Hancock UCC Weekly Messenger for April 6, 2025

 In faith we’ll ga­ther round the ta­ble,

To taste and share what love can do.

This is a day of new be­gin­nings;

Our God is mak­ing all things new.

The choir rehearses Sunday mornings at 9:10 a.m. All are welcome.

This Sunday we will share Holy Communion.  For those who will receive the sacraments at home, please prepare a piece of bread or a cracker, and a cup of juice or wine and join us at the table. Also, we will be receiving non-perishable food items, toiletries, and pet food for the Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry as we do on the first Sunday of every month.

Join us for lightly guided meditation at 9:00 a.m. on Fridays in our Sanctuary.

All are welcome!

HOLY WEEK

Palm Sunday Service – Sunday, April 13th 10 am with a palm parade and palms to take home

Maundy Thursday Tenebrae Service with Communion – Thursday, April 17th, 7 pm

Easter Sunrise Service at Riverside Cemetery – Sunday, April 20th, 6:00 am, Hancock,

behind Hancock Grammar School (In case of rain, the service will be held in the church Fellowship Hall)

Easter Morning Breakfast in the church Fellowship Hall – Sunday April 20th, 6:45 am

Donations gratefully accepted, everyone is welcome.

Traditional Easter Morning Worship Service – Sunday April 20th, 10 am, followed by Fellowship Time.

Our meetings are open to all. If you would like to attend a meeting, please let Vicky know and she will provide the Zoom link, or you are welcome to attend in person.

Deacons will meet Friday, April 11 at 3:00 pm

Trustees will meet virtually on Wednesday, April 23 at 12:00 pm

Outreach will meet Thursday, April 24 at 4:15 pm

Council will meet Friday, April 25 at 11:30 am

April Birthdays and Anniversaries

09: Jane Bradley         13: Nancy Johnston     14: Dennis & Linda King

16: Jack & Delores Candy        19:  Linda King           19: Keith Bowie

21: Mary Beth DiMarco        21: Brian Simpson      22: Betty Johnston     

26: John & Chris Wells         27: Jeff Springer             30: Ruth Butters

The Outreach Team is providing a hot dinner for the guests who utilize Healthy Acadia’s Warming Center in Ellsworth. Monetary donations can be made to Tamara and she will shop for ingredients OR you may

make food donations to be dropped off at the church by Sunday, April 13th. If you have any questions, please call or text Tamara at 207-460-4148 or email at Crowley_tamara@yahoo.com.

FOOD DONATION OPPORTUNITIES:

TACO BAR DINNER

 Dinner is for approximately 25 guests

●       4 lbs ground beef

●       4 packages shredded chicken

 ●       4 packages of soft tortillas (10 – 20 count)

●       4 boxes of hard taco shells  (12 count)

●       3 large jars of salsa (mild / medium)

●       4 large bags of shredded cheese

●       3 large heads of iceburg lettuce

●       10 tomatoes

●       3 large yellow onions

●       2 squeeze bottles of sour cream

●       3 large bags of tortilla chips

●       Pies / cake / other dessert options

2025 Hancock County Food Drive.

The Hancock Grammar School BackPack program has benefited from this effort for several years.

Kick-off Event - April 5th

at Shaw's & Hannaford

10 AM - 5 PM

HGS Backpack Program volunteers will be at Shaw's with support from the Hancock County Sheriff's office from 10 - 2.

Please keep the following people in your prayers this week:

