FIRST UNITED CHURCH of CHRIST » Meet Our Staff

First UCC Hires Jeff Barton as Interim Minister

Andrea Pegram — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:56:52 +0000

First UCC is happy to announce it has finalized an agreement with the Reverend Jeff Barton to be the interim minister. He will be with the church for at least one year, starting August 22. Jeff is committed to helping the church create a vision for the future and to restructure the church and programs accordingly.

Jeff Barton has been in United Church of Christ programs and congregations since 1979 when he was a seminary intern at Parkview Congregational UCC in Aurora, Colorado. He has been a pastor, a campus minister, an associate pastor, a senior minister and a UCC conference association minister. Jeff has served the UCC in Idaho, New Hampshire and Montana for longer calls and in Wyoming, Wisconsin and Oregon for shorter terms and interims. He has served as an interim minister in four settings before ours, and is looking to continue to do intentional interim work for the extension of his active ministry career. Jeff has been with Casas Adobes UCC in Tuscon Arizona since February of 2009, with his last Sunday being July 11. He is a native of Minneapolis, and has academic degrees from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and from the Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He now permanently resides among the mountains, rivers and people of the Portland, Oregon area, where he enjoys skiing in the winter and river rafting in the summer. He’s a 21 handicap in golf and prefers jazz and blues in his musical tastes. Jeff has two young adult children. Jed lives and writes in Billings, Montana. Katie (Carleton alum, 2007) has begin her graduate studies in medical school in Portland, Oregon. Jeff has a significant other, Rev. Mary Sue Evers, a UCC pastor in the Portland, OR, area.

First UCC Hires New Director of Children’s Music

Andrea Pegram — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:06:34 +0000

We welcome Shana Hodel as our new Director of Children’s Music. A member of First UCC and a teacher at Northfield’s Montessori Children’s House, Shana brings us a wealth of experience in leading children and in teaching and playing music. She has been involved with the church’s musical life for a good decade, and she looks forward to working with youth of all ages. Her official duties begin on September 1. Please welcome and congratulate Shana in her new position, and if you want your children to add their music to our church, do get in touch with her.

Seminary Profiles Ruth MacKenzie

Sandy Johnson — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:52:02 +0000

The Annual Report from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has a wonderful profile of Ruth MacKenzie, who was our 2009-10 Seminary intern. Click here and then go to page 19 to read it!

THANK YOU Elaine…

Sue Mieska — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:14:34 +0000

There really is no way to thank Elaine for her 20+ years of service as our office manager at First UCC. She has carried us through good times and bad and always has a smile on her face. A luncheon was held in her honor on Tuesday. Good food and Good Company.

THANK YOU Elaine.

White Christmas — in Latin?

Sandy Johnson — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:48:27 +0000

Want to liven up your Christmas caroling this year? How about singing an old standard (Irving Berlin’s White Christmas), but in LATIN? Here are the words, compliments of our music director Chris Brunelle (who also teaches classics at St. Olaf).

Te decent nives, nox Christi, similliman praeteritis:

renitet cacumen, in natum numen pubes gaudet phaleris.

Te decent nives, nox Christi, ut omnis datur chartula,

tempora sint felicia; sit natalis emper nivea!