Our church nursery is a ministry of hospitality.  Nursery caregivers - both volunteer and paid - watch over children ages birth to five when their family makes the choice for them to be in the nursery during worship.* 

Regular hours are 9:30-11:30 Sunday mornings.  The Nursery Caregiver may have the opportunity to work other church events, i.e. Christmas Eve, funerals or special services. Interested candidates should email office@mcfarlanducc.org with credentials, including degree/coursework, prior positions, certifications and references. Send in materials by February 15; applications will be considered until the position is filled.

We pay generously - up to $50 per service - according to qualifications. ​Please continue reading below for more details. 

We're tremendously excited that Valentine's Date Night is back again this year!  Last year we raised over $12,000 for the McFarland Community Food Pantry through "Bucky and Lena Get Hitched,"  a musical staged in our sanctuary with actors from McFarland, Stoughton, and the Madison area.  

This year's sequel is a vow renewal - Bucky & Lena 2:  Lutefisk and Lies.  You know you don't want to miss it! You can find all the details at mcfarlanducc.org/valentine. Reservations are now open for the weekends before and after Valentine's Day.  If you are interested in serving as a host or contributing to the dessert reception at intermission, please contact the church office at 838-9322, or check the church's Mission & Service group on Facebook.

On Sunday, January 15 in worship we blessed individuals going to Washington DC over inauguration weekend to witness to our Gospel values, where they joined others holding forth a vision of a more just and generous world for all people.  Below is the online journal of several MUCC members who participated in the Listening & Witnessing trip: Kristin Gorton, Joan Jacobsen, and Maddie Loss.  

Want to see more pictures and stories?  Visit facebook.com/mcfarlanducc.  

And if you're curious about the ministry trip as a whole, CLICK HERE to learn more
​from the United Church of Christ.

The bus is packed and ready for the trip to D.C. with the Wisconsin Conference United Church of Christ.

#tellthestory  #bethechurch

MORNING: We arrived in the Washington DC area just after midnight yesterday.  Today dawns with a quiet morning of reflection and prayer.  This afternoon our sisters and brothers at Emmaus UCC will be hosting us for a day of sacred conversations around issues of interfaith and inter-race engagement.  An inter-religious worship service...and...of course...a community meal, will end the day.

You are invited with us in this digital sacred place to experience God's transformative love.  Blessings this day, and in the months and years ahead. You are a beloved child of God.

This morning's moment of faith included a scavenger hunt for copies of We the People posters.

MID-DAY:  An afternoon in community.  Reflecting on the faith tools we carry as followers of Jesus... tools that can transform.  Food. Community. Christ.

#loveoverfear
#Godisstillspeaking

We have spent the day talking and listening and learning.  The day ends with a shared worship with 6 different faith communities.  Praying for Peace and Understanding.

Visit facebook.com/mcfarlanducc to see more!

This past week was a busy one!  We began the season of Advent by handing out gift bags to the congregation on the first Sunday of Advent for them to decorate.  In a twist on the traditional Advent calendar, in which you open a door or package to receive a gift, we asked people to set something aside instead - selecting one of three local food pantries to receive the food items they placed in their gift bags.  During Advent, we heard from representatives of the McFarland Community Food Pantry, the AIDS Resource Center, and the McFarland High School Pride Pantry.  In the days leading up to Christmas (and for those who traveled, a little afterward), we brought the gifts to the front of the sanctuary.  They were blessed in worship on January 8th. The result was over 40 bags of food and essentials delivered to three wonderful community organizations:

​The presentation of Bibles is one of many faith milestones we recognize at McFarland UCC.  Participants attend a Bible workshop to begin to learn how to use their Bible.

When someone is baptized, the congregation promises its love, support, and care; we promise to help them learn to be Christian, to share the message of Christ through word and deed.  Among the tools of the faith are Holy Scriptures, the Bible, and it is right that we place this library in people’s hands.  

Learning about the Bible, and learning from the Bible is not a project only for children.  We have presented Bibles to 3rd graders, and senior citizens, and many ages in between.  This is a dangerous book.  The things it teaches will change your life. 

