Monroe Congregational Church, UCC

Monroe Congregational Church, UCC This is a place for news and updates about MCC. Come and worship with us Sunday mornings. Attend a Bible study, small group or service event. Join us on retreat.

We are an Open & Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ, and we invite everyone to join in the full life and ministry of this church. We strive in word and deed to be faithful to Jesus’ model of loving acceptance and welcome to all persons, inclusive of every age, race, ability, economic and social status, nationality, faith background, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity an

d expression, marital standing and family structure. Our spiritual heritage dates back to those who first settled Monroe, and we are members of the United Church of Christ. Bring your children to our amazing Sunday school or one of our youth groups for teens and pre-teens. Sing with us. Feel free to ask questions. We look forward to meeting you.

05/31/2026

When the Young Lead Us

Today is Youth Sunday, and it is going to be a wonderful morning at church. Our Senior Pilgrim Fellowship high school youth group will be taking over worship, leading us with their own voices, faith, creativity, and joy.

There is something holy about allowing teenagers to lead. Not because they are “the future of the church,” though they are. And not just because they are fun, creative, energetic, and willing to do things the rest of us are often too self-conscious to try.

There is something holy about letting young people lead because they help us see with fresh eyes. They remind us that faith is still becoming. They ask honest questions. They notice what matters. They bring laughter into sacred spaces, and sometimes that laughter is exactly what the Spirit ordered. They are still figuring out who they are, and somehow, in their courage and curiosity, they help the rest of us remember who we are, too.

Scripture is full of stories where God calls young people that others might have overlooked. David was the youngest brother, out in the fields. The prophet Jeremiah thought he was too young to speak with any authority. Mary was a young woman from an ordinary town when asked to bear the Savior. And the disciples (many of them in their later teens) were not exactly polished religious professionals.

Again and again, God seems far less interested in age or credentials than in open hearts.

Youth Sunday is one of those beautiful MCC traditions that remind us that the church belongs to all of us right now. Not someday, when our young people are older or more experienced or easier to schedule around. Right now. Their voices, prayers, questions, gifts, humor, wisdom, and leadership are part of the life of the church today. And when we make room for them, we are not just being encouraging (although that is super important too!). We are listening for God.

05/10/2026

Love That Keeps Growing Philippians 1:1–18a

One of the great humbling experiences in life is parenting a child who has clearly formed opinions. Sure, caring for an infant looks hard, but babies won't argue that your plan for Saturday is flawed. Tweens and teens, on the other hand, may offer a full courtroom argument about why bedtime is unreasonable, vegetables are suspicious, homework is a violation of basic human rights, and used socks belong on top of the bookshelf.

Sometimes, as an adult, you find yourself saying things you never imagined would come out of your mouth, like, “Please stop putting your empty juice packets in between the couch cushions.” Or, “No, you may not bring a live chicken into the kitchen.” Or, “I am so glad you are kind and generous, but that does not mean you can give away all the snacks I just bought yesterday.” In this way, parenting reveals that love is learning when to laugh, when to set a boundary, when to take a deep breath, and when to say, “Okay, let’s try that again.”

Which may be why Paul’s words to the Philippians in this week’s reading feel so tender and true. Paul writes this letter from prison, which is not exactly where we expect joy to begin. He remembers the Philippian church with gratitude. He prays for them with affection. He trusts that God is still at work in them, still growing them, still bringing something good to completion. That is such a beautiful word for the church and for all kinds of families. None of us comes into this life finished. We are all still being formed.

And on Mother’s Day, we often give thanks for people who helped form us: mothers, grandmothers, aunties, neighbors, Sunday School teachers, mentors, friends, and all the people who mothered us in one way or another. The people who packed lunches, wiped tears, gave rides, said prayers, set boundaries, showed up, told the truth, and loved us through our many unfinished stages.

But Mother’s Day can also be complicated. For some, it brings joy. For others, grief. For many, both at once. Some are missing their mothers. Some are missing their children. Some are carrying disappointment, longing, estrangement, infertility, regret, or memories that are not simple.

Perhaps Paul’s prayer resonates because it reminds us that for love to be real, it doesn't have to easy. He writes from prison to a church that still has growing to do. His affection is honest, not polished. His joy is rooted, not naïve. And his prayer is not simply that the Philippians would feel loved, but that their love would “overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight.”

