Interfaith Potluck--November 17 @ 6 PM FBC hosts!

The Interfaith Council invites you to an “interfaith potluck” at First Baptist, Bennington, on Tuesday, November 17, at 6 PM.  Bring friends, family, and food to share. (Table service and drinks will be provided).  Sit together and eat around the table with other persons from the many faiths of our community.  In your food preparation, please consider labeling foods to help persons with dietary considerations (food allergies, vegetarian/vegan, or religious dietary practices). 

The potluck will welcome students from Southern Vermont College enrolled in the Comparative Religion course being co-sponsored by Interfaith Council this semester.  Opportunities to visit the Bennington Free Clinic, also located at First Baptist, will be offered. 

For more information, contact First Baptist 802/442-2105 or follow event updates via www.twitter.com/fbcbennington.

Community Safe Halloween Event coverage in local paper

BENNINGTON -- Trick-or-treaters and the adults accompanying them are welcome on Saturday to stop in at First Baptist Church for Halloween games, food and hospitality.

The event will be offered from 4 to 8 p.m. in Colgate Hall of First Baptist, which is located at 601 Main St.

"It’s kind of a hospitality opportunity," said Jerrod Hugeont, minister at the church, during an interview Wednesday. "It’s not an alternative to Halloween, it’s just a way of being friendly to the families in town."

On Elm Street where he lives, Hugenot said, "We see 300 families, and it’s great, you see a cross-section of town, and at the same time there’s the concern that a lot of parents have about safety."

Among other things, the event at First Baptist will provide trick-or-treaters a place to warm up and will emphasize safety.

"We’re going to do a safety quiz about safe trick-or-treating and also give out reflectors," said Alycia Post, director of the board of Christian Education, who came up with the idea with safety in mind. "We’re always looking to find different things to do; we look for the community’s needs."

Her daughter, Ivy Post, 2, interjected that she was going to dress as a cat for Halloween. Last year she dressed as Elmo.

Alycia Post said there will be contests, snacks, prizes and crafts -- and some candy, too. Several adults will supervise the event. Restrooms will be available.

Hugenot said the event, open to those of any faith or none, is part of the church’s wider effort to help the community and build capacity. This includes providing space in its facility for non-profits such as the Bennington Free Clinic.

"This is just a one-night-only initiative, it’s a way of providing welcome and hospitality," he said. "But it fits in to the overall of what we do here."

For more information, call the church at 802-442-2105.

Guest Speaker for Father's Day: Dr. Joan Sakalas

FIRST BAPTIST JOAN SAKALAS AS GUEST SPEAKER FOR FATHER’S DAY

The First Baptist Church of Bennington, Vermont, welcomes Dr. Joan Sakalas to its 9:30 AM worship on Sunday, June 21, 2009. Dr. Sakalas is the former director of the Project Against Domestic Violence (PAVE). She has returned to teaching, serving as an adjunct faculty member with the Community College of Vermont, Southern Vermont College, and online instruction with Johnston State. Dr. Sakalas will offer the morning’s sermon “Father: What A Concept!” This summer Sakalas is working on a book that focuses on a "Theology of Penology" developed by Miriam Van Waters, the superintendent of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women from 1932 to 1957.

The morning worship service will celebrate the civic holiday of Father’s Day and the end of the Sunday School year for children and adults. First Baptist celebrates another year of Sunday school, ably taught by Rhonda Harmon, Alyssa Gilleran, and the minister, the Rev. Jerrod Hugenot. First Baptist religious education is coordinated by Alycia Post, director, and the board of Christian education. Sunday school will resume after Labor Day, however, the board is preparing for “Vacation Bible Camp”, a children’s summer program offered jointly by First Baptist and St Peter’s Episcopal Church over the weekends of July 10-12 and 18-19, 2009. For more information, contact First Baptist’s office.

Located at 601 Main Street in downtown Bennington, First Baptist is “a place for healing, community involvement, and spiritual grounding”. To learn more, visit the congregation’s website (fbcbennington.org) or call 802/442-2105.

FBC Goes to New Orleans

Local volunteers had rewarding experience helping in New Orleans

MARK E. RONDEAU, Religion Editor

Saturday, June 13 BENNINGTON — Three volunteers from First Baptist Church went to New Orleans for a week in May.

The local trio of volunteers flew out of Albany, N.Y., at 7 a.m. on Mother's Day. They joined in a four-week refurbishment project in the Little Woods housing development. The ecumenical group focused on the rehabilitation of 12 houses as part of a Church World Service effort. Cindy Watson, Aleta Bryant and Bob Wilson from First Baptist joined a crew from Virginia. They were continuing rehabilitation of a house damaged by flooding, purchased by a family relocating from the city's Ninth Ward, where the destruction was even heavier.

