An open and affirming, Just Peace, Green Justice, Global Mission Congregation

No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here!

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Special Guest this Sunday -

Rev. Thomas L. Bowen

We are delighted to welcome Rev. Thomas Bowen to the First Church pulpit this Sunday, April 6.

Rev. Bowen serves as the Earl L. Harrison Minister of Social Justice at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, DC, and is the Founder and Chief Engagement Officer of EngageFaith, a consulting firm specializing in faith and community engagement. He most recently served in the Biden-Harris Administration as the White House Senior Advisor for Faith Engagement. A proud graduate of Morehouse College and former student at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Rev. Bowen has devoted his life to ministry, public service, and the pursuit of justice.

Born and raised in neighboring Elyria, Ohio, he was ordained at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Oberlin, where he continues to serve as an adjunct preacher. He is honored to return to the community that shaped him and to share God’s word with the First Church family.

Disarming Leviathan

In his sermon on March 9, Pastor Hill referenced the book, "Disarming Leviathan" by Caleb Campbell. Several copies of this book have been placed in the Reading Room (library) at First Church. Please follow the checkout procedures noted on the bulletin board in the room to borrow a copy of the book. The books are located on the "Recent Book Studies" shelf.

First Church, Its Mission, and Its Ministry

ENJOY DINNER AT BISTRO BELLA LUNA



The Fellowship Committee has arranged an exclusive meal at Bistro Bella Luna on Sunday, April 27 at 4:30p.m. A maximum of 40 people can attend (minimum of 20 needed). $30/person covers 3 course meal + beverage. Menu details to follow in next week's enews. If interested, contact the First Church office.

Checks may be made payable to The First Church in Oberlin, UCC with "Bella Luna" on the memo line.

First come, first served!

We invite you to join us for Holy Week and Easter!

Wave palm leaves and engage in a dramatic reading of the Passion in worship on Palm/Passion Sunday, April 13th at 10:00 AM in the Meeting House

Gather for an intimate service of communion on the evening of Maundy Thursday, April 17th at 7:00 PM in Fellowship Hall

Raise the roof with brass and organ on Easter, April 20th at 10:00 AM in the Meeting House.

To all of our young friends, we will be having our Easter Egg Hunt after our Easter Sunday service on April 20th on the front lawn.

All are welcome!

We look forward to worshiping with you!

The First Church GREEN TEAM invites you to participate in decorating the "Faith in Action for the Earth" Tree during Lent and Easter.

You will see the tree in the Welcome Table area with cards, markers, and clothespins to attach the cards to the tree. Please tell us what you and your family are doing to support our Earth, its Environment, and Creation. You can sign your name or be anonymous. We will read these cards on Creation Sunday, April 27. Look for suggestions of what you can do each week in First Things First and the Sunday bulletin. Please feel free to make suggestions, too! Contact Kathleen at kjbradley123@gmail.com for those good ideas.

This Week's Suggestion: Please consider joining your local green team. The First Church Green Team meets at 4:30 pm on the 3rd Wednesday of the month in the Reading Room. Contact Martin Buck for more information.

CALLING ALL LITURGISTS!

The Worship Committee is grateful for the dedication to worship leadership given by our many volunteer liturgists through the year. They have done this with very little guidance beforehand or feedback afterwards. So we are very excited that our own Jody Kerchner, Professor of Music Education, Oberlin College and Conservatory has agreed to help.

Jody also is a volunteer liturgist, and she will spend an hour with us after church on April 6 for some coaching and feedback. The timing is especially good because we can become familiar with the newly installed pulpit mic.

Jody expects to have some fun together as we discuss our experiences and our questions. There will be an opportunity for feedback for those who would like it, as we take on a practice reading or two. If any of you would like to do a short reading for the group for feedback from Jody, let us know and she’ll contact you beforehand. Alana Kelley is the Worship Committee contact person for this event. Please let her or Becky Thompson know if you will be with us. If you’re interested but never tried it, you are welcome to sit in.

Plan to gather quickly in the front row pews immediately after the Postlude on April 6. We hope to see you there.

Save the Date: First Church Night at the Theater - coming April 12th!

The youth will be going to support EJ and Laura in Oberlin High School's production of Little Women - and all church members are invited to join us! We'll be attending the production on the evening of April 12th - time TBA. Shine up your red carpet wear - or just come as you are - and join us at the OHS auditorium to cheer for our thespians! 

Group Sign-up for trip to Allen Memorial Art Museum

Have you visited the gem in our own backyard recently? A small group is invited to take a guided tour of the Allen Memorial Art Museum on Palm Sunday, April 13. Following the morning worship and fellowship time, participants may enjoy a simple group lunch from Aladdin's at the church before heading to the AMAM. At 1:00pm we'll be treated to a guided tour of the current exhibition highlights. We'll conclude our visit with a close observation of Jusepe de Ribera's "Blind Old Beggar," led by Sereena Sperry (OC 2027). That discussion begins at 2:30. The group will be limited to fifteen. Sign up today using this link or call the church office at (440) 775-1711.

First Church History Group Video

The First Church History Group will host the showing of a short (10 minutes) video about the history of First Church on Sunday, April 13 immediately following the service. This is the first of four videos that are planned to follow the history of this church through the Civil War. There will be a time for a short discussion after the viewing. Anyone planning to go on the museum tour will be able to see the video and get to lunch on time. 