Prayers for Rohanna Madigan and family on the recent death of her father, Richard Smullen. Prayers for Pat’s daughter, Mary Shannon-Riley. Prayers for Alex, Andrew and Tamara; and for Tyler Crabtree. Prayers for Donald B.; Kenny V.; Orrick; Brian; and Jane of Golden Acres. Prayers for Cynthia W.; Judith C.; Eleanor A.; Ira and Ginny; Don and Heather; Bruce’s sister Lynn; Sally’s friend, Sue Barger; Herbie Lounder; Ruth; Marie; Jim Snyder; Jonathan Holmes; John Wood; Sue Davies; Sue Davenport; Liz & Jim; Kenny Stratton & Joy & David & Lori & Melissa; Debbie & Lincoln & son-in-law Aaron, daughter Ashley, and granddaughter Brielle; Sandy Phippen; Amy Nickerson; Kevin and Vanessa & family. Prayers of strength and healing for all awaiting diagnoses and for all recovering from surgeries & procedures. Prayers for all that are unsafe, unhoused, hungry & in need of care & compassion. Prayers for all caregivers; those who are grieving; and prayers for all that is in your heart…

To my Beloveds of the Hancock UCC Church community,

Words are inadequate  – but are all I have at the moment… I offer my deepest gratitude and sincere thanks for all the ways that you individually and collectively came together to support me, allowing me precious time with my family.

Peace and love,

    Pastor TJ

Also, for those that would like a snapshot of who my Dad was to our family, I offer these remarks that I shared at this Celebration of Life on March 15th in Roxbury, Wisconsin.

“Welcome and thank you for being here. I am TJ, Don and Carol’s middle child. What a privilege it is to be together today.

Our hearts ache but we are filled with gratitude that Dad had a rich and full life.

Mom and Dad exchanged their wedding vows over 66 years ago. We are all saddened by his death; but recognize that this was the eventual best case scenario to the words “‘til death do us part.”

When someone dies, we reminisce about our favorite memories – to keep our loved ones alive in our hearts and minds. Our family will share a couple of our stories about Dad and we invite you to share some of yours.

Our dad was a house husband during winter layoffs from his work as a Heavy Equipment Operator. He kept busy cooking and cleaning, in addition to his random home improvement projects.

Dad was a great cook. Beef stew was his specialty. There was a recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens magazine in 1962 for beef stew that Dad modified and made his own. In later years, we would follow the recipe and wonder why our beef stew didn’t taste like Dad’s beef stew. At first he would say that we weren’t browning the meat long enough. Eventually, when pressed, he admitted that the recipe calls for a dash of cloves or allspice and he used both. So when we made the stew we added both. Still, our stew didn’t taste like Dad’s stew. Turns out, Dad had a very minimal sense of smell so he kept adding both cloves and allspice until he could finally smell them. With Dad’s heavy hand, that dash of clove or allspice probably became a teaspoon or more of each spice. And yes, it tasted very good. And yes, we are learning to be very generous with the spices when we make a batch. And no, none of us have ever gotten it quite right. It is something to aspire to…

We know that few families are as fortunate as we are. We five kids won the Mom and Dad lottery. Each of them were able to make us all feel as if we were their favorite - while at the same time knowing - that they cherished each of us equally.

Checkers was Dad’s “go to” board game. We played frequently. I will never forget an early life lesson when he was teaching me to play when I was 6 or 7. I wanted to make a move to set up a jump, but it would have required him to not jump my checker when it was his turn. “I won’t” he said and then promptly took my checker when it was his turn. The lessons? Not to be gullible or naive. And certainly he was instilling the value of never throwing a game! In time, he loved to teach his grandkids and great-grandkids to play Checkers too.

Carla - was or is, quite possibly the best among us at following directions. She is certainly the most creative. Dad always said, “Do not spend money on cards or presents.” She made cards. Hilarious cards. Sweet cards. Check out some samples on the photo boards. I will share this one with you because it was one of my favorites. 

One Father’s Day / Birthday card includes her Top 10 Dad quotes :

10. “It’s more afraid of you than you are of it!”

9.   “Thunder is just God bowling.”

8.  “So what if the power went out. Pretend you’re on Little House on the Prairie.”

7.  “Watch out for my beer can!”

6.  “You don’t have to go barreling up to those stop signs!”

5.  “There’s no laughing at the table!”

4.  “Achhh!”

3.  “You don’t have to spend it all!”

2.  “Check your oil!”

1.  “Do as I say, not as I do!”

