Congregational Church of Westminster West, VT (United Church of Christ)

06/14/2026

All are welcome!

06/07/2026

Glad you're here!

05/31/2026

All are welcome!

05/24/2026

All are welcome!

05/02/2026

Wishing you all blessings on this World Labyrinth Day!

11/02/2025

All Saints' in Westminster West, and candles lit to honor the cloud of witnesses.

05/05/2025

02/16/2025

The Deacons and Trustees have been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, and we reached a decision this afternoon: in light of predictions of considerable snow tonight, followed by severe icing conditions tomorrow, our usual worship service is cancelled. Please stay safe and warm, and we’ll see each other next week.

02/11/2025

The Congregational Church of Westminster West invites you to a four-film documentary series that focuses on the war as seen from below, on the lives of ordinary people (and some quite extraordinary people) caught up in its events and determined not only to survive, but to resist.

The films will be shown on Thursday evenings, beginning February 13th, upstairs in the sanctuary of the church, at 7 pm. Admission is by donation (to benefit the church's building fund) and light refreshments will be available.

February 13th:

The first film is the story of a single victim of the holocaust; KITTY: RETURN TO AUSCHWITZ is a 1979 British TV film directed by Peter Morley. The NY TIMES said: "This [documentary] might be better called a testamentary. It is the story of Auschwitz by a survivor, a woman named Kitty Felix Hart... Mrs. Hart is the narrator, and she and her grown son... are the only ones seen... There is no music and little other sound than her voice." Indeed, the film is made bearable in part because you see so little, and only hear what happened to Kitty and her family, though that is quite a story. The film runs an hour and 22 minutes.

February 20th:

The second film is a story of the French resistance; WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT is a 1987 film directed by Pierre Sauvage. The NY TIMES said: "From 1940 to 1944, the 5,000 people of Le Chambon - a community of profoundly religious Protestants - sheltered 5,000 Jews...In 1944, Pierre Sauvage was born in Le Chambon... now an American documentary filmmaker, Mr. Sauvage returns in 'Weapons of the Spirit' to the place where, he says, 'a Jewish baby had the good fortune to see the light of day in a village uniquely committed to his survival.'" The film runs an hour and 33 minutes.

February 27th:

The third film is a story of the German resistance; STORY OF A LOVE: FREYA is a 2016 film directed by Antje Starost and Hans-Helmut Grotjahn. The film tells the story of Helmuth James and Freya von Moltke and their decision to gather friends they can trust to create a roadmap to a future "Germany with a human face" after Hitler's anticipated defeat. (Angela Merkel has said that "the Kreisau Circle was among the first to think consistently in European terms... Their idea was that Germany would be part of... a united Europe, in which Christian morals and social reform should determine politics.") Actors Nina Hoess and Ulrich Matthes read from the many intimate letters Helmuth and Freya wrote each other over the years, from their first meeting in 1929 to his murder by the N***s in 1944. The film also features interviews with Freya herself and with her surviving son, Helmuth Caspar; it runs an hour and 27 minutes.

March 6th:

The fourth film is a story of history and memory in post-war Germany; NOW... AFTER ALL THESE YEARS is a 1981 German TV film by Harald Lüders and Pavel Schnabel. The NY TIMES said: "The unusual fact about Rhina is that at one time, half its citizens were Jews. By 1939, the Jews were gone, no sign of them left but a desecrated cemetery... Mr. Luders and Mr. Schnabel... found a village of people who denied any part in... what had happened to their town's Jews." Luders and Schnabel managed to track down former residents of Rhina in New York, and of course they tell a different story, but what really sets this film apart is that they then return to Rhina with the footage from New York. It is a powerful and moving story, told in a mere 60 minutes.

Many films have been made about the events of World War II. Ray Huessy has chosen these four films in part because they all show the war's impact on particular people, in part because they were all made with the participation of the survivors and their families, but also because they are all marked by unusual (indeed, all too unusual) restraint.

He will provide a brief introduction to each film, and he hopes that you will consider staying after the showing of each movie for a period of questions and discussion, because part of the point of the series is that there are no "answers."

12/22/2024

Here’s a really thoughtful reflection from the Center for Action and Contemplation on the meaning of the Incarnation:

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Father Richard Rohr shares what Christ’s incarnation offers to all humanity:

Since the very beginning of time, God’s Spirit has been revealing its glory and goodness through the physical creation. Christians believe that this universal Christ presence was later “born of a woman under the law” (Galatians 4:4) in a moment of chronological time. This is the great Christian leap of faith!

We daringly believe that God’s presence was poured into a single human being, so that humanity and divinity can be seen to be operating as one in him—and therefore in us! Instead of saying that God came into the world through Jesus, maybe it would be better to say that Jesus came out of an already Christ-soaked world. The second incarnation flowed out of the first, out of God’s loving union with physical creation. [1]

Through his incarnated presence, Jesus offered the world a living example of fully embodied love that emerged out of ordinary, limited life situations. For me, this is the real import of Paul’s statement that Jesus was “born of a woman under the law.” In Jesus, God became part of our small, homely world and entered into human limits and ordinariness—and remained anonymous and largely invisible for his first thirty years. Throughout his life, Jesus himself spent no time climbing, but a lot of time descending, “emptying himself and becoming as all humans are” (Philippians 2:7), “tempted in every way that we are” (Hebrews 4:15) and “living in the limitations of weakness” (Hebrews 5:2).

Jesus walked, enjoyed, and suffered the entire human journey, and he told us that we could and should do the same. His life exemplified the unfolding mystery in all of its stages—from a hidden, divine conception, to a regular adult life full of love and problems, punctuated by a few moments of transfiguration and enlightenment, and all leading to glorious ascension and final return. As Hebrews 4:15 states, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who was like us in every way, experienced every temptation, and never backtracked” (my translation). Jesus’ life reveals that we don’t need to be afraid of the depths and breadths of our own lives, of what this world offers us or asks of us. We are given permission to become intimate with our own experiences, learn from them, and allow ourselves to descend to the depth of things, even our mistakes, before we try too quickly to transcend it all in the name of some idealized purity or superiority. God hides in the depths—even the depths of our sins—and is not seen as long as we stay on the surface of anything. [2]

References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We SeeExternal link.Opens link in new window., Hope for, and Believe (New York: Convergent, 2019, 2021), 16, 14–15.

[2] Rohr, Universal Christ, 110–111.