Upcoming Events:

12/3           Advent Workshop + Lunch, following worship.

Fellowship Hall

12/3           Light of Hope (Blue Christmas) service, 3:30 pm.

Meeting House

12/9           Empty Mugs concert + pottery sale, 4:30 pm.

Meeting House/Fellowship Hall

12/10         Advent music service, 10am.

Meeting House

12/16         Posada pilgrimage + meal. 5:30 pm.

Fellowship Hall

12/24         Christmas pageant during worship, 10 am.

Meeting House

12/24         Christmas Eve, family-friendly, candlelight service, 7pm.

Meeting House

12/31         Lay-led service (David Hill and Jen Bertoni on vacation), 10 am.

Meeting House

OCSI Posada! Sat Dec 16, 5:30pm - bring friends!

Hello OCSI friends! It's our pleasure to announce that Oberlin Community Supporting Immigrants will be sponsoring a traditional Latin American Posada on Saturday, December 16, at 5:30pm at First Church in Oberlin. We really hope you can come!

RSVPs are appreciated (so that we can get a headcount for the food) but not required. If you can, please fill out this form with an approximate number of guests in your party. If you are not able to RSVP but want to join us, please come anyway!

The event will take place at First Church - convening at 5:30pm in the Meeting Hall. We will practice the music as a group, carol throughout different locations in the church and conclude the evening with a shared meal.

All are invited. Please feel free to invite friends! A free will offering will be taken, but mostly we are looking forward to spending time together in community.

We hope to see you there!

Koinonia Farm

Many of us in the First Church community have a holiday tradition of supporting Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia. GIving Koinonia products provides a gift to both the producer and the receiver. Here' a short introduction from their website- https://www.koinoniafarm.org 

"Since our founding in 1942, we have welcomed and shared with anyone and everyone regardless of race, religion, no religion, background or anything else that divides people. We are an Intentional Christian community with a rich history — from the Jordans and the Englands founding the farm, to the bullets, bombs, and boycotts of the mid century, to launching the Partnership Housing Movement that became Habitat for Humanity, and the birthing of many, many other projects. Explore our site and plan a visit — we are a house of hospitality with plenty of guest rooms. We would love to welcome you to the farm!"

You can go to their store website at: https://koinoniafarmstore.com/ to see their products and order from among their choices. Their pecans are absolutely the best!

Christmas Fund Offering Collected on Christmas Eve!

The Christmas Fund has been caring for active and retired clergy and lay employees of the United Church of Christ for over 100 years, providing emergency grants, supplementation of small annuities and health premiums, and Christmas “Thank You” gift checks each December to our lower-income retirees.

United Church of Christ congregations and members have blessed the Christmas Fund with their generosity for many years. This year, your care and compassion will be especially appreciated by those servants of the church who are facing a time of need, as reflected in the theme of this year: Overwhelmed with Joy! This year’s offering will be collected on December 24th, but donations may be given at any point before Christmas Eve.

From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace

- John 1:16

It is possible to contribute in one of three ways: 

1. By mailing a check made out to The First Church in Oberlin with “Christmas Fund” in the memo line to the church office, 
2. By using the offering envelopes on the Welcome Table and depositing your donation in the wooden donation box in the Narthex at the top of the steps leading to the Gallery, 
3. Or by going to our First Church website, scrolling down and clicking on "Donate Online" and then going to the “Christmas Fund” section. Alternatively, click here and it’ll bring you to the page.

See the bulletin insert below for more information on this special offering. More information can also be found on the Pension Board website. Let your gift help those who have given so much for our communities.

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!