UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST BISMARCK, ND March 2017

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1200 E Highland Acres Rd ~ 701-223-2915 ~ bisucc@midconetwork.com ~ www.uccbismarck.org ~ Like us on Facebook

MARCH 2017

A GLOBAL MINISTRY CHURCH OUR LIFE TOGETHER

Growing up my family said the same dinner prayer at every meal. We would gather around the table and before anyone could eat we would take each other’s hands and repeat this prayer together:

O Gott, von dem wir alles haben, wir preisen dich für deine Gaben. Du speisest uns, weil du uns liebst; o segne auch, was du uns gibst. Amen! Mahlzeit!

As we said this prayer almost every single day, you could say I know it quite well even though it is in German. However, my parents would still complain that my brother and I did not know what we were saying… and they were mostly right. We repeated the words again and again, but I almost never put any thought to the prayer’s translation beyond that it was asking God to bless our food. Repeating this prayer just something my family always did before we ate. The Lord’s Prayer is often practiced in the same way as my family dinner prayer was practiced. We often say it as rote without ever giving much thought to what we might actually be asking of God and saying of ourselves. Yet, the Lord’s Prayer is an extremely powerful prayer for both the one praying and the world. It is a prayer that was intended to transform the individual and the entire world. This Lenten season, every Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM, we are going take a closer look at this powerful prayer known as the Lord’s Prayer which is said weekly in churches around the world, requested on death beds, repeated at the communion table, and translated into more languages than any other Christian prayer. It is a prayer with the power to transform your Lenten season; together let’s find out how it might change your life.

Sunday Worship at 10 AM. Wednesday Lenten Worship at 7 PM.

United Church of Christ Bismarck-Mandan Area

What’s That Prayer You Say? BY Rev Gretchen Deeg, Senior Pastor

Easter Flowers Easter flowers may be ordered in memory and honor of loved ones through the church office. Flower orders are due March 14th. Easter is on April 16th this year. See page 5.

Soup & Worship Starts on Ash Wednesday, March 1st. Soup supper at 6pm. Worship at 7pm. All are welcome. See page 4.

Lent, Holy Week, & Easter Schedule Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday Worship Schedule is on page 3.

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“Where the good in every person is recognized and their talents are encouraged to be shared.” This winter countless church members pulled snow off the church roof, hauled snow out of the parking lot, shoveled the walkways on Sunday mornings and during the week, installed de-icing cables, and found solutions to roofing leaks from heavy snow and backed up ice. A million thanks to everyone who shared their talents throughout this winter! Coming together to care or our church home is just one way we ensure Bismarck-Mandan UCC is a welcoming faith home for everyone. Pictured: Richard Mitchell, our official sidewalk snow-remover.

Council Corner BY Kirby Kruger, Moderator

This is my last moderator article for the newsletter, at least for a while. When you read this we will already be in late February or early March. The annual meeting was held Sunday, January 29, 2017. As I mentioned in my annual report, the last four or five years (I lost count) have presented me with numerous opportunities to grow spiritually and as a person. I am very fortunate to be a member of a church where I don’t feel judged for my faith path or my inadequacies. I am also rejoice

in how our congregation seems to rise up to challenges and how we endeavor to listen to the calling of a still speaking God. My last council meeting as moderator was really a housekeeping meeting. Trustees will focus more on our roof issues as well as continuing the search for a custodian. We also worked out some details for the annual meeting. Pastor Gretchen had gone home early that day, not feeling well, but she has several projects she is working on. Among these are an opportunity to get involved in a project that one of our members is involved in. This is a project reaching out to work with young people in our own community. There are numerous high school seniors that lack the resources for their senior pictures and I believe we can make a difference here. This seems like a great way to reach out and connect with youth. Finally, a committee of members has formed to evaluate and plan the annual buffalo supper. This is a great event, but with the cost of buffalo being quite high, this event is need of some minor adjustments. Our new Moderator is Harold Karch. Thank you, Harold, for your leadership, you will do a great job. I look forward to my new position as the assistant treasurer. Blessings to all of you.

