ANNOUNCEMENTS AND EVENTS

The First Church GREEN TEAM invites you to participate in decorating the "Faith in Action for the Earth" Tree during Lent and Easter.

 

You will see the tree in the Welcome Table area with cards, markers, and clothespins to attach the cards to the tree. Please tell us what you and your family are doing to support our Earth, its Environment, and Creation. You can sign your name or be anonymous. We will read these cards on Creation Sunday, April 27. Look for suggestions of what you can do each week in First Things First and the Sunday bulletin. Please feel free to make suggestions, too! Contact Kathleen at kjbradley123@gmail.com for those good ideas.

 

This Week's Suggestion: Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth or lathering your hands. Also consider running the dishwasher or washing machine under a full load to conserve water.

Courageous Conversations has been rescheduled - March 30th after church!

 

In our increasingly polarized political environment, many of us have lost the ability to speak to one another about our differences. And that’s no way to live in a community. After all, Jesus charged us to love our neighbors - not just the ones we agree with. But how do you have a conversation with someone whose opinions make your blood boil?  

 

On March 23rd after worship, we’ll be talking about how to have Courageous Conversations with others - how to speak our truth in an assertive but loving way, and how to listen deeply to the people we disagree with. Who knows? We might even find some common ground! We’ll lay the ground rules for these discussions, and then role-play having challenging conversations with our neighbors. Join us for a time of building our courage and our compassion!

Disarming Leviathan

 

In his sermon on March 9, Pastor Hill referenced the book, "Disarming Leviathan" by Caleb Campbell. Several copies of this book have been placed in the Reading Room (library) at First Church. Please follow the checkout procedures noted on the bulletin board in the room to borrow a copy of the book. The books are located on the "Recent Book Studies" shelf.

CALLING ALL LITURGISTS!

 

The Worship Committee is grateful for the dedication to worship leadership given by our many volunteer liturgists through the year. They have done this with very little guidance beforehand or feedback afterwards. So we are very excited that our own Jody Kerchner, Professor of Music Education, Oberlin College and Conservatory has agreed to help.

 

Jody also is a volunteer liturgist, and she will spend an hour with us after church on April 6 for some coaching and feedback. The timing is especially good because we can become familiar with the newly installed pulpit mic.

 

Jody expects to have some fun together as we discuss our experiences and our questions. There will be an opportunity for feedback for those who would like it, as we take on a practice reading or two. If any of you would like to do a short reading for the group for feedback from Jody, let us know and she’ll contact you beforehand. Alana Kelley is the Worship Committee contact person for this event. Please let her or Becky Thompson know if you will be with us. If you’re interested but never tried it, you are welcome to sit in.

 

Plan to gather quickly in the front row pews immediately after the Postlude on April 6. We hope to see you there.

Group Sign-up for trip to Allen Memorial Art Museum

 

Have you visited the gem in our own backyard recently? A small group is invited to take a guided tour of the Allen Memorial Art Museum on Palm Sunday, April 13. Following the morning worship and fellowship time, participants may enjoy a simple group lunch from Aladdin's at the church before heading to the AMAM. At 1:00pm we'll be treated to a guided tour of the current exhibition highlights. We'll conclude our visit with a close observation of Jusepe de Ribera's "The Blind Old Beggar," led by an Oberlin College student. That discussion begins at 2:30. The group will be limited to fifteen. Sign up today using this link or call the church office at (440) 775-1711.

We are in need of bread bakers for Communion Sundays!

 

If we get enough people, this would be a commitment for 2 or 3 times a year. If you are interested, please contact Karla Sanderson at kwsanderson@oberlin.net or (440) 935-5812.

Go deep for Lent!

 

Mirroring the 2025 General Synod theme, "Into the Deep," our 2025 Lent Devotional invites reflection on God's mysterious depths.

 

As Mary Luti writes in the introduction, "God inhabits the depths of life, love, loss, ecstasy, and pain, God dwells in the profundities of prayer, in sighs too deep for words. God loves the deep."

 

What courage, what faith, what reckoning, what wonder might find us as we go deep into God's depths this Lent?

For those that didn't get a hard copy of the book, you are also able to purchase a PDF for $3.00 using the link here. If purchasing the PDF version, please purchase one PDF per reader. Upon purchase, a link will be emailed to you for downloading the PDF.

 

Any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to the office at office@firstchurchoberlin.org or (440)775-1711.

Help our Confirmands help others!

 

Our Confirmation class (Hiro, Micah, and Molly) will be building CWS Disaster Relief Hygiene Kits for their unit this May on "Faith in Action." They are inviting members of First Church to help them collect items for the kits.  

 

Cards listing enough items to make 10 kits are strung up on an easel in the gallery - please take some, buy the items, and return to the bin under the easel by April 26th.  If you'd like to buy all the items for one kit, you can see a full list at the link below. Any leftover items, or items that don't fit the kit's specifications, will be donated to Oberlin Community Services. 

 

We thank you for helping our youth help others!

 

Disaster Relief Hygiene Kits

The Guatemalan Fundraising Dinner will be April 05 starting at 5:30 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of First Church! 

