"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. | | |
Wednesday, April 30, 6:30 - 8:00 pm, A Conversation on Climate Action with Brian McLaren (In person & Online), Sanctuary
Thursday, May 1, 10:00 - 11:00 pm, Funeral Meeting (In person & Online), Multipurpose Room
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: Jean & Daryl Kleckner
Hospitality Hosts: Cody DeWayne, Martha Olsen
| | 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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Bluebird Nest Boxes on Church Property
On Wednesday, 4/23, two bluebird nest boxes were installed on the church property. The boxes were provided free of charge by the Bluebird Restoration Association of WI (BRAW). Nine participants met with Mary Sobol, a McFarland resident and member of BRAW, who guided with installation of the boxes. Mary also provided fascinating details about cavity nesters; these are the five birds in our area who nest in
cavities (e.g., nest boxes), including the Eastern Bluebird, Tree Swallow, Black-capped Chickadee, House Wren, and House Sparrow. Each of these birds may end up in one or both of our nest boxes (although we are really hoping that bluebirds decide to make a home at our church). Members of the Creation Care Ministry Team will be monitoring the nest boxes each week from April through the summer. Stay tuned for more information.
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Memorial Ceremony For Calvin Swenson
Immediately following 4/27 Sunday service
Please join Heather Blackmore, along with Calvin's parents Eric and Traci Swenson, for a short ceremony to dedicate a tree planted at MUCC in memory of Calvin Swenson, MUCCs own "Tree Guy". We will remember him and his love for trees on this Arbor Day/Earth Day weekend. Everyone is welcome. We will meet on the back church lawn just on the other side of the parking lot where the prairie grasses were planted last year.
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Earth Day Art
Earth Day is Sunday, April 27! Check out the art displayed in the Fellowship area, created by people of all ages. If questions, contact Dawn Cogger: 608-358-7217 (text ok) or email.
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Noisy Offerings!
Bring all your loose change to church with you on Sunday, April 27.
The teen/youth kids will walk around during church collecting all loose change for their summer trip.
Photo: Ash Ismail on Unsplash
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A Conversation on Climate Action with author Brian McLaren
April 30, 6:30-8 pm
Join the discussion with Brian McLaren on his book “Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart” in person or via Zoom with the link below or on the MUCC website homepage.
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, knowing that whatever we do matters to address aspects of our climate crisis. Connect with others, focus on a key area, and create an action plan!
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Spring Cleanup Day
May 18, 8am-done
Join the Building and Grounds team on May 17 at 8:00 am to spruce up the church inside and out. Snacks and a light lunch will be provided. You don't need any tools, but feel free to bring a favorite rake, lopper, or rag.
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Ushers/Greeters
Submitted by Becky Cohen
We are looking for volunteers to be Greeters/Ushers for the Summer months. Now is a great time to check your calendars!
Hoping there are volunteers willing to come forward to fill openings. Please sign up via the Signup Genius or email me, Becky Cohen.
Also, I am sending a big THANK YOU to the volunteers who have signed up this year and in past years! It is really appreciated.
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Remembering Jim Martin
Our beloved member Jim Martin passed away on April 10, 2025. Some of us have decided to remember him in a special way. The second row chair in the sanctuary, where Jim often sat, has become a memorial, and it is growing. You are invited to add something that reminds you of Jim.
Jim's family is still in the process of deciding when Jim's Celebration of Life service will be held. They are thinking in the first two weeks of July, and we will announce the date and time as soon as it is determined.
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OCWM Wisconsin Impact
Our Church’s Wider Mission (OCWM) is the name used to describe the work we do as the United Church of Christ beyond the local church, through our Conferences, national ministries, and UCC-related institutions. Our Church’s Wider Mission is also the name we give to the financial support given by UCC members and congregations that makes this broader mission possible.
Our Church’s Wider Mission, often referred to simply as OCWM, has two parts: OCWM Wisconsin Impact (formerly, Basic Support) and Four Special Mission Offerings.
The Wisconsin Conference UCC would like to share this quarterly newsletter with you on the gifts to Our Church's Wider Mission (OCWM).
