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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Responses for the First 100 Days

A faithful response to the first 100 days: Online advocacy resource page now available.

First Church, Its Mission, and Its Ministry

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.

First Suggestion: Use reusable bags for all shopping in stores.

Protest Together!

The Outreach and Service Committee wanted to make church members aware of some nationwide economic protests directed at the current federal administration. None are marches - all call for an economic response only. 

On March 7-14, The People's Union is sponsoring a Boycott of Amazon. They ask that no purchases be made from Amazon that week.

More about the first protest can be found here.

On Friday, March 14th, there has been a call in many places (starting in Texas) for a National Strike. Workers are to take PTO that day if possible. You can read about the demands of the strikers at https://generalstrikeus.com/ or look at the Facebook event here. 

We encourage you to read up on the projects and decide if you are called to participate as part of your Christian witness.

A Reason to Celebrate!

Let us celebrate the birth of Erick Joel, 6 lb. 12 oz., to Viviana Regalado on 3/4/25. Mother and baby are doing well! Erick is the baby brother of Luciana, and the baby cousin of Emilia and Alexa, whom we see regularly in the front row moment. 

Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Saving Time begins THIS Sunday, March 9th. Make sure to spring your clocks an hour ahead!

Cooking Class in First Church Kitchen on Saturday, March 15,

10 am - noon

Pile on to PI Day by learning how to make Union City Dinor’s ever-popular Graham Cracker Cream Pie!  Jan Heron, whose parents owned the dinor and where Jan spent a lot of time preparing food, will lead this hands-on class. She'll share the recipe and guide participants through the steps to make this delicious dessert. (Yes, that's the way they spelled diner in Union City, PA.)

The class is limited to twelve (12) people and sign up is essential. Email Linda Slocum (lrslocum@gmail.com) or sign up in the hallway leading to Fellowship Hall at Church.

Celebrate the arrival of spring with a Spring Chicken Dinner at our Wednesday Night Supper, March 19th at 5:45 PM!

Ensure your place at the table! Sign up by clicking here. Or, there is a paper sign-up sheet in the hallway to Fellowship Hall. Everyone is welcome. Vegetarian and gluten-free choices will be available.

Calling all pie bakers to make dessert! Sign up to bring a pie or two and add a sweet touch to our gathering.

To help make the evening run more smoothly, we could use some help in the kitchen. Indicate on the signup form whether you are available to help with setting up before the meal or cleaning up afterward. Linda Slocum will contact you a few days prior to the supper to confirm whether your help is needed.  

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

Highlights from Executive Council

• Cleanliness of the building, especially the kitchen and Fellowship Hall, was discussed. The custodial needs of the facility will be reassessed to ensure the best care of the building, as use of the facility changes.

• A task group is being formed to evaluate kitchen needs, and look into much needed renovation of that space.

• Plans are under way for participation in the community's Big Parade on May 3, and the celebration of our third annual Spring Festival on May 10. Any and all ideas and volunteers are welcome in planning and the execution of these fun events!

• Following the congregation's discussion regarding safety, conversation with the Oberlin fire chief will lead to a scheduled fire drill. "This church is on fire!"

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?

We have several FREE copies of this book on the Welcome Table. Donations are welcomed, but not required. For those that don't get a hard copy of the book, you are also able to purchase a PDF for $3.00 and/or hardcopy version of the book for $5.00 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.

The Wider Community

Our Friend and Pianist Lura Johnson (daughter of Molly Johnson) presents THE ART OF PRELUDE & FUGUE

Lura Johnson, daughter of Molly Johnson of Oberlin, grew up in Oberlin and her family attended First Church for all of her years living here.

She has some exciting news and thought the First Church community would be interested. 

She is a professional classical pianist and is dropping a rather trailblazing album in a few weeks.

The Art of Prelude and Fugue, a mammoth and visionary solo project, is the daring, first-of-its-kind curation of two of the greatest piano masterpieces ever written, the entire Well-Tempered Clavier of J.S. Bach and 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 of Dmitri Shostakovich, with an emphasis on the striking connections between the works.

​​The music of these two musical geniuses is highly complex, deeply contemplative, and rigorously structured. Yet each work transcends the boundaries it embraces, transporting us to a realm of the most spiritual kind.

While challenging us to comprehend its incredible complexity,

the music also offers us a place of stillness, serenity, and deep reflection.

It is not just beautiful. It is significant. It contributes to our cultural fabric and illuminates our humanity.

A MASTERWORKS CONCERT FOR YOUR LENTEN ENJOYMENT!

Lorain County Community College’s Collegiate and Civic Chorales along with local professional soloists and the Civic Orchestra under the baton of Emerita Professor Nancy Davis, Director of Choral Music Performance, will present the 46^th  Annual Masterworks Concert featuring Joseph Haydn’s “Mass in D Minor” on Saturday, March 8, 2025 beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Stocker Arts Center-Hoke Theater.

Composed at a time when Napoleon Bonaparte’s hard-pressing war caused great anxiety in the people of Britain, Haydn named his work the “Mass for troubled times” but it later became known as the “Lord Nelson Mass” when word spread of Napoleon’s stunning defeat by Lord Nelson in the battle of the Nile on August 1, 1798.

Come and experience Haydn’s masterly composition of his “Mass” that musically evokes the moods of anxiety and triumph of his time as well as of our time on our Lenten journey.

Other featured works in the concert include “Regina Coeli,” Mozart’s rousing hymn of praise to the Creator, and “The Heavens are Telling,” Haydn’s jubilant expression of the greatness of God.

General admission tickets are $9 and may be purchased by contacting the Stocker Center box office at 440-366-4040 or online at (www.lorainccc.edu/stocker). Discounts are available.