Mission & Outreach

"We are a Community Seeking to Share God's Love"

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 Our Congregation Seeks to Serve More Than Those In Our Church

We Seek To Extend Our ReachThrough

Our Church's Wider Mission

A Descriptive Video

 

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Giving to Special Appeals and Situations

Reaching Out Responding and Making A Difference Beyond Roxbury

There are so many needs right now and we have the opportunity to help from our comfort and relative wealth:

 

For giving through the United Church of Christ online using a credit card securely:

https://www.ucc.org/giving/donate-now/general-donation/

 

(In the drop-down select “disaster relief” and note the location in the memo.)

 

 

Checks made out to Roxbury Congregational Church can also be sent to the church where they will be sent on to the appropriate agency working on our behalf

 

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One Great Hour of Sharing

Special UCC Offering

received Sunday, March 19, 2023

 

 

 

 

One Great Hour of Sharing (OGHS) special mission offering of the United Church of Christ involves you in disaster, refugee/immigration, and development ministries throughout the world. When a disaster strikes or people are displaced or made refugees by violence or extreme poverty, you are part of the immediate response and of the long-term recovery.

Through OGHS you engage in holistic development programs including health care, education, agriculture, food sustainability, micro-financing, and women’s empowerment. Because the UCC relates in mutual partnership to churches and organizations through Global Ministries and worldwide response & recovery networks, your contributions to One Great Hour of Sharing put you in the right place at the right time for the relief, accompaniment, and recovery of the most vulnerable. You meet immediate needs and you address the underlying causes that create those needs in the first place.

 

Informational Video: LINK

 

Please give generously.

Specially-marked offering envelops will be in the Sunday Worship Bulletin

or you can donate online HERE or mail a check to the Church office (OGHS in the memo)

Thank you!

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High School Youth Group at Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen in New Milford

Mission Trips

Chris and Janet Childs with Roberto in Oaxaca, Mexico 2010.

Simply Smiles Mission Trip ~ Oaxaca, Mexico 2010

 

 

CRST - South Dakota - 2010

 

CRST -South Dakota 2012

 

 

CRST - South Dakota - 2014

 

 

CRST - South Dakota 2016

with Guilford, VT group

 

 

 

Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation trip 2018

with the Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, MI

 

 

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Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be unable to have a mission trip in 2020. BUT...

Our church is exploring having a regional mission trip in 2021!

If you are interested, please contact Rev. David Peters

 

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Our Congregation Seeks to Share God's Love!

We believe in a God who has called each of us to help our neighbors

whether in town or around the world. We are citizens of God's world.

 

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Extending Your Reach

We Extend Your Reach at home and around the world 

through our denomination and partner agencies.

To Find out more about how you, through your church, serve others around the world,

click here on the Global Ministries page and click on a region.

Important note: 100% of your financial donations go directly to aid others.

 

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A  Mission Opportunity!

A need was expressed to have a breakfast prepared and served on weekends to those who stay in the Homeless Shelter in New Milford. During the week, those who stay in the church hall there, are given a voucher for a hot beverage and a breakfast sandwich at a store on Bank Street. On Saturdays and Sundays, they do not. So, Charlie Meade, upon hearing about this, decided to organize a new ministry - Weekend Breakfast.

Currently, Shelter Breakfast is at St. John Episcopal Church  There averages about 10 men or women. Half are working poor.

To sign up to help during the weekends contact Charlie directly at 860-355-1584 and let him know of your willingness to help.

Is God Calling You to this New Way to Share God's Love?

 

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 Our Church's Wider Mission - Extending Our Reach!

 

We carry this out through a number of diverse mission projects through financial support, prayers, and education. They include:

Basic Support - support of the Southern New England Conference and the wider United Church of Christ.

 

Also these denominational special offerings:

One Great Hour of Sharing, Assisting global village development and disaster assistance

The Christmas Fund - Veterans of the Cross, aid to retired clergy with low retirements and benefits

Neighbors In Need, assisting neighbors here in the USA including native americans

Stregthen the Church - assists churches with financial needs.

Strengthen the Church provides extra funding in areas of youth leadership development

 

Association of Religious Communities in greater Danbury serves the wider community in housing ministry, domestic violence prevention, and inter-faith understanding through the cooperation of the broad spectrum of religious communities of our region.

 

Christian Community Outreach Ministries serves in Danbury to those who are caught between the systems that support people in need. Revs. Merideth and Wanda Payton have residential, job training, support and service opportunities. Christian Community Outreach Minstries, Inc. is a Christian based community organization whose purpose is to offer support and resources to individuals in order to aid in the transformation toward empowerment, self-sufficiency and an increase in the quality of life through the Judeo-Christian values.

Services and supports:  Provides for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of individuals in the community.