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Older Adult Ministries Offers Monthly Publication
The Wisconsin Conference Older Adult Ministries work group has introduced a new monthly publication, Aging in Grace, which contains resources for congregations, reflections on the challenges and opportunities faced by senior members of our congregations, and questions intended to help congregations assess their ministry with seniors. Subscribe to Aging in Grace.
The Older Adults Ministries group emerged over the past two years as a platform for sharing ideas and resources to enable churches to be more intentional in ministering to older adults. Seniors account for around three-quarters of the members of Christian churches in the United States.
Photo: Steve Knutson on Unsplash
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Weekly Creation Care Topic
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
April 25: EARTH DAY, EVERY DAY “Just as Easter reminds us that death does not have the final word, Earth Day reminds us that renewal is possible—when we act in faith, with courage and love. Earth Day is not just a celebration—it is a call. A call to tend sacred ground. A call to act with gritty hope. A call to honor the Creator by protecting, restoring, and rightly sharing God’s good creation. May we respond with reverence, resolve, and resurrection-rooted love.” from Creation Justice Ministries (click the link to learn more, or to sign up to receive their newsletter). Their link is also posted on our church Creation Care website.
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A Few Words from Pastor Bryan
…and Robin Wall Kimmerer
Many of you are familiar with Native American author Robin Wall Kimmerer's amazing book Braiding Sweetgrass, but lately I've been reading her more recent release called The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. Wow. What a book. It's a beautiful short read with some gorgeous illustrations, and the entire book is a series of reflections inspired by the author's experience of gathering a bucket full of lush and delicious berries called the "Serviceberry" (also known as Saskatoon, Juneberry, Shadbush, Shadblow, Sugarplum, and Sarvis.)
Given that it is "Earth Day" week and the time of year when everything is coming back to life and we are being reminded daily of the abundance and fecundity and almost embarrassing generosity of God's Creation, the insights offered in this book are speaking to me deeply. She writes a good deal about the economy of God--what she refers to as a "gift economy," in contrast to the profit and greed driven economies that we are so used to in our world and that we are seeing practiced in such a ruthless and reckless manner at this moment in our own country's history.
Robin Wall Kimmerer makes the point that we are so addicted to our individualism and our fear-based assumptions of scarcity that we can't really even imagine a more generous and sustainable way of relating to resources, currencies, and the flow and distribution of "goods and services."
So treat yourself to the following excerpt from The Serviceberry. It moved me deeply. I will be referring to it again this Sunday in my sermon. I won't get into it now, but the way she talks about economy is so much more in sync with biblical teachings than the way economics are approached in either Democratic or Republican circles these days--let alone by billionaire oligarchies. God help us.
Hope to see you in church this Sunday,
Pastor Bryan
From Robin Wall Kimmerer's The Serviceberry
As the berries plunked into my bucket, I was thinking about what I’d do with them all. I’d drop some off for friends and neighbors, and I’d certainly fill the freezer for Juneberry muffins in February. This “problem” of deciding what to do with abundance reminds me of a report, shared by Lewis Hyde in his essential book The Gift, that linguist Daniel Everett wrote as he was learning from a hunter-gatherer community in the Brazilian rainforest.
He observes that a hunter had brought home a sizable kill, far too much to be eaten by his family. The researcher asked how he would store the excess. Smoking and drying technologies were well known; storing was possible. The hunter was puzzled by the question—store the meat? Why would he do that? Instead, he sent out an invitation to a feast, and soon the neighboring families were gathered around his fire, until every last morsel was consumed. This seemed like maladaptive behavior to the anthropologist, who asked again: given the uncertainty of meat in the forest, why didn’t the hunter store the meat for himself, which is what the economic system of his home culture would predict.
“Store my meat? I store my meat in the belly of my brother,” replied the hunter.
I feel a great debt to this unnamed teacher for these words. There beats the heart of gift economies, an antecedent alternative to market economies, another way of “organizing ourselves to sustain life.” In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is “we” rather than “I,” as all flourishing is mutual.
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