Celebration Service!

First Sunday in Lent

Masks are optional at our services at this time. As a congregation, we respect those who choose to wear a mask out of personal concern/safety.

CHILDREN'S MESSAGE

SCRIPTURE READING Exodus 3:1-14 Lay Reader: Sandi Kuhl

ANTHEM "He Who Dwells in the Shelter of the Most High"

SCRIPTURE READING John 8:12-20

MESSAGE "The Light of the World" Rev. Dan Haugh

USHERS Jake Emerick and Moon Seun

Children's Worship!

Our Children's Worship Lesson is titled: The Good Samaritan, and the Key Phrase associated with the Lesson is: 

What if the person you liked the least helped you the most? 

And the Key Bible Verse associated with the Lesson is:

“Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

                                       (Luke: 36-37)

In addition to the beginning of Lent, we do have a few fun and festive events coming up soon that we wanted to share with our families!

Saint Patrick's Day Event at the Church on Monday March 17th, AND A Rescheduled/ Postponed Pancake Party at the Church on Saturday 3/22, from 4:30-6:00 pm!

We also are still looking for additional children and families to sign up to lead The Lord's Prayer, Share a Children's Message and help teach/ lead Children's Worship and assist in the Nursery on Sunday mornings!

Here is a sign up spreadsheet for the next few weeks, and as you can, if you can add your name here and there, it all helps to make a great difference!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eqmiDIiKxBD7aMJJeslp3SqDZhdCEZJKEoVvd-tmpY8/edit?usp=sharing

Please feel free to reach out to Miss Taryn with an email, call or text if you need anything at all!

Warmest thanks and Blessings to one and all!

Coffee Hour in the Fellowship Hall This Sunday March 9th!

We'll be having our first indoor coffee/fellowship in a long while right after the 9:30 Celebration Service. Everyone is invited down to the Fellowship Hall for coffee and refreshments!

Cross Country Skiing at Trapp’s Ski Center This Sunday March 9th!

XC Ski Day at Trapp Family Lodge Ski Center Sunday, March 9th at 2:00 pm Please join Lynne Von Trapp, Meg Scotti and Pastor Dan for a cross country ski day. Special thanks to Trapp Family Lodge for this complimentary ski afternoon. Ski rentals would be extra. 

Afterwards we will be meeting at Trapp’s Bier Hall at 4:00, even if you can’t make the skiing! 

Hope to see you there! Please contact megscotti@mac.com

if you are interested. 

Have You Taken the Survey?

The last day to take our survey is this Sunday, March 9th!

As part of our 2025 planning process, Stowe Community Church is conducting a survey to gain insight into how you, our friends and families, value our Church and to better understand what is important to you.

Survey results will help the Board of Directors have meaningful conversations and create actionable goals for the next three to five years.

Be assured that your individual answers will remain strictly confidential.

As you respond to each question, please choose the answer that comes closest to the right answer for you, even if it does not fit perfectly.

Thank you, in advance, for your time and thoughtful consideration to each question.

Lenten Schedule!

April 17 - Maundy Thursday

• 7:00 pm Service

April 18 - Good Friday

• Church open all day

April 20 - Easter

• ~6:00 am Sunrise Service at Stowe Mountain Resort
• 9:30 am Easter Celebration Service

SCC Open House St Patrick's Day!

In coordination with Stowe Vibrancy and a Village Celebration on St. Patrick’s Day, Stowe Community Church will host an Open House, offering fun for the whole family. Bake sale from 9 - 4, Irish Dancing & Celtic Music, Kids games and cookie decorating from 4 - 6pm. More details to follow. Save the Date!

We are looking for bakers to provide decorated cookies, Irish soda bread, Irish scones, and more. 

Please contact Nancy Jeffries-Dwyer if you want to be part of the team: president@stowecommunitychurch.org.

Women's Fellowship Has Been Asked To Help!

1 - Monday, March 17, St. Patrick's Day  In coordination with Stowe Vibrancy and a Village Celebration on St. Patrick’s Day, Stowe Community Church will host an Open House, offering fun for the whole family. Bake sale from 12 - 4, Irish Dancing & Celtic Music, Kids games and cookie decorating from 4 - 6pm

   * a)  We need St. Patrick's Day themed baked goods for the bake sale, such as shamrock or any St. Patrick's day cookies, Irish soda bread, green frosted cupcakes or green sprinkled cookies or brownies

   * b) We need a couple people to sell items at the bake sale.  We're looking for a few enthusiastic Irishwomen or St. Patrick's Day lovers or just want to spend time with other people selling baked items!

         From 2:00 - 2 :00 or 2:00 - 4:00  

2 - Lenten Soup Supper, Wednesday, March 19. St. John's Episcopal Church will host Lenten Soup Suppers during Lent as a community gathering and a fundraiser for the Lamoille Community Food Share. St. John's has asked SCC to provide soup for one of the suppers.  

    * a) We need 5 different soups (in slow cookers such as Crock Pots). Please let me know if you can make a soup.

    * b) We need a couple people who can serve the soup that night.

    * c) We are asked as a congregation to attend the supper that night.

Thank you so much for your help, ☘️

Denise Wentz

women@stowecommunitychurch.org

Order Easter Flowers!

