Claremont United Church of Christ

This Sunday, June 22 was our annual Open & Affirming Celebration! We're celebrating 31 years of being a welcoming and inclusive congregation for all people. One of the most beautiful services of the year will be full of gorgeous music, powerful testimonies, and tasty treats as always.

Genesis 34 is known as a text of terror for its violent themes and storyline. This chapter is the only story we have about Dinah, one of Jacob's daughters, but she doesn't even get a voice in this passage. Pastor Jacob explores her story and tragedy of the cycles of violence it contains. While there may not be much hope in this passage, might there be hope in the rest of Scripture? And while there seems to be little hope to be found in the current mass deportations targeting women and children, might there be hope that the tides are turning in how we embrace immigrants in our country?

B is for....Boanerges. You voted and chose to learn more about the Sons of Thunder. James and John were unusual picks to be Jesus' disciples, but was there something about their fiery, passionate, personalities that attracted Jesus, or was all of their bluster too toxic?

Rev. Belva Brown Jordan, ordained with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) after teaching special education on the elementary school level, served over 35 years in ministry for the denominational and in theological higher education. Rev. Jordan retired in the fall of 2023 after serving as interim president for Disciple Seminary Foundation. Before her three years at DSF she was on the faculty of Claremont School of Theology and served as an associate dean in academics. She presently lives in Upland, California with her daughter and grandson.

This summer we are traveling through the alphabet as we explore stories, themes, and characters in the Bible that YOU voted for! Stay tuned to see which subjects came out on top from our poll earlier this year!

We conclude our Stewardship Season by asking what it means to be "Truth-Tellers." How do we know that we proclaim as Christians is the truth?

Like Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross of Jesus, we are called to be cross bearers. As a church community we carry each other's burdens when they are too heavy to carry alone, and we carry the burdens and problems of society when we can't fix them by ourselves. This is who we are!

Our faith tradition is built on stories of our ancestors acting bravely in times of trouble because they understood it was the right thing to do. Join us this Stewardship season as we remind ourselves who we are and why we live the way we do!

We conclude our "Bless this Mess" sermon series on Easter morning! Part of the messiness of the spiritual journey is that we don't always know for sure what we believe. However, part of having faith is understanding that faith and doubt can coexist within us at the same time.

This Sunday Pastor Jen will be preaching on Bless This Mess: "He Wept"

Is there much to be grateful for in a world where so much is going wrong? Is it privileged of us to take time out of our days to be grateful when so many people are suffering? Join Pastor Jacob in our Bless this Mess sermons series as he explores the importance of gratitude as a spiritual discipline.

GUEST PREACHER: REV. DR. KATHERINE GEORGIA A. THOMPSON The Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia A. Thompson is the General Minister and President and the Chief Executive Officer of the United Church of Christ. Rev. Thompson is the first woman and first woman of African descent to serve as leader of the denomination. She is a writer, poet and theologian who has contributed to numerous publications. Her book of poetry Drums in Our Veins was published in 2022. Prior to this call, Rev. Thompson served in the national setting of the United Church of Christ for 14 years – two years as Minister for Racial Justice, eight years as Minister for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, and four years as the Associate General Minister for Wider Church Ministries and Co-Executive for Global Ministries. She was elected as Associate General Minister in 2019. As General Minister and President of the UCC, Rev. Thompson is the head of communion and the spiritual leader of the church, as well as the executive leader of the church. Her passion for justice and equity moved her work on behalf of the UCC into a global context when she served as Minister for Racial Justice. This passion for justice was a catalyst for her global advocacy to reduce the marginalization experienced by African descendant peoples and other communities globally. She continues to participate globally bringing her leadership to addressing a variety of issues including global racial justice, gender justice, and human rights. Before joining the national staff in 2009, Rev. Thompson served in the Florida Conference United Church of Christ as a Pastor and on the Conference staff as the Minister for Disaster Response and Recovery. She also worked in the nonprofit arena for over 10 years in leaderships positions. Rev. Thompson earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College in New York, a Master of Public Administration from North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC, and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York. She also studied Public Policy at Duke University and earned her Doctor of Ministry at Seattle University. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University in 2023.

