Posts by Mary
Sprint Concert
Sunday, May 3rd at 2:00 pm Please join us as we celebrate the 250th Birthday of the United States. Three choral groups – Northwoods Choraliers, Rhinelander Male Chorus, and Hyms & Hyrs will come together and present a concert to honor the birth of our nation. Each group will perform selections depicting various…
Read MoreCreation Care Corner
Algae Blooms Melting Greenland Greenland’s ice sheet is melting, and its disappearance is accelerated thanks to huge blooms of algae newly growing on top of it. With the Arctic warming four times faster than the global average, Greenland, the world’s largest island, is now losing hundreds of billions of tons of ice each year. The…
Read MoreA Message from the Moderator
As we head into April, I just want to say how much I’ve been enjoying some of the new things showing up in our church. The gratitude board, candle lighting station, and lament wall have been really meaningful additions. They’re simple, but they give us ways to pause, reflect, and connect — not just…
Read MoreNote from the Pastors
Dear First Congregational Family, We have something we want to share with you that may come as a surprise, and I hope you will feel our hearts of love for you in this message. Beginning June 15th, Susie will be handing over her half of the shared 3/4 – time pastor responsibilities to…
Read MoreCREATION CARE CORNER
This is a time when we have concerns about basic human rights and powerful people taking advantage of others. These concerns spill over into our alarm about climate change, because powerful people and groups are taking advantage of the powerless in climate change issues, as well. The poorest people struggle with the worst effects, and…
Read MoreLent: A Season of Mess and Hope
Our word “Lent” comes from the Old English lencten, which simply means springtime. And if you’ve lived through enough Wisconsin springs, you know springtime is a gloriously messy season — never quite sure if it will offer hopeful sunny days with dripping snowmelt or arctic blasts with ten more inches of snow. Spring doesn’t apologize…
Read MoreCREATION CARE CORNER
Last week I attended a Zoom meeting sponsored by Faith In Place. The speaker was Dr. Steve Vavrus, the Wisconsin state climatologist. (I didn’t know we had one.) He reviewed facts that we have previously discussed in this space and made clear statements of other facts and their implications for the future. I will list…
Read MoreHave you ever wondered why there is an extra “r” in February?
For as long as I can remember, whenever I spell it out I have to intentionally sound it out in my head: Feb-ru-ar-y — instead of how I normally say it out loud, Feb-yoo-air-ee. It just doesn’t come naturally. The quick explanation is that the word comes from the Latin Februarius, made its way through…
Read MoreLetter from the Moderator
How does one summarize the last year in the life of our church? I have had the opportunity to work with many of you in 2025. In the first part of the year, I worked with the worship planning committee, supply pastors, and office manager Wendy to plan the services as we all tried to…
Read MoreHappy New Year!
I don’t know how you would describe your 2025, but I think “moving” is a good word to describe my year. Perhaps you saw Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s choice of word for 2025, “Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen slop as the 2025 Word of the Year. We define slop as ‘digital content of low quality that is…
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