Pastors and worship leader Justin Carlson during the Children's Moment dance party on April 19.

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The Spirit is at work in worship and service FCC’s online worship services continue to amaze many of us watching at home, to see how the anthems, elders’ reflections, and hymns, complete with piano and voices, are cleverly stitched together through technological wizardry. The Mission and Outreach team has found a way to safely and with proper social distancing continue serving meals for St. Stephens. The committee hired the caterer who rents the SpringHouse kitchen to prepare two meals for St Stephen's Shelter in April. She prepares the food and two FCC volunteers pick it up at SpringHouse and deliver it to St. Stephen’s shelter door, where someone takes it inside to be shared with the residents. The team also plans to contract with her to do two meals for St Stephen's in May. The Elders are continuing their efforts to stay in touch with every member of the congregation through telephone calls, emails and cards. Through weekly Zoom meetings, the Elders share their experiences, such as how telephone conversations can often go for over an hour, or how toilet paper was delivered to a member’s home, and even how people teamed up to make sure one of our members had his favorite aromatic tobacco for his pipe.

Update from Regional Search Committee Letters of Interest for the position were due March 1 and we received 10. At this time, those interested in being considered are preparing their candidate profiles. When those are completed at the end of the month, they will be sent to a third-party screener who will evaluate and rank them based on what our regional profile says we are looking for in a candidate. The Search Committee is hopeful that we will have the results from the third-party screener by mid-to-late April and could begin lining up interviews with candidates in May; however, the Covid-19 outbreak obviously leaves a lot of things (especially travel) uncertain right now. Thankfully we are currently at a stage in the process that does not require in-person meetings, so hopefully things can continue on track without much delay. You can see the position announcement and watch the committee’s progress on our Regional Minister Search Committee page. Please continue to keep this group and this process in your prayers!

What’s INSIDE:

Message from Pastor Laurie Feille,

page 2-3

Meet new member Daniel Romero, p. 3

May calendar,

page 5

Earth Week ideas, page 5

UPCOMING Events

SpringHouse Board business meeting,

Sunday, April 26, 12-2 pm, via Zoom

Women’s Ministry

via Zoom, Monday, May 4, 7 pm

Morning Coffee with the

Pastors and Happy Hours will continue

through May

The Courier March 26, 2020

First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Minneapolis First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Minneapolis

April 22, 2020 The Courier

God is present in the midst of ch-ch-changes Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes….This song by David Bowie has been stuck in my brain for over a month. It seems that every day we have to make a change of some kind. We have made changes to how we shop for groceries, worship, “see” family, interact with friends, walk in our neighborhoods to name a few changes. We now are wearing masks and some people are lucky enough to have more than one mask so they can change those throughout the week. We have changed the way we work and for some that means that being furloughed is an unwelcome and scary change. While I know that the members of First Christian love change J the daily and weekly changes can begin to wear on us emotionally, physically and spiritually. It is important that we find activities to help us find the goodness in the changes that are needed to make sure that at the end of this global pandemic we still have life. We need to find those moments where we have experienced the presence of God. Many times we experience the presence of God in the midst of ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. Hopefully that song is now stuck in your brain too. To help us in this journey let me share where I experienced the presence of God in the midst of change. Yesterday we had a zoom meeting for our Paraguay Servant Trip. We had almost everyone who is going on the trip participate in the meeting. Everyone has been excited about the trip and has planned on going. We have an incredible itinerary that includes stopping in Panama to see the Panama Canal. We are booked with the tour company that will pick us up at the airport in Panama, take us to the Canal and bring us back to the airport. We even have our airfare and participants have been paying toward their portion of the cost. We have seats and tickets. We are booked with hotels in Brazil for our adventure to Iguazu Falls. The directors of Jack Norment camp have cabins reserved for us for the time that we will spend there. Yvette Carter began coordinating our home stays before Covid-19. Everything is in place and all we have left to do is continue to raise the funds we need for the trip. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…..our meeting yesterday was not a time for us to gather and talk about fund raising. Instead, we had to have a serious discussion about whether the trip will happen or not. We are scheduled to leave on July 25th and return on August 7th. That is three months away. As we talked I was overwhelmed by the grace and kindness that emerged in our conversation. I have to say that for me it is heartbreaking to not go on a

