"I will put my teaching in their minds and write it on their hearts..."
Jeremiah 31:33

March 10 - 17, 2023


You can find brief descriptions of these weekly programs on our website:
mcfarlanducc.org

SUNDAY Morning, 10 am Zoom Worship

https://zoom.us/j/97010988439 Password: betogether

SUNDAY , 11:30 a.m. Bible Study  in person and on zoom

https://zoom.us/j/262314649 NO Bible Study 3/12

MONDAY - FRIDAY, 8 am Morning Devotion

https://zoom.us/j/94276813637

WEDNESDAY Eve., 6:30 pm Midweek Inhale Spiritual Practices

https://zoom.us/j/123020606 Note: The Midweek Inhale will NOT meet on March 15th, but will resume on the 22nd.

Happening This Week

Remember Daylight Savings Time Change This Coming Sunday! (3/12)...

The time change is set to occur on Sunday, March 12th at 2:00 a.m. by moving clocks ahead one hour. Don't want to miss seeing you this Sunday!

Sunday Worship

Sunday, March 12 at 10 am

(in person and on Zoom)

https://zoom.us/j/9701098843 Password: betogether

Sunday, March 12th

After Worship


Immigration Justice & Compassion


A Presentation by Mark & Judy Emmrich based on their recent experiences at the Arizona/Mexico border on behalf of our congregation.


We'll break for about 5 minutes after worship and then gather again in the sanctuary. Remember to bring a travel mug if you'd like to grab a cup of coffee and bring it into the sanctuary for the presentation and discussion.


Mark and Judy Emmerich traveled to the Arizona border in January to attend an immigration justice seminar as representatives of our congregation. Join us after worship on March 12th to hear from Judy and Mark about their powerful experiences at the border. This presentation is part of our Immigration Justice Outreach called NION (Now In Our Name). We'll talk about ways we can take action in response to some of the people and organizations the Emmrichs will tell us about. This conversation will take place in our sanctuary so that zoom attendees can be with us. We'll use the same zoom link and password that we use for Sunday morning worship.

Sunday, March 12th, 5:30--6:45 p.m. Younger Youth Meeting (12 and under)


Younger youth (12 and under) will do our usual thing-- play some games, do a craft, hear a Bible story, sing, and eat pizza! Bring your friends!!

Racial Justice Video Series Continues


March 14th, 6:30-8:00 p.m. in person and on zoom.


Join us for the last session of our three-part video series on “The Color of Compromise.” This is an acclaimed, timely study of how some people of faith have historically, and even up to the present day, actually worked against racial justice. It’s a call to urgent action for all Christians today.


“The Color of Compromise” is enlightening, compelling, and also painful, telling a history we either have ignored or just do not know. It details how some churches have helped create and maintain racist ideas and practices. We will think through practical solutions for improved race relations and a more racially inclusive church.


This series is offered in person at McFarland UCC and also on Zoom (use Sunday Worship link and password). We view one episode on each of the following Tuesday evenings: Feb. 28, March 7 and March 14, beginning at 6:30 p.m. After the 20-minute video, we break into groups either in person or on Zoom to consider and discuss the video, based on a few questions that we will provide to everyone. Then we come back together to report on what we discussed, finishing no later than 8:00 p.m.


Let’s learn and discuss what we as Christians can do to support the cause of racial justice!

NION Meeting

Thursday, March 16

6:30-7pm

NION stands for "Now In Our Name" and is our Immigration Justice and Compassion Outreach Group. We meet the third Thursday of each month via Zoom. Join us and learn more!

Postcard-Writing Campaign to Get Out the Vote

The election on April 4th for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is critical and has serious implications for abortion policy, voting rights, fair maps and more. In 2019, the Supreme Court majority was decided by 5,000 votes, less than one vote per precinct. We can make a difference!


The MUCC Racial Justice team is partnering with Reclaim Our Vote, a campaign of the Center for Common Ground, to encourage under-represented voters to vote. We will send 250 postcards by March 27 to people of color from Milwaukee who are registered to vote but have not voted in the past couple of election cycles.


After Sunday services in March, you are invited to write postcards, following a template provided to us by Reclaim Our Vote. We will have postcards, pens, markers and the script on the tables outside the sanctuary for anyone who is interested in writing a few postcards. These handwritten postcards have an impact on people who receive them. Join us!