This Sunday Pastor Jen will be preaching on Bless This Mess: "Wreck the Ship"

This Sunday Pastor Jen will be preaching on Bless This Mess: "Not My Circus"

In Ezekiel Chapter 37, God brings Ezekiel to a valley full of dry, dead bones and asks him, "Can these bones live?" As we survey the chaos and country of our world, God asks us the same question, "Can these bones live?"

Our world, our lives, and sometimes our hearts feel messy. Thankfully, Jesus entered our mess and agreed to walk through it with us, never turning away from our pain and promising transformation along the journey. Lent is a season that celebrates transformation--in all its messy forms. Join us as we spend 40 days facing hard truths, taking responsibility, and creating something beautiful together through it all. May God bless this mess!

One of the biggest gaps in Scripture is what happened in Jesus' life from the time he was born until he was 30 and baptized by John. In the final installment of our "Mind the Gap" sermon series, Pastor Jacob explores how people living very ordinary lives can be the source of a prophetic word for our times.

This Sunday we welcome guest preacher Lydia Sohn to the pulpit! The Rev. Lydia Sohn is a Korean American United Methodist elder and writer whose writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic and The Christian Century, among others. Her forthcoming book, Here: A Spirituality of Staying in a Culture of Leaving releases on February 25, 2025 and is available for preorder now! Most importantly, she is mom to Hugh, Ivy, and Iris, wife to a handsome brainiac named James, and a long time resident and lover of Claremont. Follow along her journeys in Claremont filled with parenting, writing, eating pastries at Some Crust, and pastoring at www.revlydia.com. The official launch party for her book is this upcoming Saturday, March 1st at 2 p.m. at Claremont United Methodist Church. This event is free and open to the public! Learn more at launchforhere.eventbrite.com

Did you know that there were more letters written by apostles like Paul and John than are contained in our New Testaments? Many of these letters have been lost to history! Pastor Jacob explores the gaps in the correspondence between the apostles and the churches to whom they wrote and explains how Christians today carry on the conversations that the apostles were having in their letters.

We launch a new series this week looking at stories where there are holes in the plot or content of the passage. So many times when we read a Biblical story, we are not privy to the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters. In today's Scripture reading, Jesus is rejected by his hometown, and he must have been disappointed and distraught. Pastor Jacob reflects on Jesus' potential feelings and compares them to the ones so many of us are feeling in a time of turmoil.

This Sunday Pastor Jen will be preaching on Second Chances: "Zacchaeus"

We often think of second chances coming when we have made a mistake and need an opportunity to get it right. But what about second chances when everything goes wrong, and we did nothing to cause it? This week we read from the Book of Lamentations and ask how our world might get a second chance when everything seems lost and hopeless.

This Sunday Pastors Jen and Jacob will be doing an "Ask Us Anything" session in lieu of a sermon!

We continue our series "All I Want for Christmas," with the fourth candle on our Advent wreath: Love. We talk A LOT about love in the church, but what does it actually mean to love someone? Is there a way to quantify our love? How do we know if we are actually becoming more loving? Pastor Jacob tries to define love so that perhaps we can give and receive love this holiday season in more ways than ever before. 

Each week during our Advent sermon series, Pastors Jen and Jacob will be comparing a classic Christmas toy to one of the candles of our Advent wreath: hope, peace, joy, and love. This week Pastor Jacob questions whether the vision of peace presented in Scripture is simply a fantasy, or is our faith the most real and authentic part of our lives

Now is your chance to ask Pastors Jen and Jacob your burning questions! With a Spirit of humility and humor, Pastors Jen and Jacob will turn the chancel into a conversation space where no questions are off limits. Congregants both online and in-person will be able to submit questions “live” and Pastors Jen and Jacob will answer those questions on-the-spot with no prior knowledge of what the questions will be!

Now is your chance to ask Pastors Jen and Jacob your burning questions! With a Spirit of humility and humor, Pastors Jen and Jacob will turn the chancel into a conversation space where no questions are off limits. Congregants both online and in-person will be able to submit questions “live” and Pastors Jen and Jacob will answer those questions on-the-spot with no prior knowledge of what the questions will be!

