First Parish Bridgewater - Our Ministries

Our Ministry

At First Parish Church in Bridgewater we are committed to service to our community in Southeast Massachusetts and to the larger world. The Social Justice Committee is one of the church committees that functions to develop effective and meaningful ways to put our UU faith into action. The committee meets frequently to plan programs that will involve the congregation and in some cases, even the broader community. With the help of this committee, the congregation has become increasingly involved in addressing social justice issues at the local and at the international level. The congregation is invited to bring issues of interest to the attention of the committee.

If you have questions or suggestions, contact Betty Gilson, convener of the committee, at gillyflower@verizon.net. Other members of the committee are: Janet Dye, Joanne Giannino, Betty Gilson, Lisa Troy, Anita Sethares, Juanita Brunelle, Stephen Elliot, Kelly Greenlee, Eileen Hiney, and Beth Manchester-Howell.

Every two years, the committee arranges a political forum where candidates for local, state, and national office can share their views directly with voters. On Wednesday evening October 16th 2002, the committee hosted a Candidates Forum where those running for political office were invited to share their visions with the community. The participants were running for the following offices: State Senator, State Representative, Lieutenant Governor, County Commissioner, State Treasurer, District Attorney. Candidates who participated were: Marc Pacheco, Kathleen Teahan, Steve Olson, David Flynn, Rich Aucoin, Tony Lorenzen, Olovao Demacado, Tim McMullen, James O'Keefe , and representatives for Tim Cruz and Tim White. The evening was noted for its lively debate and focused questions from a panel and from the audience. This was the third such event hosted by the committee and we look forward to doing it again in during the elections of 2006.

With all of the talk of an imminent war with Iraq, some committee members are involved in a community group called Patriots for Peace. Satrting in October 2002, this group has arranged sign-holding demonstrations against the momentum for war. On every other Saturday morning members of the committee stand at the Bridgewater Town Common holding signs that read "Peace now", "No war in my name", "No blood for oil". This type of Peace Presence is seen as putting our Unitarian Universalist faith into action. On alternate Saturdays, the group joins the Brockton anti-war group in there peace vigil in Brockton. Since the start of the war, the Patriots for Peace group has been holding candlelight vigils on the Bridgewater Common. While still very strongly opposed to the war, the group has also expressed its deep concern for the U.S. men and women who are risking their lives in fighting this war.

For the first Monday of each month an energetic group of parishioners make 100 bag lunches for the clients of MainSpring House, a homeless Shelter in Brockton. . The cost of the 100 lunches runs abou $85 depending on what materials are donated. If you are interested in contributing financially to this work or in actually putting the lunches together, contact Betty Gilson at gillyflower@verizon.net.

Every fall, the Social Justice committee, working in conjunction with the children of the church school, focuses attention on the development work of the UU Service Committee and its Guest at Your table program. Money boxes are distributed before Thanksgiving and collected early in January. Families and individuals are invited to deposit coins at each meal for the work of the UUSC. The money collected in this program then gets forwarded to the UU Service Committee to be used to help the social development of people in the U.S. and around the world.

Our Social Action Committee sells gourmet coffee to raise funds in support of these and other activities. The coffee itself is part of our church's ministry, because it comes from Equal Exchange, a Massachusetts-based company that purchases shade-grown coffee directly from farmers' cooperatives in Latin America and other coffee-growing regions. Visit the Equal Exchange web site to learn more about this coffee and about the problems facing some of the coffee-growing regions. At First Parish, you can purchase coffee after the service each Sunday, or you can contact the church office or Janet Dye for more details.

The Social Justice also addresses issues presented by Amnesty International, highlighting the plight of political prisoners :

Every year the Social Justice committee presents a specific social justice to the congregation for their consideration.

These are the social justice issues forwarded by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), Committee on Social Witness http://www.uua.org/csw/ for discussion by local parishers; the comments and suggestions that are developed in these discussions are sent to the UUA for inclusion in the discussion at the annual UU General Assembly. The 2003 issue is "Civil liberties" .