Please send all completed applications to VermontConference@gmail.com .

Hope Fund: Worship Resources

 

On November 13th, 2021, a special meeting of the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ enthusiastically approved the creation of a visionary initiative called the Hope Fund. At that meeting the people of the Vermont Conference also approved the creation of a fundraising team to support this effort.  Your fundraising team: Paul Sangree, Elise Foster, Kevin Goldenbogen, Elissa Johnk, Leigh McCaffrey, Andy Nagy-Benson (chair).

 

 

 

 

The Hope Fund Discernment Team is pleased to announce the Guilford Community Church as
the first recipient of a Hope Fund Grant.

 

Guilford Community Church is creating a park for the residents of Guilford and the surrounding communities. The Guilford Community Park “will feature a 48’x24’ timber-frame pavilion in the old Vermont style, a classic seven circuit labyrinth, a playground for young children, open areas for kicking a ball or throwing a Frisbee, and a campfire pit for singing songs and telling stories. The park will serve as a platform for music and cultural events, a public space for having a picnic or getting away from it all for meditation and relaxation.”(GCC, Hope Fund application). Out of respect for their neighbors’ concerns (and as Robert Frost put it, “Good fences make good neighbors”) the Hope Fund is helping the Guilford Community Church with the construction of a fence on the park’s property line. We are excited to see how this multi-faceted project unfolds. We hope you will make a pilgrimage to the Guilford Community Park, walk the labyrinth and celebrate this amazing project!


 

 

 

 

First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ is a few buildings away from the four corners of downtown Springfield. We have a high rise senior housing building across the street and the Black River running behind us. We have a green space on the east side of the building that is basically unchanged since the last fifty plus years. It is a raggedy place full of yews, hemlocks, a large maple that hides the entrance and grapevines and Japanese honeysuckle growing everywhere.

Our  new mission statement, “We are a community in Christ, called to act with love toward our neighbors.”, gave us a goal to make this green space a place open and inviting to all. We want to invite our neighbors to come and sit in a peaceful place, have conversations, eat lunch or just be in the moment in a busy town.

 

 

Pilot Hope Fund Projects

Centre Church in Brattleboro

 

"Jesus delivered his most provocative and best remembered message ‘on the mount’ (Matthew 5-7), that was outdoors. Being outdoors and on a mount enabled Jesus to be accessible and visible, respectively. After almost two years of coaching and consulting by Paul Nickerson, Centre Church better understands that its location (central) is key to its relevance and viability in the greater-Brattleboro area and thus the accessibility and visibility of the church is seminal. Yet currently, the vital ministries implemented and the gospel demonstrated are almost ‘hidden under a bushel’ (Matthew 5:15) – the bushel being our beautiful edifice that is the ‘Jewel on Main Street’. If we are to follow “the example of … Jesus”, we must improve our accessibility and visibility."

 

 

West Dover Congregational Church

 

"The Church’s role in this athletic community-building work is twofold: 1) We are one of the groups that would use such an established community venue to reach community members in need and 2) We bear witness to God’s abundance and love of poor, working-class and other communities by providing a free venue for exercise, fun and education in towns overly invested in the interests of affluent vacationers to the detriment of local working class and poor residents, especially children."

 

NEW MINISTRY

Just Now. Just You. Just Love.

Love Church.

Randolph Center, Vermont

 

Love Church is a non-traditional worshiping community. We welcome everyone, including those who have not been connected with a church in the past or have left the traditional church for whatever reason. At Love Church we worship as we share a meal, hike in the woods, create art, dance, pray, laugh, sing, meditate, and love our neighbors. It’s all about love! Join us as we redefine what church can be.