Brookmeade will host a great gathering of our three Nashville-area UCC churches on Saturday, Sept 16th @ 11:00 AM:  Brookmeade Congregational Church, Holy Trinity Community Church, and Howard Congregational Church.  Special Guest Speaker:  Rev. Kim Wood, Southeast UCC Conference Minister!  Theme:  “The Role of Prayer in the Renewal of Church & Self”  Bring family, friends, and a culinary delight for great UCC fellowship & inspiration!

New Upper Room daily devotionals for Sept-Oct are now available without cost in the foyer of the church.  Published in 34 languages and distributed throughout the world, the Upper Room is an interdenominational & international devotional aid for having daily set-aside time for prayer and meditation on sacred scriptures to be in closer communion with God & one another in everyday life.  You can pick up an Upper Room at church, or call the church office to request a copy mailed to you.

After lots of hours of hard work and planning from our Garden Committee, our new garden is finally ready for use! Planting is finished (for now), though we will be adding some finishing touches in the near future, including a memorial stone and benches. In the meantime, we invite you to enjoy our beautiful new garden this Sunday!

We will need help locating relatives who had family members interred in the original memorial garden so they can be invited to our dedication ceremony, which will likely be in late October. If you know any of these individuals please contact the church office.

To help off-set costs, we have launched a Garden Capital Campaign. If you’d like to contribute to the New Garden fund, you can send a check to the church office with the memo: “New Garden Fund”, or give online via Tithe.ly by clicking HERE or scanning the QR code below. Please choose “New Garden Fund” in the drop-down menu. Thank you!

Save the Date! Local Artist Michele Lambert (owner of Shimai Pottery) is returning to teach another art class at Brookmeade this fall! Michele is a very talented painter and sculptor, and has had a long career as an art teacher in Metro Schools and at Watkins. The class will explore both watercolor and printmaking. Sign ups will be open soon. Classes will be held from 6 to 8 pm on Thursday evenings on the following dates: 9/28, 10/5, 10/12, and 10/19. The cost is $80 for all 4 sessions and covers all required supplies. For more information, please contact the church office. 

Starting Sunday, September 3, 2023, Learn & Grow will return at 9:15 a.m. on Sunday mornings. Our first study will be Bible Studies for Grown-Ups by Josh Scott. Everyone reads the Bible through interpretive “lenses.” The lenses through which we read the Bible as a child may need to change as we grow up. Through this study, we will take a fresh look at six stories from the Bible and see if we can glean new insights into what they teach us. The six stories we will study are:
September 3 Preventing the Flood: The Story of Noah (Genesis 7, 8, and 9)
September 10 A New Vision of God: The Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22;1-19)
September 17 It’s Not About the Fish: The Story of Jonah (Jonah 1-4)
September 24 Jesus in Unexpected Places: The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)
October 1 When Repentance Isn’t Enough: Looking for Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10)
October 8 Updating Our Lenses: Healing the Man Who Was Blind (Mark 8:22-26)

First Sundays of the month we collect our COW (“Contribute Our Wealth”) Offering. Monetary donations are split between Second Harvest of Middle TN and Heifer International. You can also bring canned goods on Sunday morning to donate to Second Harvest. Please designate your check for COW Offering or if you give online you can choose COW offering on the drop-down menu on Tithe.ly. Thank you for supporting these important organizations and helping Brookmeade fight hunger!

Our next trip to the Project CURE Warehouse (2300 Clifton Ave.) that was scheduled for Saturday, September 2nd is now cancelled due to the holiday weekend. We will let you know if we decide to reschedule for later in the month! Thank you.

Please plan to attend worship this Sunday, August 13th for Brookmeade’s final pastoral transition for what we hope is a very long while: releasing the bridge pastor, and welcoming Pastor Liz as our new settled pastor! Please join us for a special service as we welcome Liz. The service will also feature a Blessing of the “Backpacks”  where we will recognize and bless students of all ages who are beginning a new year, as well as their educators, administrators, and support staff. If you have a student in your family, bring them to church Sunday so we can help them celebrate the start of this new chapter. A Potluck Lunch will follow the service at 11:30 am. Bring family, friends, and your favorite culinary delight for a great time of UCC fellowship and celebration!

