Michigan Conference UCC

Meet the Keynote Speaker of the 2026 Michigan Conference Annual Meeting!

Michael Neuroth is the Director of the Office of Public Policy and Advocacy at the National setting of the United Church of Christ.

Mark your calendars for October 2-3, 2026! Event registration opens SOON!

Q&A at the Shrine of the Black Madonna
I recently visited the Shrine of the Black Madonna, a vibrant UCC church in Detroit featured in The Black Utopians, a book by Aaron Richardson that has been a lifeline for me this past year. It is one of those remarkable historical works of nonfiction that is written with the storytelling gifts one might find in a novel. Trust me, it’s a page-turner, and in these tough times for churches, it was a hopeful story from the past that gives me hope for the future.

That Sunday at the Shrine, I recall there had been bad news the preceding week in the nation and the world, but the preacher, Rev. Kenda Milton, didn’t feel obligated to recount current events. In a deft introduction, he simply assured us that he watched the news too.

From that point on, the sermon’s focus was on the call of Jesus to put the community before the individual. By worshipping something other than ourselves, in community, suddenly we all stop investigating scripture and allow the scripture to investigate us instead.

As good preaching always does, the sermon asked more questions than it answered, and that was the gift I received from attending church that day: the comfort of knowing I was not the first generation to ask the questions I thought were simply about today, connecting me to the history of the mighty cloud of witnesses, some of whom were at church that Sunday at the Shrine.

Prayer
Still speaking God, open our minds to your answers and our hearts to the questions that are more important than the ones we have already thought of asking you. Amen.

Read more Stillspeaking Daily Devotional at https://www.ucc.org/daily-devotional/