Check out the pictures of our kids having a blast together in outdoor play on the Thoreau School field last Sunday! After getting all sweaty and tired, we joined Sunday Fellowship under the tent to learn about the upcoming Minute Man March on September 25th and to make posters supporting Team WCUC. It was a joy to be together and get excited about this very special event! Read on to learn how you can support the Minute Man March and Team WCUC as well!

TEAM WCUC NEEDS YOU! Join Team WCUC by supporting the Minute Man March – a beloved community event that helps bring life-changing services to 850 children and adults with disabilities in our community. Now, more than ever, Minute Man Arc needs our support to continue its vital work. Click HERE for general information about the March.

TEAM WCUC NEEDS FEET! Join us on September 25th for a spirited one-mile walk through Concord Center, followed by an outdoor party with music, games, prizes and food. Email Melissa Tustin at mwtustin@gmail.com if you plan to join Team WCUC and walk with us!

TEAM WCUC NEEDS FUNDS! Even if you can’t march with us, you can still be a part of Team WCUC by making a donation. Please visit our TEAM WCUC FUNDRAISING PAGE and share the link with friends and family, or check out the brand new MMArc Silent Auction and place a bid!

Thank you for your support, and God Bless Every Body!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

After being forced to cancel our Pentecost event due to predicted storms (which never materialized), Sunday Fellowship was determined to gather together on June 6th despite the record heat. Once we consulted with Minute Man Arc’s nurse, packed coolers full of cold drinks and set-up in the shade, it was party-time! Enjoy these photos of Sunday Fellowship’s first in-person gathering since March 2020.

• 

Over the course of three hours, more than fifty members and friends of Sunday Fellowship paraded through the sanctuary visiting prayer stations depicting the last week of Jesus’ life. For most of us, it was the first time we had physically been inside the church since 2020 and it felt good.

• 

• 

One station invited us to add our own figures to the crowd of people watching Jesus ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. Another offered each of us our own purple scroll with teachings Jesus might have preached about in the Temple after he chased away the moneychangers. We took home cloth with a drop of fragrant oil and tiny loaves of bread to remind us of the Last Supper. We lit prayer candles, we painted rocks and we walked a palm strewn path up to a cross. What better way to enter holy week than to finally be able to engage in worship with our whole bodies?!

Many thanks to everyone who helped prepare the space and materials for Sunday Fellowship to enjoy. Please enjoy some pictures of the day.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The first virtual Sunday Fellowship Sunday was held on March 7th. As always, Sunday Fellowship members did a beautiful job leading worship for all of West Concord Union Church. We dedicated the service to Chrissy Pickard and John Martino, members of SF who died in the spring of 2020. You can watch Mary B’s testimony and SF’s creative depiction of the Message Bible’s version of Psalm 19 below.

A huge “thank you” to all of our volunteers, caregivers and staff for making Sunday Fellowship in the Light possible this year in all its many forms! It is a testament to our partnership that we were able to offer a safe event that was truly accessible to everyone. Please enjoy these photos showing outdoor visits at home with baby Jesus and in-person visits to a music-filled, candlelit Sanctuary for the first time since March. We hope everyone is enjoying their gift bag filled with holiday cookies and Sunday Fellowship’s newly minted T-shirts. Merry Christmas to all!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

One year ago, Sunday Fellowship and Children’s Ministries partnered with the Village Art room to create a communal icon of depicting Jesus, the Disabled God, with the saints of the disability rights movement. Little did we know that one of our favorite disability saints, Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, would see her image on our icon and want to connect with us.

After weeks of careful preparation, representatives from Sunday Fellowship and Children’s Ministries interviewed Keelan-Chaffins and her mother. It was fascinating to hear Keelan-Chaffins talk about becoming “a master of talking with the media by the time [she] was six and half” and explaining the social model of disability. Highlight clips from the 37 minute interview are posted below. The entire interview can be viewed here.

Sunday Fellowship is also making T shirts with the image of Jesus as the Disabled God on the front and Rebekah Anderson’s powerful meditation “The Body of God” on the back. The cost is $25 per shirt (add $8 with shipping) but financial assistance is available. To order a T shirt, use this link.

Thanks be to God for Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins and all the saints of the disability rights movement!

Thank you to everyone who donated items to Share the Love, a game and craft drive, by West Concord Union Church to benefit Minute Man Arc! We asked and you delivered! Enjoy these awesome photos of the process and the smiles they have producing.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Sunday Fellowship gathered virtually on June 7th to celebrate our year and to give thanks to God for all that we have shared this year. We acknowledged that it felt a little odd to be gathering for a party right now when cries of grief and pain echo all around us. And yet, in other ways, celebrating a year of Sunday Fellowship felt exactly right.

Much like people of color, people with disabilities are at much higher risk of dying from COVID or in an interaction with law enforcement. Celebrating our inclusive and grace-fulled community is a natural outgrowth of our faith in Jesus, the Disabled God and a fulfillment of the baptismal vow to resist the powers of sin and death which Stephen Carter helped us all re-affirm at his baptism in February.

Plans are in the works for Sunday Fellowship to have its own conversations about white supremacy and racial justice this summer. A grief group is also being set-up this summer for Sunday Fellowship members who would benefit from a safe place to process past or recent losses. An information session about SF Grief Group will be held on June 21st at 4pm. 

Please enjoy our slideshow showing the ups and downs of a year that included Janice and Bryan’s testimonies, disability saint icons, Stephen’s baptism, Chrissy Pickard and John Martino’s deaths and memorials, our first therapy dog visits, not to mention games, meals, prayers, singing, dancing, pageants and fourteen weeks of on-line BINGO. Thanks be to God for Sunday Fellowship.

A Year of Ups and Downs

Necessity is the mother of invention? That’s what we’re all learning as we practice social distancing and adjust to so many changes in our daily lives. Here are some of the creative ways Sunday Fellowship is finding to care for one another and maintain our connections across the distance. 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Wayyyyy back in December, children and Sunday Fellowship members created the beautiful 3D stars that would hold gift requests from Minute Man Arc. Twenty-four stars were hung on our Gift Tree and disappeared within moments. Like clockwork, the gifts poured in, were passed to Minute Man Arc and then delivered on Christmas! Thank you to all of our gift-givers and special thanks to Andrew Forti and Jean Goldsberry for partnering with WCUC in the second year of this project. Check out these pictures of the joyful recipients that day.