Today’s service will be offered in 2 formats – video and text.
• View the video below
• download and print the service from this document – link
For the latest news and updates from Walton, please check our Facebook page, Instagram and website. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for videos of service, the choirs and more!
Please contact office@waltonmemorial.com if you would like to be added to our email list.
Help wanted! We are looking for help on Sundays once or twice a month in the following roles. Training and support is provided:
• Nursery volunteers
• Sunday School helpers
• Youth Group helpers
• Ushers
• Elevator attendants
• Camera / virtual operators
• Computer / projectionist
• Coffee hosts
We also need helpers during the week to assist with:
• weeding the garden
• organizing and restocking items in the kitchen
• other occasional tasks.
Looking for ways to help that fit your schedule? Consider one of the following:
• Bring pre-packaged, nut-free cookies to share at coffee time on Sunday morning. Please leave them in the kitchen for the hosts to serve.
• Fill a personal care kit bag
• Drop off winter coats and boots for coat drive
Our volunteers are such a blessing to Walton and the wider community. Thank you for your service!
“Everybody Always” Tuesday Night Fall Video Study. Rev. Jim is offering a Fall Study, from 7:15 pm until 8:45 pm on Tuesdays, Oct. 4th to Nov. 1st, in Bronte Hall. It is by Bob Goff, New York Times bestselling author of, “Becoming love in a world full of setbacks and difficult people.” No preparation is required and there is no cost. Masks are required. Please let Rev. Jim know you are attending by emailing jamescgillwuc@gmail.com or by calling the office at 905-827-1643.
Upcoming Bible Study “Christian Community” will be starting Thursday, September 22nd, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Bronte Hall. The study will run for 10 weeks, on consecutive Thursday mornings. We all yearn for a sense of community. The topic of community seems to be even more relevant in the world and in each of our lives, as we look back over the last two and a half years. What does the Bible say about Christian community? What does Christian community mean to you today? A time to gather, discuss, question, listen, share, laugh, and ponder, as we explore the meaning of Christian community together. Everyone is welcome. Please sign up through the church office to ensure everyone has a copy of the book. The cost of the book is $10.00 and is available through the church office. If you have any questions, please speak to Cathy Winn.
Upcoming Prayer Shawl Ministry gathering on Thursday, September 22, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. in Bronte Hall. The Prayer Shawl Ministry knits and crochets Prayer Shawls which are given out to people in the Walton community and beyond. Each child baptized at Walton receives a Prayer Blanket, made by the members of this ministry. The Prayer Shawls and Prayer Blankets are made with love and prayers, a reminder of God’s presence in our lives and in the world. Do you like to knit or crochet? Why not join us for a time of laughter, sharing, creating, prayer, and supporting others in this special ministry? New members are always welcome. Some supplies are provided. Please speak with Cathy Winn through the church office. The October meeting will be Thursday, October 20th, from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.
Bronte Coat Drive is back! Tentatively, on the third Saturday in October. This has become a cooperative effort between the Church of the Epiphany, St. Dominic’s Church and Walton Memorial primarily; all of us having the betterment of the people in our area as our goal. So, sew on that button, empty those pockets, sponge out that stain, and please give us your coats that you don’t plan to wear next year or ever again. Donations will be accepted at the church starting September 4th.
Calling all knitters The Bronte Coat Drive Committee needs knitted scarves for our annual coat distribution event. If you could knit a scarf 5’ – 6’ long in black, grey or navy, we would be most happy to include it as a giveaway on October 15th, 2022. As you may know, many people in our community are grateful to receive a coat from this event, and they are delighted to also receive a warm scarf (or hat or gloves)!
Road closure alert Due to the 2022 Oakville Half Marathon, please note that Lakeshore Rd W will be closed between Bronte and Burloak in the morning on Sunday, October 2nd, affecting access to the church. There will be no westbound traffic permitted on Lakeshore Rd. If you are heading south on Bronte Road towards Lakeshore, you will be permitted to turn west onto Lakeshore if you advise the traffic marshals you are going to Walton Church. You must enter our parking lot via the east entrance only. You must exit the parking lot via the west entrance only. Upon exiting, you must drive west along Lakeshore and turn right on Mississaga St. At Rebecca, you can turn left (west) or right (east). Click here for more details.
Children and youth are invited to view this week’s virtual Sunday lesson online. This week we start our new fall curriculum: Bible Basics.
Walton’s prayer chain is open. Confidential prayers requests can be sent to office@waltonmemorial.com
If you need Rev. Jim for a pastoral emergency, please email him at jamescgillwuc@gmail.com.
As we gather today on these treaty lands, we are in solidarity with Indigenous brothers and sisters to honour and respect the four directions, lands, waters, plants, animals and ancestors that walked before us, and all of the wonderful elements of creation that exist. We acknowledge and thank the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation for being stewards of this traditional territory.
Good morning. For some of us, I say welcome home! How exciting that this day has finally come! We are dedicating Walton’s commercial kitchen this morning.
