Falcon Heights, New Life approve merger plan

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On Sunday, July 13, the congregations of Falcon Heights and New Life churches strongly approved the Plan of Union that puts us on course for merger. The plan sets outs the general principles for a merger, with many details yet to be determined by the churches together.

The next steps are to present the proposed merger to the Minnesota Conference UCC Board of Directors for affirmation on Aug. 9, and to the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area for approval on Sept. 11. See the merger plan and timeline here. There is still a lot of work to be done!

Nursery attendant position open

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Falcon Heights Church is seeking a part-time nursery attendant to provide care for infants and young children during Sunday worship services.

Download the position description. For more information, or to apply, please contact Rev. Rick King at [email protected].

Nursery Coordinator Job Description

Falcon Heights Church, United Church of Christ
Falcon Heights, Minnesota

Employed by: Hired by the Executive Board
Reports to: Lead Pastor
Works with: The congregation and the Children’s Ministry Lead in the ministry and mission of Falcon Heights Church, United Church of Christ (FHCUCC)
Status: Part-time position (1½ hours per week year-round; other hours by agreement for special events)

Job Summary

The Nursery Coordinator works collaboratively with the Children’s Ministry Lead, our church families and the Lead Pastor to provide quality during the Sunday morning worship service. The Nursery Coordinator advances the current FHCUCC mission and priorities by caring for and nurturing young children in a manner that strengthens an inclusive, intergenerational community modeling progressive Christianity.

Essential Functions

  • Effectively manages a group of infants and young children, fostering a positive group dynamic and redirecting children as needed.
  • Oversees any youth volunteers working with the children.
  • Tracks supplies and materials needed in the nursery.
  • Interacts with adults in a welcoming manner, establishing special needs of each child.
  • Keeps records of attendance.

Qualifications

  • Experience working in education, child development or human services.
  • Has a passion for young children and ability to communicate well with both children and parents/guardians.
  • Completion of a multi-state criminal background check.

Core Competencies Required

  • Ethics and Values: Honors the core values and beliefs of FHCUCC; consistently behaves in a manner that aligns with the values and beliefs in stressful and non-stressful situations.
  • Integrity and Trust: Is seen as trustworthy by others; practices direct, honest and transparent communication; keeps confidences; admits mistakes; responds to situations with constancy and reliability.
  • Creativity and Innovation: Generates new ideas and fresh approaches; has good judgment about which creative ideas and suggestions will work.
  • Compassion and Care: Exudes a natural sense of care for the well-being of others; responds with empathy; demonstrates expressions of care that are appropriate and have appropriate boundaries.

Sign up for Park n Ride

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This summer New Life Church will once again host a State Fair Park n Ride in its parking lot, and FHC will once again be partnering with NLPC on this fun money-raiser (we get money based on the number of hours we volunteer). The Fair and Park n Ride run from Aug. 21 through Labor Day, Sept. 1. You can sign up for a two-hour shift at church or online via SignUpGenius.

Currently, there is a pressing need for captains. Please consider this role if you have previous experience as a Park n Ride volunteer or captain. Contact John Bootier (612-715-6519) or Michael Wilson (651-343-1435) for more information.

School tools campaign

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Falcon Heights and New Life churches will jointly begin collecting School Tools for Interfaith Action for distribution to low-income families in greater St. Paul. Look for the collection box in either church.

Young learners need everything from backpacks to pencils to help them succeed in school. Download the list of needed supplies

If you prefer to write a check, please make it out to Interfaith Action with “School Tools” in the memo line. Bring your donations to either church by Monday, Aug. 25.

This Sunday’s merger vote

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July 10, 2025

By Rev. Rick King

This Sunday is the big day—congregational votes at New Life Presbyterian and Falcon Heights Churches on the Plan of Union and a big step of commitment to ultimately merge our two churches into what’s called a federated church.

A federation is a form of union in which the parties involved retain a degree of self-governance. The United States is a federation, and the federal government requires certain things of individual states and leaves certain other things up to states to decide. The current controversy over U.S. governance has to do with how much autonomy states should retain and how much the federal government can require states to do.

As I said in a previous column, in the Minnesota Conference, fully 17 percent of UCC churches are interdenominationally merged in some way, whether a federation or some other type of union. There are UCC-United Methodist churches, UCC-Presbyterian (USA) churches, and at least one that’s a merged UCC-American Baptist church. And in at least one case, there’s one comprised of three denominations (UCC and two others).

The UCC-Presbyterian (USA) is the most common dual-affiliation union in liberal mainline Protestant Christianity because, for all the differences we may note between ourselves and the Presbyterians, we’re from the same Reformed branch of Protestantism and decide things congregationally and democratically.

And finally, leadership teams in both our churches have not taken this decision to merge lightly; we didn’t fall into it. Remember, both churches have engaged in lengthy and thorough congregational discernment for well over a year and a half.

