Hancock UCC Weekly Messenger for December 21, 2025

Brightly does your manger shine; / Glorious is its light divine. Let not sin o’er cloud this light; / Ever be our faith thus bright.

Choir rehearsals are at 9:10 on Sunday mornings. All are welcome!

December 21st, we will be receiving the Christmas Fund for the Veterans of the Cross Offering. This is an annual UCC offering that expresses our thanks to retired and active UCC pastors and lay church workers and their families facing emergency financial need, providing direct assistance to supplement pensions, help with the cost of medical insurance,  and thank you gifts at Christmas. This is also one of the 5 for 5 Offerings taken by the Maine Conference. Also, envelopes will be available for Hancock UCC’s My Christmas Offering, if you so choose. Envelopes are available in your bulletin or at the back of the Sanctuary.

Mark your calendar for Wednesday, December 24^th. We will have a family friendly Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at 7:00 PM featuring Godly Play inspired Lessons and Carols.

Pastor TJ will be on vacation in Wisconsin from December 25 - January 8, 2026.

December 28th the laity of our congregation will lead the worship service.

Jeff Jeude will lead our worship service on January 4th.

Please keep the following people in your prayers this week:

Our prayers remain with Alex & Savannah and Andrew & Tamara, and with Tyler Crabtree and his family. We ask prayers for Sarina’s Dad who is recovering from a major stroke. We pray for David, Brian, Donald, Kenny V, Brad, James, Marie, and Jane of Golden Acres. Prayers for Yvonne; Jeanne’s brother Clem, Kate W.; Mike & Carol; Dexter B.; Cynthia W.; Judith C.; Eleanor A.; the Raymonds; Hollis & Debbie; Bruce’s sister Lynn; Patrice’s step-sister Patricia; Cathy C; Kirk; Ruth; Herbie Lounder; Sandy Phippen; Jonathan Holmes; Sue Davies; Sue Davenport; Kenny Stratton & Joy & David & Lori & Melissa; Debbie & Lincoln & Aaron & Ashley & Brielle. Prayers for all in Hospice Care. Prayers for all that are unsafe, unhoused, hungry & in need of care & compassion. Prayers for individuals and families affected by addictions. Prayers for all caregivers. Prayers for those who are grieving loss or change or experiencing family conflict; and prayers for all that is in your heart…

Church Council will meet Friday, December 19th at 11:00 am.

December Birthdays

21: Mary Angela Davis         27: Jennifer Ashmore

The First Congregational Church of Blue Hill is offering a Blue Christmas/Longest Night service to recognize that the season is not “merry and bright” for everyone and offers hope in a season when long days may make us especially mourn the loss of loved ones. All are welcome to join them downstairs in their Jonathan Fisher Hall at 5:00PM on Sunday, December 21^st for a candlelight service of prayer, scripture, song, and silence.

FMI call the Blue Hill Church Office at 374-2891.

Dear Community ~

You are warmly invited to gather for a Winter Solstice Spiral on Monday, December 22nd, at dusk - at the soccer field by the tennis courts, in Hancock.

As the year leans into its darkest night, we’ll walk the spiral slowly and in silence, each carrying a small light to guide us inward. This simple, heartfelt ritual helps us kindle warmth and hope within ourselves—an invitation to notice the quiet magic that lives inside the darkness and the subtle return of the sun.

Please dress warmly, as we’ll be outdoors. Bring nothing, we have enough candles for everyone. All ages are welcome.

Afterward, we’ll head indoors to share some warmth together. If you’d like, feel free to bring a side dish for a warm drink and a cozy potluck.

We hope you’ll join us in welcoming the light back in.

     – The Fountains

   2025/26 Building Repair Campaign

 We've received $56,900 so far with $18,650 outstanding for a total of $75,550!

From the Maine Conference

Dearly Beloved Ones of our Conference,

As I return from Sabbatical, I am eager and joyful to connect with you and bring you blessings of hope, peace, joy, and love, as we anticipate the coming—one more time—of the One who is “God-with-us.” I pray that each of you knows the special love that surrounds us all year round and is perhaps closer and clearer this season. I also continue to have such gratitude for our Annual Meeting in October—the relationships, the Oneness in Christ despite our differences, our commitment to feel the sorrow in the world but not allow ourselves to be overcome by it—instead covenanting one with another to join with our God and one another to make a difference in this pained and crying world.

