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

February 24 - March 3, 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

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

Happening This Week
sunshine_love.jpg

Sunday, Feb. 26

10:00 a.m.

Sunday Morning Worship

(in person and

on Zoom as always)


https://zoom.us/j/9701098843

Password: betogether

Racial Justice Video Series

Join us for a 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 will be offered in person at McFarland UCC and also on Zoom (use Sunday Worship link and password). We will 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 will 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’ll 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!

Movie Screening:

The Ants and the Grasshopper

March 1

7-8:30 pm



Join the United Church of Christ/UCC community online for a free screening of an acclaimed documentary that follows the life of the inspiring Anita Chitaya. After successfully confronting challenge after challenge in her home country of Malawi, Chitaya comes to the United States faced with the most difficult task of her life. In order to save her home from extreme weather, she seeks to persuade people in the United States that climate change is real. The film documents her efforts as she travels around the country from California to the White House to engage everyone from climate skeptics to despairing farmers.


This event is cohosted by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Green Chalice Ministries, the Environmental Justice Ministries of the United Church of Christ, and Blessed Tomorrow.

UCC Website Link to Register

Servant and Leadership Team (SaLT) Meeting

Thursday, March 2

6:00 pm

Zoom Link (usual Sunday password)

Opportunities and Things Coming Up

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)

3 - Mums ($18)

6 - 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.

Lenten 2023 Resource 

In Lent, we reflect on Christ's ministry, death, and resurrection. We slow down, and examine our internal spiritual lives as well as the way we live out our Christian faith in the world.


This Lenten reflection and action guide will help individuals take time to learn, reflect, repent, ask God for forgiveness, and take concrete steps to change course.


This guide is designed to help you and your community take time during the Lenten season to learn, reflect, repent, ask God for forgiveness, and take concrete steps to change course in order to better care for creation.

Download the 2023 Creation Justice Lenten Resource

2023 Sunday Mornings 


Only You can help support activities on Sunday mornings. Folks needed in March and April!



Be an usher. Help in the kitchen. 

(No experience required- plus we offer assistance )


Signup sheets for 2023 are posted on the bulletin board near the front entrance. Sign Up Genius (under “Contact”) on the church’s website.



Link for Usher -For more information contact Becky Cohen (ushers) at cohenrw@yahoo.com.


Link for Kitchen/Hospitality - For more information contact Joan Jacobsen (kitchen) at treasurer@mcfarlanducc.org

Our Own Mike Bausch Will Lead Worship next Sunday, March 5th!


For those of you who are new to us, Mike was the interim pastor at our congregation before I (Pastor Bryan) came on board. I will be out of town next weekend on a Faith Formation Retreat at Daycholoah Center with our Confirmation Class students. Mike has agreed to lead us in worship, including the Birthday Blessings and Communion time, and we hope he'll bring his guitar and share some music with us as well. As those of you who know Mike will agree, he is an absolute joy to be with and a very gifted pastor and communicator. If you have not experienced him in the context of leading worship, be sure not to miss this opportunity to be with Mike in person or on zoom next week. And thanks so much Mike for sharing your gifts with us once again!

A Few Words From Pastor Bryan


And Kate Bowler


My daughter Emma recently told me about at new book by author and Duke Divinity School Professor Kate Bowler (with Jessica Richie) called, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings For Imperfect Days. First, how cool is it that my grown daughter is sharing books about God with me that fill her soul and move her heart?! Thank you God and thank you Emma! And second, wow, this is quite a book.


I've shared some excerpts from Kate's previous books in sermons this past year and also with our morning zoom devotional group. As I mentioned in this morning's zoom meeting, I think Kate's main "thing" is reminding us that life is always--always--a mixture of both incredible beauty AND challenges and struggles of one kind or another. Life is a package deal in this regard. There are times of course when these things are (or at least feel) way out of balance. Kate, who lived through stage IV cancer in her mid 30's while fighting to stay alive to be with her young son, knows a thing or two about being taken to the end of herself. But she has come out the other side of her journey through the valley of the shadow with some deep wisdom about staying in touch with the beauty while also being completely real about the pain. She is funny, brilliant, poetic, brutally honest, and downright allergic to pious platitudes and cheap cliches. The book she wrote after her cancer experience gives you a glimpse of her provocative style even in it's title: Everything Happens For A Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved).


I love writers who can say so much with so few words the way Kate does. Here's one of my favorite parts of the brief piece of hers that I've posted below;


We will lose and we will gain,

    and almost none of it will make much sense at the time,

    and it will force our hands open.


Kate's new book is a collection of 100 brief blessings, including one for Ash Wednesday and one for each day in Lent. I recommend the book even if just for these. I shared her Ash Wednesday reflection during our service last Wednesday, and the blessings for the first two days of Lent yesterday and today during zoom devotions. I'm going to share tomorrow's with all of you here both to give you a flavor of her writing, and because I just love this one.


I hope you find this meaningful, and I hope to see you in worship this Sunday,


Pastor Bryan


For When You Need To Let Go

Or When You Need To Hold On


By Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie

 

God, sometimes it feels like a better person wouldn’t be like this:

tethered to so many hopes,

and fears, and expectations.

 

Blessed are we pulled between wanting to let go —

sometimes needing to let go—and also needing to hold on.

 

Blessed are we when we yearn

    for connection and love and touch.

 

Blessed are we when we hunger

    for the beauty of life itself and the people to fill it.

 

Blessed are we when we are unable to say,

    “I’m letting it go.”

    Because we feel like we will be washed away into an ocean of

          nothingness.

Teach us to cling to the truths that enliven our spirits,

     and loosen our grip on the painful untruths:

     like the one that says we are alone, or unlovable.

    Or that desire itself is the enemy.

 

Teach us to hunger for what is good, and be filled.

 

There will be no easy addition and subtraction.

    We will lose and we will gain,

    and almost none of it will make much sense at the time,

    and it will force our hands open.

In the ebb and flow of wins and losses, comings and goings,

    may we look for the divine in the mystery of it all,

    the stubbornness of flowers that still smile at us in the grocery store,

    and the need for endless small reminders

        that the pain of it all, the comedy of it all,

        will point us back to love.

608-838-9322 
5710 Anthony St.
McFarland WI 53558
mcfarlanducc.org
-
Pastor Bryan Sirchio
608-577-8716
Follow Us
Facebook  Twitter  Instagram  
Visit our website