Update and Resources

December 5, 2025

Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man, and my wife too is advanced in age.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel, who stands before God. I was sent to speak to you and bring you this good news. But because you have not trusted my words, you’ll be mute—unable to speak—until the day these things take place. They’ll all come true in due season.”

~ Luke 1:18-20

Second Sunday of Advent Worship at 10:00 AM

Join us for worship this second Sunday of Advent. You can always worship online via our live stream or anytime on our Kent UCC Video page. Click here to print the bulletin for an order of worship for those worshiping online.

Crèche Museum

Will your nativity set be a part of the Kent UCC Crèche Museum this Advent?

You are invited to bring your nativity sets to church for an “exhibit.” The Worship and Arts Ministry will display them around the sanctuary and narthex to create a crèche museum. Share the special sets that have been part of your family traditions, that you brought home from your travels, or were passed down or given to you as a gift. There will be placards by each crèche with the name of the individual or family who submitted them and a snippet about the set’s origin. 

The crèches will be on display throughout the Advent and Christmas season. We ask you to leave them at the church at least until THIS Sunday, December 7 after worship. They will be used as a teaching tool with our children and youth. If you would like to display your crèche longer, you are welcome to do so. We would like all crèches to be picked up by the Sunday after Christmas, December 28. Thank you for participating in this special exhibit!

Sanctuary Open House 

 Our sanctuary has a special, even magical, quality in Advent. We invite you to enjoy the gifts of quiet and solitude during our sanctuary open house on Wednesday, December 10 from 6:30 - 8pm. There will be others present, "holding space" and praying so you will not be alone. Come, relax and rest in God's presence and peace in the midst of an otherwise busy season. Lift your heartfelt prayers and listen for God who is still speaking. Reflect on where you are along your faith journey right now. 

You may stay as little or as long as you like. By resting in God's presence, you come to recognize your own and become more present for those you love. Please park in the front loop and enter through the sanctuary doors. Escape the hustle and bustle of the season and give yourself this gift of quiet this year.   

FA-LA-LA Fashion Sunday

 Sunday December 14 is JOY Sunday. Here at the Kent UCC it is also FA-LA-LA Fashion Sunday. Please wear your favorite holiday attire….this could be an ugly Christmas Sweater, festive tie, or your favorite holiday frock. Bells again will be provided to help us all ring in the JOY. After the service you are invited to Fellowship Hall to take fun pictures by the Christmas tree. 

Annual Cookie Exchange

On December 14 the Fellowship Ministry will host the third annual Cookie Exchange! Here’s how it works:

• Bring 2 ½ dozen of your favorite, homemade Christmas cookies to church on December 14.
• Drop them off in the church kitchen BEFORE church and make sure to label what they are, The Fellowship folks will then make a table tent to display with your cookies.
• Two dozen of your cookies will be on the Exchange Table, the ½ dozen will be served during coffee hour.
• Each person that participates will receive a take home box to fill with 2 dozen cookies to take home. 

This is a great and easy way to get some of your holiday baking accomplished. Even if you do not wish to participate in the exchange, you can still enjoy coffee, cookies and fellowship with your church friends. See you on December 14!

Veterans of the Cross

 For over one hundred years, The Veterans of the Cross Christmas Fund has provided direct financial assistance to the healers in all our lives: retired and active UCC ministers, church workers, and their families. You are part of the community of The Veterans of the Cross, whether you donate at Christmastime, benefit directly from our grant or leadership programs, or simply believe in our mission to help secure the financial foundation of those engaged in the life of the church.

Please consider supporting this last of our wider church’s special offerings to ensure more healers receive the loving support of the Church in their moment of deepest need. Your gift is more than just a testament to your belief in the values of the United Church of Christ, it is a critical lifeline for those who depend on our grant programs for care and support. This year, your care and compassion will be especially appreciated by those servants of the church who are facing a time of need. Please look for envelopes in the pews at the beginning of December.  

