Miss a Sunday, miss a lot!
Upcoming Preachers for SCC Sunday Worship
This fall, the Ministry of the Word will be brought to us through some outstanding guest voices in our pulpit, along with the ongoing preaching ministry of our resident pastors:
The Rev. Nicolette Siragusa
Preaching September 1st
Worshipers this summer got to experience Pastor Nicolette’s warm, insightful presence leading SCC worship on July 14th, while both Pastors Matt and Nancy were away, and we’re looking forward to her preaching here again in early September. A close friend and seminary classmate of Pastor Matt’s, and member of a clergy community of practice together with Pastor Nancy, Pastor Nicolette recently completed service as pastor of the Bolton Congregational Church UCC. Having spent most of her growing up years in New Jersey, she is a graduate of Wellesley College, a 2008 graduate of both the Chicago Theological Seminary (Master of Divinity) and the University of Chicago (Master of Social Work), and a member of the inaugural cohort of the UCC’s Next Generation Leadership Initiative. Prior to coming to Bolton, she served many years as pastor of our UCC congregation in Grand Ledge, Michigan.
The Rev. Dr. Amy Butler
Preaching September 22nd
It will be an absolute privilege for us to welcome the Rev. Dr. Amy Butler to our pulpit on September 22nd. Dr. Butler recently completed a five-year tenure as the seventh Senior Minister and first woman at the helm of The Riverside Church in the City of New York, one of the nation’s most prominent mainline Protestant pulpits. Prior to Riverside, Pastor Amy served as senior minister of Washington DC’s historic Calvary Baptist Church for eleven years, a period that saw tremendous growth and vitality for that congregation. With degrees from Baylor University, the International Baptist Theological Seminary, and Wesley Theological Seminary, Dr. Butler is widely recognized as one of our nation’s leading progressive Christian preachers, speakers, and writers, and earlier this year was a featured preacher at both the Festival of Homiletics and the General Synod of the United Church of Christ. A native of Hawai‘i, she is a single mom to three amazing young adults who are each making their way in the world; they are her favorites.
The Rev. Mia Douglas
Preaching October 20th
We’ll round out our fall menu of guest preaching voices with that of the Rev. Mia Douglas. Since 2015, Rev. Douglas has served as Director of Discipleship at Hartford’s Asylum Hill Congregational Church UCC, where her passion for strategic community building and creative transformation has succeeded in helping broaden and deepen the church’s impact in its surrounding neighborhood and Greater Hartford. A graduate of Andover Newton Theological School, prior to joining Asylum Hill, she served as the associate pastor at the historic Faith Congregational Church, also in Hartford. Rev. Douglas is also a classically trained recitalist, and her passion for music infuses her ministry, including her pulpit duties as a preacher, teacher, and worship leader.
The Rev. Matthew Emery & The Rev. Nancy McLaren
Of course, we’re blessed with quality, insightful, relevant preaching Sunday-in and Sunday-out from our very own resident clergy, Pastor Matt and Pastor Nancy. Pastor Matt will be preaching Aug 25, Sept 1 or 8, Sept 15, and Sept 29. Pastor Nancy will return to SCC’s pulpit on October 13th, after the conclusion of her mini-sabbatical that runs through October 6th.
Upcoming Preaching Series
You’ll not want to miss out on the witness brought this fall by way of these preaching series:
Pillars of Faith
August 11 – September 1
What does it mean to have faith, to trust “in things not seen”—as the Bible’s book of Hebrews puts it? With witness from the book of Hebrews and from the gospel of Luke, we’ll wonder together about what faith is. How does faith empower us …to see beyond the visible? …to boldly seek God in the face of opposition? …to trust God to accomplish things we can only imagine—and perhaps even some things we can’t imagine(!)?
What Disciples Do
September 8 – October 6
Although Christians are often identified by what they believe, Jesus arguably seemed to care more about what his followers did. Faith practices are crucial to Christianity alongside our theological beliefs. As we continue walking along with Jesus as his time on the road toward Jerusalem continues to unfold in the gospel of Luke, we’ll see excellent examples—through story, teaching, and parable—of what disciples do: take their faith seriously, practice generosity, and seek faithfulness over success, just to name a few.
God Verbs
October 13 – November 3
Christian faith isn’t only about what we do. Christian faith is also about trust in and witness to what God does. In this four-part preaching series, our focus will rest on ways in which God is living and active in the world and in us. After all, God isn’t just some distant clock-maker who set the world in motion and now stands back. Some of the most important words we speak about God are the God Verbs, the words that speak to what God is up to: healing, wrestling, reversing, reconciling.
Hope: Rising, Standing, Thanking
November 10 – November 24
The days of later autumn bring us into that time of waning sunlight, colder temperatures, and more barren landscapes. As Jesus’ journey closes in on Jerusalem and his ultimate destiny, his own teachings become more foreboding, not only about his own fate but about the fate of all those who would follow him as disciples—a group that includes us! But even in the midst of such a gloomy outlook, nevertheless the reality of hope—hope in God, hope in what God has accomplished and will accomplish in Christ—still rings through, rising, and standing, and even leading us to thanking!
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