Year's Concord Prison Outreach
For over thirty years, Concord Prison Outreach has been providing holiday gift bags for the inmates at the Concord Reformatory and the Northeastern Correctional Center. Hancock became a part of this tradition several years ago and the generous donations of the Hancock Congregation have helped to ensure that all of the1700 inmates at the two institutions will receive a bag. Sadly these gift bags are sometimes the only holiday remembrances that some of the men receive.
The Mass Department of Corrections has approved the items on the list so it is important that donations meet the specifications. Multiples of items are welcome and of course it is not necessary to purchase all the items on the list but all contributions will be gratefully received. Starting on Sunday Nov.11, boxes for the donations will be placed at the lower front entrance and near the dining room. The contents will be taken to the Trinity Episcopal Church in Concord where they will be sorted by volunteers. All donations will need to be at the church no later than December 10 to be sure that they are included in this year's distribution. Also starting on /Sunday Nov 11, a scrapbook containing some of the many letters received from the recipients will be on display.
1 bar of deodorant soap (4-5 oz.)
1 tube toothpaste, 5.8 oz. or larger
1 pad WHITE paper 6" x 9" or 5" x 8", 100 pages (no wire)
White envelopes #6 3/4 (6 1/2" x 3 5/8")
1 pair white CREW socks (no tube socks, knee- highs or "tennis" socks)
1 bottle (plastic) shampoo (12 -15 oz.)
1 stick deodorant (no roll-ons, 2.75 oz. or larger)
A handmade holiday greeting card, first names only
Homemade cards from children are especially welcome
If there are any questions, please call me, Louise Haldeman 978 369 8562
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City Mission Society: giving the gift of Time
The best gift you can give is the gift of your time. Give back to a child. City Mission Society needs volunteers to read to the students at Russell Elementary School either during lunch or after school. We are only asking for one hour of your time, once a week. Make it a group thing! Bring a partner or team down to the school. For more information e-mail or call Melanie Sonsteng at 617-742-6830 ext. 208, interncms@gmail.com. Russell Elementary School is located at 750 Columbia Road, Dorchester, MA 02125 -free parking at school -short walk from the red line JFK/UMass stop
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Seeking Heifer Catalogs
Please drop your unwanted Heifer catalogs in the box in the hallway by the church office. We use them to make Heifer gift cards to sell at the Fair on December 2nd.
Contact Deb Holland for more information: debra.holland@verizon.net
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Lexington Food Pantry - November is canned vegetables/ December is Stew, Hash, and Chili.
If you donate food in November, please consider giving canned vegetables - in December stew, hash and Chili. Donation baskets are in the narthex, as well as outside the office and dining room.Volunteers are also needed for December 8 to help distribute the food at the Pantry. The commitment is from 8:45 to about 11:30 am and the learning curve is short!. . For more information, contact Caroline Nijenberg - 781 862-4465 or carolinen@rcn.com
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Cooking for Rosie's Place:
Hancock will be cooking for Rosie's Place for the weekend of December 8-9. Anybody who is interested in December should contact Linda Kilner Olivier at LAKilner@aol.com. Regular Rosie's Volunteers will receive an email next week.
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Drivers Wanted 
Congregational Care knows of people who would like to come worship on Sunday mornings, but are unable to get here on their own. If you'd be willing to drive occasionally, you'd make a big difference. Not only will more people get to church; those of us at church will get to see friends we've been missing!
Call the church office or talk with Joy Fallon if you're interested.
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Wednesday, November 21:
1:15p Consort--Kathie Stuart
Thursday, November 22:
Church Offices Closed for Thanksgiving
Friday, November 23:
Church Offices Closed for Thanksgiving
Saturday, November 24:
8 AA Women's Step Study--Chapel
10 AA Meeting--Dining Room
2p Brass Group--Choir Room
Sunday, November 25:
8:30 Pastor's Class--Pearson
10 Morning Worship, Joyful Noyse--Sanctuary
10:20 Church School--Clark Hall, special event!
10:20 Junior Youth Org.-Clark Hall, special event!
11 Fellowship--Clark Hall
11 Advent Wreath Workshop--Clark Hall
11 Hanging of the Greens
6:15p Worship @ the Well-Clark H.
7p Capital Campaign Meeting--Conference Room
Monday, November 26:
9:30 Projects with Purpose--Conference
1:30p Skyloom--Kathie Stuart
7p Welcoming Committee-Wilson
7:30p Cup Scouts Pack Meeting--Room 208
Schedule is subject to change. Please call the church offices if you have questions about any of the events we have listed here. Link HERE to our calendar on-line!
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