Opportunities and Things Coming Up

One Great Hour of Sharing Collection

March 19


In Galatians, the Apostle Paul encourages followers of Jesusto generously help and care for others. Thought there is great need in the world and we can grow weary because we do not know how to help, God's Spirit energizes and re-energizes us in every season.


We can make a difference. We do make a difference. Your generosity makes all the difference. Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing provide immediate aid and long-term support to people experiencing hunger, thirst, disaster or crisis around the world.


The need has never been greater. The opportunity is now. It's time to share.

SaLT Spot:

The following are highlights from our March SaLT Team meeting:

  • Committee Updates including Green Team Earth Day Plans, a successful start to the Color of Compromise series and NION's support to assist with legal fees for an immigrant family.
  • Offered MUCC Admin. Asst. guidance on questions/input and ideas regarding church management.
  • Discussed open beverages in the church sanctuary and will share that covered travel mugs are welcome.
  • Made recommendations for guidance on a maturing CD.
  • Support interest from youth in the congregation who would be willing to join SaLT Team meetings during committee updates and share any input they may have.

Easter Flowers



We have just placed our order for Easter plants to brighten our sanctuary on Easter Sunday morning, April 9. You have the opportunity to purchase one of the plants for your own enjoyment after Easter Sunday or to plant in your own garden. You may also consider honoring a loved one with your plant purchase.


Here are the plants available:

10 - Easter lilies ($17)

1 - Hydrangea ($33)

2 - Mums ($18)

4 - Tulips ($13)

3 - Hyacinth ($13)


You can sent your request by Noon on April 4, 2023 to Ginger at office@mcfarlanducc.org or sign up for a plant using Sign Up Genius on MUCC's website. Please include your name, what plant you want to purchase and the name of your loved one, if you are honoring someone with your plant purchase.


Payment for Easter plants can be check or cash (please include info that indicates that your contribution is for an Easter plant) or online (use General Fund, add a note to indicate your contribution is for an Easter Plant). Questions about payment can be addressed to Joan Jacobsen at treasurer@mcfarlanducc.org.

Monday, March 20th,

6:00-7:00 p.m.

Spring Equinox

Fire Ceremony

With Shamanic Practitioner Jessica Riphenburg


We've had a wonderful time since last June observing and celebrating the spiritual significance of the Summer and Winter Solstices and the Spring and Fall Equinoxes. The Spring Equinox is coming up on March 20th this year, which means of course that Spring is just about here! (Obviously the snow doesn't know that!). We'll enjoy some prayers and insights from the Celtic Christian tradition and Jessica will lead us once again in a fire ceremony. All ages are welcome! By the way, Jessica posted a piece on Facebook today about her own experience with Christianity and the Church throughout her life, and how working with our congregation and experiencing our inclusive, respectful, and loving way of being Christian has been healing for her. Here's a link that post in case you'd like to read it. She had some lovely things to say about our congregation.

Tuesday, March 21st, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Green Team Monthly Meeting (in person and on zoom. )

Use the Sunday morning worship zoom link and password.

Save the Date!


March 28th, 6:30-8:00 p.m.

An Introduction to

The Enneagram !


Join us in person or via Zoom


MUCC Member Steve Davidson and I (Pastor Bryan) have been looking forward to offering this introduction to the Enneagram since before the pandemic. It's finally time! Steve has studied the Enneagram extensively and will lead us in an overview of this amazing tool for personal awareness and growth. The Enneagram is a personality typology of sorts, with roots in several spiritual traditions as well as depth psychology. I have often referred to the Enneagram as the single greatest tool I've come across for becoming more self-aware and awake. Please join us and bring your friends. If you've never worked with the Ennegram you will be amazed by the profundity of this amazing tool.

Coffee Cups In the Sanctuary?


Our New Policy


A few folks have recently asked whether or not we should allow folks to bring coffee into the sanctuary. We discussed this at last night's SaLT meeting and came up with what we hope you will agree is a wonderful compromise.


As you can imagine, some are very understandably concerned about protecting our beautiful carpet (open cups do spill, let's face it, no matter how careful we are). Others just love the informality and welcome of being able to bring a drink into worship or a program in the sanctuary.


