Greetings from.... First Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC)

Greetings from....
First Congregational
United Church of Christ (UCC)
Worship at 10:30 a.m. -- Coffee Hour Follows!
1101 17th Ave S
Fargo ND 58103
701-232-8985
Church Website: www.firstuccfargo.org
Office Hours: M, T, Th., & Fri. mornings (8-noon) & Wed.
afternoon (1-5)
Office Mgr. - Lora Wehrung: [email protected]
Sunday, February 2nd
Holy Communion
Rev. Dr. Kevin
Cassiday-Maloney
[email protected] This week’s Scripture Lessons are absolutely filled with spiritual
gems! Psalm 15 lays out the concrete ethical behavior that should
Cell: 701-373-5709
be at the center of our worship and faith. The Prophet Micah
(just a phone call or text
away... and happy to get
(Micah 6:1-8) offers a pithy
calls!)
statement of what faith is all
about. And the Gospel Lesson
MISCELLANEOUS
(Matthew 5:1-12) shares a
powerful picture of the
COMING EVENTS
counterintuitive attitudes we are
to cultivate as we follow Christ
PRAYERS FOR...
(see “Something to Ponder” below
for the Beatitudes as paraphrased
SOMETHING TO
in The Message). The Meditation,
PONDER
“The Family Photo Album of Faith,” will use each of these texts as
springboards for reflecting on what it means to be part of God’s
LAUGHTER IS THE BEST family and how we are called to be a blessing to the world.
...MEDICINE
This week’s hymns are:
 We Have Come to Join in Worship
 Break Now the Bread of Life
 God, You Spin the Whirling Planets
 Also, we will be singing The Lord’s Prayer together.
The youth will be collecting
Soup Cans for our annual
“Souper-Bowl of Caring” food
collection drive after church
this Sunday and on February 9.
The cans of soup will benefit
the Great Plains Food Bank. In
2013 we brought in 180 cans—we’d like to raise our goal to 200
cans for 2014!! That’s completely doable!! Please bring your
donations to the church, and put them in the large soup cauldrons
which will be placed at the front of the church.
MISCELLANEOUS
Click here for an article on what some UCC folk are doing to work for immigration reform in
the US, “Advocates Take Immigration Reform On The Road.”
COMING EVENTS
Youth Spaghetti Feed Fundraiser – Sunday, February 9, 2014
Come Hungry!!
MENU: Spaghetti or Angel Hair Pasta, Marinara
sauce, Meat sauce, or Alfredo sauce.
There will be gluten-free choices and other sides.
This fundraiser benefits the Youth of our church,
and assists them in covering registration fees for
Bible Camps, Fall Youth Rallies, and other Youth
Activities throughout the year. Thanks for your
generosity!!
LENTEN MEALS AND WORSHIPS
For five Wednesdays, starting March 12th, we will gather at 6 p.m. for a light meal together
followed by a Lenten Worship at 6:30, featuring a Book Review each week. Here are this
year’s books – you’re not “required” to read them, but for those who wish to explore one or
more of these books, they are all available through the Fargo Library System, as well as at
your favorite bookstores.
Here’s the schedule for this year:
March 12 – When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough: Seeing
God in Surprising Places, Even the Church, by Lillian Daniel
The phrase "I'm spiritual but not religious" has become a cliché. It's
easy to find God amid the convenience of self-styled spirituality--but is
it possible (and more worthwhile) to search for God through religion?
UCC Minister and celebrated author Lillian Daniel gives a new spin on
church with stories of what a life of faith can really be: weird,
wondrous, and well worth trying.
March 19 – Benediction, by Kent Naruf
From the beloved and best-selling author of Plainsong and Eventide
comes a story of life and death, and the ties that bind, once again set out
on the High Plains in Holt, Colorado. Bracing, sad and deeply illuminating,
Benediction captures the fullness of life by representing every stage of it,
including its extinction, as well as the hopes and dreams that sustain us
along the way.
March 26 – Endurance, by Alfred Lansing
Ernest Shackleton defined heroism in 1915 when his ship, the
Endurance, was trapped in ice and then destroyed on its way to
Antarctica. This tense week-by-week, month-by-month reconstruction
charts the incredible journey undertaken by his crew of 27 men through
850 miles of the southern Atlantic's heaviest seas.
April 2 – Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger
For thirteen-year-old Frank Drum, a preacher’s son, summer 1961 was
a grim time in which death visited frequently and assumed many
forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder. Told from Frank’s
perspective forty years later, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving
account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to
understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an
unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom
and the enduring grace of God.
April 9 – Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of
a New Spiritual Awakening, by Diana Butler Bass
The data is clear: religious affiliation is plummeting across the breadth
of Christian denominations. And yet interest in "spirituality" is on the
rise. So what is behind the sea change in American religion? With the
same comprehensive research and insider reporting that made
Christianity for the Rest of Us an indispensable guide to cultivating
thriving churches, Diana Butler Bass offers a fresh interpretation of the
"spiritual but not religious" trend.