In Our Prayers Prayers of Joy For Phil Kinney, still cancer

free (oncologist says this is “historical”)

Prayers of Concern For Ann Antus’ family

members who are working in places with high COVID-19 exposure in Chicago

For Pastor Laurie’s brother Jeff who is volunteering at a hospital in Brooklyn, NY

For Jimmy Burnett’s brother Robert

For Belinda Flanagan’s nephew Dave and her sister Martha and sister’s husband Bruce

For Heather Thonvold, recently furloughed from her chaplaincy

For Lyndale member April Conlee’s mother-in-law Katherine, diagnosed with COVID-19

Prayers for the World For first responders, health

care workers, chaplains, workers laid off from closed businesses, artists with no venues to perform, and all the untold others effected by the coronavirus

A message from Pastor Laurie Feille

Page 2 April 22, 2020

Rev. Romero preaching at SH Joint Service in 2017

Rev. Daniel Romero new member Pastor Daniel Romero is the newest member of FCC, having joined (on line!) on April 19. Pastor Romero is currently a consultant for the Interfaith Coalition on Immigration, an advocacy group for immigrants; both FCC and Lyndale UCC are active members of this coalition. Pastor Romero was born and raised Catholic in Rifle, Colorado. His social justice career has taken him to many cities around the United States. Prior to coming to Minneapolis three years ago, Pastor Romero was a volunteer minister and human rights

observer on the West Bank in Israel and Palestine. This was through DOC/UCC Global Ministries. He came to Minneapolis and was the minister in charge of faith formation at First Congregational/UCC church before working with ICOM. Pastor Romero has a daughter who lives near Philadelphia. He enjoys fishing, flying kites, hiking, kayaking, and canoeing. Pastor Romero will have a dual membership with FCC and Lyndale UCC. We look forward to greeting him in person! Interview and story by Karen Kandik (Pastor Laurie’s column, continued) Servant Trip especially one that takes such planning. I shared with the group that our contact in Paraguay let me know that there are only 114 ventilators in the whole country. She also shared that the majority of the population lives day-to-day in Paraguay and that unemployment is rising, businesses are closing and people are struggling to meet basic needs, including feeding their families. One by one the members of the Paraguay Servant Trip Team shared their concern for the people of Paraguay and the unnecessary burden our trip would place on them during a global pandemic. Several people started looking at travel recommendations and warnings and saw that if we went now we would have to be quarantined for 2 weeks there and quarantined when we returned. The compassion and concern that emerged for the people in Paraguay was overwhelming. It reminded me that the presence of God is alive and well in the midst of Covid-19 and all of the Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. I am beyond proud of the Paraguay Servant Trip Team. We agreed that we will move the trip to 2021. The airline is allowing changes through 2021. We were excited that we have more time to learn Spanish and possibly Guarani so that we can communicate with the people we meet. This also gives us more time to raise funds so that we can cover more of the expenses of the trip. We also have time to get to know each other better before we travel together to beautiful Paraguay. My heart overflows at all of the changes that the members of the church have made so that we can still be church in a time such as this. Every Sunday and at our Coffee Times and Happy Hours I am reminded of the goodness and presence of God. The Paraguay Servant Trip Team’s response to this change was an added bonus to the goodness that surrounds us all. Be sure to look for the presence of God in all of the Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes that will come our way in the days ahead. Know that your pastors are here for you in any way that you need us! Much love and peace, Pastor Laurie