So here's the compromise...


Use a travel mug! You know, the kind with a lid on it so that spills will be MUCH less likely to happen.


Bring your own, maybe even donate one or more to the church so we'll have a bunch handy each week for anyone who wants to use one. Who knows, we might even have some made up with our church's name and logo on them.


In any case, for now, let's try it. Coffee welcome, but in a travel mug and not an open cup. Thanks for your cooperation!

A Few Words From Pastor Bryan


If you want to see what's in a sponge... SQUEEZE it!


I heard someone share those words about squeezing a sponge in a sermon many years ago, and I've obviously never forgotten it. The preacher was making the point that when life somehow puts pressure on us, we tend to find out who are truly are on the inside. We get squeezed and whatever's "in there" is, well, revealed. Exposed. Sometimes it's a strange blessing in a hard time to watch ourselves respond and even react in ways that surprise us in a positive sense--show how much we've grown and evolved.


But plenty of times, and I'm certainly no exception, the squeeze reveals that we're nowhere near as grounded or evolved as we might have hoped. You've heard me quote from Ram Dass, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, many times. He often used to say, "if you think you're enlightened, just go home and spend a weekend with your family." He would joke that his family "knew exactly how to push his buttons, because they installed them!" And when he suffered a severe stroke later in life, he confessed that when he was going through that experience, he felt nothing but fear and "didn't have a spiritual bone in his body." For all of his teaching and practicing about God's presence and grace and facing illness and death with serenity, when he himself was "stroked," he felt nothing but terror. He said that he did not have one single thought of God in the midst of it. As he quipped during his recovery in retrospect, "when push came to shove for me, I failed the test."


Well I don't think that God was testing Ram Dass through his stroke (that's "another sermon" as I often say), but we understand what Ram Dass meant. Once he was well enough to reflect on this experience out loud, he said, "It showed me that I still had lots of work to do." And then he devoted the rest of his life (another 15 years or so) to learning how to live with severe physical limitations, face a very slow and painful physical decline, and eventually die with "fierce grace." He wound up teaching the world so much about how to both live and die with dignity and deep spiritual presence even while he was in pain and facing some incredibly difficult circumstances. I just love Ram Dass.


But the reason I'm sharing all of this with you today is because this afternoon I received a text from a member of our church who is actually being squeezed on a number of fronts herself at this point in her life. I'll let her remain anonymous. But in the midst of her own discomfort and pressure, she texted me a couple of pages from Kate Bowler's latest book, "The Lives We Actually Have." I was touched both by the way in which she is trying to work deeply with her own very full sponge these days, and also that in the midst of her own turmoil she thought to share this with me and to minister out of her own difficult situation. What is coming out of her is a desire to let even her own pain somehow be a gift that God can use to bless someone else.


Ram Dass might playfully say that she's doing much better with her test than he did. I'll just say that what's being revealed as the sponge of her being is being squeezed, is quite beautiful. Thank you my friend. You know who you are.


The blessing from Kate Bowler that was shared is below.


See you all soon I hope,


Pastor Bryan


For when this pain doesn’t make sense

By Kate Bowler


God, I’m fumbling around for answers, reasons, meaning.

I can’t find any purpose in this pain.

Why me?

Why them?

Why now?


I don’t know when this is going to get better.

Or if I will ever feel relief.


God, make this pain matter…at least to you.

See me in my fragility.

Give me a reminder of your presence.

Reach for me,

for I am too weary to reach for you.


Blessed are we who need to be reminded

that there are some things we can fix

…and some things we can’t.


Blessed are we who can say:

My life isn’t always getting better.


Right in the midst of the pain and fear and uncertainty, may we hunt for beauty and meaning and truth…together.


Not to erase the pain or solve the pain

(though surely that would be nice),

but to remind us that beauty and sorrow coexist.

And that doesn’t mean we’re broken or have been forgotten.


God is here, and we are never—were never and will never be—alone. In our hope. In our disappointment. In our joy. In our pain.


God, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Spirit, have mercy. Amen.

608-838-9322 
5710 Anthony St.
McFarland WI 53558
mcfarlanducc.org
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Pastor Bryan Sirchio
608-577-8716
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