Book Study for Advent

Thursdays, Dec. 11, and 18 at 2pm in the Chapel 

Join Pastor Amy for an Advent book study on Thursday afternoons in December (Dec.11, and 18) at 2pm in the Chapel.

Theologian and author Kelley Nikondeha’s accessible book, The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope will inform and guide us this Advent. Nikondeha puts the Advent story in its historical context, helping us gain a new understanding of the tumultuous times in which that first Christmas took place. The book also illustrates the connections that make this scripture story all the more relevant for our world today.

Reading the Advent narratives of Luke and Matthew anew, in their original context, changes so much about how we see the true story of resistance, abusive rulers and systems of oppression, and God coming to earth. Throughout her explorations, Nikondeha features the stories of modern-day Palestinians, centering their voices to help us meet an Advent recognizable for today.  

Please let Pastor Amy know you would like to participate and you will be provided a book. Books are $15. Please bring cash or a check made out to Kent UCC (with “Advent book” in the memo line).

Festival of Nine

Lessons and Carols

 Join us at 7pm on Sunday, December 14 for our annual Lessons and Carols service, patterned after the classic service at King's College in London. A beloved Kent UCC tradition, this special service features our Chancel Choir, Handbell Choir, other musicians and readers of all ages. This service always seems to usher in the Christmas season with joy and enthusiasm!   

Host Coffee Hour in the New Year

It's time to think about your New Year's Resolutions and Fellowship and Fun has the perfect idea: sign-up to host coffee hour! We need one or two volunteers each week to simply brew a pot of coffee or two, prepare some pitchers of cold water and perhaps bring a few snacks. Members of Fellowship are happy to coach you through it. The 2026 sign-up sheet is now posted on the bulletin board in VanMeter Hall.  

Project Noelle

New Information: Outreach has a new partner this year, Project Noelle, a non-profit that helps children who have lost parents to addiction. The children‘s Christmas lists, including the additional ones, were taken quickly thanks to the amazing generosity at our church. Members who would still like to help can do so by purchasing individual toys, or pjs, or clothes, or games and put them, unwrapped, under our Giving

Tree through December 14. Project Noelle will use these items to fill in the gaps. Outreach is very excited about helping these children have a very Merry Christmas. Members who have taken lists should put your gifts along with the list by the Project Noelle sign by December 5th. If you have any questions, please see a member of our Outreach ministry. Thank you for sharing your abundance with these beautiful children.

Blessing Box

The Outreach Ministry wants to remind everyone that, in this time of extreme food-insecurity, we not only have our grocery cart that is taken to Kent Social Services regularly, but we have our Blessing Box which can be filled with non perishable items, toiletries, gloves, hats, etc. Many of us have seen community members in need making use of this. Again we thank you for your incredible commitment to serve those in need.

Kent Social Services

Volunteers Needed!

Over the summer, members of our congregation volunteered to help Kent Social Services. And the need for our help was quite obvious! During the summer, they lost their cook, and they have not yet replaced her. Marquice has been doing much of the work herself, counting on volunteers to fill in the gaps. So your Outreach ministry is hoping to extend our volunteering for the next several months. There is always something we can do there to help. We will continue with the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month working from 10-1 so that we can help to serve lunch. Sign up here to indicate when you can help. Thank you so much for your willingness to work in our community, share God’s love, and help those in need. Kent UCC shares its abundance. Please note the current needs for the food pantry below.

Social Justice Update

The Law and Our Neighbor: Our LGBTQAI+ Neighbors

Our Social Justice series returns with a timely program on Wednesday, January 14, 7 pm, focusing on current issues affecting the LGBTQAI+ community. Amanda Cole will be our speaker. She’s the executive director of Plexus, the LGBT and Allied Chamber of Commerce.

Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast

Kent UCC will again host the annual MLK Jr. Breakfast. This year it’s on Saturday, January 17 from 10 am to noon, with registration starting at 9:30. Tickets are $20 and available online or by leaving a check payable to Portage County NAACP in the NAACP mailbox at church. Frank Hairston has more information. This breakfast is always an inspiring time!