In meeting with our denominational leaders over the past year, they’ve expressed their thanks that our churches are doing this. But the decision to merge originated with our two churches, not those denominational officials. It “bubbled up” through a process of taking stock of where both our churches are in terms of vitality and sustainability, of developing several sustainable scenarios or paths for our congregants to consider, listing the pros and cons of each scenario, and then working each out to its logical conclusion as much as we could.

And then last May 18, in another special congregational meeting like the one coming up, those gathered that day voted unanimously in favor of considering the merger path.

Your leaders and I hope you’ll attend and vote at the congregational meeting this Sunday. Thank you for entrusting leadership of this process to us.

Helping neighbors through Pastor’s Fund

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June 26, 2025

By Rev. Rick King

Every one of us is vulnerable economically. Generally speaking, you and I are only a couple of missed paychecks or a catastrophic medical expense away from serious financial stress—stress that if it goes on too long, could break us, rendering us homeless, food-insecure, or filing for bankruptcy.

At the same time, an increasing number of people live even closer to the edge, and that’s where the social service agencies and non-profit organizations we partner with help keep people alive and able to care for their families and loved ones, despite low income, unanticipated medical conditions, and underemployment.

But what if Keystone Community Services’ food shelf, free farmer’s market distributions, the food mobile, and other organizations aren’t enough—on an ongoing basis?

We’ve heard that radical cuts to the social safety net are part of what Congress is debating right now, and while we should be calling and writing our representatives and senators several times a week to advocate for keeping things like SNAP benefits, WIC, and Medicaid, we also know that even these are not enough, and people have needs that fall in the gaps between these forms of help.

That’s where the Pastor’s Discretionary Aid Fund at our church comes in—to meet needs that occur in those gaps.

Since January of this year alone, your generous giving to this fund has helped in the following specific ways:

–Helped a resident stay in her Section 8 (rent-subsidized) apartment, where she cares for her disabled daughter and grandchildren, who live with her; this despite her Ramsey County caseworker not being able to file papers for renewal of Section 8 on time because her caseload is so high.

–Helped a person with meals and transportation to and from Regions Hospital for two weeks while their spouse was going in for outpatient radiation for cancer.

–Partnered with New Life Presbyterian to help a couple with deposit and first month’s rent on an affordable apartment through Preservation Project One, LLC.
Helped a person retrieve their car that had been impounded illegally.

–Bought gift cards in $25 denominations from Cub Foods for groceries; Target for household cleaning and personal care items such as disposable diapers; and Speedway for gasoline. So far, of the $800 worth we purchased, $475 worth of cards have been distributed to help people with day-to-day emergencies.

Thank you for your generous giving to the Pastor’s Discretionary Aid Fund, and thank you for entrusting me with decision making on how to distribute aid from the Fund. I am glad to be your pastor, and to extend the reach of FHC into the wider community’s most needy.

Much love,
Rev. Rick

Editor’s note: You can donate to the fund via our online giving portal. Select Minister’s Discretionary Aid Fund.

Killer theology

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June 19, 2025

By Rev. Rick King

Last weekend, I was confronted with quite a split-screen experience: rage and violence on one side, grief and peaceful gatherings on the other.

Falcon Heights Church delegates Lynne Bradbury, Cor Wilson and I attended the Minnesota Conference United Church of Christ Annual Meeting, held online and at the College of Saint Benedict on Friday and Saturday.

At 8:58 on Saturday morning, I got a text from Cor—attending online because she had come down with a virus overnight—with breaking news from KSTP that State Sen. John Hoffman (DFL-Champlin) and Rep. Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) had been shot by a man dressed as a police officer and wearing body armor.

I showed the text to Rev. Sara Morse, the Conference Moderator, as she prepared to call us to order. Her announcement immediately changed the energy and feel of the room where we were gathered.

The unthinkable had happened: political violence had come to Minnesota.

Unthinkable not because we can’t conceive it happening, but because we don’t want to think about it.

We’ve been seeing political violence on the rise at least as far back as the 2016 presidential election campaign, with rhetoric tinged with violent threats and echoing that of Benito Mussolini at his rallies. And of course, we well remember a candidate’s claim that he could shoot somebody dead on Fifth Avenue in New York and get away with it. Soon, his security detail was roughing up hecklers and non-compliant reporters at his rallies and throwing them out.

Since then, we’ve seen the rise of Christian Nationalism, a movement whose toxic evangelical theology legitimizes violence sanctioned for a supposedly holy purpose. Not much different from the Muslim jihadists we were so afraid of in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Killer theology. “A theology so malformed, so severed from the sacred, that it could justify murder in God’s name,” wrote Rev. Cameron Trimble in her blog on Monday. She says we’re not merely witnessing theological extremism, but “theological collapse.” And not just theological, but “cosmological—a collapse in how we understand God, self, earth, and other.”

Vance Boelter, the shooter, claimed to be an evangelical pastor and wanted to “sow fear” among elected officials of one party.