This Sunday we welcome back guest preacher Rev. Dr. Craig Hadley! Pastor Craig grew up in Redlands, studied architecture in Montana, and then returned to Riverside to get his Masters of Divinity degree from La Sierra University. After working for a global Christian denomination for seven years, he, along with several of his friends, started Paradox Church in Redlands. Today, Paradox is one of three open and affirming churches in Redlands. A few years later, Craig graduated from Portland Seminary with his Doctorate of Ministry degree with an emphasis on Biblical contradictions. He currently lives in Redlands with his wife, Kimi (who is WAY out of his league), and his daughter, Maya (who sleeps on the top bunk in her own room) and his son, Bode (who cried tears of joy when he got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas).

As we head to the polls in the United States, Pastor Jacob's sermon is a reminder that the work of the church will not change come Wednesday morning regardless of the results. We will still be called to stand up for our LGBTQIA+ siblings, to dismantle racism and the patriarchy, and to strive to love all people equally.

As Election 2024 approaches, our special two-week sermon series reminds us that we are called to something greater: something greater than our political parties, something greater than the boundaries of our country, something greater than our single church. The Kingdom of God transcends any one election year or political leader and calls us to be part of God's ongoing work in the world.

Our annual Animal Blessing Sunday! Pastor Jacob explores the language we use during times of war when people are described as dogs or animals in an attempt to dehumanize them. Why did this language ever become an insult? What does it have to say about how humans consider themselves as more important than other species?

The Bible is full of prophets beyond just the ones with books named after them. In the book of 1 Kings we meet a prophet named Micaiah who is willing to share a hard truth with King Ahab of Israel, even though 400 other people are telling the king exactly what he wants to hear. Join Pastor Jacob as he invites us to step out of our echo chambers and listen for a God who is calling us into a deeper and more compassionate faith.

This Sunday we launch a new sermon series taking a look at the hidden figures of Scripture! In the 31,102 verses of Scripture there are characters that get only a passing reference and are quickly forgotten. Take Bezalel and Oholiab for example! They are only mentioned in Exodus 31 but these two men with hard to pronounce names are called by God for a specific purpose, and perhaps God is calling us too. 

The story of the Isrealites crossing the Red Sea in their escape from Egypt becomes the central story of the Hebrew people. Join Pastor Jacob as he explores why the crossing is about so much more than Moses vs. Pharaoh or Israel vs. Egypt, and why it tells a story that the forces of oppression in this world will never prevail. 

Pastor Jen will be preaching on Retold: Sunday School Stories You Thought You Knew "Jonah"

You can't think of Joseph without thinking of his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! But Joseph's life was far from sunshine and rainbows. In fact, from the beginning, Joseph was mired in family dysfunction. However, his story is a source of encouragement that no matter what hardships we might be facing, we can be resilient enough to keep going, trusting that God goes with us.

Pastor Jen dives into Sunday School Stories You Thought You Knew: "The Good Samaritan"

Pastor Jen will be preaching on Retold: Sunday School Stories You Thought You Knew "The Good Samaritan"

We launch a new sermon series this week retelling some of the most common Sunday School stories, but this time, looking at both the good and dark parts of the tales. Pastor Jacob revisits Noah's Ark and helps us navigate God's anger to discover the hopeful end of this Hebrew fable: God is more concerned with human flourishing than human destruction--and we should be too!

Pastor Jen acknowledges that many of us are in a season of wilderness right now. Through the story of the Hebrew people walking from slavery to freedom and learning to trust God along the way, she reminds us that we, too, are being guided towards a future filled with hope

Ronald T. Evans and his wife of 59 years (Janet), reside at Pilgrim Place. He served overseas with the International Y.M.C.A. in East Africa and Geneva; taught in New England prep schools and Yale, and served as Senior Minister of two United Church of Christ congregations, 10 years in Massachusetts, and 25 years in Connecticut. Along the way he has been a rated sports official, volunteer fire fighter, Fire Department Chaplain, steeple jack, storyteller, NPR commentator, perpetual fund raiser, and occasional fun raiser.

One of the primary images for God in Scripture is God as a mother. Join Pastor Jacob as he explores the feminine images of God in the Bible and invites us to expand our understanding of God and of ourselves.

Pastor Jen shares the story of Moses encountering God as a burning bush and invites us to see all ground as holy ground