We welcome all to our inclusive spiritual community. We affirm our Unitarian Universalist principles and put them into action by worshipping together, caring for one another, and working for a safe, just, and sustainable world.

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Worship Service and Church School

Sunday service in the Meeting House at 10 a.m. followed by coffee hour in the Parish House

Church school classes take place in the

Parish House during Sunday services.
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Photo of the Week

News and Links

MOTHERS’ DAY PLANT SALE – May 11th, See below under Other Happenings

ANNUAL MEETING OF FIRST PARISH WILL TAKE PLACE FOLLOWING THE SERVICE SUNDAY MAY 18. CHILD CARE AVAILABLE

ALWAYS WANTED TO SING?
JOIN THE CHOIR!

We welcome new singers to make our wonderful music even better. Just come to rehearsal Wednesday April 30 at 8 PM or 9 AM Sunday May 4.

Enjoy the expanding November 2007 pictures of us/you in the Picture Gallery. Click here for the Picture Gallery.         

We need contributions of no longer used cameras for our new fundraiser. See Other Happenings for details.

Click here for directions to First Parish

Church Services and Sermon Topics

May 11 – 10 AM –“Nurses are heroes: Ask me, I know one!”

An intergeneratinal sevice of Mother's Day and Plant Communion.

On this Mother’s Day Sunday, our children
will join us for the first segment of this
service, and we will participate in a Flower
Communion. Please bring with you a few
sprays of flowers from your yard to share in
this communion of flowers now observed in
Unitarian Universalist congregations
worldwide.

May 18 – 10 AM – “Reflections on a Year”
Worship will be followed at 11:15 by our
Annual Meeting in the Meeting House.
Child care will be available.

May 25 – 10 AM – A lay-led service of Memorial Day weekend

June 1 – 10 AM – Rites of Passage Sunday –
“With Gratitude and Celebration”
At this intergenerational service, we will honor
our Religious Education teachers, our RE
Committee, our OWL graduates, and our
graduating seniors! We will celebrate the
milestones, those of you who mark them and
those of you who make them possible!

25% of our non-pledge plate offering from February through August will go directly to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee for domestic disaster relief.

If you wish to receive your newsletter in hardcopy form, please phone or e-mail Sandy Bailey, First Parish Administrator, at 781-383-1100 or sbailey@firstparishcohasset.org.

From the Minister

What a blooming month is April!    I know, the poet T.S. Eliot called it “the cruelest month.”  Let’s hope it’s not so.   The sun will cast warmer rays.   The daffodils will bask in sunlit hues.   Tulips will make their way up out of the wintry earth.   Lilacs will bud!   The earth will bloom and with it, so will we!

Here at First Parish we’ll welcome new members to our church family and our larger circle of Unitarian Universalism.   We’ll launch a larger and deeper understanding of our faith with an adult education series that I’ll lead on Our Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism, by my esteemed colleagues Forrest Church and John Buehrens. We’ll convene for a Welcoming Congregation film night.  We’ll celebrate our earth on Earth Day Sunday.  Circle Ministry will convene sessions on Siblings and Sin (not at the same time!)   Our children in religious education will stretch their limbs and their minds in the vibrancy of Sunday mornings.   Our OWL youth will grow ever wiser.   This is just a smattering of what will come to life in April at First Parish UU in Cohasset!

As we gather and worship in our Meeting House on the Common, may we consider the uncommon wonders of this good earth as it springs to life and with it, the vibrancy of our worship, the depth and breadth of our caring, and our hope that we might live into the promise of the faith that we share.    As I say to us all on the Sunday of welcoming new members to this church family: 

Ours is a community of hope.   When life gets tough, and    it does, we draw hope from one another.   When expectations sour, and they sometimes do, we draw renewed energy from the promise of what can still be.   When we grow cynical with the world around us, as it is so easy to do, we draw from the promise of the positive difference we can make, grounded in the historic deeds of women and men who have gone before us.  When we find ourselves simply frazzled, we draw hope from the fun and the fellowship that we have known and will continue to enjoy together.  Above all, we draw from the deep well of abiding love and respect that is the far-reaching promise of this faith that we share.

April just may be the kindest month of all! 

With love for each of you,

Other Happenings

Friday, May 9, 7:30 PM – The Meeting House. Anthology vocal quartet

featuring Allegra Martin, our Music Director

  A concert of a cappella music from Bartok and Brahms to barbershop

 Suggested donation: $15/person with half of the proceeds supporting organ renovation and the other half supporting the artists

May 11th, beginning at 11 AM – outside the Parish House

MOTHERS’ DAY PLANT SALE –

Please save some time, space in your car, and a few dollars to take home some (or a lot) of homegrown perennials and seedlings from the Circle Ministry Mothers’ Day Plant Sale.  The members are thinning their gardens and potting many of your favorites, including:  sedum, forsythia, bearded iris, hosta, lily-of-the-valley, mint, black-eyed susans, anemone, purple cone flower, Siberian iris, columbine, bachelor buttons, basil, morning glories, lady slippers, peppers, tomatoes, daffodils, Montauk daisies, astilbe, violets and ivy – WOW!!!

Proceeds from this sale will be donated to the care of the gardens at the Parish House, so it’s a purchase that will give back and back again.

Circle Ministry led by Jane Goedecke and Susan Etkind                                                           

• Mike Bliss
• Iri Bloomfield
• Linc Bloomfield
• Polly Cowen
• Bernadette Faulkner
• Dee Lehner
• Lisa Marder
• Ned Tebbetts
• Leila Tighe                                                                                                

RENEWAL HOUSE WISH LIST
Renewal House is a ministry on behalf of women in crisis and their children. It is one of many ministries of our Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry in Roxbury. April marks our month-long drive to benefit Renewal House.

We hope it will involve all generations. Please leave your donations in the cabinet in the hall next to the Atkinson Room.

Needed are:

CAMERA PROJECT

First Parish has joined eBay Giving Works.which supports 12,000 nonprofits helping them raise more than $90 million since 2003 by selling items on eBay.

We are participating by selling donated cameras. Our hope is to collect 100-150, or more, donated items by the end of May. To meet this goal we need to acquire and sell an additional 10-15 cameras per week for the next three and a half months. To do this we need a significant and immediate increase in donations. We currently have only two cameras set for sale next week.

Heifer Project International at First Parish! Our Children Invite You to the Heifer Barn!

As you enter the Parish House, be sure to check out the barn display created by our church school children!  Join them in “buying” an animal through the Heifer Project International. You’ll find a container in the “barn” ready to receive our gifts.   Our RE leaders will periodically count the monies raised so our children will learn what animal they have the money to buy.    Let’s help them “fill the barn!”

Our Outreach Initiative to Cohasset Food Pantry

Hunger is no stranger to many among us on the South Shore, including Cohasset!    Our Outreach Committee is helping us respond to this reality.   Receptacles in the entry to the Parish House await our contributions for this ongoing winter season, in which so many know ongoing hunger.   Can you provide any of the following?

clam chowder, beef stew, spaghetti sauce, mayonnaise, concentrated juices (cranberry, apple, etc.), crackers, brownie mix, coffee, hot chocolate, tissues, shampoo, dish detergent, and laundry detergent.  

Please check the expiration dates on all food!    The standard is: Would you eat it?  Collection will be the third Sunday of the month (next collection: May 18).  Delivery will be the following Tuesday between 9 and 9:30 AM.    Thanks so much for your generosity!

Let our chalice shine! Be a First Parish UU emissary. Invite your un-churched friends to church.
We have a faith worth sharing and a church worth growing!