Grace United Church Fort Atkinson

09/01/2026

Wendell Berry died yesterday. He spoke out about the dangers of agribusiness/farms and rallied for independent family farms. He was a a prophet, poet, activist, and healer. Thankful for his witness.

Shall we do without hope? Some days
there will be none. But now
to the dead and dry woods floor
they come again, the first
flowers of the year, the assembly
of the faithful, the beautiful,
wholly given to being.
And in this long season
of machines and mechanical will
there have been small human acts
of compassion, acts of care, work
flowerlike in selfless loveliness.
Leaving hope to the dark
and to a better day,
receive these beauties freely
given, and give thanks.

- Wendell Berry

08/26/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Gkag5w9CS/

I can gather around this kind of Christian and everyday prophet. Well done good and faithful servant.

For the lives she touched, the wisdom she shared, and the joyful noise that she made, we give thanks.

Rest well, good and faithful servant.

08/24/2026

We don't draw lines at Grace United, we welcome and affirm all. Jesus set the model we work together to follow.

Religion has often been dangerously good at deciding who God doesn’t want.

And then Jesus keeps showing up with those people.

Religion often sorts people.

Clean. Unclean.
Righteous. Sinner.
Us. Them.

And Jesus keeps crossing the line.

Samaritans.
Lepers.
Tax collectors.
Foreigners.
The poor.
Women pushed aside by religious culture.

Jesus walked toward people that religion walked away from.

Religion has a long history of calling that distance faithfulness.

Sometimes we call it tradition.
“Well, that’s how I was raised.”

Maybe.

But Jesus repeatedly said, “You have heard that it was said…” challenging inherited assumptions.

Sometimes following Jesus means admitting what we inherited was wrong.

But that gets harder when our inheritance is wrapped in a flag, called patriotism, and presented as something God needs defended.

That’s part of what makes Christian Nationalism so seductive.

It gives us insiders.
Outsiders.
A sacred identity.
Enemies threatening all of it.

It can give insecurity a cape.

Fear becomes courage, grievance becomes calling, and suddenly you’re one of God’s righteous Avengers — defending "Christianity" while practicing remarkably little of what Jesus actually taught.

Which gets awkward because Jesus didn’t tell us to defeat our enemies.

He told us to love them.

Then Matthew 25 gets even more uncomfortable.

The hungry.
The stranger.
The sick.
The prisoner.

We say, “those people.”
Jesus says, “Me.”

And we can’t just blame politicians.

They are only able to manipulate Christianity when Christians prefer a faith that tells us who to fear and fight over a Jesus who tells us who to love.

That part is on us.

We can put Christianity in government.
In schools. In laws. On walls.

But if loving our neighbor is “woke,” loving our enemies is weak, welcoming the stranger is dangerous, and mercy is naïve…

we haven’t made Christianity stronger.

We’ve removed Christ from it.

So maybe the question isn’t whether America looks Christian enough.

Maybe it’s whether Christians look enough like Jesus.

If the line we draw puts us opposite the people Jesus moved toward, it also puts us opposite Jesus.

08/22/2026

Join us tomorrow for our monthly Community Service Sunday, where we step out of the sanctuary to meet the needs of our neighbors.

Tomorrow we will begin planning for a 2027 Pride festival. Bring your ideas and joy - we’ll provide the coffee!

Image description: a banner hanging in a church reads “hate has no home here” with graphics of fists raised in the air. The upraised arms wear a rainbow of different colors. Text over the image says “Community Service Sunday: August 23 | 10am, 1631 Janesville Ave Fort Atkinson, WI”.

08/09/2026

08/08/2026

Join us for church tomorrow at 10!

What to expect:
Church service starts at 10. Come as you are, you will be welcome! We open with our congregational covenant, prayer, and a hymn. Pastor Lori then leads us in the sermon, where we dive deeper into the week’s Bible passage. We pray together, sing a few more hymns, and the service wraps up around 10:45-11.

After the service, many make a b-line for the coffee and snacks in the fellowship hall. This is a casual time to check in with each other, talk about our week, and share some sweet treats.

We hope you’ll join us tomorrow!

Grace United Church
1631 Janesville Ave, Fort Atkinson WI

08/07/2026

ISO community spaces that could use some bird habitat and cheer!

We recently built and painted over a dozen birdhouses as part of our Community Service Sundays, and now they're ready to deploy! If you know of a nursing or memory care home, natural area, school, or other community space that would benefit from a birdhouse, please DM us or email us at graceunited1631 [at] gmail [dot] com.

08/05/2026

Have an August birthday? Here's to you!

Loving God, we celebrate our friends and family who are having birthdays this month. We give thanks for the love and joy they share with us. We ask a birthday blessing upon them that they may know they are loved beyond measure.

08/04/2026

"It is at this table the hungry will be fed."

We celebrate communion on the first Sunday of each month. This past Sunday we ate the bread and drank the wine (and juice), remembering the gift of life we receive through Christ; we also heard a sermon from Pastor Lori on the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21).

In this story, Jesus and his disciples are in a remote place but a huge crowd follows them there to hear Jesus's teaching. At the end of the day, the disciples approach Jesus and point out there is no food in this remote area, and suggest he send them away to find their dinner. But instead, Jesus tells them that they, the disciples, will feed them. Perplexed but faithful, the disciples start handing out the meagre food they brought. This is when the miracle happens: their baskets never empty. The bread and fish don't run out. Not only did they have enough to feed the 5,000 men who are tallied, but the women and the children in attendance, too. Through Jesus, they likely fed over 10,000 people.

This is what we celebrate when we come to the communion table: the abundance of God, even in the face of insurmountable scarcity. How can you carry the basket of God's abundant provision into the crowd today?