Brecksville UCC

09/02/2026

Rest in peace, Pierre Damas Bel.

This week the world lost a bright young man. He was a student, an athlete, and a son who came to this country hoping for a better life. Pierre was only 20. He loved soccer, was proud of his Haitian heritage, and dreamed of becoming a doctor one day.

Scripture doesn't leave room for ambiguity on how we're to treat the stranger among us. Leviticus 19:34 instructs us to love the stranger among us as ourselves, since we too were once strangers in a foreign land. And in Matthew 25:35, Jesus counts welcoming the stranger among the acts of love done for him directly.

Pierre's story is a painful reminder of how heavy the weight of fear and shame can become for someone who feels unwelcome. As a church family, we're called not to political debate but to something simpler and harder: compassion. To see the immigrant, the refugee, the newcomer not as an issue but as a neighbor, made in the image of God, worthy of dignity, welcome, and love.

Please hold Pierre's family in your prayers this week. And let this moment renew our commitment to be a community where every stranger finds welcome.

08/29/2026

Today is the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. The UN set this date aside in 2009, marking the anniversary of the 1991 closure of the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. This was a place where over 450 nuclear tests were carried out over four decades, with lasting effects on the health of nearby communities that are still felt today.

This isn't a partisan issue. Even Cold War rivals could agree on this much. As Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev put it in 1985: "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."

As people of faith, we hold onto the hope that peace between nations is possible, and we lift up all those still living with the consequences of nuclear testing around the world.

08/28/2026

Sixty-three years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered one of the most enduring speeches in American history. A quarter of a million people had gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and King gave voice to a vision of racial justice and reconciliation that still challenges us today: "I have a dream today."

That dream wasn't just about tolerance. It was about true equality, dignity, and beloved community. As a church, we believe that vision is deeply connected to peace itself. There's no real peace without justice, and no justice without the hard, ongoing work of reconciliation.

On this anniversary, we're asking ourselves: where is that dream still unfinished, and what part do we have to play in finishing it?

(Want to read the full speech? It's worth your time — you can find it through the National Archives or the King Center.)

08/26/2026

08/19/2026

🙏🏾 This is a prayer my nine year old granddaughter and I say together:

“Dear Jesus, you are the Prince of Peace. Help us find Peace. Because we people are very bad at it. Amen.”

-Juliana Holm
Furnace, PA

👉🏾 Share your prayers with us: https://ow.ly/pG9g50ZAHqV

08/19/2026

Today is World Humanitarian Day. It's been observed every year since 2009, marking the anniversary of the 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which took the lives of 22 aid workers who were simply there to help.

It's a day to remember them, and to honor everyone who runs toward a crisis instead of away from it.

Audrey Hepburn, who spent her later years as a UNICEF ambassador, put it simply: "As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others."

We don't have to travel across the world to be humanitarians. Today's a good day to ask who in our own lives, or our own community, needs the second hand.

08/16/2026

August 16th is Harm Reduction Justice Sunday in the UCC — a day the denomination set aside (after a resolution at the 2023 General Synod) to talk openly about substance use, overdose, and how we as a church show up for people in the middle of it. It falls just ahead of International Overdose Awareness Day on August 31st.

Jesus wasn't shy about who he spent his time with. He said plainly, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" (Luke 5:31). That's kind of the whole heart of harm reduction — meeting people exactly where they are, without judgment, and loving them there.

For all those whom we have loved and lost. And for all those who need to know that they are loved and that they are not lost.

08/16/2026