One of McFarland UCC’s participants in the
​‘Listening & Witnessing in Washington DC’ Mission Trip, January 19-21 2017. ​

(an edited version of her 1/8/2017 mission moment)

I’ve been coming to a United Church of Christ congregation for as long as I can remember. It’s what I know. I’ve gone through confirmation and other activities within the church. This church drew me to the General Synod in Cleveland, Ohio. This trip was where I became so enthralled with the United Church of Christ’s mission. The constant call for social justice. The daily grind to ensure that the world is a more just and loving world for all people. I was able to witness these moments of faith. The excitement when the supreme court ruled on the right for LGBTQ couples to marry, the sorrow filled moments in remembering the Charleston shooting, and the calls to action found on the plenary floor. I fell in love with the message. The message of extravagant acceptance and widespread love. Where no single person is left behind or forgotten or devalued. The message of loving all people regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or religion.

I grew up hearing messages from the church that have shaped who I am as a person. That all were created in God’s image. That whoever you are and wherever you are on God’s journey, you are welcome. That all are blessed to be a blessing. And that ALL are welcome at God’s table. These messages. These messages pack all that this Church is about. These are all ideas that I witnessed as I was growing up that became such a constant part of my life. These are the messages that I heard in a setting that was loving and accepting. I desperately wish that all people can hear these messages for if the words are heard they can make the world a little softer and little more loving. It is a type of love that continues to lead my life today. And in these past few months I have formed my concept of the church leaving the building and heading to college.

College is complex. Because while it is believed that one pursues a degree, it is for yourself. But it is actually all about Him. You go to college to learn how to love God and His children better. Love His children regardless of their race, age, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, or gender.

I went to college expecting that the majority of people that I met would believe the same and be aspiring to the same knowledge. That love and acceptance lived loudly. I was devastated to discover that this approach that I saw in the actions United Church of Christ and represented to myself was not widely accepted. I found myself participating in a campus ministry where other students rejected this idea just as firmly as the UCC embraces it. I felt like I had to transform my identity as a Christian to be viewed as a Christian among my peers in this group. Do I continue down the path that I belong on, a path of love and acceptance that my life has been shaped by? Or do I turn away from my prior identity to conform with this new group that I stumbled upon? Thankful for my decision to read “Let Your Life Speak” by Parker J Palmer I came across this paragraph. It was my involvement in this group that “made me feel inadequate to the tasks of living my own life, creating guilt about the distance between who I was and who I felt I was supposed to be.” And living these two lives left me exhausted and frustrated. But after I faced myself with this question the decision was an easy one. I made a choice that reflected who I had been, am, and always will be. But I was disappointed that I was even presented with this type of decision. I was hurt. Because as I moved through this process my country was moving through an election where some feel that they had not been the offered love and acceptance that they deserved.

After the election I listened to other new friends that I have met that are Jewish and Muslim. Friends that are sent flyers from Christian organizations on campus that preach about how the only way of saving the world is have everyone convert to Christianity. How this generation was going to fix the world by leading everyone to the one true savior. A belief that frightens my friends that are not Christian. My dear friend would question, trying to figure out where these actions come from. She would ask me, “But aren't you a Christian too?”. And I would respond with, “Yes, I am, but … I don’t believe that stuff. I believe all are equal, and that all can coexist, and that all are welcome in the world”. And this “but” made me even more confused. For the frustration of having to defend my own beliefs in response to other beliefs of Christians wasn’t something that I had exactly experienced before. And this reasoning wasn't enough and will never be a enough for members of the Islamic or Jewish faith. The faiths that believe in the same God, come from the same father, Abraham. And after a few weeks of school these excuses were not enough. Because I saw daily fear and knew I had to do something more. For my beliefs, the beliefs of love and acceptance have constructed who I am. And to see others so comfortable with rejecting this one core belief of my own God was brought out feelings that I cannot put into words.

After the election I witnessed the fear of females who are survivors of sexual assault. Women that attend school at a university where one in four of the undergraduates experience sexual assault. Women that live in a country where the general populace elected a man who brags of sexual assault. Terrified that the rhetoric of the election will come to normalize what they have survived. I watched as my friend moved through the process of receiving the justice for what she had gone through. The process of fighting the uphill battle and the heartbreaking realities in her life that she struggled to comprehend. And as things continued to stack up against her, she asked me if she could go to church with me. The hope that my religion of love and acceptance was prevailing over all of the voices that were shogun at her. She heard the calm beckoning of love and acceptance. Love and acceptance where even the most fragile could find solace in a vesper service on a cold, Sunday afternoon.
​
These experiences are just scratching the surface. And I am forever grateful that I followed the life that I was meant to live. I felt that I finally found my true being in these moments of tenderness and hurting and joy by striving to live through all that I was taught as a young girl. And now this is a continued version of the church leaving the building and heading to the streets. It first started by leaving to go to high school, then to college, and now to Washington DC.