We are in need of bread bakers for Communion Sundays!

If we get enough people, this would be a commitment for 2 or 3 times a year. If you are interested, please contact Karla Sanderson at kwsanderson@oberlin.net or (440) 935-5812.

The Guatemalan Fundraising Dinner will be April 05 starting at 5:30 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of First Church! 

For over 20 years SEPA (Santa Elena Project of Accompaniment) has sponsored the Guatemalan Dinner. Our speaker will be Steven Volk, Emeritus Professor of History from Oberlin College. The menu will offer authentic Guatemalan cuisine along with the famous dessert auction. The money raised by this event will go directly to an elementary school in Santa Elena, Veinte de Octubre and a middle school in Copal AA La Esperanza. Both of these communities are rural and Indigenous. They are Indigenous in that the people of Santa Elena are of the Qeq' chi' linguistic, cultural group while the people of Copal AA are from three different linguistic, cultural groups: Mam, Qan' jobal', and Qeq' Chi'. Tickets are $15.00 dollars. To purchase tickets see Lori Taylor or John Gates. Lori and John will be selling tickets after church on Sunday.

Lori Taylor: 440-213-7991 or taylorlori@oberlin.net

John Gates: 440-320-1623 or jfgates@oberlin.net

Go deep for Lent!

Mirroring the 2025 General Synod theme, "Into the Deep," our 2025 Lent Devotional invites reflection on God's mysterious depths.

As Mary Luti writes in the introduction, "God inhabits the depths of life, love, loss, ecstasy, and pain, God dwells in the profundities of prayer, in sighs too deep for words. God loves the deep."

What courage, what faith, what reckoning, what wonder might find us as we go deep into God's depths this Lent?

For those that didn't get a hard copy of the book, you are also able to purchase a PDF for $3.00 using the link here. If purchasing the PDF version, please purchase one PDF per reader. Upon purchase, a link will be emailed to you for downloading the PDF.

Any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to the office at office@firstchurchoberlin.org or (440)775-1711.

One Great Hour of Sharing,

Collected on Easter, April 20th!

One Great Hour of Sharing is one of four special mission offerings of the United Church of Christ. This Lenten Offering supports the disaster, refugee, and development ministries of the United Church of Christ within Wider Church Ministries. This year, the special offering's theme is being the light!

We can make a difference. We do make a difference. Your generosity makes all the difference. Your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing provide immediate aid and long-term support to people experiencing hunger, thirst, disaster, or crisis around the world. 

"You’re here to be the light, bringing out the God-colors in the world."

-Matthew 5:14

The 2025 offering will be collected on Easter, April 20th. It is possible to contribute in one of three ways: 

By mailing a check made out to The First Church in Oberlin with “OGHS” in the memo line to the church office, 

By using the offering envelopes on the Welcome Table and depositing your donation in the donation boxes in the Meeting House by the doors exiting the room, 

Or, by going to our First Church website, scrolling down and clicking on "Donate Online" and then going to the “One Great Hour of Sharing” section. Alternatively, click here and it’ll bring you to the page.

Please see below for the Mission Moment for this week, the bulletin insert for this year's offering, and an intergenerational activity meant to help us think about and plan how we can share our gifts with others. More information can also be found on the UCC website. 

Let your gift help to put prayer into action. The need has never been greater. The opportunity is now. It’s time to share.

The Wider Community

Oberlin Community Services Needs Your Help!

We're reaching out to the southern Lorain County faith community with a plea for assistance: The Trump administration has cut funding that allows food banks to buy fresh produce from local farmers. This policy change will affect our ability to get fresh fruit and vegetables to approx. 350 local families who come to OCS each week.

HOW YOU CAN HELP: When planting your garden this spring, please plant a row for OCS! The food pantry will need your donations this year more than ever. We are extremely happy to accept your gifts of fresh fruit and vegetables and get them to local families at the Cooper Community Resource Center, 500 E. Lorain St., Oberlin.

THE NEED IS REAL: In the past year, we've had a 16.6% increase in the families coming to OCS, including a 28.2% increase in children who get food from us. Every day the pantry is open, 8-15 new client families — those who have never gotten food from a pantry in Ohio — come through our doors.

Save the Date!

“Building on his ground-breaking SYMBIOTIC EARTH John Feldman’s new film, REGENERATING LIFE, takes an ecological approach to unraveling the climate crisis. It offers a deeper look at the underlying causes of global warming, going beyond carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels to humankind’s relentless destruction of nature in all corners of Earth. Because ultimately it is nature—the vast biodiversity that exists on our planet—that regulates and balances Earth’s climate.

Feldman explores how life regulates the climate through photosynthesis and the carbon cycle; the water cycle; the dung cycle; and a vast interconnected soil network of fungi, microorganisms, and plant roots. He dives into the economic and political systems that have encouraged this destruction of Earth through the relentless quest for wealth and dominion.

We can reverse this destructive process by regenerating life across the planet. Feldman visits people who are working on solutions. By working with nature, they are restoring forests, fields, wetlands, and oceans. They are regenerating soils to grow healthy food and build healthy communities, pointing the way to long term solutions to the climate crisis.”