Hancock UCC Weekly Messenger for July 26, 2026

Bind us together, Lord, Bind us together

With cords that cannot be broken

Bind us together, Lord, Bind us together

Bind us together in Love 

Sunday, July 26, we will join our friends and neighbors at the Hancock Point Chapel for our Annual Joint Service at 10 am. Rev. Dr. Alison Boden, preaching.

The choir will meet at 9:30 am at the chapel to practice for the 10 am service.

The Monteux student musicians for Sunday will be violinists Chelsea Xuereb and Kiley Foxhall.

Chelsea Xuereb is an active soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. Xuereb is the First Prize winner of the June 2025 Music Talent Award Competition in the National Category, and a recipient of the Excellence in Orchestra Award and the John J. Cali Young Artist Award at Montclair State University. Committed to performing music from the classical canon alongside that of our time, she curates programs that bring together traditional repertoire with works by contemporary composers. Chelsea has collaborated with Maltese composer Dr. Veronique Vella as well as has recently debuted two pieces by emerging composers Kylan Hillman and Gian Torrano Jacobs. At Montclair Symphony Orchestra, Centre Symphony Orchestra, Collegium Musicum NY, she has held concertmaster, associate concertmaster, and principal second violinist positions and has also appeared with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra in a Malta Youth Orchestra side-by-side concert. Chelsea has performed at Carnegie Hall, and at Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall with Grammy Award–winning ensembles Time for Three and the Attacca Quartet. She has shared the stage with internationally renowned pianist Lara Downes, violinist Vijay Gupta, and composer/violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain. Chelsea holds a Master of Music from Montclair State University and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Malta. Her current teacher is Gary Capozziello. Chelsea plays on a Michael A. Daddona violin (2025).

Kiley Foxhall is a passionate orchestral and chamber violinist from Poughkeepsie, NY. She has played with many groups throughout New York and New Jersey, including the Woodstock Symphony Orchestra, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Westchester Symphony Orchestra, Northern Dutchess Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra of the Southern Fingerlakes. She was also recently a guest artist at the Rome Free Academy, where she spent a day working with talented high schoolers, teaching masterclasses, and giving a chamber and solo performance. She has appeared at venues such as Merkin Hall, performing with the Kronos Quartet, and Woodstock Playhouse. Previously, she has attended Hunter International Music Festival, Online Solo Strings Institute, Renova Festival, and Music at Port Milford, where she was able to study with Fabiola Kim, Curtis Stewart, Jannina Norpoth, Min Jeong-Koh, Catherine Cosbey, Tokai String Quartet, and Quator Saguenay. Growing up, the Jasper String Quartet would visit her high school twice a year to give masterclasses and coachings, which is what inspired her to pursue a career as a violinist instead of her other passion: theatre! She aspires to be a chamber musician and continue working with orchestras. Kiley earned her Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance at Ithaca College, where she studied with Calvin Wiersma and Christina Bouey. She is currently pursuing her Master of Music in Violin Performance at Montclair State University, studying with Michael Roth. In her graduate studies at Montclair, she fulfills her passion for orchestral music within her role as the Graduate Assistant to the Orchestra.

Join us at Tidal Falls each Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. for a 25-30 minute contemplative service grounded in the prayer books of John Philip Newell. No experience needed. All are welcome! Thank you to Nancy Gourlie and Robin Stratton for volunteering to be our leaders this summer.

Angela Absher is back and the Meditation Group is meeting at the Hancock Point Chapel on Friday mornings  at 9:00 am for the summer. All are welcome! Reach out to Alison Boden with any questions. (aboden3321@gmail.com, 609-865-3236)

The Crabtree Memorial Library has been updated.

Please stop by and take a look, and check out something of interest to you. The library is located in the Choir Room.

LIVE at the Milbridge Theater

        26 Main St,. Milbridge

Saturday, August 8 and 15 at 7:00 pm

Sunday, August 9 and 16 at 3:00 pm

$8 – Child  $12 – Adult

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Your help for the Plant Sale is needed!

The plant sale will, once again, be part of the Church Fair.  We need donations of perennials (native plants are welcome!), house plants and all plant related items such as clay or ceramic pots, gardening tools, etc.  If you need help with your plants, contact Robin Long at 249-8021.  Thank you!

Birthdays:

     July 27: Joy Stratton                   July 28: Robin Long

August

09: Denny Doucette            14: Amelia Ashmore              14: Jane Lennon

23: Gerry Mehl              24: Cynthia Wood               25: Austin Crowley-Dunn

Please keep the following people in your prayers this week:

Prayers for all God’s creation, that peace may prevail here and around the world. Our prayers remain with Aaron & Ashley, Lincoln & Debbie, Alex & Savannah, Andrew & Tamara, Tyler Crabtree and all of their families. We pray for all those who live and work at Golden Acres. Prayers for Bobby, recovering from a stroke. We pray for Betty Johnston; Sonny & Gerry; Scott; Dean; David; Don; Dexter B.; Cynthia W.; Judith C.; Debbie; Kirk; Ruth & Peter; Patrice’s step-sister Patricia; Herbie Lounder; Sandy Phippen; David Mack; Sue Davies; Sue Davenport. Prayers for all in Hospice Care and for all caregivers. Prayers for all that are unsafe, unhoused, hungry & in need of care & compassion. Prayers for individuals and families affected by mental illness and addictions. Prayers for those who are experiencing family conflict; and prayers for all that is in your heart…

Next Sunday, August 2, our guest lay preacher will be Peter Schay. Peter resides in Burlington, NC, and works as a cybersecurity operations manager, having 53 years of professional experience in information technology and consulting. His extended family has owned a home on Jellison Cove Road in Hancock since the late 1980s.