The Bismarck-Mandan UCC is a thriving church transforming our lives and community:

Vision Statement ADOPTED JANUARY 2016

o Where all are unconditionally welcomed, affirmed, accepted and loved;

o Where the good in every person is recognized and their talents are encouraged to be shared;

o Where children, youth, and adults learn that God is love and all are welcome to freely explore spirituality in a safe and nurturing environment;

o Where we can bring our personal needs and struggles and count on support from our church family – which is the loving family we all deserve;

o Where powerful messages inspire and challenge us to be caring and compassionate to all – in our church, community, and world, seeking opportunities to put our faith into action with courage to go beyond what we think we can do;

o Where we embrace the still-speaking God and live in today’s world.

LIVING OUR VISION HIGHLIGHT

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Ash Wednesday, Mar. 1 6pm Soup Supper 7pm Lenten Worship Sun, Mar. 5 10am Worship Wed, Mar. 8 6pm Soup Supper Sun, Mar. 12 10am Worship Wed, Mar. 15 6pm Soup Supper 7pm Lenten Worship Sun, Mar. 19

10am Worship Wed, Mar. 22

6pm Soup Supper 7pm Lenten Worship

Sun, Mar. 26 10am Worship Wed, Mar. 29

6pm Soup Supper 7pm Lenten Worship

Sun, Apr. 2 10am Worship

Wed, April 5 6pm Soup Supper 7pm Lenten Taize Worship

Palm Sunday, April 9 10am Worship

Maundy Thursday, April 13 6pm Soup Supper 7pm Maundy Thursday

Tenebrae Service with choir & orchestra

Holy Saturday, April 14 6pm Ecumenical Easter Vigil (Faith Lutheran) Easter Sunday, April 16

7:30 am Sunrise Service 10 am Easter Family Worship

Sun, April 30 2:30pm Echoes of Easter (Trinity Lutheran)

A NOTE FROM THE TRUSTEES

FINANCIAL STATUS

SUPPORT OF OUR MISSION PARTNERS IN 2017

Lent, Holy Week, & Easter

Jan. 1 to Jan. 31, 2017

Revenue General Offerings Actual = $146,220

Other Income (Dedicated, Earned) Actual = $ 65,509

Expenses Actual = $226,204

Total Revenue = $211,729 Total Expenses = $226,204 NET ACTIVITY = $ (14,475)

East Timor Education Foundation $ 85 Charles Hall Youth Services $ 20 Our Churches Wider Mission $ 500 One Great Hour of Sharing $ 00 Strengthen the Church $ 00 Neighbors in Need $ 00 Christmas Fund $ 00 Total Shared Ministry $ 605

* Next Special Offering collected on Sunday, March 26 for One Great Hour of Sharing

Easter Flowers BY Cecilia Tolstedt, Liturgical Arts

There might still be snow on the ground, but Easter and spring are on their way! This year we will be ordering a variety of flowers to transform our sanctuary on Easter Sunday. You can purchase these flowers in honor or memory of loved ones and are welcome to take your flowers home after Easter.

The flowers are prices are: Easter Lily $7.75 Mum $8.75

Classic White A variety of pastels Asiatic Lyly $ 8.75 Azalea $8.75

Shades of orange, pink or yellow A variety of pastels

Order forms can be found in the narthex or you may send a note with payment to the church office. Orders must by placed by March 14 to guarantee availability.

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Lenten Soup Suppers BY Sarah Ripley, Mayflower Circle

Mayflower Circle will be coordinating and serving Lenten Soup Suppers again this year, with the proceeds going to East Timor. They will provide soup, bread, and dessert at 6:00 pm, before each Lenten service and also on Maundy Thursday. Please come and enjoy the food and fellowship. March 1st Ash Wednesday Split Pea & Ham Soup March 8th Vegetable Soup March 15th Reuben March 22nd Cheeseburger Soup March 29th Rival Soup April 5th Chili April 13th Maundy Thursday Knoephla Although this was originated by Mayflower Circle, happily, it has become a popular event, and many others are helping. If you would like to help once or twice with clean up or by bringing desserts, there is a signup sheet in the narthex by the community bulletin board. See you for soup!