Cameron Trimble says that at its most extreme, toxic evangelical cosmology teaches that the earth is disposable, not sacred; that the body is shameful, not holy; that the Other is the enemy, not kin; and that God is authoritarian, not relational.

But this doesn’t have to be. All weekend, I saw people model an alternative theology that was life-giving, life-affirming, joyous and knowing how to grieve not only the political violence but the spiritual death that precedes it and makes it possible.

After lunch at Annual Meeting, a group of us carpooled over to St. Cloud to a No Kings protest that was officially canceled to join a crowd that lined both sides of Division Street, three-deep, for nearly a mile.

Rather than hating Vance Boelter or any other adherents to this toxic theology, Trimble says our response must go beyond condemnation, not merely calling out those held captive by this twisted cosmology, but “calling home those willing to reimagine the sacred.”

Where do YOU see this split-screen in your life? How does it move you to respond?

Will federal cuts hurt someone you know?

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June 12, 2025

By Rev. Rick King

I’ll be brief this week, because early Thursday morning, I take my wife to the airport at 4 a.m., pack a bag, and head north to St. Joseph for anti-racism training all day at College of St. Benedict before the Minnesota Conference UCC Annual Meeting begins Friday. I’ll be joined by our church’s delegates, Lynne Bradbury and Cor Wilson.

Now, to the matter at hand.

Are you as appalled as I am by the federal 2025 budget bill advanced by the White House, which has passed the House of Representatives, and which the president wants to be able to sign by July 4?

Did you know that proposed cuts to Medicaid, which serves low-income people and those living in poverty, will deny health care to over 10 million people in the U.S., and boot people you and I know and love off of MinnesotaCare, our state’s low-income health insurance program?

In addition, the House version of the bill, which passed narrowly along party lines, would cut 3.2 million people from the Supplemental Nutrition Aid Program (SNAP), and require states to pay at least 5 percent of the food aid benefits, along with increasing to 75 percent the proportion of the program’s administrative costs states are responsible for, up from the current 50 percent.

I have personal experience with WIC (Women, Infants and Children), another federal food assistance program that’s on the chopping block in this budget bill; it helped Linda and me feed our family when our kids were little. And I have a family member who’s on MinnesotaCare.

Who do YOU know or know of who’d be affected by these cuts? Do they have a story to share? We’re aiming to make the impact of these cuts as real-life and specific as possible with our senators, along with our Minnesota elected officials. Research visits with county commissioners are being scheduled now, with the goal of increasing public pressure on senators and representatives as the bill makes its way through the Senate and back to the House, with changes.

Also, I recently signed onto two open letters to elected officials about the budget bill and preserving civil liberties. You can sign a petition about cuts to the safety net here: https://bit.ly/MNSafetyNetPetition

And if you know as small business owner who would suffer if the small business safety net programs were cut, as they are proposed to be in this federal budget, you can sign a petition here: https://bit.ly/SmallBizSafetyNetPetition

Our voices, our stories of impact, and our concern for the common good and our local communities matter in this fight we are in for the heart and soul of our democracy. Please consider what you can do, small or large, to make yours heard.

First Grill & Chill of summer

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Friends and neighbors, join us Wednesday, June 18, as Falcon Heights and New Life churches get together for an intergenerational evening of grilling and hanging out together. Come to FHC at 5:30 p.m. and bring something to grill and, if you want, a potluck item. If it’s not too inconvenient, please bring your own dinnerware as well. We’ll have some chairs, but it would be helpful to bring your own if you can.

Our next Grill and Chill date is July 16. Please contact Jeanie Morrison if you can help out.

The Plan of Merger: Invitation to a conversation

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June 5, 2025

By Rev. Rick King

The Plan of Union with New Life Presbyterian Church has been out for two weeks now—what you might call a roadmap for getting to our desired destination, a federation of our two churches that will result in one new church.

One caveat: When something is in writing, it’s easy to think that the way things are going to be is all settled. But nothing could be further from the truth. A roadmap still leaves lots of things open to decision—stops we’re going to make along the way, what we’re going to eat, who will take turns driving, and so on.

A roadmap is not an order or a dictation; it’s an invitation. We’re seeking feedback and asking for people’s input, so the Plan of Union becomes a more effective guide toward the completion of the merger.

And because our Executive Board and the NLPC Session received the Plan when you did, two weeks ago, and will vote on it later this month, we need your response NOW. You can read the Plan here. You and I will have other opportunities to respond to and shape the Plan, but this is the best time. So submit your responses now through the Merger FAQ email address: [email protected].

Think of the Plan of Union as a statement of principles and a process of coming together, not specifying outcomes.
This is a door opening to dialogue, and to continuing to create this new church in partnership with God.

So don’t feel like all the decisions have been made. We’re creating a framework for how we make these decisions in the future, in the most inclusive way possible.

So, whether it’s in the form of a question, a desire, or an opinion, please send it to [email protected], or write it down and put it directly into the Merger Questions box on the Welcome Center in the Garden Avenue lobby.