Dear Members and Friends of First Congregational Church of Oakland,

Since May of this year, the Rev. Lynice Pinkard has been our Acting Senior Pastor. After prayerfully and deliberately considering this congregation's hopes and needs and Pastor Lynice's gifts, the Pastoral Search Committee recommends that she be called as Senior Pastor of First Congregational Church of Oakland, United Church of Christ.

According to our bylaws, that decision must be made by a duly-noticed congregational meeting. This is your official notice of that meeting, which will be September 14, 2008, in the Sanctuary from 1:15 until 3:30.

At the meeting:
1. The Pastoral Search Committee will review the steps it has taken in its deliberations, and the reasons for its recommendation.
2. The congregation may share its questions and reflections with the Committee or Pastor Lynice.
3. Voting members will vote whether to call Lynice Pinkard as our Senior Pastor by secret ballot.
In the United Church of Christ, it is the congregation that calls the church's Pastor. Our bylaws require that at least 30% of the voting membership be present at a meeting to call a Senior Pastor. We hope many more than that will attend. The bylaws also specify that the candidate must be elected by a minimum two-thirds majority. Both Acting Senior Pastor Lynice and the Search Committee have agreed in this case that her call by the congregation will require an 80% favorable vote of the voting members present on September 14th.

Please participate in this profound decision in our congregation's life together!

With deep thanks to you and for you,
Pat Bruce-Lerrigo
Moderator

Pastor Lynice preaching Stubbing Your Toe on the Rock. mp3

I think I have the podcast feed set up. On the very bottom left of every page of the website is a link Subcribe to our podcast. This should take you to the First Congo page of Feedburner, where you can use iTunes or another application to have the sermons downloaded automatically onto your computer every time they are uploaded. We'll see if it works!

Two very important messages from Pastor Lynice directly on the front or home page.

Printable versions of her statement on interculturalism in this church (that is, beyond multiculturalism) and her vision of ministry. These correspond to the Pastor's Letters for July and August 2008.

An exciting event next Thursday at First Congo, 7-9 pm

Angela Jernigan Farrell preaching Love in the Badlands
Pastor Lynice preaching The "I" of the Storm.

Angela's was the first I've uploaded without increasing the gain of the mp3 file, as the that process appeared to be distorting the audio quality of the files, even though it make it louder.

The direct links to the mp3s:
The "I" of the Storm;
Love in the Badlands