That is the kind of love good parenting requires. It is also the kind of love a faithful community requires. Love that can say yes with delight and no with courage. Love that can celebrate kindness and still insist on a reasonable bedtime. Love that can make room for big feelings without letting those emotions run the whole house. Love that can see the unfinished person in front of us and still trust the good work God has begun.

We give thanks for every person who has helped love grow in us. We hold tenderly everyone for whom this day is complicated. And we pray that our love, too, may overflow more and more. Not perfectly, but faithfully. Because we believe that God is still at work in us, too.

At coffee hour, we will have our second ice cream sundae bar, run the entire month of May, courtesy of Christian Education!

05/03/2026

Closer Than We Think Acts 17:16–34

Paul arrives in Athens and finds himself surrounded by idols. Everywhere he looks, people are reaching for the divine; building altars, telling stories, shaping statues, trying to name what cannot quite be named. Which, quite frankly, freaks him out.

It's understandable. Sometimes we look around the world and feel a similar ache. We see people search for meaning in all kinds of places: in success, certainty, money, productivity, politics, beauty, control, nostalgia, busyness, and even religious correctness. And before we get too smug, we may want to admit we have built a few altars ourselves.

But what is striking about Paul is what he does with his distress. Paul does not simply complain or retreat into a holy huddle. He does not mock or taunt the Athenians. Instead, he talks to them, listening closely enough to notice their altar “to an unknown god.” He pays enough attention to quote their own poets. He begins with connection, not condemnation.

Paul says, in effect: You are already reaching for God. Let me tell you the good news, God is not far away. That may be the tender heart of this passage. The One who made the world and everything in it cannot be contained by temples or statues or systems or slogans. And yet this same God is near enough to be found.

We do not have to climb all the way to heaven to find God. We do not need perfect theology, perfect prayers, or perfect certainty. God is not waiting at the end of our achievement. God is already here, moving beneath our longing, meeting us in our questions, calling us beloved children even when we fumble around in the dark. Maybe the invitation for today is to look more gently and more honestly at all the places people are reaching for life; and then bear witness to the Love which has been near all along.

This Sunday, we will share communion in worship, so if you are tuning in from home, remember to have some elements available.

At coffee hour, we will have our first ice cream sundae bar, run the entire month of May, courtesy of Christian Education!

04/26/2026

After Freedom Acts 16:16-40

I believe one of the hardest things about this week’s text is that the enslaved girl disappears from the story almost as quickly as she appears. Paul casts out the spirit, her owners lose their profit, chaos erupts, and then the camera moves on. But I keep wondering about her. What happened after that? Who made sure she was safe? Who helped her begin again?

Harriet Jacobs helps me ponder those questions. She was born enslaved in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813. After the death of the woman who owned her, Harriet was willed to another household. There she came under the control of Dr. James Norcom, whom she later called Dr. Flint in her memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Harriet tells the story of enslavement from the perspective of a woman whose body, dignity, and future were constantly under threat. One reason her book was so significant is that it helped northern readers understand that slavery was not only forced labor, but also profound degradation and sexual violence.

In an effort to resist Norcom’s control, Harriet entered a relationship with another white man, Samuel Tredwell Sawyer, and had two children. This was not a romanticized choice; it was one made within a system designed to deny her real freedom and agency. Her memoir is honest about the moral anguish of that decision, which is part of what gives her story such emotional and spiritual force.

When Harriet finally fled, she did not become safely free overnight. She hid for about seven years in a tiny garret space above her grandmother’s shed, so cramped she could barely move, while remaining terrifyingly close to the man from whom she had escaped.

Eventually, Harriet escaped north and published her book in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. After self-emancipating, she became an abolitionist and activist. During the Civil War, she and her daughter helped organize relief and education for people who had also fled slavery, including work in Alexandria among Black refugees and formerly enslaved children.

The enslaved girl in Acts is “set free,” but Luke does not tell us what happened to her next. Harriet Jacobs helps us imagine that freedom can be real and still fragile. Liberation can come, and yet safety, healing, dignity, and a future may have to be fought for afterward. God’s liberating work is not finished the moment the chains fall off. Sometimes the holiest work begins in the long, trembling journey toward a life that is truly one’s own. Maybe part of our call as the church is not only to celebrate freedom when it comes, but to stay close to those encountering the long, tender work that comes after.

04/19/2026

When Jesus Stops You in Your Tracks
Acts 9:1–19a

Saul knows exactly what he’s doing. He has a plan to visit Damascus to root out members of the Way and prosecute them. He has a deep conviction that what he is doing is just and right. Unfortunately, he is also very, very wrong.