Anti-Racism Book Group Update

We’ll begin a new book in January: The Message, by Ta-nehisi Coates. The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities. We meet via Zoom at 7 pm the fourth Monday of each month, and we welcome newcomers! For more information or to receive the Zoom link, contact Barb Hanniford (bhanniford@neo.rr.com).

Roundabout Information

Please click here for a current update on the roundabout being built near our church.

ACME Cash Back Program

It's that time of year again to submit your receipts for the ACME Community Cash Back program. Every year, participate in this special program that gives money to local non-profits. At the end of the program, we tally up the receipts we have collected, and we receive a portion of it back. Please submit your ACME receipts from August 1, 2025 through February 15, 2026. You can drop them in the baskets that are labeled around the church and in the church office. Thank you for participating!

Sign Up to Greet

Please sign up to be a Kent UCC Greeter. This is an easy but IMPORTANT job! Just come to church before the service at 9:35am, stand by the lower doors and welcome and greet people as they come in! It is so imperative to have a friendly face to welcome everyone as they come in to church. You are coming to church anyway so just come a little early and spread our Kent UCC extravagant hospitality to all who enter our doors. Click HERE to access the greeter sign up sheet! If you have any questions please contact Gayle Wall. 

Looking Ahead

• TONIGHT Friday, December 5 - Parents Night Out, 5-8pm

• THIS Sunday - December 7 (or longer, if you'd like to leave your nativity set at church) - Creche Museum in the sanctuary and narthex

• Wednesday, December 10 - Sanctuary Open House, 6:30-8pm in the Sanctuary

• Sunday, December 14 - Children's Christmas Program; Christmas cookie exchange after worship; Lessons and Carols Service at 7pm in the Sanctuary

• Wednesday, December 17 - Blue Christmas Service in the Sanctuary at 7pm

• Wednesday, December 24 - Christmas Eve Service in the Sanctuary at 7pm

• Sunday, January 4 - Epiphany "You Light Up My Life" Sunday and distribution of Star Words

• Wednesday, January 14 - Our Social Justice series returns with a timely program: The Law and Our Neighbor: Our LGBTQ+ Neighbors

• Saturday, January 17 - MLK Breakfast with the NAACP, VanMeter Hall

• Sunday, January 24 - Annual Congregational Meeting after worship

This Week’s Sacred Texts

Luke 1:5-25

“In the days of the ruler Herod, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the priestly class of Abijah. His wife Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron. Both were worthy in the sight of God and scrupulously observed all the commandments and observances of our God. They were childless—unable to conceive—and they were both advanced in years. Now it was the turn of Zechariah’s priestly class to serve. And as he was fulfilling his priestly office before God, it fell to him by lot, according to priestly usage, to enter the sanctuary of our God and offer incense. While the full assembly of people was praying outside at the time of day when the incense was offered, an angel of our God appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. Zechariah was deeply disturbed upon seeing the angel, and was overcome with fear. 

The angel said to him, “Don’t be frightened, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, whom you’ll name John. He will be your joy and delight and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of our God. He must never drink wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. And he will bring many of the children of Israel back to their God Most High. He will go before God as a forerunner, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the rebellious to the wisdom of the just—to make ready a people prepared for our God.”

Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man, and my wife too is advanced in age.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel, who stands before God. I was sent to speak to you and bring you this good news. But because you have not trusted my words, you’ll be mute—unable to speak—until the day these things take place. They’ll all come true in due season.” Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondered about his delay in the sanctuary. When he finally came out he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision inside. But he could only make signs to them and remained mute. Then, when his time of priestly service was over, he went home.

Some time later, Elizabeth conceived. She went into seclusion for five months, saying, “Our God has done this for me. In these days, God has shown favor to us and taken away the disgrace of our having no children.”