Sue Flood’s Service

Sue Flood died on Monday, July 14, 2025. Please remember her family and friends during this time of loss, particularly her husband, Dennis. An informal time of celebration, remembrance, and fellowship is planned in the Fellowship Hall of First Church on August 24 from 3-5pm with light refreshments. A brief program is planned at 3:15pm. All are welcome.

My Life With Quilts

On display in Kendal Gallery as well as Marketing display case. From August 19 until renovation some time in November.

This is a retrospective show of quilts to celebrate Nancy’s 90th Birthday year. Her Artist talk will be Friday August 22 at 4:00 PM.

Nancy wanted her Church Family to be invited. 

Wednesday Night Supper Task Force

The task force to plan Wednesday Night Suppers for this fall is having its initial meeting on Wednesday, August 27 at 4:00 pm. It's not too late to be a part of this planning group. Just join us in the JFO room that afternoon.

Liturgist Coordinator

Are you looking for a way to support worship at First Church without taking on a monthly committee meeting? The First Church worship committee is looking for a new Liturgist Coordinator. This important volunteer is responsible for lining up a liturgist each Sunday. Don't worry, there is no shortage of potential liturgists! Becky Thompson has built a strong cadre of liturgist volunteers over the years she has served so successfully in this role. She will turn a well-tuned process over to her successor. If you are interested, please contact Peter Thomas (pjthomasmathbio@gmail.com).

Jen Bertoni is getting ordained!

The ordination is taking place at Jen's new church in Silver Lake - and she would love to see you there! The invite's below, but Jen has a special request: she's trying to put a choir together to sing "Child of God" by Mark Miller. If you would like to sing, please download the pdf and be at the church at 2 pm to rehearse. Please also let Jen know you're coming, so she can get a choir headcount.

Thanks so much for supporting Jen on her journey. She hopes to see you on September 21st! 

Ruth Ann Clark: ruthann.clark@mac.com 440-935-2393

Anne Sprague: moderator@firstchurchoberlin.org 440-396-5010

Miranda Schaum: office@firstchurchoberlin.org 440-775-1711

Got questions?

Here's who can help you. 

Our standing committees are made up of the volunteers who address the various aspects of our church life. The people on those committees can help answer your questions. 

Does the switch not work in the Reading Room? 

Call someone on Facilities. 

Do you want to help with our children? 

Ask a member of Faith Formation.

Click here for a brief description of our committees and their membership. If in doubt, you can always ask the Moderator or a member of the Executive Council.  

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.

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!