Emmanuel UCC - Dousman, WI

Emmanuel UCC - Dousman, WI Sunday Worship 9:30 AM Diverse minds - Kindred spirits.

06/01/2026

Daily Devotional
Illogical



Donna Schaper

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.

Discussion Guide
Click here to get today's guide for discussing Illogical by Donna Schaper along with today's scripture.

Donna Schaper
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

Ruth 1

05/28/2026

Daily Devotional

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Daily Devotional
May 28, 2026

A Third Testament



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.

Molly Baskette
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 mollybaskette.com.

05/27/2026

Daily Devotional
So Brave



Jennifer Ruth Lynn Garrison

What are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. - Psalm 8:4-5 (NRSV)



Over the winter, not late but already dusk, I took my six-year-old grandson to the river near our house. He does not love the dark, but he does love to throw rocks into the water, so he chose the joy of the activity over the fear of the night.



As he flung one after another, he congratulated himself. “Good one!” he said. “You’re so brave!” Finally, the stars started to blink to life, our sign that it really was truly dark, and we held hands on the way back to our car.



Several months later, I had the honor of baptizing a lively three-year-old. We blessed the water together, then I put three small handfuls of water on his head.



“In the name of the Father,” I said. “Oh!” he reacted.



“And the Son,” I said. “It’s wet!” he said.


“And the Holy Spirit,” I said. “So brave!” he declared, before holding my hand down the aisle and doling out high fives all around.



We give up saying it aloud, don’t we grownups?

But listen. It really does help. Say it next time you are trying to throw joy into the dark, or are surprised by the unexpected. Say it out right now and see how it changes whatever you are doing next.



After all, you are practically almost an angel. You just need to be reminded, sometimes by your own sweet, small voice. And then, holding hands, you are ready to head back out into the world.



Prayer

I am brave. So brave. So very very very brave. Amen.

Jennifer Ruth Lynn Garrison
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rev. Jennifer Garrison (formerly Brownell) is a writer, spiritual director and pastor living in the Pacific Northwest. Her published work most recently appeared in the book The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for the Struggle, available from The Pilgrim Press.

05/26/2026

Daily Devotional
Abba Poemen's Lap



Mary Luti

[Jesus said,] “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own? Hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s.” - Matthew 7:1-5 abridged (NRSV)



Abba Poemen (340-450 CE) was a desert monk renowned for his wisdom. In a famous story about him, some older monks approach him for advice. How should they treat the rookie monks who doze off during community prayer?



They wanted those novices to learn the discipline necessary for a life of prayer, step one of which is being conscious. Their inclination was to give them a hard poke in the ribs, to startle and embarrass them into wakefulness. What does Abba think?



“When I see a brother dozing,” Poemen replies, “I put his head on my knees and let him rest.” The old man had acquired what his concerned brothers, for all their years of observant rigor, had not: a visceral tenderness that cannot bear to judge the frailty of another.



The judgmentalism Jesus calls out in his saying about the speck and the log is not simply a matter of self-righteousness. It’s a failure of sympathetic imagination, the inability to feel someone else’s frailty as your own and to muster the tenderness our one frail heart requires.



In the Gospels, some of Jesus’s harshest words are reserved for those who have no patience with the weaknesses of others. Every sin is forgivable eventually, but the sin of judgment makes the divine mercy work overtime.



Prayer

Put my head on your knees and let me sleep, Holy One. My neighbor’s, too. Better to snooze in mercy than judge and be judged.

Mary Luti
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Luti is a long time seminary educator and pastor, author of Teresa of Avila’s Way and numerous articles, and founding member of The Daughters of Abraham, a national network of interfaith women’s book groups.

05/24/2026

Acts 2 Philippians 4

05/21/2026

Daily Devotional
When the Water Overflows



Samantha Houser

While Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” – John 7:37-38 (NRSV)



During the Festival of Booths, a priest would draw water from a nearby pool and pour it out at the temple altar each day. A ritual of remembrance and hope, recalling God’s provision in the wilderness and praying for life-giving rain.



An act of memory and trust, a way of honoring the God who provides in dry places. It is sacred, intentional, a rhythm that has carried people through seasons of uncertainty. When Jesus speaks, the ritual has already taken place.



And Jesus steps directly into it, taking what is already holy and opening it wider: “If anyone is thirsty…”



That’s the invitation. A reminder to the people that the source has never been limited to one place or one moment.



Then the promise expands beyond expectation: “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”



Not a single pouring, but an ongoing movement. Not something contained to ritual alone, but something alive in bodies, in communities, in the ordinary and the unexpected. An invitation to remember that the Spirit is neither diminished by structure nor confined by it. She flows through the rituals that have sustained us, and beyond them. Through prayers we have memorized and the ones we do not yet have words for. Through the places we expect to meet God and the places we were told God would not be.



The invitation still stands.



Come and drink. And trust that what you receive will not run dry, but will flow—through you, into a world that is still learning how to receive what it cannot control.



Prayer
Spirit of living water, meet me in my thirst. Not the version I present, but the one I carry beneath the surface. Loosen what I have tried to control. Move through me in ways that bring life—to myself and to others. And give me the courage to trust where you are already flowing.

Quinn G. Caldwell
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam Houser centers their ministry on the sacred work of repair and reconciliation with wounded systems. Author of No Longer Keeping the Peace and other works.

05/20/2026

🙏🏾 God,

Help us to be the peace we hope to see in the world. Let our hearts and minds join with like-minded souls around the world to live out Jesus' mandate for nonviolent direct action with individuals, neighborhoods and nations.

Bless us with compassion, strength and courage for the days ahead. In Jesus' name, Amen.

-Douglas Horner
Sheffield Lake United Church of Christ

👉🏾We need your prayers! Submit your prayer to the People's Prayers for Peace initiative: https://ow.ly/e7ru50Z0US1

05/20/2026

🙏🏾 As followers of Christ, we are called to seek justice and love our neighbors—near and far. Let us pray for leaders to choose diplomacy rooted in fairness and dignity, and for communities impacted by unjust policies.

"The America First agenda is taking root around the globe with the use of transactional strategies that intend to get something for nothing from developing countries with the leveraging of US financial assistance. Where countries used to receive funding assistance from the United States for a variety of programs, those funds are being removed when countries choose not to agree to the terms of transactional deals that are not in their favor."

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

Quote from her latest On My Mind Today blog post, “Something for Nothing” https://ow.ly/CM9p50Z1SSN

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