So many people have contributed, helped, and worked in and on this project, a project that we accomplished during the height of the Covid pandemic. When you think about it, it’s amazing how it all came together, isn’t it?
This morning we celebrate God working in and through us. We celebrate all the families and friends who have joined us this morning, whether that is in person or virtually. Welcome!
One: The people of God were made for worship:
To sing and to praise, to laugh and to dance.
All: The people of God were made for God’s presence:
For pleasure and praise, for joy and for song.
One: Come, holy people, God’s chosen disciples:
Gather for worship, we come from all places, near and far.
All: We have come to God’s sanctuary, gathered together,
We have come to praise God and worship him forever.
adapted on Literature & Liturgy jesusscribbles.wordpress
All: God of Love,
You are with us in every transition and change.
As we enter into this fall with excitement and even some anxiety, we recall your deep compassion, presence, and abounding love.
We thank you for the gifts, talents and skills with which you have blessed each one us with.
We thank you for the life experiences that have brought us to this moment. We thank you for the work of others that gives breadth and depth to our own work.
Be with us as we move forward, rejoicing with you and supporting one another.
We ask this in your Holy Name.
Amen.
(Joe Shadle Posted on Xavier University’s JesuitResource.org website. )
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.
Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”
So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them, and though there were so many, the net was not torn.
Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”
Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.
Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish.
This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[a] to all, as any had need.
Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.
And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Very early on Sunday mornings when I unlock the church doors for Sunday services something very special happens. I am the first one through the doors. When I enter the kitchen each week to prepare it for the coffee hosts to arrive, however, I am not alone. It is a holy place for me. Yes, the kitchen is holy ground. Well, you might think it’s the Sanctuary which is holy, and you are right. But this is a very different sense of holiness.
Many of you are here today because your loved ones are named on the plaque now mounted on the new fireproof pass-through from the kitchen into Bronte Hall. Everyone picking up food or drink at the pass-through will see those names on the plaque from now on.
We welcome you as family and friends here today from near and far, welcoming you back to your family’s church home. Just like we did in both the 1991 and 2000 major building additions and the 2014 installation of air conditioning in this historically-designated 1913 Sanctuary, we memorialize the sizable gifts by the donors. Many of you, your families, and your friends donated significant sums of money to fund this new commercial kitchen. Walton thanks you so very much for your overwhelming abundant gifts.
Future generations using this kitchen thank you too for your major support. We replaced our 1963 kitchen, bringing our new kitchen up to current commercial standards for our use, for community use and for the renters we are aiming to attract to help fund our day-to-day operations.
Please tour the new kitchen after this service (and after the 9:30am service enjoy coffee in Bronte Hall). You gave so very generously to help make this project a reality. These memorial gifts given in loving memory are also listed on the sheet handed out by the ushers today. We have checked and double-checked and pray the memorial list and plaque are correct.
If not, please let me know this week.
We also want to thank our two local MPs, Pam Damoff and Anita Anand, for their tremendous support with major funding from the New Horizons Grant Program. This federal government funding was used towards the critical hood ventilation system and fire suppression system that we purchased and installed. This was a huge engineering and construction challenge to overcome.
We also thank our corporate donors for their generous support as well of this project.
I know most of the names by heart, without even looking at the printed list or the pass-through plaque. Maybe you know one, or more than one on the list. I personally knew nearly all those loved ones mentioned, or I know of them through their families, whom I know so well.
Many families who are here today in worship so love and miss those special people in their lives. What a gift those memories are. They are a blessing!
So I think of them all when I walk into the new kitchen each Sunday morning. I hope you do too. Remember them today and whenever you are in the kitchen. Many of those people memorialized today spent years working in the original 1963 kitchen on everything from UCW events and turkey dinners, pancake breakfasts and spaghetti dinners, teas to Rally Day BBQs. Those people all live on through this kitchen project made possible through the considerable donations made in their memories. These memorial gifts have helped the kitchen be fully paid for before it was actually finished being constructed. We never had any debt with the kitchen project in any way. That is such a blessing and gift.
It really is a miracle that the kitchen got built during Covid. We were closed during both the summers of 2020 and 2021. Another clergy who I told we were building a $210,000 kitchen during those two summers thought we were crazy, taking on such a major project during such uncertain times. But you see, Walton believed in the future. We knew we needed an updated kitchen to carry our mission and ministry forward whenever this pandemic abated. Of course, we did the kitchen while at the same time we were going virtual in worship services which was a massive, but an essential, transition during Covid and moving forward into the foreseeable future.
Leon and I used to joke that two people who do not cook were giving leadership in building a kitchen. Leon, we could not have done it without you. Before Leon’s passing, we had a private family ribbon cutting knowing he would not live to see this day.
There are others, of course, we want to thank. So many donated their time, talent and treasure. Every financial gift helped. Every gift of time helped. Some people took days off, used up their vacation time and put off cottage or travel time to work on the kitchen.
