News Listings - Michigan Conference of the United Church of Christ

Dec 06, 2023

Monthly Newsletter: December 2023

Remember that we only send this out once a month, so there is lots of important information, AND you have plenty of time to look at it before the next one comes.

In additions to Advent Connecting and Twelve Days of Christmas Resources, this month we also share some tips for PSLF (Public Service Loan Forgiveness)

Make sure you are planning ahead for January by signing up for our Jan 3 Leadership Lunch and the Jan 24 Orientation for Financial Leaders — both which will offer valuable tips and strategies to face your church finances faithfully in 2024

Read about PSLF and MORE!

Nov 29, 2023

Our Michigan Miracle – Michigan Conference Minister Lillian Daniel

At our first in-person Michigan Conference Annual Meeting in years, we beat our pre-pandemic registrations and literally packed the place. In what will heretofore be referred to in church history as the “Michigan Miracle,” we ended the business session ten minutes early.

Getting to preach at worship, hearing everybody sing, and eating lunch in a noisy social hall are all blessings that I do not take for granted. I’m so grateful to the Planning Team, Conference Staff, Michigan Conference UCC Board of Directors, and our hosts at Plymouth United Church of Christ, but most of all I’m grateful to God that we didn’t have to do another Annual Meeting sitting at a screen.

Of course, screens have their place when it comes to connectivity and catching up. On our website, you’ll find my sermon from the Annual Meeting and the recording of our Keynote. On our YouTube channel, you can view last month’s lively Leadership Lunch with Bishop Will Willimon whose take on Advent preaching was both holy and hilarious. I hope these recorded resources inspire you to register for the live ones. Our December 6 Zoom at lunch time will feature Still Speaking Daily Devotional author Quinn Caldwell. His Advent devotional book All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas made him my first choice to boost the spirits of our clergy and church members during this Advent Season.

Before we get to December, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the November holiday that precedes it. Yes, I am well aware that most nations around the globe do not acknowledge the occasion. Even in our country, it is a day that is not celebrated by all people, a day with a complex history, a day that some increasingly choose to ignore and others denounce outright. But the fact is November 18 is still my birthday and I won’t condemn anyone who celebrates it with a gift to the Friends of the Michigan Conference.

In all seriousness, my heart is filled with prayers of thanksgiving for you all. In a culture of crass commercialism, consumerism, colonialism, and conflict, our brave Michigan UCC churches stand up and stand out as a lighthouse to the spiritually ship-wrecked.

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Oct 31, 2023

Monthly Newsletter: November 2023

Recordings of the in-person 2023 Annual Meeting can be watched from the playlist on the Michigan Conference YouTube Channel

Please share your feedback about the 2023 Annual Meeting HERE

Our first in-person Annual Meeting since 2019 was a SUCCESS!!!

151 registered participants, plus children, youth, and volunteers were present at the in-person Annual Meeting of the Michigan Conference UCC.

Fun and fellowship took place on Friday Night 10/27 at the Drury Inn & Suites where the agenda was simply to BE with one another.

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Oct 18, 2023

War Hurts The Poor – Michigan Conference Minister Lillian Daniel

War always hurts the poor. War is not the great democratizer. It is the great demolisher.

The Bible records and describes it all. There is no great violence in which economic forces do not wield their generational power to fortify their own palaces first.

Yes, there are countries that claim that all their people share and experience the same war-carrying burden. But in the USA, our wise elders remember that long ago, in the Vietnam War, our draft was dodge-able, by Republicans and Democrats alike. Who told me that? It was my father, Leon Daniel, who was a journalist, an international war correspondent, and a marine who received a Purple Heart.

Who else told me that war hurts the poor? I heard it from Israelis and Palestinians in 2017 when last I visited that land, to study and to learn. Today I hear it from faithful UCC veterans in the Midwest, who want a better and more imaginative scholarship program for their own grandchildren – one that will not leave the deep scars that their middle-aged elders carry on their heavy war-torn shoulders and psyches.

Individuals hurt and cry out in pain. Crowds hurt and cry out in pain. Some voices are heard louder than others. From Biblical times to now, the powerful party-planners use shinier wrapping paper, and better technology. Yet somehow, the subversive words of Jesus slipped through the centuries, from the agony of the cross to the mystery of a heavenly banquet where friends and enemies will have an equal seat at the table.

War always hurts the people who have the least to lose, but who among us has anything we can afford to lose when it comes to human life?

So, consider this: War always hurts someone else more than it hurts you.

If you are still alive, you know this to be true.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace.

Feel free to use or share this message to serve and uplift the church.

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Oct 03, 2023

Monthly Newsletter: October 2023

It’s a BUSY Fall in the Michigan Conference Y’all!!

