Clergy Support Ministry Recommends Additional Sabbath Time for Pastors During These Unprecedented Times
After more than a year of pandemic, our Clergy Support Ministry (CSM) feels it’s more important than ever to remind our churches of the unique and cumulative stress that continues to fall on our clergy. The challenges of these many months to provide meaningful worship, pastoral care, administrative leadership, spiritual teaching and inspiration, and congregational “glue” in an unprecedented landscape of online and distant community have been immense. As congregations begin to re-gather in person over these next months, there will inevitably be backs and forths related to health and safety issues. As a result, a mix of in-person and online contact will undoubtedly create an even greater challenge for our clergy than they have already experienced. As a backdrop to all of this, there is for many already in place a level of emotional and/or physical exhaustion and, just as importantly, vicarious trauma from the multiplicity of loss and grief of these times.

For all these reasons, CSM urges congregations to consider new ways to provide significant sabbath time for pastors. In addition to the annual leave already in place for pastors, CSM suggests an additional week of annual leave for clergy as we suggested last year when it was still early in the pandemic. Also, one week apart from planning and doing worship every three months would be a worthy consideration. Because of the pandemic, there are now a plethora of online worship options for congregations. Also, local congregations could consider uniting with other UCC churches in the area to have shared worship thus freeing up time away for clergy. Associations could become resources for arranging such coordination to facilitate sabbath

CSM is continuing to provide educational and support opportunities for pastors with workshops on the new world of worship planning and a spring Clergy Day focused on trauma and recovery. Our Conference Ministers also continue to offer monthly times online for supportive clergy check-ins, and the Pastoral Development Leader Groups continue to meet virtual on a monthly basis.

Working together across the Conference, we can all do what we can to assure environments where the pastoral leadership in our churches can continue to survive and thrive.
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Please Remember in Your Prayers...
The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) congregations and communities of our nation. Reports are being received of brutal attacks on the elderly and vulnerable, violence inflicted for no other reason than one’s appearance and skin color. The reports find that these are not robberies but hate crimes done in broad daylight. The latest report from just one center monitoring AAPI crimes list over 3,700 incidents from March 2020 to February 2021. Let us be fervent in our prayers and steadfast in our resistance to any form of discrimination and racist conduct in our land. For further information please see the Global Ministries website (https://www.globalministries.org/stopthehate-a-call-to-prayer-and-action/).


O God, in your tender mercy,
Hear our prayers!
Across Our Conference
The Merrimack Association will be holding its Spring Meeting via Zoom on Sunday, April 18, 2021 at 3:00 PM

The Rockingham Association will be holding its Spring Meeting virtually on Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 2:00 PM.

The Hillsborough Association will be holding its Annual Meeting via Zoom on Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 3:00 PM.

The Grafton Orange Sullivan Association will be holding its Spring Meeting via Zoom on Sunday, May 16, 2021 at 2:00 PM .

Rev. Gina Finocchiaro has announced her resignation as Pastor of the First Congregational Church of Wolfeboro, United Church of Christ. Her final Sunday "in the pulpit" will be Sunday, May 2, 2021. Rev. Finocchiaro will be starting a chaplaincy at Phillips Academy Andover.
Conference Minister
Sunday Schedule: April 18, 2021
The Rev. Gordon Rankin and the Rev. Richard Slater will be worshiping with our NHCUCC congregations via computer from their own homes.
Weekly News
The Weekly News is published to promote the mission and ministry of the New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ.

These announcements are intended to be brief, timely, and of a general interest to our Conference readers. Supportive links are provided whenever they are available. We encourage you to forward these materials to others in your church using the link below and to share them in your bulletins and local church newsletters.

Send your items to WeeklyNews@nhcucc.org.The deadline for submitting items for the next issue is Thursday at 12:00 PM.
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