 

For over 20 years SEPA (Santa Elena Project of Accompaniment) has sponsored the Guatemalan Dinner. Our speaker will be Steven Volk, Emeritus Professor of History from Oberlin College. The menu will offer authentic Guatemalan cuisine along with the famous dessert auction. The money raised by this event will go directly to an elementary school in Santa Elena, Veinte de Octubre and a middle school in Copal AA La Esperanza. Both of these communities are rural and Indigenous. They are indigenous in that the people of Santa Elena are of the Qeq' chi' linguistic, cultural group while the people of Copal AA are from three different linguistic, cultural groups: Mam, Qan' jobal', and Qeq' Chi'. Tickets are $15.00 dollars. To purchase tickets see Lori Taylor or John Gates. Lori and John will be selling tickets after church on Sunday.

 

Lori Taylor: 440-213-7991 or taylorlori@oberlin.net

John Gates: 440-320-1623 or jfgates@oberlin.net

It's time to register for camp!  

 

Templed Hills has closed, but Outdoor Ministries and Church Camp live on! Please explore the QR Codes and links below, and see if there's a camp that is right for you. First Church has a discount code available: If you are signing a child up for camp, please contact the office, and we'll make sure you receive it. You will then only need to pay the $75 registration fee. Thanks to all at First Church for your commitment to our kids! 

One Great Hour of Sharing,

Collected on Easter, April 20th!

 

One Great Hour of Sharing is one of four special mission offerings of the United Church of Christ. This Lenten Offering supports the disaster, refugee, and development ministries of the United Church of Christ within Wider Church Ministries. This year, the special offering's theme is being the light!

 

We can make a difference. We do make a difference. Your generosity makes all the difference. Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing provide immediate aid and long-term support to people experiencing hunger, thirst, disaster, or crisis around the world. 

 

"You’re here to be the light, bringing out the God-colors in the world."

-Matthew 5:14

 

The 2025 offering will be collected on Easter, April 20th. It is possible to contribute in one of three ways: 

 

  1. By mailing a check made out to The First Church in Oberlin with “OGHS” in the memo line to the church office, 
  2. By using the offering envelopes on the Welcome Table and depositing your donation in the donation boxes in the Meeting House by the doors exiting the room, 
  3. Or, by going to our First Church website, scrolling down and clicking on "Donate Online" and then going to the “One Great Hour of Sharing” section. Alternatively, click here and it’ll bring you to the page.

 

Please see below for the Mission Moment for this week, the bulletin insert for this year's offering, and an intergenerational activity meant to help us think about and plan how we can share our gifts with others. More information can also be found on the UCC website. 

 

Let your gift help to put prayer into action. The need has never been greater. The opportunity is now. It’s time to share.

Mission Moment
Bulletin Insert
Intergenerational Activity

First Church building rental opportunities

 

The First Church buildings offer numerous opportunities for meetings, rehearsals, concerts, weddings, and family events. After long study, a reasonable rental fee schedule has been worked out to offer fair use of the facility to our members and our neighbors. Large rooms (the Meeting House, Fellowship Hall, or JFO Room) and small rooms (upstairs classrooms, Room 4, Reading Room) can be reserved by the hour or by the half day. Discounted rates for church members and community partners may be available. The city of Oberlin has limited spaces available for events, and we are happy to offer our facility to help fill that need for our neighbors.

Rental Rates

There Are Requirements for Making Submissions to our First Things First eNews!

 

In an effort to make our eNews more readable and shorten the length, we have created new guidelines for submitting posts! The guidelines are as follows.

 

  1. As usual, the deadline for submissions for the upcoming First Things First is Wednesday prior to 10 AM.
  2. We will not be putting in any non-First Church job postings.
  3. We will not be putting in any full flyers as the submission (however, we will put in a button that links to a PDF of the flyer).
  4. There is a word limit of 100 words for the text of a submission.
  5. You may insert links into the text post for more information, either by button or hyperlink in the text.
  6. You may insert PDFs (accessible by buttons) for more information, a flyer, or anything else that would be helpful for the post, but the document must be in PDF format. Any other document format will not be included in your submission.
  7. You may send one picture that you have the rights to use (i.e. a picture that is not subject to copyright, we suggest using the site pexels.com).
  8. The submission will run for a maximum of 2 weeks in the eNews. These 2 weeks do not have to be consecutive.

 

When sending in your submission, you must have

 

  • The title of the post
  • The text of the post (maximum of 100 words)
  • Which 2 weeks you'd like for your submission to run

 

 

When sending in your submission, you could have

 

  • If you'd like, one picture
  • If you'd like, PDFs (and what you'd want the title of the button that links to it to be)
  • If you'd like, the links for spots in the text post (and which word(s) you'd like to be the hyperlink or what you'd want the title of the button to be)

 

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we try to make our eNews experience more manageable for our readers!

RECURRING EVENTS:

  • Worship - Live Streamed and in the Meeting House on Sundays @ 10am
  • Children's Church (grades K - 5) 10:15 AM each Sunday during the school year
  • Summer Storytime - 10:15 AM during the summer
  • Finance Committee - 2nd Monday each month
  • Facility Committee - 1st Tuesday each month
  • Stewardship - 2nd Tuesday each month
  • Office Staff Meetings - Mondays at 2:00 PM
  • Book Group  - Tuesdays at 4pm via Zoom
  • Witness and Membership - 2nd Wednesday each month
  • Christian Education Committee - As necessary
  • Outreach and Service Committee - 1st Monday each month
  • Executive Council - 4th Tuesday each month
  • Green Team - 3rd Wednesday of each month

Faith Formation News!

 

  • Children's Church: 10:15 AM during the School year
  • Summer Storytime in the Summer! Children are invited to join us on Sundays at 10:15 AM for a story

 

As always, call Jen or the office to get a link for any and all of these events!

CALENDAR OF EVENTS