Grinnell United Church of Christ

04/27/2026

04/11/2026

We are happy to introduce a Coffee Connection time targeted especially at our wonderful senior citizen population! Board member Jan Lovig, a resident of the Mayflower Community in Grinnell, will be in the Anchor Room of the Mayflower on Tuesday, April 14th, from 9:30-10:30 or so to visit. Bring your questions about PFLAG, bring you stories about your LGBTQ loved ones, or just come because you're an ally. All are welcome.

04/09/2026

04/05/2026

Easter season has arrived, and the Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, offers reflections.

04/04/2026

Holy Week - Day 7
We Wait

Liminal spaces are hard. Today as Holy Week ends we wait. The body is in the tomb. The day of rest had embraced the land after the chaos of insurrection, betrayal and crucifixion.

“Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus” (Mark 14:43). The body was claimed by Joseph and laid in a tomb. Joseph attended to the burial rituals, wrapping the body in linen cloth and laying it in the tomb. He placed the stone against the door of the tomb himself. He too went his way.

Of the women it was said: “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid” Mark 14:47.

It was the women who patiently followed and knew where the body was laid. The two were patient in their love for Jesus. They stayed through the trial. They were at the cross. They followed the body to see where it was laid.

We are not a patient people. Tomorrow is best when it comes yesterday. We prefer answers to questions. We want certainty over uncertainty. The tomb is a place of uncertainty. Our desire to follow God means embracing Mystery over knowing. We follow knowing all things are possible with God - if - and only if we believe.

So we wait. We sit outside the tomb waiting. It is the waiting that transforms we. It is waiting with the stillness and the uncertainty that changes us and changes the world. The quiet makes us uncomfortable. So do the spaces in between.

Between the cross and what comes next is where we wait. With hope. We know evil cannot triumph. We know the frailties of human nature do not change the power of God.

Today, we embrace the luminality that is the cross and the tomb, knowing this space between will change us.

United Church of Christ

03/31/2026

03/30/2026

It was good to be in DSM yesterday with other UCC colleagues and lots of folks from Grinnell (I saw representation from First Pres, UMC and UCC) at the Palm Sunday Public Witness.

Looks like 20,000 Christians gathered nationally to stand with our neighbors against Christian Nationalism.

03/24/2026

‼️Mark your Calendar‼️📆

03/04/2026

🙌🏾 As bombs continue to drop around the world, the children cannot run fast enough to escape the carnage visited upon them. The children are a part of the collateral damage of war, civil unrest, and the misguided notion that peace can be achieved with war or that a people should not exist because of who they are. Children are watching their parents and family members die. Children are being killed at an alarming rate in armed conflicts around the world.

The losses are staggering, so is the silence around the world. As people of faith, we must continue to advocate for the end of the war. We must be willing to demand the truth from the United States government and ask for the accountabilities for the killing of children who will be buried in a mass funeral.

-Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia A. Thompson
General Minister & President/CEO, UCC

👉🏾 Quote from her latest On My Mind Today blog entry: “Speak for the Children”
https://ow.ly/RVfb50Yp4HN