Watson said the group worked on the home of Chris Weaver, who lost his home in the Ninth Ward when the levee broke. "He stood in his living room window and watched it break," Watson said. "It is, in his own words, only by the grace of God that he is still alive after a harrowing time. His home was destroyed and he purchased the house in Little Woods, northeast of New Orleans, that we worked on. It, too, had been flooded with five feet of water, since it is on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

"So we rehabbed the house. When Chris bought the house, he thought it would come with government money to fix it up but it did not. He is a porter at a local hospital and works 50 to 60 hours a week," Watson said. "His intension was to do the rehab a little at a time so when he was accepted by Church World Service to be rehabbed he was very pleased."

Weaver slept on a mattress on the living room floor to protect the house, which he will live in with his fiance and his mother. His new neighbors have a neighborhood watch set up and are very interested in cleaning up the neighborhood.

"Chris worked with us for two days, just a delightful man, and he was very very appreciative," Watson said.

"When we arrived, the house interior had been stripped, reinsulated, wired, replumbed, sheet rocked and the wall surfaces had the first coat of primed and compound sprayed on. We primed all surfaces and then applied two coats of light colored paint to the ceilings, walls, and trim," Watson said. "Before we left, four rooms had laminate flooring installed, all the doors had two coats of paint and two had been installed. And the ceramic tile on the other floors had been repaired or renewed."

The other volunteers working with the Bennington trio were from the Roanoke/Salem area of Virginia.

"We had lots of help and everyone pitched in doing whatever needed to be done," Watson said. "There was even some time for some sight seeing around the area. We toured the Ninth Ward, stood on the levee and went to the French Quarter. This was a very rewarding trip."

The Rev. Jerrod Hugenot, of First Baptist Church, said he's delighted that the congregation is involved in this work.

"American Baptists have a great historic and ongoing commitment to humanitarian and crisis aid. Our three church members served in New Orleans thanks to their individual commitment to volunteer as well as congregational donors offering travel assistance funds (upwards of $1,200)," he said. "If others in the community are interested in going, there is a second building blitz happening in August. You do not need to be a Baptist or even a person of faith to volunteer. If interested, contact First Baptist for more info."

During the service at First Baptist on Pentecost Sunday, Watson thanked the congregation for helping send the group to New Orleans. "We're very grateful," she said. "We spent an inspiring and tiring week of painting, and painting and more painting."

Support from church members covered the flight, car rental and food. "We want to thank the Lord also for the fellowship we experienced and for our safe travel."

Hugenot said there are also local opportunities to help people in need with housing.

"The Bennington County Habitat chapter is underway on a local home build, so we must remember volunteers are needed locally as well as nationally and globally," he said. "Volunteer service, wherever it takes place, begins with the same place: the individual saying 'yes' to volunteer. Where they go is really secondary."

Holy Week Observances @ First Baptist, Bennington

HOLY WEEK OBSERVANCES AT FIRST BAPTIST, BENNINGTON

The First Baptist Church of Bennington, Vermont, invites you to Holy Week activities, commencing this Sunday with worship services on Palm Sunday, April 5, 2009, at 9:30 AM. The children will lead the procession of the palms, and the congregation will reflect upon the beginning of Christianity’s most sacred of seasons. The Rev. Jerrod Hugenot, coordinating minister, will offer the sermon “A Faith Vulnerable and Resolved”.

On Thursday evening, April 9, 2009, the congregations of First Baptist and “Old First” Congregational will share an ecumenical Maundy Thursday service. At 6 PM, a community-wide potluck will be offered, followed by the Maundy Thursday communion service at 7 PM. Any person is welcome to attend the meal or the religious service. The Rev. Louis Guariniello will join the Rev. Jerrod Hugenot in conducting the service.

On Good Friday, First Baptist will participate in the evening service to be held at St Peter’s Episcopal Church on Friday, April 10, at 7 PM.

On Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009, First Baptist celebrates Easter with joyous music and proclamation at its 9:30 AM worship service. The service marks the high point of the Christian year, as Christians gather to sing praise to the risen Christ. The Rev. Hugenot offers the sermon “Mark Ends, Easter Begins”. An Easter egg hunt for children and coffee hour fellowship follows the service at 10:45 AM.

An American Baptist congregation, the First Baptist Church is located at 601 Main Street in downtown Bennington. Learn more by visiting www.fbcbennington.org, joining the congregation’s FACEBOOK group, or calling the church office at 802/442-2105.