Grace and Peace, friends.

By the time you are reading this, we are more than halfway through the liturgical season of Lent, and Holy Week is on the way. I hope this season has been a rich time of reflection for you. I pray that it has been “full to the brim” with an awareness of God’s overflowing grace and love for you and the whole of creation. In worship, on our social media, and in the Lenten prayer bundles we offered, this has been our Lenten theme: “Full to the Brim.” 

In a time in our world when things feel more overwhelming than usual, when we are tempted by scarcity and not abundance, when we are more apt to focus on what limits us than what is possible with God’s help, focusing on an expansive life, an expansive Lent, is fitting. Full to the Brim is an invitation—into a radically different Lent, into a full life. It’s an invitation to be authentic, to counter scarcity at every turn, and to pour out even more grace wherever it is needed. It is my sincere prayer that this season, you feel invited to be filled to the brim with God’s lavish love... a love that spills over.

We enter into Holy Week in a matter of days—those full, quiet, sacred days when we walk with Jesus toward the cross, the empty tomb, and resurrection. An expansive life means we are fully present to all that Holy Week contains: awe, beauty, and pain. However, we don’t do it alone. We face it as a community of faith, rooted in God’s love, together journeying toward new life in Christ. This year, I hope you join us in celebrating Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday here at church and around Middlebury. 

Holy Week at MiddUCC

• Palm Sunday: 10:00 a.m. in the sanctuary
  
• Maundy Thursday: 6:00 p.m. soup and bread in Fellowship Hall; 7:00 p.m. Maundy Thursday service in the sanctuary
  
• Good Friday: 12:00 p.m. ecumenical service at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
  
• Easter Sunday: 6:00 a.m. Easter Sunrise service at Alumni Stadium, Middlebury College; 10:00 a.m. service in the sanctuary.  

All are welcome. God bless you in these holy days. 

Peace,

Pastor Elizabeth

The Lenten Leaf Jar is up and running, and I have already heard some wonderful stories from children about the acts that they have chosen to do. The Leaf Jar is just outside the sanctuary, and children can take as many leaves as they want during the season of Lent.

The Junior Youth Group is working on a Lenten service project to benefit Homeward Bound. If you don’t know about Homeward Bound, you can learn more here: https://www.homewardboundanimals.org/.

I recently joined the United Church of Christ Musicians Association. Why had I not joined earlier during my time as Music Director of a UCC congregation? Honestly, I felt that our church had several unique programs and needs compared with other small town churches, and that we were constantly forging new pathways in music so that it would be challenging to find helpful and relevant input.

But at the beginning of this year I found myself in what felt like an enormous energy deficit, which led me to seek opportunities to hear from other church Music Directors, hoping that I could “re-fill” and “re-charge” for the work ahead. I really wanted to have something more to offer our choirs, our music participants, our congregation.

Upon joining UCCMA and browsing their web content, unsurprisingly, there were several articles of interest, and an opportunity to attend an upcoming webinar called “Royalties for Spirituals.” I signed up immediately. Online services of the pandemic have spurred us to ensure our church’s music is duly reported and that royalties are getting to the appropriate writers of text and composers of music. But there is not an avenue currently available through church licensure programs to pay dues for the body of Negro Spirituals that have no designated author, no arranger, and yet are used among choirs and congregations on a regular basis.

Susan DeSelmes, Minister of Music at United Parish in Brookline MA, recently launched an initiative for her congregation, seeking to engage in restorative justice by paying royalties on Negro Spirituals performed in their church. They give to Hamilton-Garrett Music and Arts, a local music school committed to cultivating the next generation of innovative artists through the celebration and preservation of Black music. Their church’s approach is that this is a debt owed, not a donation. Susan’s church takes up a collection on days that they sing Negro Spirituals, and they print a pledge in their bulletin that includes language stating that they know the debt to Black musicians and artists can never be fully repaid, but through their prayers, their gifts, and their actions, they strive to end systematic racism in America.

In Denver, Music Director Adam Waite at Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church is leading his congregation on the path to discern a similar program. He wonders, does it stop with performance of songs known specifically as Negro Spirituals, or should it be broader than that? If we acknowledge that Negro Spirituals – astutely identified by Czech composer Antonín Dvorâk in 1892 as America’s folk music (he was highly criticized for these comments) – shaped music genres like gospel, jazz, and the blues such that they have deeply influenced our church music, there is a great debt owed for these unarguable contributions by Black musicians.

In the coming weeks and months, I plan to talk further with the staff and leadership of our church to identify ways we can seek to do justice in this area of music royalties, and by doing so, work to end systematic racism. I am convinced that we can discern a path forward that means we, as presenters and consumers of Black and Black-influenced music, are part of rehabilitation, reparation, restoration, and reconciliation.

I am the new deacon charged with scheduling readers for our worship services. Many thanks to Ed Williams who devoted himself to this task for the past seven years! If you are interested in reading the call to worship and/or the scripture during worship, please contact me and I will add you to the reader list. If you're not sure whether you're on the list, or would like to confirm that you're on the list, please contact me as well. Thank you!

Gwen Nagy-Benson

nbgwen@gmail.com

802-545-2535

The month of April brings us through the end of Lent and into a season of rebirth, as we celebrate Easter and note the signs of a slowly awakening Vermont spring. The Green Team hopes that the Lenten practice, Think Twice: Buy Less, Waste Less (presented in March Church Matters), continues to have resonance beyond these 40 days as we continue to wrestle with the impact of our consumer habits on the Earth. 

As we honor creation through thoughtful consumer practices, we will also be celebrating Earth Day as a congregation with a special service on April 24 devoted to Creation Care. Additionally, the Green Team will be gathering at the church for Green Up Day, Saturday May 7, to do our part in our community; all are welcome to join the Midd UCC Green Up Crew. Save the dates, and stay tuned for more spring activities!

The Campaign to Retire the Debt concluded successfully on March 15. The goal of $450K has been exceeded, with a total of $508,715 being pledged. Pledge payments will continue through December 2024. The Church Council voted in January that surplus funds from the Campaign would be added to the Care and Maintenance of the Church Building account of the church's endowment. This transfer will take place after all loans to church members and to the National Bank of Middlebury have been repaid. A recent additional gift has initiated the "Russell Carpenter Memorial" fund in that building account, and further contributions are welcomed. We note that Russell was a strong advocate for retiring our debt as early as possible.

We extend heartfelt thanks to all church members and friends who helped us exceed the campaign goal. This milestone is the conclusion of a twelve-year process of planning, gathering input from members, and seeking funds needed to make our addition a reality for both the church and the community. Our fundraising was done in three stages, and a grand total exceeding $4.2 million was raised or pledged over ten years for new front steps, a renovated kitchen, and the new addition. A significant byproduct of these efforts was the gift of Charter House to the Charter House Coalition in 2018. Our church can take great pride in all that our combined efforts have achieved.

We note that our successes in these projects have come at a time of generous giving by a growing membership for the annual support of our ongoing and expanding church programs. Our membership exceeds 400, and the number of pledge units for our Annual Fund is now at 191. We have managed to expand our missions support, increase our support for the national United Church of Christ and its programs, add a full-time Associate Pastor, and provide increases in compensation for all church employees. We are indeed blessed by the remarkable generosity of our members and friends, year after year. Thank you!

Judy Albright, Church Administrator

Katy Smith Abbott, past Church Moderator

Rich Carpenter, Budget and Stewardship Committee Chair

John Emerson, Campaign Chair

Leanna Maglienti, Church Moderator

Andy Nagy-Benson, Senior Pastor

Jakee Zaccor, Digital Content Creator