JACK’S PLACE FOOD PANTRY By: Dawn Archer, Deacons’ Committee

Pantry Mission: To provide short-term emergency food & supplies for people in need, no questions asked. Special thanks to Dale Carmen & Ken Trana for deep cleaning & organizing the food pantry for us! Carol Prince filled bag in February, and Judi Allen is packing bags during March. If you’re able to volunteer to pack bags for a month, please check out the sign-up sheet in the narthex at church. Don’t forget that donations can be made in the form of non-perishable food items, cash, or check. Make payable to UCC . Write “Jack’s Place” or “pantry” in the memo line or envelope. Thanks. Did you know? 58,000 North Dakotans turn to food pantries and emergency meal programs. 50% of North Dakotans, who turn to food pantries, choose between paying for food or housing.hungerfreend.org We helped people in our community by distributing 9 bags of food in February!

Lord’s Prayer Worship Services

Join us every Wednesday at 7pm to explore the Lord’s Prayer. We’ll meet in the sanctuary following a soup supper at 6pm. March 1 – April 5. Taize Worship On April 5 at 7pm our normal Wednesday Lenten worship service will be celebrated in the style of Taize as we hear from a special guest speaker.

Special Offerings

Ongoing Classes

Ongoing Classes

… Ann Sharp

Friday Morning Bible Study

A group for the early risers! This dedicated group meets every Friday at 6:30 am in the church library for Bible study and fellowship. All are welcome.

Knitting Group For knitters of all experience levels, including no experience! Monthly at 1pm in the church fellowship hall. The knitting club will meet Feb. 13th & 27th at 1 pm.

Faith Forward For those interested in living their faith through social justice. Next gathering on Thursday, Feb 16th at noon.

Confirmation This 2-year program is for youth in grades 7-12 interested in being confirmed. Led by Pastor Gretchen, Kirby Kruger, and Katie Mitchell.

United Church Youth (UCY) A group of middle & high school youth. Gathers every other Sunday from 11 – 11:45am and throughout the year for service and fun. See page 6 for upcoming events.

Have an idea for a class? Contact Pastor Gretchen (223-2915) or Howard Etson on Christian Ed with your ideas.

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

Mother Theresa

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UCC Choir

Merge community and song at choir practices every Wednesday evening at 7pm. People of all ages and skill levels are welcome to join. We are glad to see new faces or hear new voices, along with the familiar ones. Director: Craig DeVos.

This women’s fellowship group meets every second Thursday of the month at noon. Mayflower Circle leads various ministries throughout the year including funeral luncheons, annual rummage sale, numerous fundraisers, and others. Join any meeting or contact Jane Thomson to learn more.

Mayflower Circle

Ministry & Fellowship Groups

Come out the second and fourth Monday of March from 6:30 – 8:30 pm to join in the fun of board and card games. Bring your favorite games and a treat to share. Family, friends, and community members are always welcome! The next game nights will be Mar. 13th and Mar. 27th.

Game Nights

Quilting Guild

New Quilting Guild is open to all church family members as well as community members. This group meets every Tuesday from 2 pm to 7:30 pm. Participants may come and go as they please. Completed projects are intended to be donated to charitable organizations.

Mission Near and Far BY Marcia Patrie, Stewardship

After Lent we will be taking a look at some of the history of the church and the good works of people of faith in our denomination. Keep an eye on the calendar for these discussion groups. Together let’s be a church who lives out Christ’s saying, “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it for me.”

During March we will be learning about the work we do through our national church with the funds collected for One Great Hour of Sharing. This offering is collected in many denominations and churches across the globe and goes to help people in need around the world and here at home. It is an offering that everyone gets involved with even the Sunday School children will get little collection boxes. One story of One Great Hour of Sharing’s impact comes to us from East Timor, which is a place our church has partnered with for many years. The story is about Tom and Monica Liddle who recently returned to Lospalos, East Timor where Monica is the doctor at the Imanuel Clinic. Please read her story:

In the four years Tom and I were away from Lospalos, Timor, because our mission assignment ended, life continued for us and for the people. In our return to mission work, I found the staff still in place carrying on their duties at the Imanuel Clinic. They were checking for malaria and tuberculosis and seeing patients every day. Patient numbers were about half of what they were in 2012, when we left, and the prenatal care and nutrition programs had ceased. There were only a couple tuberculosis patients being treated now compared to 27 in 2012. On top of this, the funder of the clinic was planning to reduce the support unless the work changed from providing direct patient care to a community health promotion model. So our mobile clinic care outreach program began.

