News

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

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Register for Leadership Lunch

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

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Full email offers many Fall Programming opportunities across the Conference

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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.

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• 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!!

REGISTER NOW for September 30 from 10:00am – 2:00pm

The General Synod of our denomination is a fiery and feisty family reunion on steroids without the fried chicken. We skip the picnic in order to briefly study, hotly debate and hastily vote on the most controversial ethical issues of the day, all while reenacting deep seeded generational family drama during public worship on a giant stage, at enormous expense, which is why we are only allowed to do it every other year. In fact, this July, the Synod voted (early, often and on malfunctioning voting machines) to extend the time between national gatherings to three years. The main argument was cost, but I would lift up exhaustion. And yet, I can’t wait to attend the next one.

The schedule runs from 6:30 AM until 9:30 PM, in a huge convention center chosen for its ability to guarantee the worst possible weather (sweltering heat, unbreathable air and thunderstorm bursts are all encouraged to apply) over the July 4 holiday weekend when most people would not want to attend a church convention, which serves as the final purity test of the spiritual worthiness of the quirky and committed delegates who say “Here I am, Lord, send me!” These 700 delegates get to sit in a security-patrolled area in the middle of the arena, all roped inside, while thousands of synod visitors and staff get to run around free and unsupervised outside the pen, observing the behavior and appearance of the delegates like livestock at a 4 H convention. “Look, that bull over at microphone #1. He is snorting and getting testy!” says one visitor to another. “But those hogs have been sleeping straight through plenary, probably dehydrated and malnourished, judging by all the candy wrappers.” 

Just to be clear, these examples did not come from the Michigan Conference, where our table consisted of sparkly rainbow unicorns who took detailed notes, pranced to their potty breaks in a timely manner and never missed a vote. Anonymous sources report that the Michigan Conference’s daily table decorations, (featuring our lakes, local flowers, Vernor’s ginger ale and cat toys), our late night Synod Socials and our 6:30 AM caucuses attended by Santa Clause caused a breakout of the sin of envy throughout the entire denomination.  Read More