SHELTERING CHURCHES PROJECT
Our church and Plymouth Congregational UCC are again collaborating with emergency
shelters to provide overflow sheltering at our church for people who are homeless March 30
– April 5. Training is required (if you went through last year’s training, you’re good to go!)
for anyone who plans to help provide temporary sheltering in a church site. Please mark
your calendar to attend one of the training sessions below.
Training Schedule:
Saturday, Feb 8, 1-3 p.m., First United Methodist Thurs., Feb 20, 7-9 p.m., First United
Methodist Saturday, Mar 8, 1-3 p.m., First United Methodist Thurs., Mar 20, 7-9 p.m., First
United Methodist
Training Agenda:
• Establishing relationships and communicating effectively with guests
• How volunteers run a host site at the church
• Distribution of a Volunteer Training Manual for reference
This community effort is coordinated by Central Cities Ministries and partners of the FM
Coalition for Homeless Persons.
http://shelteringchurches.wordpress.com/train/ www.fmhomeless.org
If you have any questions about this project our church is hosting, please call Lea Ann
Flaagan at 701-261-4535. Watch for other opportunities to help with this project in the
coming couple months. Also, you may click here for an online calendar for our church
volunteers and others to sign up… or you may sign up at church as the time draws nearer.
PRAYERS FOR...
(Please let us know of any specific prayer concerns or thanksgivings you may want to
share. )
We pray for Sandy and Mike Schanzenbach as Sandy continues treatments for brain cancer.
May God sustain both Mike and Sandy through this shared journey! Sandy has a Caring
Bridge site where you can keep up-to-date and post prayers and encouragement:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/sandyschanzenbach
We pray for the family of loved ones of Wes
Bettenhausen, who died on January 27th and whose life will
be celebrated today at 1 p.m. at Hanson-Runsvold Funeral
Home. May God's Spirit bring strength and peace as they
give thanks for Wes's life and move through their grief and
into the healing and new life God will bring forth!
We pray for Joan Mogck, who continues to struggle with
considerable pain – she will be scheduled for a redo on her
recent hip replacement sometime in the near future. May
God’s grace and light buoy her spirits!
We pray for Marty Cantler as he continues his valiant
journey with cancer and has now begun Hospice Care. May
God continue to bring some quality life and many, many good days to come!
We pray for Rev. Mark Kuether (Pastor of First Congregational UCC in Detroit Lakes) as he
grieves the untimely death of his 58 year-old brother, Norm, in Atlanta this past week.
Norm had been acting as a good Samaritan, helping others stranded on the icy road, when
he fell on the ice and then died after having been taken to the hospital. May God’s love and
grace bring strength to this whole family!
We pray for all those who are homeless in these bitterly cold winter months, and we give
thanks for our Shelters and all the churches who are opening their doors as part of the
Homeless Shelter Overflow Project
We pray for peace and justice in the many places around the world where warfare and strife
abound… special prayers for all those working to make the upcoming Olympics safe for all
Thanksgiving for all those who work hard to keep furnaces
running and to ensure that energy sources are readily
available
Thanksgiving for those whose ideas make us
uncomfortable and/or afraid… and who help us grow and
stretch into new insight and understanding… even if we
may still disagree with them. 
Thanksgiving for all who will gather at Churches United for
the Homeless later today to help serve the evening meal.
Our church serves this meal every 5th Friday – thanks to
Jerry Jernberg, Bob Stone, and many others for working
hard on this project!
Thanksgiving for children and youth who see things adults are prone to miss
Thanksgiving for strength and peace in the face of grief… and for the caring network of
churches and other communities of faith
SOMETHING TO PONDER
The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) as Paraphrased in Eugene Peterson’s, The Message
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God
and his rule.
“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be
embraced by the One most dear to you.
“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the
moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the
best meal you’ll ever eat.
“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared
for.
“You’re blessed when you get your inside
world—your mind and heart—put right.
Then you can see God in the outside
world.
“You’re blessed when you can show
people how to cooperate instead of
compete or fight. That’s when you
discover who you really are, and your
place in God’s family.
“You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution
drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
“Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out
or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for
comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer,
even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in
good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.”
LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE
(via Dawn Mogck)
A father was approached by his small son who told him
proudly, "I know what the Bible means!" His father smiled
and replied, "What do you mean, you 'know' what the Bible
means? The son replied, "I do know!" "Okay," said his
father. "What does the Bible mean?"
"That's easy, Daddy..." the young boy replied excitedly," It
stands for 'Basic Information Before Leaving Earth..'
There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old
family Bible to her brother in another part of the country. "Is
there anything breakable in here?" asked the postal clerk.
"Only the Ten Commandments." answered the lady.
"Somebody has said there are only two kinds of
people in the world. There are those who wake up in
the morning and say, "Good morning, Lord," and there
are those who wake up in the morning and say, "Good
Lord, it's morning."
A minister parked his car in a no-parking zone in a
large city because he was short of time and couldn't
find a space with a meter. Then he put a note under
the windshield
wiper that read: "I
have circled the
block 10 times. If I
don't park here, I'll miss my appointment. Forgive us our
trespasses." When he returned, he found a citation from
a police officer along with this note "I've circled this
block for 10 years. If I don't give you a ticket I'll lose my
job. Lead us not into temptation."