We took the mobile clinic to a remote village where only 9 of the 24 local families use a toilet, while the others still do their daily business in the nearby trees. This is commonplace in Timor, right along with diarrhea and intestinal worms. The help we will give to this community is to provide new toilets.

Our hope is to have a lasting impact by helping in the sanitation department. The clinic staff are getting to know the families here. This staff member measures the arm circumference of a child in Sorolua to check for malnutrition as part of the initial public health survey we did. We want to demonstrate that our clinical work is not simply doling out vitamins or antibiotics, but spending substantial time teaching patients about nutrition, from breastfed babies to adults with anemia. We are teaching patients daily how to decrease the spread of infections through hand hygiene. Imagine your doctor telling you to wash your hands often when your child has diarrhea or a runny nose, when you don’t have running water in your house.

"Our hope", says Monica, "is to have a lasting impact by helping in the sanitation department." One Great Hour of Sharing supported the work of Monica during her initial term in Timor as a missionary. Monica and Tom Liddle now are self-funded Global Ministries missionaries in Timor.

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Youth News

United Church

Fun, Study, & Service for Middle & High School Youth Youth Director: Katie Mitchell – 426-7906

Wednesday Evening Kid’s Church

The

Sunday School Calendar

March 1st Wednesday SS 5th ~ Family Worship 12th ~ SS 19th ~ SS 26th ~ SS - (One Great Hour of Sharing boxes

collected in worship)

The next Wednesday evening Kid’s Church class will be March 1, 2017 at 6:00 PM. It will include lessons, games, and craft’s! If you like coming to VBS you will enjoy coming Wednesday evenings.

UCY Sunday Gathering Sunday March 5th Sunday March 19th

11:15 am in Katie’s office

Sunday Greeters

Service Opportunity! UCY has been invited to serve as greeters during the

month of March! UCY Greeters needed for 10 am Sunday Worship Services for March 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th.

Contact Katie to reserve your Sunday

INSTRUCTIONS >>>

We will jump for an hour and a half. Parents please go on their website

and sign the online waiver (www.skyzone.com/bismarck).

We will purchase tickets there. Youth are responsible for the

purchase of the sky socks that are $3.oo and any snacks they may want to buy.

Will need permission slips and medical waivers filled out and turned in with attending youth.

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Getting to Know You!

Starting in February we added a new segment to our newsletter. We know who we are, but do others know? It should be fun to get to know our members even better!

Susan Stockert We became members of the UCC in 2007. Gary and I have been married for 14 years and are lucky to be the parents of Chase (13), Leah (9), and Cole (5). I work at Bismarck State College as their purchasing coordinator and Gary is the Emergency Manager for the City of Bismarck.

How has our church supported you in your faith journey? Being a member of a church that has a strong global, national and regional outreach, as well as being all-inclusive, is key to my faith journey. I’ve definitely found that in the UCC.

What is your favorite hymn or worship song? “Borning Cry” gives me goosebumps.

If you had to live this week over again, would you change anything? No, I see life as a constant work in progress. Regrets are lessons - learn, move on, & try harder next time.

If you could go on vacation right now, where would you go? Our family loves sun and sand - Hawaii is our dream vacation.

3/1 Eric Pearson 3/2 Christopher Gustin 3/2 Peggy Brunelle 3/6 Julie Dethloff 3/14 Ed Lutz 3/19 Roger Ritz

*Please contact the church office or sign up in the narthex if you would like your birthday listed in the newsletter.

3/24 Cecilia Tolstedt 3/25 Curtis Meidinger 3/26 Dorothy Van Sickle 3/27 Nicole Balliet 3/30 Rev. Gretchen Deeg 3/31 Weston Miller

May God’s gift of life be a blessing to you and may your life be a blessing to others on this special day of your birth and all year long!

If we are missing your birthday and you would like to be on our birthday list, please contact the church office at 701-223-2915.

Have you met our new church custodians?!

Dale Carmen and Ken Trana began volunteering as our custodians in early December as the Trustees began interviews for a church custodian. After an open search, it became apparent that we had the right people for the job in front of us the entire time.

Although we now have two part-time custodians in place, caring for our church home is more than a part-time job. It takes little acts by all of us to put away our coffee cups, clean up after meetings and gatherings, and take part in Spring and Fall Clean-Up Days to maintain our place of fellowship and worship.

Pictured: Susan Stockert & Cole