Mr. Schay has been an active member of UCC churches in Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and North Carolina. He has served as both chair of the Board of Deacons and chair of the Board of Trustees at United Church of Chapel Hill, NC, which he joined in 2014. He has also been active in the UCC above the local church, serving as a lay member on the Committees on Ministry of the Fairfield West Association (Southern New England Conference) and Eastern North Carolina Association, President of the Board of Directors of the UCC Southern Conference, and as a voting delegate from the Southern Conference to the UCC 2023 and 2025 General Synods. Mr. Schay has a BS from Yale University, MS from Northwestern University, and MBA from Boston University.

A Letter from our Conference Minister

 Rev. Dr. Marisa Laviola PhD. 

Do you know you are beloved? Do you?

You may respond with a resounding “yes”, or like me, you may respond something like:

I don’t know. I’ve been feeling kind of “unbeloved” lately. I’m having some very strong and not so positive feelings about what’s going on around me. Our relatives are disagreeing like crazy about politics and we can’t even have conversations anymore, my pastor is preaching “welcome the stranger” and that Jesus was an immigrant in Egypt, and I am deeply dismayed with how we treat the immigrants in our country. And the killings! This dear father in Biddeford who was minding his own business—and the forever impact on his little girl! I can turn on the news and hear two diametrically opposed commentaries on everything from what happened in Biddeford to whether or not we’re at war with Iran to when we’re going to know relief from rising prices. I went to a peaceful protest, and it was scary. People are just so angry and fed up! And then there’s one more disease we have to worry about: cyclosporiasis. It hasn’t reached Maine, or has it?

Maybe you can resonate with:

I’m angry, I’m scared, and people are being so unkind to one another. Am I beloved? I don’t think any of us are right now.

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Knowing you are beloved is both the coolest and the most unbelievable experience that is ours for the taking. You can have any feeling, even the extra strong ones that make us so uncomfortable. You may not be talking with the neighbors or your relatives because every conversation goes south. You may be thinking and feeling some pretty “unchristian” things right now. You may not even feel like going to church.

And yet, you are beloved.

Why?

You are beloved because you can’t push God away no matter what you think or do, and you can’t pull God toward you no matter what you think or do.

Because God is with you NO MATTER WHAT, in you, beside you, over you, under you.

Because God is love

Because you are God’s child and made you.

Need I say more, Beloved?

I invite each and every one of you to take a moment, put the midweek news down, settle into your chair, or stand or lie down quietly wherever you are—

And then…

say to yourself at least 20 times:

I am beloved. I can’t push God away with my thoughts or behavior. I can’t bring God closer with my thoughts or behavior. I am beloved because God is love; because I am God’s child.

And now the hard, almost impossible part. The part I struggle with the most:

EVERYONE is beloved.

Even the one who spews hate

Even the one who perpetrates violence against the innocent

Even the one who rejects LGBTQ folks and takes away food and healthcare from the poor

I tried thinking of one or two people I have a real difficulty with, and as I said to them in my mind’s eye 20 times:

You are beloved. You can’t push God away with your thoughts or behavior. You can’t bring God closer with your thoughts or behavior. You are beloved because God is love; because you are God’s child,

My jaw clenched, my breath caught…... I think I need practice.

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Dear Beloved of the Maine Conference, love is the only way out of the quagmire we’re in. Love is the constant, regardless of what’s going on around us or within us. And we who follow God, follow Jesus’ teachings and words, are called, yes summoned, by God to spread love.

It’s easier with many, it’s harder with many. And it takes a lot of prayer.

Sometimes love means speaking the truth of how someone’s behavior harms

Sometimes love means protest in the face of hate and the egregious attack of innocents

Sometimes love means walking away for now when conversation gets us nowhere

Sometimes love means voting as followers of Jesus’ life and message to welcome the stranger, care for the poor, embrace all with extravagant welcome

Sometimes love means countering the hate filled beliefs of White Christian Nationalists who eschew the work and teachings of Jesus.

Beloved my words are not a prescription of what to do or how to act. My words are an invitation to prayerfully consider how to embrace God’s love for ourselves and spread God’s love to all we encounter.

God envelopes us with all the love we need. Jesus provides us with clear teaching and example. The spirit of the Risen Christ emboldens us as resurrection people.

I am your partner in the love of God, the teaching of Jesus, and the challenge and empowerment of the Holy Spirit,              Marisa