The 2012 Clergy Compensation Guidelines booklet is now available on the Wisconsin Conference website.  The guidelines are published annually by the Commission on Church and Ministry of the Wisconsin Conference.  The guidelines include information on:

• Developing pastoral compensation, salary, housing, benefits and expenses.
• Negotiating compensation
• Educational ministries compensation

Two copies of the booklets will be mailed to each church of the Wisconsin Conference United Church of Christ this month.

View the online booklet

New Dates!  New Deadline!

We've changed the starting date for the Church Renewal Program. 

The kickoff event will be January 21, 2012. 

The registration deadline will be January 2, 2012. 

For more information please visit the Wisconsin Conference website.

Honduras - A Reverse Mission Trip 

This training is for adults who want to teach the Our Whole Lives (OWL) sexuality curriculum in their congregations. This training will offer the workshop for the Middle School / High School (Grades 7-9 and 10-12) Curriculum.

Our Whole Lives helps

participants make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual health and behavior. It equips participants with accurate, age-appropriate information in six subject areas: human development, relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society/culture. Grounded in a holistic view of sexuality,

Our Whole Lives provides not only facts about anatomy and human development, but helps participants to clarify their values, building interpersonal skills, and understand the spiritual, emotional, and social aspects of sexuality.   

October 7-9, 2011

Level: 7-9/10-12

Event Website 

Location: Eau Claire, WI

Sponsor: Prairie Star District UUA

UCC Trainer:  T. Michael Rock 

Contact: Philip Lund,

mailto:plund@psduua.org 

(612) 230-3274

Sexuality and Our Faith, a series of companion resources for Our Whole Lives, provides a framework for incorporating specific faith-based teaching and practice into each session of the curriculum. For more information, visit

• Unitarian Universalists http://www.uua.org/owl or
• United Church of Christ http://www.ucc.org/justice/sexuality-education/our-whole-lives.html.

More Information  

Knock Knock!
 A Retreat for Middle School Children

Start your 6-8^th graders on an adventure called CHURCH. Open the DOOR to energized Youth Ministry.

At Knock Knock, your group will:

• Discover love and acceptance as the true experience of the church
• Connect faith to THEIR most pressing concerns:
• Dealing with peers ("Friends")
• Family Relationships ("Family")
• Violence/Bullying ("Hurt")
• Media Temptation ("Influence")
• Do hands-on workshops and Bible study...not just sitting around and talking
• Be inspired by our High School Drama Team
• Learn how they can keep opening doors back at home
• Bryan Sirchio will provide Musical Leadership at Knock Knock 2011!

Calling all Youth Groups to Knock Knock!!

Rev. Moyer (cont.) 

I don't know whether there is a similar instrument to measure stress in an organization, but there should be.  If we also see the church as part "organism" ("Body of Christ") as well as an organization with a mission to share faith, then we can see that stressful experiences in this kind of body also can lead to consequences that create pressure. 

As the Wisconsin Conference we are in one of those times when many of the experiences we are going through are the kind that are high on the stress scale, and the consequences are tension in the body. 

We have made major changes in our structure.

We have said good-bye or are saying good-bye to faithful and long-term staff colleagues who have been friends and co-workers in so many ministries over the years.

Associations have to be creative and rely more on volunteers to carry out their many programs, since they do not have an Association Minister solely concentrated on their ministry any longer.

Even something as basic as the change in our computer software programs means giving up something familiar and learning something new.

This kind of stressful change is also a reality in many of our individual congregations as well. Were there to be an organizational stress test, we'd have a high score right now. It's just one of those periods of major change and that raises the level of stress and challenges health in the body of the church.

I think it is such a gift that the Hebrew Scripture readings for recent Sundays this Fall have been from the Exodus story and particularly about the time of the Israelites in the wilderness.  This is a time of vulnerability.  Yes, they have been freed from slavery, but now the new land and new life is taking an awfully long time to make itself apparent.  We read in many of the texts that the people begin to "murmur" against their leaders and become discontented with one another.

In this time, Moses and Aaron and their leaders work hard to "reframe" the time for them.  They help the people turn to their memory:  the God who has led them out of Egypt and made the way through the sea, is the same God who will now continue to be faithful and to show them a way where there seems no way.

The leaders encourage the people to patience.  The words of Jesus' prayer that we pray every Sunday comes from the challenge to the people to have the patience to trust and the faith to gather only enough of the "bread" that they need for that day and not worry excessively about what God will provide for the coming days.

God nourishes trust in the people's hearts and gives them eyes to see the miracles in ordinary events that occur right in their midst but at exactly the moment they need them and provide what they need to go on.

In the midst of the uncertainties of the wilderness, the wrong turns and the seeming dead ends, the people are continually reminded that God has a mission for them.  The burdens of the day are not to so preoccupy them that they forget that they are to be to God a "holy nation", a chosen people for the sake of God's purposes, leaven for God's work of transformation.

Things are happening.  It may seem, as someone said, "We're flying the plane while still building it."  That's a scary thought and a big challenge, and obviously high on the stress scale, but with your patience and your prayers and your positive spirit and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we'll get there.  We'll grow strong in new ways.  We'll claim again God's mission for us as the UCC in Wisconsin, and we'll come to a place where we will rejoice and give thanks.

Many blessings.

David Moyer