MEET OUR NEW PASTOR!

Rev. Liz DeWeese (She/Her) Becoming Anti-racist

“Welcome to Brookmeade Congregational Church UCC, we are so glad you found us, because we’ve been preparing for the time when you would give us a try. My name is Rev. Liz DeWeese, but people call me Pastor Liz, Pastor, or just Liz. (I’m good with what makes you comfortable.) I love being a minister because I love getting to know people and supporting them in their lives; I love bringing a challenge to the status quo understanding of the Bible; I love watching people learn that there is more than one way of understanding God, and God’s Word, and God’s hope for creation; I love living into and teaching through my actions that God is love (and not just because the Bible says so, but because our experience of God says so). I am excited to serve Brookmeade Congregational Church UCC! I am excited to see what God is doing here, growing a message of love for all, sharing an invitation to spread that love, and making room for all who want to join, to have a seat and a voice at the table which in our tradition, Christ spreads for all.

Here are some things you can learn about me: I was born and raised all over the South (North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Kentucky). My dad is a Retired Ordained Minister with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). This all means I was raised with good manners, eating fried okra, and boiled peanuts, and I know Barbeque that would make you slap your mama (if you’re not from the South, don’t slap your mama, that’s just a saying). It also means I know what you mean when you say, “Well, bless your heart.” Knowing all that, you have to know I must have a rebellious streak if as a woman raised in the church in the South, I answered a call to ministry, and now am serving a church that is unapologetically Progressive in its theology and its practice of social justice. I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Peace Studies with an emphasis in Social Justice with a minor in Religious Studies in 1998 from Chapman University in Orange, CA (no, we don’t claim John Eastman). I earned my Master of Divinity in 2003 from Lexington Theological Seminary in Lexington, Kentucky. I was ordained by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kentucky, (a full communion partner with the United Church of Christ) on June 8, 2003, at Frist Christian Church (DOC), Madisonville, Kentucky. I have served churches and church camps and regional committees and women’s retreats in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, and now Tennessee. I am the mother of two amazing young people in high school and middle school, and I am so proud to be their mother. On May 20, 2000, I married my college sweetheart Rev. Don DeWeese; we loved hard and championed social justice, and we served the church. On July 6, 2023, Don died unexpectedly, and we are still learning a new way of life.

I am super excited to be the new pastor at Brookmeade Congregational Church UCC! I would love to help you understand why this church is my hope for the future of God’s love in the world, and the spread of good news for all who will receive it. Feel free to reach out to our office and I will be happy to introduce you.”

This Sunday, August 6, will be the 78^th anniversary of the detonation of the first atomic bomb, in Hiroshima, Japan, with intent to destroy other human beings. August 9^th will be the 78^th anniversary of the destruction of Nagasaki, Japan with the same intent. 

Moral arguments have been made both against and for the use of the atomic bomb to end World War II. Regardless of whether either set of arguments is convincing for you personally, there is a universally compelling need for the moral commitment of every citizen of every country to prevent any further use of atomic weapons against other human beings. And the theology of nearly all faith traditions recognizes compassion for all as a basic value. 

Brookmeade Congregational Church United Church of Christ is a Justice and Peace congregation within the UCC. We are proud to share with the public an exhibit of selected photographs taken by its former member Joe O’Donnell during the four years immediately following these events. Please join us either this Saturday, August 5 between 10:00am and 2:00pm, or following our worship service Sunday. Worship will begin at 10:30am and focus on commemoration of this milestone of world history.

Our Brookmeade Yoga Class is returning with in-person classes offered on Mondays at 4 pm beginning July 31st! This Restorative yoga class will be led by Ali Sperry at the church building, or you can join from home via Zoom. The cost is $20. To learn more or to receive the zoom link, please contact the church office.