We hope we have listed all those who took on significant major roles with the kitchen project on the sheet handed out before the service. Like with the Memorial List, if we missed anyone, we offer our sincere apologies. Please let me know this week. Some of those people listed on the sheet literally donated not just days, but weeks and months of their lives, to make this project a reality. Thank you so very much.
In today’s John passage, we read of the meal Jesus had of cooked fish after the Resurrection. It took place beside the Sea of Galilee, which in reality is an inland lake, as we share meals from our new kitchen beside the inland Great Lake, across Lakeshore Road from this Sanctuary.
The Acts passage today talks about how those in the early church devoted themselves to teaching, prayer, fellowship and the breaking of bread. Our new commercial kitchen helps further both fellowship and the breaking of bread. It was so wonderful to have had this past July our first Vacation Bible School (VBS) since Covid began,, with lots of treats being made by campers coming from the new kitchen. Then for many more weeks after VBS, we had a community-run camp, Cooksmart Kids Summer Camp, using the new kitchen to teach children how to cook.
Back when I was just ordained and served in Algoma, I was involved with building a kitchen in a church that did not have one. Then a couple of years later, another kitchen in another church up north. Why I mention both those projects is that today on social media I see photos posted of dinners, showers, retirement parties, card nights and meetings involving those kitchens. What strikes me is they are now being used by people who were not yet born when they were built and/or were not part of the congregations at the time of construction. They are both also too for programs that did not even exist at the time of construction.
This is true as well of Walton’s new kitchen. Just like those who back in 1963 moved the small kitchen that used to be back under the choir loft from 1913 to its current ground-level location in the Christian Education Wing. They gave a gift to future generations which blessed Walton from 1963 until 2020. Today, we have dedicated and asked God to bless the use of this generous gift to both the present and the future.
One: Generous God, for the abundance of your blessings to us, day by day and year by year,
All: We give you our thanks.
One: For the simple pleasures of life: for garden harvests, coffee, conversation, and familiar surroundings, for health and strength to appreciate the wonder of life, for needs met and desires fulfilled,
All: We give you our thanks.
One: For foods distributed to nourish body and spirit, for homes which supply shelter, which nurture order and beauty, and offer hospitality,
All: We give you our thanks.
One: With hearts that forgive as freely as you have forgiven, with enthusiasm of spirit for the gift of life, with music which declares your everlasting goodness, with prayers for mutual understanding and peace,
All: We worship you with joy.
One: With creative pursuits which contribute our God-given talents, with words which honor you as Creator, Redeemer, and Holy Spirit, with time volunteered and dedicated to service in church and community, with years committed to extending the love of Jesus Christ,
All: We worship you with joy.
One:With gifts of money which reach farther than we can manage ourselves, with deeds done in service of neighbours and strangers, with holy days set apart to celebrate your goodness and grace, with family and friends distant and nearby,
All: We worship you, God, with grateful hearts and a joyful spirit. Alleluia. Amen.
Rev. Kathy Jo Blaske, copyright © 2012 Reformed Church Press
Loving and gracious God, I have given gold, but there is only so much gold. I have given blood, but I have only so much blood to give. I have given my time, but days have only so many hours. I have given my strength, but even that has its limits.
So I give my love.
Because love is gold, and love is blood. And love is time, and love is strength. But love is also so much more. Because love is God. And God is love. And only you, God, have no limits. Amen.
(adapted and posted on the Catholic Relief Services website.)
Our offering will now be received. If you are looking to give this morning, there are offering plates at the doors. You are welcome to make your donation as you enter or as you leave the sanctuary. Or if you would like to donate online through our website there is that option as well, or you can write a cheque and drop it off at the office, or in the mail slot during the week here at the church.
♥ by secure online payment from your debit or credit card. Click here to go to our donation page to make a single or recurring donation. Multiple funds can be included in one donation by using the “Add Donation” button
♥ by cheque through the mail slot at the Church office entrance or by Canada Post
♥ by monthly PAR payments. To sign up contact stuart@waltonmemorial.com
All: Bountiful God, we come with our offerings in response to your love. With the new life in Christ, we give ourselves in service to others.
With the energy given by the Spirit, we seek to inflame all your people with a zeal for your way.
Receive the work we do, and the gifts we bring, so that they may become a blessing in your sight. Amen.
adapted and posted on the Worshiping Well blog
We now, the people of this congregation, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,
grateful for our heritage, aware of the sacrifices of our mothers and fathers in the faith,
and confessing that apart from us their work cannot be made perfect, dedicate ourselves anew to the worship and service of almighty God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Copyright: 642–47 A Service for the Dedication of a Church Building Free of Debt and A Service for the Consecration of an Educational Building © 1964, 1965 by Board of Publication of the Methodist Church, Inc.; renewal © 1971, 1972 by Abingdon Press; © 1984 by Abingdon Press; © 1992 UMPH; renewal © 1992 UMPH.)
Here is Rev. Jim’s mid-week update for Wednesday, September 14