Suddenly, everything comes to a halt. A flash of light. A voice calling his name. A question he can’t avoid: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” It’s such a powerful moment because Jesus doesn’t just challenge Saul’s thoughts; he interrupts his whole direction in life.

Most of us probably have not been knocked to the ground by a blinding light. But many of us do know what it is like to be sure we are right and still completely miss the point. I know I’ve had moments like that. Times when I was so certain I understood what was happening, so sure I had the right read on a situation, that I moved ahead with total confidence… only to find out later that I had missed the heart of it. It is humbling to realize that certainty and clarity are not always the same thing.

Ananias doesn't receive enough credit. God tells him to go find Saul, and Ananias is basically like, “Um… are you sure? Because I have heard about this guy.” Which (honestly) sounds like a very reasonable response. Saul has a reputation, and not a good one.

But Ananias goes. For me, that is one of the most beautiful parts of this story. Saul may be forever changed by his encounter with the Risen Christ, but that change is strengthened when somebody shows up for him afterward. Somebody brave enough to enter the room. Somebody tender enough to lay hands on him. Somebody faithful enough to call him Brother Saul before he has done a single thing to earn that kind of welcome.

Sometimes we are Saul; needing to be stopped, humbled, redirected. And sometimes we are Ananias; being asked to show up for someone we would honestly rather avoid. Sometimes we are both in the same week!

Jesus still meets people on the road, interrupting harmful paths. Jesus still opens closed hearts and cloudy eyes. And Jesus still works through ordinary people who are willing to say, however nervously, “Okay, Lord, I’ll go.”

Maybe that’s the invitation in this story for us. To pay attention to the places where we’ve grown too certain, too stubborn, too comfortable. To listen for the voice of Christ calling our name. To trust that being interrupted is not always a bad thing. And to remember that new life often begins with disorientation before it becomes clarity.

04/12/2026

When Peace Finds Us Hiding
John 20:19–31

In the Gospel of John, the Easter story does not move neatly from fear to courage or from grief to certainty. Resurrection begins in a room with the doors locked. The disciples are still afraid. Their hearts are still racing. Their world has already ended once, and they do not yet know what kind of world they are living in now. And somehow, that feels honest.

Because that is often where resurrection finds us too: not out in the open, waving alleluias like victory banners, but huddled behind the locked doors of grief, anxiety, disappointment, and exhaustion. Not because we are faithless, but because we are human. Loss takes time to process. Trauma lingers in the body. Even good news can be hard to trust when your heart has just been broken.

Jesus comes into that room saying, “Peace be with you.” He doesn’t just say it once, but again and again, as if to say: I know you are still trembling. I know you are still hiding. Peace be with you.

As Yung Suk Kim of the website Working Preacher reminds us, this peace is no throwaway greeting. It is a gift spoken to a fearful community under strain. In John’s gospel, peace is not the absence of trouble; it is Christ’s presence in the middle of it. And from that very place of fear, Jesus sends them. Resurrection is not only comfort. The Spirit is breathed into scared people while they are still shaking.

And then there is Thomas, who has received such a bad rap over the years. His doubt does not make him weaker than the others. He is simply honest. He refuses secondhand resurrection. He wants what the others have already received: an encounter. Something real. Something he can lean the weight of his grief against.

Jesus does not punish him for that. He comes back for Thomas. He returns for the one who missed it the first time. He offers his scarred body and says, in effect, it is really me. I am risen, yes, but I am not untouched. Resurrection has not erased the wounds. Love has carried them through.

I think it matters that the risen Christ still has scars. Easter is not about pretending Good Friday never happened. It is about discovering that even crucified love can live again. Maybe that is the good news for us this week: Jesus does not wait for us to become fearless, flawless, or fully convinced before showing up. He comes into locked rooms and anxious hearts. He comes to those who need peace they cannot manufacture for themselves.

And he still says: Peace be with you. Not because everything is simple.
Not because nothing hurts.
But because he is here. Alive. Scarred.
Breathing Spirit into weary people again.

This Sunday, Pastor Jenn will be away at Silver Lake Conference Center at our annual women’s retreat, so member Richard Erdmann (a licensed preacher in the UMC tradition) will be preaching and leading worship. Please note that due to Spring Break there is no Sunday School, but the nursery is open for children 5 and younger and there are worship bags near the door.

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34 Church Street
Monroe, CT

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+12032689327

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