 

Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School New Haven, CT  Mission Statement: a graduate theological school in the Reformed Tradition, in faithfulness to Jesus Christ, we strive to educate leaders who are: enlivened by rigorous study in a community embracing diversities of faith and life; devoted to the renewing of church and society through ecumenical witness and creative expression of the Gospel and committed to enacting God's ways of justice and live in the world

 

Hartford Seminary, Hartford, CT Mission Statement : Hartford Seminary serves God: by preparing leaders, students, scholars, and religious institutions to understand and live faithfully in today's multi-faith and pluralistic world; by teaching, research, informing the public and engaging persons in dialogue, and by affirming the particularities of faith and social context while openly exploring differences and commonalities. 

 

The Crosby Fund for Haitian Education  The Crosby Fund for Haitian Education (CFHE) was founded in 2004 by Rebecca and Frederick Crosby of Old Lyme, CT, to provide full scholarships for secondary education to academically gifted students living in the Artibonite Valley (north of Port-au-Prince), who otherwise could not attend school. In 2006, we expanded the program to include university scholarships, and, in 2009, we initiated our technical school scholarships in the hopes that both of these programs would prepare students for professional careers in Haiti. This expansion of our program was a natural outcome due to the success of many students graduating from high school and the need to continue their education for future employment.

 

Seafarer's Friend, based in Boston, MA Provides for the spiritual, social, emotional and physical needs of sailors on shore in Boston, MA, Portland, ME, and Portsmouth, NH
 

Holy Joe's Cafe , a ministry founded through the First Congregational Church of Wallingford, CT, supports the work of US military chaplains overseas with coffee and supplies so that they can provide the setting for pastoral interactions with those involved in a war and the aftermath.

 

Renewal House (formerly known as Shelter of the Cross)  – provides transitional housing, support, and services for elderly homeless men and women in the Greater Danbury Area.  

 

Greenwoods Counseling Service, based in Litchfield – provides a wide range of counseling services to mainly Litchfield county families. 

 

Back Bay Mission– Biloxi, Mississippi - a community ministry of the UCC, serves the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the wider church community poor, homeless, victims of AIDS or substance abuse; works with teenagers and works to provide affordable housing after Katrina.

 

Uplands Retirement Village– a nonprofit continuing care retirement community of independent living, assisted living and long-term care in Pleasant Hill, TN.  Uplands is home to over 300 people who value simple living and serving others.  It has been particularly attractive to those who have served the world as doctors, nurses, teachers, missionaries, pastors, engineers, and volunteers

 

Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry, New Milford – runs the New Milford Community Hospitality Kitchen, which serves meals to the needy.  Sponsored and supported and staffed by area churches.

 

The Greater Danbury Women's Center - free and confidential services to women, children and men of Danbury and area towns to prevent or lessen the trauma associated with domestic violence, sexual assault, and other major life transitions.
 
Simply Smiles- provides loving homes, appropriate educations, and every chance at happy and successful lives for impoverished children.  Works supporting the mission of the Casa Hogar Children's Home in Oaxaca City,  and has built homes for the 33 families who call Oaxaca's garbage dump home(Mexico). They are currently working in the southern jungle region with food distribution for hungry families affected by the globalization of coffee. Simply Smiles also works in South Dakota on an Indian reservation there. Described as "third world", S. S. is working to rehabilitate housing and provide for basic needs. Our congregation sent mission trips to both Mexico and was one of the first to go to South Dakota in 2010. We have returned in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018.

 

Daily Bread Food Pantry- – at St. James Episcopal Church, Danbury, distributes food staples to needs CT residents.

 

Micro-loan Program, UCC Wider Church Ministries – microloans to needy women around to the world who require equipment/materials to support their families.

 

Silver Lake Conference Center in nearby Sharon. We support camp scholarships for those who are in financial need.

 

 

In addition, we serve others with:

 

Mother's Day Card donating a blanket in their honor through Church World Service

 

Father's Day Card program - "Tools of Hope" purchasing tools in their honor through Church World Service

 

The Santa Fund, (also known as St. Nicholas Fund) a regional program of providing gifts and clothing to needy living in New Milford and neighboring towns including Roxbury. Based at New Milford Social Services.

 

Roxbury Relief, a cooperative effort of the Congregational, Episcopal and Catholic Churches to serve anyone in need living in Roxbury.

 

Minister's Discretionary Fund, a confidential source of help for those in need.

 

Your Directed Gifts to help in disaster situations. (earthquake, flood, Typhon, famine, etc.)

(100% of the donation goes directly in the locality to help)

 

These gifts flow through our UCC and to agencies such as Church World Service and others

Additional information is made available during the year on our Bulletin Boards in Fellowship Hall. We invite all to peruse the notes of thanks from the folks you help as well as learn more about the agencies.