I would be remiss if I did not sadly mention the violence that we witnessed this past weekend—one more time that left students unsafe and traumatized; that reminded us that hatred is alive and well on planet earth against our Jewish siblings. My heart hurts just writing these words. But hearing about violence over and over again has not numbed me. Hearing each time has given me more and more resolve to actively work for justice in any way I can. I realize such actions must be in relationship with those who are also committed to acting for justice—justice that is not just an absence of violence or war—justice that is determined to follow in the footsteps of Jesus who actively brought hope to the shunned, radically welcomed the marginalized, embraced the stranger and showed them home, relentlessly admonished the powerful to care.

Dear Beloved Ones, may we, this Christmas, rejoice that God is with us all year round in our homes and relationships, in our churches and schools and hospitals. May we embrace one another as we mourn and hug many with love and joy. And may we re-affirm our commitment to be in covenant with one another to be Jesus’ feet, hands, and voice in life sustaining ways. We are not able to stop all the violence, prejudice, blatant racism and homophobia in our country and our world. But maybe we can together change ourselves and encourage others to change more toward being actors of justice and not just spectators.

I feel like we made that commitment at our Annual Meeting—as much as we committed to one another to be in covenant together to love in the midst of sadness, (and we cannot do it alone) together to believe unwaveringly in the undergirded hope that God holds all of us no matter how many times we mess up; that God gives us vision no matter how often our sight is blurred; that God holds our future even when we’re so unsure of it.

Know hope, dear ones, for God holds our future. Know peace, dear ones, for a peace that is not just the absence of violence, for joy that is not based on happenstance (as happiness is), but is steeped in a deep knowing of our God who loves us with an unending love—that love we cannot push away—that love that surrounds us always.

I share with you a very familiar prayer by Howard Thurman. It is written below. You will not hear from me again until January (except if you are on Facebook), as Midweek news will take a hiatus until January 7.

With deep prayers and abiding love,

     Marisa

when the star in the sky is gone,

when the kings and princes are home,

when the shepherds are back with their flocks,

the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal the broken,

to feed the hungry,

to release the prisoner,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among the people,

to make music in the heart.

UCC GMP issues statement following mass shootings of this past weekend

by Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia A. Thompson

 | published on Dec 15, 2025

UCC General Minister and President/CEO the Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson has released a statement in the wake of several mass shootings that occurred this past weekend. In Providence, Rhode Island, a shooting at Brown University claimed the lives of two students, and a mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration left 15 dead at Bondi Beach, Australia. You can read her full statement below.

Once again gun violence has been the cause of tragedy and death in communities in the United States and in Australia. Shootings over the weekend at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia left 2 dead at Brown and 15 dead at Bondi Beach.

These acts of violence shattered the security of a college community at Brown University and violated the sanctity of religious celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia. We hold in prayer the loved ones of those who were murdered and the many injured, as well as the communities which are left reeling in the wake of violence.

We join our siblings in the Uniting Church in Australia to stand in solidarity with the Jewish community, who had gathered to celebrate Hanukkah, and to condemn this antisemitic violence. Such brutal acts of cowardice are driven by hate, fear, and misunderstanding which are cynically exploited by purveyors of hate and division and to be denounced.

We call again on our elected leaders to address the pervasiveness of gun violence in the United States, an ever-growing threat which plagues our communities.

The light and love of this holy holiday season call us to reject violent rhetoric and action and to recommit to the path of peace, where hope and joy are experienced and love is shared by all.

God of life, you did not create people for evil; yet evil finds its way into our communities, homes, and hearts. What can we do? We turn to you. Pour out your Spirit among us anew.

Heal the hate and the divisiveness which is a poison. Fill us with compassion which motivates action, honoring the life and dignity of each one. Comfort all who mourn, heal the injured, and bring peace to those in trauma. Lead us in your holy way.