"I will put my teaching in their minds and write it on their hearts..."
Jeremiah 31:33
| | | Calendar of Upcoming Events | | |
Below are the weekly programs. Brief descriptions of these weekly programs are 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. Not 4/27.
| | 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. | | |
Friday, April 18, 6:30 pm, Good Friday Service (In person & Online)
Sunday, April 20, Easter Sunday, 9:00 - 9:45 am Conversation & Light Breakfast, 9:30 Easter Egg Hunt, 10:00 am Service
Wednesday, April 30, 6:30 - 8:00 pm, A Conversation on Climate Action with Brian McLaren (In person & Online), Sanctuary
Saturday, May 3, 9:00 - 11:00 am, Befrienders Orientation (In person & Online)
Sunday, May 4, 5:30-7:00 pm, Teen Youth Meeting at Memorial UCC, 5705 Lacy Rd, Fitchburg
Tuesday, May 6, 6:30 - 8:00 pm, Social Justice Collective Team Monthly Meeting, (In person & Online), Multipurpose Room
Wednesday, May 7, 6:30 - 8:00 pm, Befrienders Training (In person & Online) No session May 14
Thursday, May 8, 6:00 - 8:00 pm, SaLT Monthly Meeting (In person & Online), Multipurpose Room
Wednesday, May 14, 6:30 - 7:30 pm, Contemplative Service with Prayers for Healing (In person & Online), Sanctuary
Sunday, April 13, 6:00 pm, Confirmation Meeting at McFarland UCC,
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Thank you to this weekend's volunteers!
Greeters/Ushers: Becky & Aaron Cohen
Hospitality Hosts: Joan Jacobsen, Lynn Belleau
| | Resolve to get involved at McFarland UCC! Volunteer on Sunday. Join a ministry such as Racial Justice, Creation Care, Befrienders Care Team, SaLT, Youth ministry, Building & Ground Team, or others. Find out more by clicking here. | | |
News at McFarland UCC
Note: Clickable links are blue, underlined, and italicized.
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Easter Fellowship and Easter Egg Hunt Before Easter Sunday Worship - April 20
Start your Easter Sunday morning with an opportunity for fellowship BEFORE worship service. We will be serving coffee cake and donuts along with fresh fruit, juice and our usual hot beverages starting about 9:00 am on Easter morning, April 20. Plan to join us for conversation and refreshments as we gather for our Easter celebration.
About 9:30 am the annual Easter Egg Hunt will start as we send our young ones outside in search of Easter Eggs and treats. Please bring a basket or bag to collect the eggs that will be hidden outside around the church property.
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Easter Plant Donations
Thank you for your generous donation! After the Easter Sunday Service, donated plants may be taken home to enjoy or planted in a garden.
| | If you have yet to make your Easter Plant donation, you may do so via check or cash (Note: "Easter Plant") or online (use General Fund and Note: "Easter Plant"). Questions? Contact Kathy Schwenn. | | |
Bluebird Nest Boxes are coming to MUCC
The bluebird is a symbol of joy, rejuvenation, and divine connection. According to Native American culture, seeing a bluebird means to look forward to new harmony soon. The message is simple - peace is coming. In today's current chaotic world, installing bluebird nest boxes may be a great opportunity for our church to reinforce harmony and peace.
The Creation Care Team learned that we could obtain free bluebird nest boxes from the Bluebird Restoration Association of WI (BRAW), a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing bluebird populations across WI. BRAW supplies already assembled bluebird houses along with poles and predator guards. The request from BRAW is to monitor the boxes (bluebirds present, number of eggs, number fledged) once a week starting in April and throughout the summer.
Mary Sobol, a McFarland resident, bluebird enthusiast, and member of BRAW, has identified that our church property would be a good site for 2-3 bluebird boxes. Mary is available on Wednesday, April 23, at 2 pm to meet with anyone who is interested in learning about bluebirds, along with helping install our bluebird nest boxes. Any questions about this installation, contact Joan Jacobsen – jo...@mcfarlanducc.org.
Above image by Mike Dobe from Pixabay
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A Conversation on Climate Action with author Brian McLaren
Submitted by Jayne Fischer
Brian McLaren is well-known for his books that deal with the intersection of religious faith and contemporary culture. In “Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart,” he engages with the catastrophic failure of both our religious and political leaders to address the dominant realities of our time: ecological overshoot, economic injustice, and the increasing likelihood of civilizational collapse.
We are very fortunate to have Brian joining us over Zoom on Wednesday, April 30, 6:30-8:00 p.m. Central Time.
He will discuss his four major scenarios in terms of where we are at this moment in history, and four aspects of how we might respond:
· Letting Go: A Path of Descent
· Letting Be: A Place of Insight
· Letting Come: A Path of Resilience
· Setting Free: A Path of Agile Engagement
Then he will engage with us in a Q&A format.
You do not need to have read the book to join this discussion! Brian wants to engage us in this work, saying that to address aspects of our climate crisis, whatever we do matters. Connect with others, focus on a key area, and create an action plan!
Please join us either in person at McFarland UCC or on Zoom. The Zoom Meeting link will be posted when we get closer to the meeting date.
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SaLT Spot
Meeting Highlights from April 10, 2025
- Approved the installation of bluebird boxes on church property
- Approved purchase of the new water heater and necessary shingles replacements
- Discussed having a celebration for the 40th anniversary of our church building in November
- Scheduled a Game Night for Friday, May 16th at 6:30 p.m. - Bring a game and a snack to share.