Page 3 The Courier

• We’re using a worship series called “Heart of the Matter” for the after-Easter weeks, developed by Dr. Marsha McFee and her Worship Design Studio specifically for online worship. • 214 viewers watched our Easter service online; 120 watched Maundy Thursday, and 216 viewed the Palm Sunday service. Our worship services are being viewed by many outside our immediate FCC congregation. • An anonymous donor has underwritten the cost of the extended Zoom meetings we have been able to use. • Pictures of families dancing during Children’s Moment and all the varieties of communion elements that families use are available on FCC’s Facebook page

FCC This ‘n That

Ways to celebrate 50 years of Earth Day in COVID-19 era Since 2017, Anna Bliss has been writing a weekly email to many folks from SpringHouse and other places sharing ideas for civic engagement. She gave us permission to share what she wrote for Earth Day 2020. . This Wednesday, April 22, would have been my father’s 96th birthday. It’s also the 50th Earth Day Celebration. While I may be partial to celebrating the day in honor of the man who let me stand on his feet while we danced around the living room and who loved at good piano rag (ask me sometime why Scott Joplin makes me drowsy), it seems more appropriate to celebrate Earth Day. For 50 years people have been pausing and doing things to improve our environment. And while I am sure that no one anticipated an Earth Day that would need to be celebrated with physical distance, it seems all the more important this year to do something. If there is one silver lining out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is the news about the reductions in pollution - the reports about cleaner air over cities like Los Angeles because so many fewer cars are on the road. While we know this won’t last, maybe, just maybe, one of the things people will think about more is their driving habits, whether that’s fewer trips, rethinking the work commute, or using a bike or walking when you need to run nearby errands - maybe, just maybe, hopping in the car won’t be the first thing people do when we are able to emerge from our physical distancing. Maybe just maybe letting the earth breathe again for a bit will spur some positive change. A more immediate thing I have noticed is less trash, less litter on the streets. I live in a pretty clean neighborhood, but am just a block off a commercial thoroughfare. It’s almost inevitable that paper will escape the trash cans on the sidewalk or raccoons will pull out a wrapper or, well, people will just drop things. But with fewer of us out like we used to be, there are fewer wrappers, fewer bits of paper, less plastic blowing in the breeze. And yes, the air smells a little bit sweeter to me (though maybe that’s just a combination of too many months cooped up because it was winter followed by several weeks of spending 98% of my time at home). Our earth is a precious thing - it’s irreplaceable. The planet we leave for the next generation and the generation after that will assuredly not be the planet we inherited. But we can do something to make it less like the dark, damp future (or the arid, waterless future) that the movies would have us living in, a little less dystopia, and a lot more livable for real humans. 1. Check out the suggestions and ideas on the EarthDay.org web site - there’s a lot there, so find something that feels right for you: https://www.earthday.org/take-action-now/#actions 2. Log in to Climate Generation’s online storytelling slam scheduled for Wednesday from 11am-12:30pm Central: https://www.climategen.org/events/50th-anniversary-of-earth-day/ 3. Put on your gloves, grab a bag, and walk around your neighborhood - look for the papers that have gotten loose from the garbage cans, the wrappers that raccoons and squirrels have strewn about, the bottles and other bits that had been hidden by snow. There may not be a lot, or you may have to go home for another bag. Do some spring cleaning for the neighborhood you live in. (And wash your hands when you get home.) In a time when it feels like all we can do is live day to day, not knowing who will be the next person diagnosed with this awful virus, not being sure when we can hug a loved one again. It seems a radical act of hope to do something like thinking about our planet. It’s a radical act of hope to plan for more than tomorrow or next week. It’s a radical act of hope to plan for and contemplate the world that the next generation and the generation after that will live in and to try to make that world a little better, a little safer, a little healthier. It’s a radical act of hope to take actions now that may not bear fruit for decades, but hope is the one thing we all can have, we all can find, we all can share even when we can’t be in physical proximity. Go outside and breathe the clean, fresh, spring air. Listen to the sounds of your neighborhood. Let the sun shine on your face and refill your body and soul with warmth (and Vitamin D). Take a moment or two this week for some radical, needed hope. And if you want, listen or play a little Scott Joplin - my dad would approve.

