November 29 - December 6, 2024 | |
"I will put my teaching in their minds and write it on their hearts..."
Jeremiah 31:33
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Calendar of Upcoming Events | |
Below are the weekly programs. You can find brief descriptions of these weekly programs on our website. Clickable links are in blue, underlined, and italicized. | |
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SUNDAY Choir Practice, 9 am in person, Sanctuary
Contact Tom Ludwig, if interested
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Below are the upcoming non-weekly events on the calendar happening at McFarland UCC for about the next month. All events are on the McFarland UCC calendar with Zoom links and additional information in the details/description area. Click the event on the McFarland UCC calendar to see the details. | |
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Sunday, December 1, 10:00 am, Birthday & Communion Sunday
Sunday, November 1, 5:30 - 7:00 pm, Teen Youth Monthly Meeting
Tuesday, December 3, 6:30 - 8:00 pm, Racial Justice Care Team Monthly Meeting, (In person & Online), Multipurpose Room
Wednesday, December 4, 6:00 - 7:30 pm, Outreach Funds Committee Quarterly Meeting, (In person & Online), Multipurpose Room
Sunday, December 8, 5:30 - 6:45 pm, Younger Youth Monthly Meeting
Wednesday, December 11, 6:30 - 7:30 pm, Healing Prayer Service (In person & Online), Sanctuary
Thursday, December 12, 6:00 - 8:00 pm, SaLT Monthly Meeting, (In person & Online), Multipurpose Room
Tuesday, December 24, 6:00 pm, Christmas Eve Candle Light Service, (In person & Online)
Wednesday, December 25, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Community Christmas Meal, Fellowship Area
Wednesday, December 25, Office Closed
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News at McFarland UCC
(Note: Clickable links are blue, underlined, and italicized.)
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Younger Youth—
Special Advent Stuff on Sunday Mornings In December!
Advent Greetings to all Parents of younger kids at McFarland UCC!
Sheryl Rowe and I got together and we’re planning on having some special crafts and messages on Sunday mornings beginning this Sunday, December 1st—the first Sunday of the season of Advent.
Yes—we’re trying to encourage you to come to church Sunday mornings in December!
Here's what we have in store...
Sunday, December 1st: We’ll introduce the season of Advent and the theme of Hope. We’ll also talk about the symbol of Light and how Christmas is when the Light came to earth in Jesus. Sheryl will help the kids make a special Advent candle that can be used at home throughout the month of December leading up to Christmas.
Sunday, December 8th: The theme will be Peace, and Sheryl will once again help the kids make “Christingles” out of oranges and treats and a candle. After church our entire community will decorate our sanctuary and the Christmas tree with ornaments (and candy canes!). Instead of a Sunday evening Younger Youth meeting in December we’re encouraging families to come and participate in these festivities together as a church family.
Sunday, December 15th: The Advent theme will be Joy, and there will be some special music including some from our kids (a surprise). Sheryl will have some fun and joyful project for the kids.
Sunday, December 22nd: The theme will be Love, and we’ll have our annual “No Practice Christmas Pageant!” We’re also going to baptize Tcheki and Jeffrey’s son Tyrell during this service, and it’s always wonderful to have kids in church for baptisms.
So we’re hoping to see the younger ones and their families at church a bunch in December! Come join us if you can!!
Pastor Bryan
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Decorate The Church Christmas Tree!
Sunday, December 8th
Immediately after worship. Fun for all ages!
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Christmas Poinsettias
MUCC has purchased poinsettias through the McFarland Lioness Club fundraiser to decorate the sanctuary. Would you like to purchase one or more of our church’s poinsettias to honor or memorialize a loved one? The honored person(s) would be listed in the Christmas Eve worship bulletin. Purchasing a poinsettia helps defray our church costs.
The suggested donation for the small (6 ½” pot) plant is $14 and $23 for a large plant (8” pot).
To contribute toward a poinsettia (which you may take home after the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service), sign up via SignUp Genius or contact Ginger (Administrative Assistant) or Colleen Krattiger.
There are two payment options:
- Pay online into the General Fund with the memo “Christmas Flowers”
- Pay by check – drop in the offering basket on Sunday or mail it to the church with the memo “Christmas Flowers.”
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Lost and Found Items
All items are by the coat racks and want to be reunited with their owners! Help rejoin these items with their owners.
- Green jacket
- Pink baseball hat with "Tell your dog I said hi"
- Yeah! Home found - Blue baseball hat
- Brown sunglasses
| The Care Team is always looking for ways to build community and is once again doing the Community Christmas Meal. We need volunteers to prepare food, set up, clean up, and serve. If you are available, please consider how you could help this season and sign up. Questions? Contact Lavon Geasland or Judy Taber. | |
Weekly Creation Care Topic
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
This week’s Tip: Recycle: Where did the church composter go? How will we compost our coffee grounds, coffee filters & fruit/veggie scraps so they do not end up in the landfill? Fear not, we are still composting at MUCC, we just moved it. When working the MUCC kitchen and the compost bucket needs to be emptied, take it outside and walk along the woods just past the fire pit. You will see a wire fenced area with 2 spots to dump the compost into. Ideally, we will fill one and then the other. No worries if you are not sure which one to use. Just dump it into one, no harm will be done. Remember cooked food, oily items, dairy, meat and bones do NOT compost well.
