Milbridge Congregational Church, UCC

06/02/2026

06/02/2026

DAILY DEVOTIONAL- June 2, 2026
Groping for God By Vicki Kemper

[Paul said,] “God made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth … so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for God and find God—though indeed God is not far from each one of us. For ‘In God we live and move and have our being.’” - Acts 17:26-28 (NRSVUE, adapted)

Who among us has not spent frantic minutes (or hours) looking for our glasses or our keys or our phone—only to discover that they were on our head or in our hand the entire time?

The apostle Paul says our search for God is like that. While we’re tearing the house apart looking for what we already have, while we’re searching for meaning as if it’s not right in front of us, the Holy One is forever lighting flares and sending us love notes, just waiting for us to notice.

God has given rise to every good thing—babies and bald eagles, bird song and gospel music, lovers and friends, asparagus and tomatoes, community and diversity, solidarity and resistance, a capacity for healing, soup kitchens and hugs and so much more—just so we can experience, enjoy, and maybe even know capital-L Love.

The good news is that God wants to be found by us—and that her heart aches for us even as we litter our lives with all that is not God.

We are too often like fish, swimming in an ocean of God’s love and not even realizing it. Perhaps we could stop our anxious paddling and roll over and just float for a while, enjoying the view.

Prayer
God who is love, may we never stop groping for you. And even when we find you, may we never consider our search complete.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vicki Kemper is the Pastor of First Congregational, UCC, in Amherst, Massachusetts, and a spiritual director.

06/01/2026

Illogical

by Donna Schaper | published on Jun 1, 2026
Discussion Questions

Read Proverbs 15; Then read the devotional below, “Illogical.”

The writer highlights some of the unjust contradictions with which we live—for example, how the horrors of war can also prompt people to drive less as gas prices skyrocket. What illogical contradictions have you been grappling with in your daily life?
Proverbs 15 highlights human foolishness that otherwise masquerades as success and strength. How is God’s wisdom illogical by human measures?
When have you chosen to give or to accept “a small serving of vegetables with love” over “a fattened calf with hatred”?

Devotional

Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil. Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred. – Proverbs 15:16-17 (NIV)

Something interesting is happening. People are falling out of love with our cell phones. States are banning them in schools. Parents are sending their kids to tech-free summer camps. More people are taking digital vacations and turning on their “away” signs. Others are attending AI workshops, concerned that AI is going to gobble up the water and raise electric rates. Gas prices are causing more turmoil of the pocketbook. While it is likely that airline prices will never go down, it is also likely that people will fly less. The earth is smiling as carbon emissions emit less.

There is a subtle appreciation of less as we give up more. A small serving of love is better than a feast of hate. The giving up is both proverbial and passive. Much is being stolen from us. Still, there is a silver lining in less digitality and less gas. Its name is peace. As turmoil and hatred increase algorithmically, peace decreases. Won’t it be weird if the wars that kill innocent people simultaneously help the environment be decreasing gas use due to high prices?

The biblical concept of less being more is true. Long ago I enjoyed the joke that I would stop drinking vodka when it ran out in 2053. Maybe I don’t need to wait. Maybe the proverbial will become the kick in the buttinski I need to stop flying, stop driving, stop stressing, and start living. Then again, how will I get to work?

Prayer
Holy Spirit, you who promise a different kind of wealth, educate us. Before it is too late. Amen.

About the Author
Donna Schaper is an interim Pastor at the United Church of Gainesville, Florida, and author, most recently of Remove the Pews—first from your theology, then from your building.

05/31/2026

Cribbage Match
6 pm Friday June 19
Bring your cribbage board

05/31/2026

Sunday 10 am Worship Service
In person or zoom
Link in comments

05/31/2026

DAILY DEVOTIONAL- One More Thing

by Rachel Hackenberg | published on May 31, 2026

Finally, siblings, farewell. Be restored; listen to my appeal; agree with one another; live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. – 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 (NRSVUE, adapted)

When’s the last time you departed from a friend, saying “Bye!” … and “Bye” was really the last word spoken as you left? There’s always one more thing to say, isn’t there?

“Bye, take care! Love you! Great to be with you! Feel better! Give my love to your mom! Have a great vacation! See you again next Tuesday!”

I have a theory: It’s not politeness that keeps us from leaving with only a “goodbye,” as if we find goodbyes to be rudely abrupt, but rather it’s love that keeps us still talking and adding one more thing to our farewell.

“Farewell,” Paul ends his letter to the Corinthians … and then he adds one (or three or eight) more things: “I believe y’all will be able to find your community spirit again! Just keep focusing on love. Find the peace of patience. Be generous in coming together—don’t stay at arm’s length just because you have disagreements. Be satisfied by the holy gifts of grace and love and fellowship. God be with you! Christ be with you! Spirit be with you!”

Extended farewells prove the exception to “less is more.” There’s always “more” where love is concerned. More to say. More to do. More to remember. More to grow.

Not in an obligatory way, but in a cup-runneth-over way. In an endless-wellspring way. In an unmeasured, unselfish way.

In a Holy Trinity way, with no shortage of expressions and permutations to convey, “I love you.” In fire and spirit. In mercy and flesh. In creation and mystery.