Page 4 April 22, 2020

FCC Calendar for May

1 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time

2 9 am Zoom Coffee Time

3 10:30 am Worship

(livestream) Elders: Lu Griffin

and Mike Hesano

4 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 6:45 pm SH

Building Committee on Zoom

7 pm Women’s Ministry on Zoom

5 8:15 Lectionary

via Zoom 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 5 pm Zoom Happy

Hour

6 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 7 pm Elders via

Zoom

7 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 5 pm Zoom Happy Hour

8 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time

9 9 am Zoom Coffee Time

10 10:30 am Worship

(livestream) Elders: Karen

Kandik and Wendy Manual

11 7 pm SHMC

Finance Comm on Zoom

12 8:15 Lectionary

via Zoom 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 5 pm Zoom Happy

Hour 7 pm Pastor Dan

PRC on Zoom

13 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 5:30 pm FCC

Finance comm on Zoom

7 pm Elders via Zoom

14 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 5 pm Zoom Happy

Hour

15 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time

16 9 am Zoom Coffee Time

17 10:30 am Worship

(livestream) Elders:

18 7 pm Book Club

discussing “Educated” by Tara Westover

19 8:15 Lectionary

via Zoom 9 am Zoom

Coffee Time 7 pm FCC General

Board on Zoom

20 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 2 pm Mission and

Outreach Team 7 pm Elders via

Zoom

21 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 5 pm Zoom Happy

Hour

22 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time

23

24 10:30 am Worship

(livestream) Elders: Steve

Rusinak and Pat Dunlop

25 Memorial Day

26 8:15 Lectionary

via Zoom 9 am Zoom

Coffee Time 5 pm Zoom Happy

Hour

27 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 7 pm Elders via

Zoom

28 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time 5 pm Zoom Happy

Hour

29 9 am Zoom Coffee

Time

30 9 am Zoom Coffee Time

31 10:30 am Worship

(livestream) Elders: Susan

Morgan and Kirsten Cackoski

Note: The full calendar for FCC and SpringHouse is available online at https://calendar.churchart.com/calendar/73956030

Page 5

Text for April 26, Second Sunday after Easter

Luke 24: 30-32

Sundays at First Christian Church Worship (and morning bulletin) at 10:30, online at fccmpls.org

“Children’s Table” activities online at fccmpls.org

Reflections on the Word Luke 24: 31– Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. The resurrected Jesus shares bread once again with his followers. And in feeding them, Jesus opens their eyes, helping them see that Jesus was with them the whole time. The ending of this story makes us consider whether his disappearance closed their eyes once again. Loving God, Open our eyes to your presence in us, around us, and in all the people we meet. Amen Adapted from commentary by Eric Baretto on Working Preacher.

FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF MINNEAPOLIS

(DISCIPLES OF CHRIST) 610 W. 28th Street

Minneapolis, MN 55408 A Welcoming Community of Faith in the Heart

of the City Ministry Team

Dan Adolphson, Associate Pastor dan.adolphson@fccmpls.org Rick Bowman, SHMC Building Manager Adam Conrad, Music Co-Director &

Composer-in-Residence Laurie Pound Feille, Senior Minister

pastor@fccmpls.org Martha Harris, Courier Editor,

harrismartha@mac.com Laura Moll, Youth Minister,

springhouseyouth@fccmpls.org Deb Murphy, Office Manager & Director of Spiritual Formation of Children, deb.murphy@fccmpls.org & SHMC Building Coordinator, shcoordinator@fccmpls.org Rhianna Peterson, SHMC Child Care Maria Thieling, SHMC Child Care Mike Vasich, Co-Music Director and Pianist Office Telephone: 612.870.1868 www.fccminneapolis.org

E-Mail: office@fccminneapolis.org Next issue deadline is Sunday, May 3

First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Minneapolis, is a partner church at SpringHouse Ministry Center

Supper at Emmaus by Michaelangelo Carravagio

April 22, 2020 Page 6