Our Whole Lives Facilitator Training

Register Now for the Our Whole Lives Grades K-1 and Grades 4-6 Facilitator Training hosted by Danville Congregational Church from Friday March 14th through Sunday March 16th! As we face continuing attacks on both reproductive freedom and LGBTQIA+ rights, people of all ages need access to accurate, inclusive, body-positive, values-based, and comprehensive information about bodies and relationships. If you or your congregation is looking for ways to meet this moment with prophetic courage and empowering action, getting trained to facilitate OWL is a fantastic opportunity! The training is open to anyone over the age of 21. Participants are not required to…
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Los Angeles Area Wildfires

By Rev. Michael Dack In recent days, wildfires across the Los Angeles area have killed at least 27 people, destroyed more than 14,000 structures (including the historic Altadena Community Church UCC), and charred more than 60 square miles. The fires are still burning and weather conditions remain extreme – posing the danger of new fires. At a time like this, our hearts go out to our southern neighbors, we lift up our prayers for everyone who is impacted, and we look for concrete ways to respond. As the NCNC Disaster Response Coordinator, I want to share some resources and information…
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How do we end/leave our ministry lives?

By Rev. Deborah Streeter As I prepare to move east to an independent living place in the Albany New York area, near my son and his family, I have pondered and prayed about letting go of my ministry persona and life. For 15 years I have belonged to two churches here on the central coast, La Selva Community UCC where I officially hold my ministerial standing, and Pacific Grove Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, where I most often worship, in both settings as Minister of Blue Theology, connecting faith communities and ocean issues. Many NCNC churches have taken part in…
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Our Whole Lives is turning 25 years old soon!

By Lauren Jewett The first edition of the first Our Whole Lives comprehensive sexuality education curriculum was published in the year 2000, which means Our Whole Lives is about to have a milestone birthday, celebrating 25 years in 2025! To celebrate this amazing milestone - 25 years of Our Whole Lives - the OWL Advisory Committee (on which I serve) and other UCC folx passionate about Our Whole Lives have been working hard to mark this amazing milestone, with a resolution at Synod, and a goal of having 25 Our Whole Lives facilitator trainings hosted by UCC-affiliated groups in 2025.…
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We want your youth to come to IMMERSION 2025: SF!

By Rev. Lauren Jewett Register Here and read below for more information about this awesome event! The Youth and Outdoor Ministry team has been working hard for months to vision and plan for our next conference-wide youth event! IMMERSION 2025:SF will be held at The Waller Urban Retreat Center, which is owned and operated by our siblings in the United Methodist Church. The Waller Center is located in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and is a fantastic location for a weekend youth event! It has a commercial kitchen, full-size gym space, dorm rooms, and a beautiful chapel space for evening worship. We…
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Rev. Lauren Jewett is our new ACM for Youth, Young Adults, and Education

By Rev. Lauren Jewett This week begins my role as the Associate Conference Minister (ACM) for Youth, Young Adults, and Education here at the Northern California Nevada Conference. I am thrilled to begin this new role and am so proud of this conference for taking a courageous and spirit-filled step towards serving the needs of our youth and young adults, who are very much the present of the church, not merely its future. A little bit about me: For the past three years I served as Director of Spiritual Engagement and Campus Minister at CA House, one of the UCC’s…
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Right Relationships: West Berkeley Shellmound

By Rev. Kathryn Schreiber On a cool, drizzly early spring afternoon in 2016 folks gathered in Berkeley near a vacant parking lot. We had been invited to gather by Corrina Gould, now Tribal Chair for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation. Days before, construction workers in Berkeley had uncovered “pre-contact” indigenous human remains. The indigenous peoples have always known this area was part of their sacred site of West Berkeley Shellmound, though The City of Berkeley’s 2000 landmark status safeguarded a much smaller area. When we gathered on April 10, 2016, we felt anger and wanted to DO something. Leader…
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Celebrating Day of the Dead at FCC Alameda

Celebrating Día de los Muertos at First Congregational Church of AlamedaCommunity Ofrenda Building & Open Sanctuary | Friday and Saturday, October 25-26, 5:00-8:00pm Dia de los Muertos Worship Service | Sunday, October 27 at 10:30am FCCA's celebration of Dia de los Muertos began in 2014 in response to members of our faith community who had grown up celebrating this special day and who desired to assist in creating a sacred space to honor their native tradition and invite people from every background to experience its blessings. By honoring and celebrating the lives of our loved ones in the process of…
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Chocolate Fest at the Congregational Church of the Peninsula UCC

By Micki Carter Ah, church fundraisers! Now there’s a topic that can keep church leadership gnawing on ideas (good, bad and awful) for eons! In 1983, a group of 10 from the Congregational Church of Belmont met on the deck of my house in San Mateo to come up with a fundraiser with overlapping goals. It needed to: Raise money — but not from members who already gave a lot. Grab the interest of the community. Benefit community organizations like food banks and shelters. Be classy! Beer festivals kept coming up but somehow that didn’t sound all that appropriate for…
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Conference Fall Meeting 2024

Our Conference Fall Meeting will take place on Saturday, October 26 10:00-11:30 AM.  We will worship together and then we will discuss our NCNC Conference draft budget for 2025 and vote on approving our 2025 budget.  This is a very important meeting, and all church delegates and ministers with standing are expected to register and attend, as well as any other interested folks. There is no registration fee; the meeting is online. A budget is much more than a spreadsheet with a lot of mysterious numbers in it.  The draft budget we will present is the work of countless hours…
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