Prayer
Just one more thing, God…

About the Author
Rachel Hackenberg serves as the publisher for The Pilgrim Press.

05/30/2026

DAILY DEVOTIONAL- May 30, 2026
Q&A at the Shrine of the Black Madonna
By Lillian Daniel

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. - James 1:5 (NIV)

I recently visited the Shrine of the Black Madonna, a vibrant UCC church in Detroit featured in The Black Utopians, a book by Aaron Richardson that has been a lifeline for me this past year. It is one of those remarkable historical works of nonfiction that is written with the storytelling gifts one might find in a novel. Trust me, it’s a page-turner, and in these tough times for churches, it was a hopeful story from the past that gives me hope for the future.

That Sunday at the Shrine, I recall there had been bad news the preceding week in the nation and the world, but the preacher, Rev. Kenda Milton, didn’t feel obligated to recount current events. In a deft introduction, he simply assured us that he watched the news too.

From that point on, the sermon’s focus was on the call of Jesus to put the community before the individual. By worshipping something other than ourselves, in community, suddenly we all stop investigating scripture and allow the scripture to investigate us instead.

As good preaching always does, the sermon asked more questions than it answered, and that was the gift I received from attending church that day: the comfort of knowing I was not the first generation to ask the questions I thought were simply about today, connecting me to the history of the mighty cloud of witnesses, some of whom were at church that Sunday at the Shrine.

Prayer
Still speaking God, open our minds to your answers and our hearts to the questions that are more important than the ones we have already thought of asking you. Amen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lillian Daniel serves as Michigan Conference Minister, UCC. Her newest book, Defrocked: Good News from a Bad Pastor for a Better Church, is now available at bookstores.

05/29/2026

DAILY DEVOTIONAL- May 29, 2026
We All Have Our Moments
By Kenneth Samuel

God’s anger is but for a moment; God’s favor is for life. - Psalm 30:5 (adapted)

I totally understand the push to live in the moment. To totally show up in real time is always needful. But we’ve all been consumed by moments of anger, regret, sorrow and anguish. And sometimes these moments last for weeks, months, even years.

Life is more than the accumulation of the good and bad moments we experience. Life is also the hope that defies current desperation. Life is also the love that is still greater than our present animosities. Life is also the faith that keeps us moving forward even after we think we’ve experienced the best there is.

When I was a little boy, my mother made cakes from scratch. She would begin by placing all her ingredients for the cake on the table. Since her cakes were so delicious and her cake batter was so good (my siblings and I licked the bowl), I assumed that everything she used to make the cake had to be good.

One day after she’d set all her ingredients out and left the kitchen, I decided to taste each ingredient.

The eggs were slimy and unpleasant, the flour was dry and distasteful, the butter was repulsive, the buttermilk was bitter, and even the sugar was too sweet.

When she returned, I asked her how she could make such good cakes out of such nasty ingredients. She said, “Well, you just let Momma work with all this.”

We all have our moments. But God works with all of them and blends them together just right to make our lives better than we ever thought possible.

Prayer
God please don’t let bitter moments cause me to miss my life. Amen.

About the Author
Kenneth L. Samuel is Pastor of Victory for the World Church, Decatur, Georgia.

05/28/2026

DAILY DEVOTIONAL- May 28, 2026
A Third Testament by Molly Baskette

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar. - Proverbs 30:5-6 (NRSV)

Bishop Yvette Flunder, founding pastor of City of Refuge UCC and The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, is taking heat from all manner of preachers.

The reason? Her recent assertion that the Bible needs a third testament. They call her a heretic for wanting to add to the complete, inerrant word of God.

But Bishop says, “We need a third testament because the Bible has become problematic. ‘Slaves obey your masters.’ ‘Let the women keep silent in churches.’ We need to pull those pages out! People say, ‘But that’s the word of God!’ No. It’s not the word of God. I spoke to God this morning. Those are words about God.”

And some of those words, she continues, are words that diminish women, people of color, Creation, and so much more that we know God holds dear. They are words that for the umpteenth time are being weaponized by divine ventriloquists who use scripture to justify dastardly deeds and the reckless march to war.

The fact is, Proverbs is not 100% accurate. God may be “a shield to those who take refuge in him,” but God is also a deadly weapon in the wrong hands as well as the refuge of scoundrels. And those lies Proverbs speaks of? Some of them got sealed inside the Book.

Nearly 1,600 years have passed since men debated what texts belonged in the so-called New Testament. And 2,200 years since the canon of Hebrew scriptures closed. God has kept speaking all this time since those debaters shut the book on the Bible and declared it complete. Mightn’t She want new words enshrined?

Let’s wrestle, and opine, and debate our way to fresh holy wisdom worthy of binding. Let’s task thousands with writing that third testament, because the Holy Spirit refines truth best through a multitude of imaginations and lived experiences.

Time will test whether these words are good and true.

Prayer
God, keep speaking. We have pen in hand. Amen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Molly Baskette is a UCC minister, psychedelic facilitator and author of books about church renewal, parenting, post-traumatic joy and more. Learn more at

Molly Baskette ​​ Progressive Christian pastor. Incorrigible optimist, despite all the facts. ​Church renewal cheerleader. Transformation ju**ie and psychedelic-assisted provider. Cancer...