Easter Flowers can be ordered to decorate the sanctuary for Easter!.

You can choose from

• Lilies
• Tulips
• Daffodils
• Hyacinth

They are $18 each.

Orders are due by March 31, 2025

Print an Order Form

Be an Usher!

We would love to see your smiling face at the front door when we come in to the church on Sundays!! This is an excellent opportunity for you to greet the congregation as they come in.

If you’re new to the church, it’s a great way to put names with faces, as well as a way for other to get to know you! If you’re a long time member of the church, this would be the time for you to get to know new members and greet face to face with dear friends.

It’s not a difficult job, but an important one. This is our first opportunity to greet folks and make them feel welcome….because they are.

There is always a sign-up sheet in the narthex, and also in the weekly Quest. Please lend a hand and be a welcoming presence for our beautiful church.

Please contact Nan Myers @ 802-244-1471 with any questions and for details on what the “Job” entails. I’m happy to assist!

Sign Up Here!

2025 Lenten Daily Devotional!

We encourage all SCC members and friends to download this free 2025 Lenten devotional by Kate Bowler entitled “The Hardest Part”

Click on the link below and follow the instructions to download either the digital or print version of the “Daily Guide”. You can also sign up to receive a daily email devotion. 

https://katebowler.com/seasonal_devotional/the-hardest-part/#gf_54

Life is this strange, tender mix, isn’t it? Joy and sorrow. Love and loss. Big wins and even bigger failures. We cling tightly to the beautiful moments, but then the phone rings, a diagnosis drops, or some creeping ache reminds us that everything—everything—is so much more fragile than we’d like to admit. Life can be too much. And Lent is the season where we sit in that heaviness. For 40 days, we stop pretending things will suddenly get better and face the truth: life

is fragile, and so are we.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday when we hear the words no one really wants to say out loud: you are dust, and to dust you shall return. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you’d embroider on a pillow, but it’s a truth we need. Lent invites us to stop pretending we can hold it all together and instead sit with the weight of what we carry—the grief, the regrets, the messes we can’t untangle, no matter how much we try.

Here’s the hardest part: to be human is to carry the weight of our own mortality. We love the joy and triumph of Easter morning, but first, we have to sit with Good Friday, when God is on the losing team. Jesus, who we look to for hope and healing, suffers and dies. His pain is real, just like ours. We can’t rush past it. We can’t skip to the good part, because it’s through the deepest hurt that we begin to understand what it means to be fully human, fully broken.

In The Hardest Part: Hurt We Carry, Hope We Find, we’ll walk through these paradoxes together. Each day, we’ll look at the hardest parts of being human—heartbreak, emptiness, shame, and longing—and acknowledge the weight of it. You’ll find Scripture, a reflection, a response prompt, and a blessing to remind you that grace has a way of sneaking in, even when life feels impossible (kind of like finding your phone after you’ve torn the house apart for the fifth time).

So, let’s do this hard part together. Let’s sit with the ache and the fragile parts we’d rather avoid, and trust that hope is somewhere nearby, waiting for us to notice. Because when we stay with the hard part, something else happens: the good part begins to unfold, slowly but surely.

https://katebowler.com

Save the Date! Southern U.S. Civil Rights Interfaith Trip

Your local interfaith community invites you to join us for a transformative journey through the American South. Embark on a powerful exploration of the Civil Rights movement.

• Walk in the footsteps and hear from courageous leaders and activists
• Visit iconic sites and pray at landmark faith institutions
• Engage in meaningful discussions and reflections

Dates: November 4 to November 9, 2025

Destinations: Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma, and Atlanta

Organized by Stowe Community Church, the Jewish Community of Greater Stowe, the United Community Church of Morrisville, and St. John’s in the Mountains Episcopal Church.

Stay tuned for more details and registration information.

Green Tip for March!

I am reading Yvon Chouinard’s Let My People Go Surfing, a book about the history of the Patagonia gear and clothing company and their philosophy of business, people, and environment. I’ve learned that even our clothing selections play a key role in the care of our planet. Two examples: traditionally grown cotton requires intensive chemicals, fertilizers, defoiliants, and soil additives, all of which degrade the soil, air, and waterways, not to mention the health of farm workers. https://www.patagonia.com/our-footprint/cotton-for-change.html Irresponsibly sourced down originates from farms that cram birds into small cages and rely on live feather plucking and inhumane slaughter practices. It’s easy to assume that cotton and down are somehow more ‘pure’ because they are natural, but their cultivation practices prove otherwise. Check out wool cultivation and you’ll be similarly astonished! I encourage you to read Chouinard’s book or explore Patagonia’s Environmental Impact page to learn more about the responsible sourcing of clothing fibers: https://www.patagonia.com/environmental-responsibility-materials/

Recycle Ink Cartridges!

As part of our SCC Green Team initiatives, we all want to recycle more to avoid sending items to our only landfill in Coventry, Vermont!! 

To help with recycling, our church invites you to bring empty ink cartridges, both small and large, to us.  We send small ones postage free to California, and they send us a small check. Empty large ink cartridges go to Staples and they give us credits to buy paper for our bulletins.

Please invite your family and friends to bring empty ink cartridges to the church.