Dad believed in the idea of everything in moderation… Butter… Beer.  Red Meat… Eggs… You are undoubtedly aware of all the health studies over the past decades advising margarine instead of butter, white meat instead of red meat… Whenever a new health study came out Dad pointedly ignored it - and many of them were later debunked or walked back. He was proud that he ignored, and subsequently outlived, all of those health advisories.

What I think we all might miss most about Dad is his constancy. He could always be counted on. He was always there for us. One example: All of us kids played sports. That is something that Dad shared with us from early ages. When we began playing organized sports he came to every game, even after a tiring day at work, he would come watch our teams play, sometimes driving directly from the job site to sit in the bleachers to cheer us on. And in the summers, after working all day he would go out in the yard with Carla so that she could practice pitching. (Which is the origin of #7 from Carla’s list – “Watch out for my beer can!”) He coached her, and sometimes me and Donna, in the Roxbury summer softball league. He coached Kevin and Brian’s CYO baseball teams. He created lasting memories for us for which we are eternally grateful.

We look forward to the coming years together, as a family, remembering Dad, telling the stories, sharing the memories. We would consider it a gift and an honor if you would share some of your stories about our Dad / Donnie with us.”               ~ TJ

From the Maine Conference, United Church of Christ

A Letter from our Associate Conference Minister

                              John Fiscus

Isaiah 30:21

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

 I am a terrible side-seat driver. I usually have one eye on the speedometer, one eye on the map, one hand on the grab bar and a throat filled with sighs or gasps. For the record, this all predates living in a new state where every journey is new territory and every road unknown. When I am driving things are somewhat better, but I have often found myself heading to Canada or Boston rather than home. Every day in a car in Maine is practically a new journey into the unknown for me. My GPS is often making its passive-aggressive ding at us when it recalculates the route.

The image in Isaiah of a voice in your ear saying this is the way would be a lovely GPS for life. I am sure that the voice over my lifetime has too often been recalculating the route. It has been almost a year since coming to Maine became my unfolding direction. Even that journey was not as direct as I would have it. An unexpected medical delay pushed my original plans. Housing costs in two states were a balancing act. My learning curves felt like a mountain road full of switchbacks rather than gentle drifting plains. Even with all that twisting and momentum I still heard and felt the voice of God in all of this.

As I am writing this I am actively working with twenty-two churches in some aspect of pastoral search or need. To many of those churches, the journey of listening and looking feels daunting. They too are straining to listen to the voice calling them left or right. But they are not the only churches in need. Finances, attendance, governance, committee structures and interpersonal conflicts have their own way of generating stress among the faithful. When you add the widening ideological conflicts of our nation and world we live in a time of stress. Where are the grab bars on the road of life?

I know one thing that is true of my own stress is that silence and listening help lower my anxiety. When I drive or am driven to a new place I can listen to music or a book only along the clear paths I know. When the twisty and unknown curves are eminent, I need to remove the noise and focus on the path. In other aspects of life this focused attention is also about removing the noise. I strive to listen to people telling me their needs and then offering back “here is what I am hearing” for clarity. How often are the stresses related to not hearing or listening to others?

When using this approach, I am often reminded of the words in James 1. “ Know this, my beloved siblings: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of humankind does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:19-21) I think that James believed what Isaiah prophesied about the voice calling left or right… for me it seems like the meekness of the implanted word is that same voice.

My prayer for us all is that God whispers the left and rights into our ears. And that we seek the stillness to be able to hear. May God recalculate our routes often and with grace.

 Amen

Easter Flowers

If you would like to help beautify the church with Easter flowers please fill out the form below and return it to the office by April 13th. (Easter is April 20th.)

A donation of $15.00 is suggested. Cash or checks, please.

Checks payable to Union Congregational Church of Hancock.

Please indicate whether your donation is in honor of or in loving memory of…

Your Name:__________________________________  Phone:____________________

How do you wish to have the bulletin read?

In honor of ________________________________________________________________

In loving memory of_________________________________________________________

 Amount paid ___________