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Earth Day Art
Earth Day is Sunday, April 27! If you did not attend Sunday worship on April 6 and would like to create an Earth Day image, you may do so at home. You could use watercolor, crayons, colored pencils, upcycled materials, or other materials. No art bigger than 8.5"x11" please. For the art made at home, bring your creation to the Earth Day worship service on Sunday, April 27, or drop it off at church beforehand.
If questions, contact Dawn Cogger: 608-358-7217 (text ok) or email.
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Next Befrienders Class Offering
Beginning May 3
Submitted By Jean Duchrow
The Befrienders will be offering a new set of classes starting with a May 3rd orientation from 9:00-11:00 am. Six classes will be held on Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 8:00 beginning on May 7th. (We will not meet on the second Wednesday of each month, so those wishing to attend the healing service may do so.) Zoom is always an option for these classes.
The classes will cover:
- 1. Prayer and Healing
- 2. Self Care and Boundaries
- 3. Living Alone, Hospital and Care Center Visiting
- 4. Depression
- 5. Persons with Disabilities.
We would welcome anyone interested in sharing with the group on any of the above topics.
Contact Jean Duchrow jeandu...@gmail.com if you are interested in taking the classes or sharing with the group on one of the topics we will be covering.
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Weekly Creation Care Topic
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
This week’s Tip: Resurrect your old electronics from the depths of your basements and the back of your closets. Drop them off at the McFarland Municipal Center on Saturday, April 26, from 8 am to noon to give them new life through recycling as part of the McFarland Community Service Day. Happy Earth Day!
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A Few Words from Pastor Bryan
…and Kate Bowler
Well it’s “Good Friday” once again. The day we remember and honor the fact that the exquisitely beautiful and faithful human life of Jesus ended with him being tortured and murdered.
And yet we call it “good.” Why? I mean it was an absolutely tragic and horrible death.
As most of you know, the dominant traditional take on why Jesus died on the cross was that in doing so he paid the price for our sins, and that if we believe he did that for us then our sins are forgiven and God will not hold us accountable for the wrongs we’ve done when we die and stand before God to be judged. Most of you have heard that. It’s what I sometimes playfully refer to as the “Gospel of fire insurance.”
In more than a few sermons over the past 6 plus years now I’ve explained why I do not think that the traditional “substitutionary atonement theory” is a life-giving or accurate way to understand the meaning of Jesus’s death. I think there are several other much more beautiful and compelling ways to understand the meaning of the cross. I wrote about this extensively in my book, The 6 Marks of Progressive Christian Worship Music (available on Amazon), and if you’d like to read an excerpt from that book that deals with several different ways to understand the cross of Jesus, here’s a link to the part of the book that explores this in a good deal of depth. I released this 13 years ago, but just reread it this morning, and it still says most of what I’d want to say about why Jesus was killed on a Roman Cross.
But for today, I’m just going to say that one of the reasons I am a follower of Jesus is because he took human history and human injustice, pain, and suffering seriously. He was all about Love and non-violence, but he did not avoid dealing with the root causes of why there is so much unnecessary human brokenness in this world. Jesus taught about and embodied a God who did not just sit back and watch humans harm each other. He got involved. He risked everything. He stood for compassion and kindness and justice. He challenged those in positions of power and privilege who exploited and mistreated others and Jesus paid the price for doing so.
To state the obvious, there is a lot of “humans harming each other” going on in our world these days. There always has been of course. Our human tendency to misuse our God-given freedom of choice to hurt others either inadvertently or with deliberate cruelty is downright amazing, and the consequences have always been catastrophic. But there’s a lot happening in our world right now that is way across any line of decency and completely antithetical to our Christian faith. You all are aware of what’s going on, but to name just one—Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the young man wrongly accused of being a gang member and criminal and who was deported to a concentration camp prison (which our tax payer dollars are paying for) in El Salvador without due process—and our president refusing to obey the clear mandates of the courts to bring him back and correct this tragic error. This is a VERY dangerous moment in history, and this must be challenged, even if those who speak out are punished and harmed for doing so.
But for our purposes here--do you get the connection with that last paragraph and the cross of Jesus? That’s just one example of what the cross of Christ might mean for us today.
How do we challenge something like this? How do we speak out and act for justice? Well we need to get together and talk about this and work together and find our way together. And those of us who feel called to this will do so.
But you know this is one of the reasons why we call “Good Friday” good. It is a good thing--a beautiful thing-- that our biblically based Christian faith calls us to care about others and to advocate for justice and compassion and for all people (including ALL politicians) to be treated with dignity as children of God created in God's image. This is a very good thing, even when it is costly.
I hope to see some of you tonight at our “Good Friday” service. We’ll talk a bit more about some of this as we remember the story of Jesus’s crucifixion together.
But I want to leave you today with a wonderful “Good Friday Meditation” that the amazing Kate Bowler posted on her Instagram account just this morning.
Have an appropriately disturbing Good Friday, and a soulful “Holy Saturday,” and I’ll look for you at the empty tomb on Sunday morning.
Pastor Bryan
Kate Bowler—The Saddest Day of the Year
“Okay here we go. It is officially the saddest day in the Christian calendar. It’s the day when we remember that Jesus died. And it’s the day when love was met with betrayal. The world turned dark at noon, the innocent were condemned, and hope seemed lost. And yet, Good Friday is not something that just happened. It’s something we live. Because we know what it is to grieve what shouldn’t have been lost. To carry pain that feels genuinely unbearable. To sit in the silence when there are no easy answers. Good Friday teaches us that Love stays. That grief is not the end of the story. It reminds us that when the worst happens, we don’t turn away. We bear witness. We show up. And when someone is suffering we don’t then rush to fix it. We sit with them in the dark. We stay in the silence and the not knowing. Because Love did not run from suffering, and neither will we.”
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