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A Few Words from Pastor Bryan
...and David Brooks
So it’s so-called “Black Friday” today, and I also just read an article by David Brooks in Atlantic Magazine that’s entitled, “How Did America Become So Mean?”
In his article, David Brooks cites a bunch of statistics that strongly make the case that Americans are overwhelmingly more sad, depressed, lonely, isolated, AND more bitter and likely to give ourselves permission to treat others meanly than we used to be. A restaurant owner Brooks interviewed says that he has to throw out a customer at least once a week now for being obnoxious and loud and aggressive. The restaurant owner said this hardly ever used to happen. Flight attendants report that passengers are much more likely to get angry, intimidating, and violent. Nurses also report that patients in the hospital are much more likely to get angry, rude, and threatening toward medical staff. My son is a nurse and he tells me that he is often called in to deal with disrespectful and threatening patients and that several times he has had to use physical strength and force to prevent a patient from abusing other nurses.
I would imagine we all have our opinions as to why people in our country feel more entitled to act out in the ways David Brooks is describing. That this is happening certainly rings true to me. I don't think we could even be discussing out loud an immigration policy that would involve mass arrests, internments, deportations, and the heartbreaking and cruel measures this will require unless these statistics were true. Our public discourse certainly is dominated by men and women (mostly men) who feel it is their right and privilege to be rude and disrespectful and intimidating to those who challenge them or displease them in any way.
Brooks suggests that one of the problems is that we have somehow stopped teaching our children the basic ethics of kindness, respect, and civility. He contends that there is a crisis when it comes to moral formation in our culture at this point in history. In fact our kids are watching the adults in their lives and in our culture treat others belligerently and with disrespect and contempt on a regular basis. They see this behaviour both modeled and rewarded. And he says that what is happening is that we as a culture are actually promoting and giving license to our selfishness and egocentricity. We are unapologetically self-centered, and often claiming that our first amendment rights to free speech entitle us to say whatever we like to whomever we like, without feeling any trace of guilt or shame. The anonymity of social media and the ease with which people can be mean without any immediate consequences on these platforms further exacerbates the problem.
And then there is Black Friday. Oh I'm no Schrooge. Get out there and enjoy shopping and deals and getting into the holiday shopping fray if you find it fun and meaningful. Lots of people obviously do! I’m mentioning it here though because it is also a symbol of the frenzy of consumerism that takes our culture by a stranglehold this time each year, and it chokes many of us to the point of spiritual lifelessness and some kind of soul sickness.
Don't misunderstand me. The buying and selling and exchanging of gifts can be a soulful and beautiful thing, and if our holiday shopping is truly about expressing love through the giving of gifts that's wonderful.
But buying stuff that we don’t need and that we often can’t afford out of a sense of obligation or ego is a strangely layered depressing phenomenon for so many. Why?
Quite simply, because buying a bunch of stuff doesn’t make us or anyone truly happy. It doesn't satisfy. Not deeply and not for long. It’s really that simple. There’s something about the way our culture does even gift giving for the holidays that often causes more sadness and depression than anything.
So I find myself wondering what’s really going on. To get to the point, we seem to be more and more disconnected from what truly brings joy and peace to our lives. And what is that? In a word, Love. But more specifically—choosing to NOT be selfish and driven by the desires and impulses of our egos. Choosing to share what we already have. Choosing to show kindness and respect. Choosing to care about the wellbeing of all people and not just what’s good for ourselves or our private and personal wealth. Choosing to go out of our way for someone else (even and maybe most importantly anonymously) rather than being preoccupied with getting what we want for ourselves. Choosing not to be transactional when it comes to love and relationships and gift-giving. Choosing to be empathetic—to try to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes before we act or speak, even when we have the “right” to do whatever we want. Choosing to stand for the dignity of all people and fairness to all people. Choosing to care more about how we’re impacting others and all creatures and Creation than we do about our own convenience and immediate fulfillment. These are the things that lead to joy and deep contentment.
On the positive side of all of this, after reading David Brooks’ article I came to a wonderful realization, and that is that who we are as a church is actually EXACTLY what this world needs right now. I don’t mean that the rest of the world should follow Jesus or Spirit in the ways we try to. But I mean that our primary values—community, connection, reaching out to each other in times of need and struggle, sharing joys and concerns, teaching our children that they are loved unconditionally and that we are all made to offer love to each other and the world, creating safe spaces where real relationships can develop and where we can risk being known, offering our gifts in service to others, commitments to caring for and honoring the earth and standing for justice and the Extravagant Welcome of God. All of these things are exactly what this world needs most. They are the antidote to the illness of selfishness and despair and meanness that David Brooks explains so insightfully.
I am so glad and grateful to know in the depths of my being that spiritual communities—including CHURCHES like ours-- are a part of the solution to the deepest problems our world is facing.
And the simple truth is that choosing Love rather than egoic selfishness is what makes us more joyful, free, peaceful, and able to be part of Love's healing response to the sadness and brokenness of the world.
And less mean.
Advent starts this Sunday. The theme is Hope.
I hope to see you soon...
Pastor Bryan
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