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Sep 28, 2023

Introducing Our Associate Conference Minister of Church Vitality and Transitions

Working with Conference Minister Rev. Dr. Lillian Daniel, the Search Advisory Team consisted of Board Members Judith Booker, Abbie Goerg, Rev. Liz Larrivee, and Rev. Sal Sapienza. The team was seeking a unique individual to facilitate the Michigan Conference search and call process between congregations and pastors, provide spiritual care and practical guidance to congregations at key points of transition, including legacy, revitalization, new church starts and opportunities for shared and cooperative ministries. Full-time Associate Conference Minister Rev. Cheryl Burke will now be able to work throughout the Michigan Conference, focusing her ministry on encouraging and equipping our excellent clergy, along with working with all our committees on ministry and members in discernment.

We are excited to share that Rev. Lawrence T. Richardson will join our Conference Staff starting January 1, 2024.

He looks forward to being introduced in person at the Michigan Conference Annual Meeting on October 28

Sep 20, 2023

Where Does the Money Go? – Michigan Conference Minister Lillian Daniel

When it comes to church giving, I love financial transparency and I assume you do too. If you don’t, feel free to skip this monthly missive, but not before reading the next sentence. If I haven’t said it to you in person at your church yet, let me say it here in writing:

Thank you for your church’s financial support of “Our Church’s Wider Mission,” and in particular, for what we call your “Basic Support,” which funds our work in the Michigan Conference, as well as the National Setting.

Those Basic Support OCWM dollars function for us in the same way that pledges do in a congregation or any other organization. They fund our ministry to recruit the best pastors (in the midst of a historic clergy shortage), to nurture people with a call to ministry (through scholarships and vocational encouragement amidst the hardest religious landscape I can remember), to care for the pastors we already have (many of whom are preaching at more than one church, or working other demanding jobs), and to support our amazing volunteer lay leaders with practical programs that address the specific questions I hear you asking when I visit your churches.

It is your Basic Support that allows our staff to do all they do; whether it is a scheduled Sunday visit from me as your Conference Minister, or a late night call to an Associate Conference Minister who jumps in her car to provide care and a last minute sermon to a church whose pastor has passed away. This past year, I was honored to revive the Michigan Conference practice of making clergy Emergency Assistance grants for medical expenses and other crises, and also to tend to the creative spirits of our pastors with a three-day Preaching Retreat this past May. READ MORE

If our Conference ministry has touched you in any way, if there is anything we can do better, or if you have more questions about where your UCC gifts are going, just let me know. As I begin my second year as your Conference Minister, I feel blessed to equip, empower, encourage and connect our churches as together we serve God and neighbor. Thank you for your Basic Support in the past, and for prayerfully considering what you will share in the future.

Peace and Blessings,

Rev. Dr. Lillian Daniel

Michigan Conference Minister

Sep 15, 2023

ANNUAL MEETING REGISTERATION NOW OPEN

Michigan Conference Annual Meeting

October 28, 2023

9:00am – 3:00pm

Plymouth UCC,

4010 Kalamazoo Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49508

We are so excited to join together for our 2023 Annual Meeting in-person!

Looking forward to seeing you as we come together for worship with Conference Minister Rev. Dr. Lillian Daniel, fellowship over fantastic food, and our keynote speaker Rev. Dr. Claire Bamberg, who will be sharing her insights on how vitality is linked to the life of our congregations.

For more details about content and overnight accommodations READ MORE

Sep 07, 2023

Monthly Newsletter: September 2023

Full email offers many Fall Programming opportunities across the Conference

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Aug 30, 2023

Part Time is Real Time – Michigan Conference Minister Lillian Daniel

I recall when I started in ministry, my mentors were fond of saying “There is no such thing as part time ministry.” They assumed most pastors would and should work full time in one church back in the ancient days when phones were still attached to walls and had not yet learned how to be cameras.

How things have changed. As a pastor, and now as a Conference Minister, I see the shift to part time ministry speeding up. As churches get smaller, so do resources. Part time ministry is nothing new, but I know it feels new to the churches and clergy that are moving into it.

In the worst cases, clergy hours are cut but church expectations remain the same. The “dispensable hours” never seem to fall on Sundays when pastors are still expected to show up to preach in an ever-shortening work week that assumes a serious sermon will still sprout straight from the head of Zeus or, God help us, from an A.I. chat bot. Obviously that is not the ideal and we can do better.

This is why I am so excited to bring the nation’s leading expert on part time ministry to the Michigan Conference for a special event on September 30.

Copy of the Book and lunch are included with in-person registration

FREE for Part Time clergy

online participation also available

recording available for 30 days for all registered participants to share with their local churches

$25 for 3 or more attendees from your local church – Bring a TEAM of your lay leaders!!

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