Unite. Worship. Serve. Thrive.
Cultivating Faith, Community, and Diversity Together.
Looking to Grow Your Faith?
Do you have a spiritual longing for a deeper connection, meaning, and purpose in life?
Our congregation offers a variety of opportunities to deepen your faith and strengthen your spiritual journey. From Sunday worship to Bible studies to fellowship events, we provide a space for you to connect with others and with God.
WE HOPE YOU JOIN US ON YOUR JOURNEY
Looking to Join a Community?
Do you feel a need for belonging, support, and shared values?
We are a faithful, diverse, inclusive and relevant congregation that honors and celebrates each individual. We believe that diversity strengthens our community, and we are committed to creating a space that welcomes people from all walks of life. Our congregation is made up of people with different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences.
Whether you identify as LGBTQIA+, a person with disabilities, someone who has experienced racial injustice, or simply feel like you don’t fit in elsewhere, we welcome you with open arms.
YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME HERE
Easter Sunday Services
Worship This Week
April 20, 2025 at 9 a.m. & 11 a.m. ~
Easter Sunday Celebration
We welcome Glenn Priest, organist; our amazing choir with Brass Quintet and Percussion
9 a.m. ~ In the sanctuary~ We sing our prayers and praise to God with a thousand Alleluias on this Easter Sunday. Our choir, brass, and percussion will participate in the service. All are welcome!
11 a.m. ~ In the Sanctuary and Online ~Join us for a joyful Easter celebration of God’s liberating love that is still rolling away stones today. Our choir, brass, and percussion will all help us raise a holy Hallelujah to God. All are welcome!
Fellowship time follows the 11 a.m. worship service.
All are welcome
Click here to read Pastor Wes’ blog.
Easter Love Offering
Easter Love Offering 2025
The Mission Team has turned its attention to Easter and the upcoming Easter Love Offering. Mindful of our Covenants and Core Values, we carefully research each organization to select the best for our world. This year 12 groups were selected, 6 from within the UCC and 6 others that align with our Core Values.
Supporting Our UCC Missions:
- One Great Hour of Sharing whose Lenten offering supports disasters and refugees, is one of our UCC missions.
- Neighbors In Need gives grants to churches for environmental justice, online ministry, and advocacy initiatives.
- Strengthen the Church supports leadership development and establishment of new churches.
- “Join the Movement” UCC Racial Justice, chosen by our Racial Justice Team, is working to raise $8 million over the next three years. Half the money will support racial justice efforts today, and half will create an endowment fund for future work.
- Racial Justice also wants to continue with our support for the Joesph Henry Evans Scholarship Fund to honor Joseph Evans, the first black president of the UCC.
- COLLAGE chose the Open and Affirming Coalition for the UCC, which supports churches to become open and affirming and churches like ours with existing commitments.
- The Joseph Henry Evans Scholarship Fund is to honor Joseph Evans, the first black president of the UCC, and gives scholarships to black students.
Missions Supporting Our Nation/World:
- Back Bay Mission works tirelessly to strengthen neighborhoods and seek justice on Mississippi’s coast
- The Coalition of Immokalee Workers advocates for farm workers and has expanded its role in Fair Trade and human rights. They are struggling with immigration issues.
- Partners in Health works tirelessly to provide high-quality health care globally to those in It received a 99% rating from Charity Navigator this year.
- Bread for the World Institute’s mission is to educate and equip people to advocate for policies and programs to end hunger in the United States and the world.
- Church World Service is a faith-based organization that works on sustainable responses to hunger, poverty, displacement, and disaster. They have lost most of their government funding and need our help this year. It received a 100% rating from Charity Navigator this year.
- Water Engineers for the Americas and Africa honors our Creation Justice Covenant. Engineers are sent around the world to bring clean water to those in need.
We have researched these organizations to ensure your dollars are spent wisely. Please give generously.
Envelopes for your donations are available in the Narthex and the pews, or you may send a check to our church with Easter Love in the memo line, or you may use the link below to donate online. Thank you so much for your generosity.
Your Mission Team,
Jan Andersen, Terri Crawford, Carol Fredrich, Heather Spear, Toska Strong, Nancy Taylor, Laura Taylor
2025 Scholarship
Scholarship Applications Now Open!
First Congregational UCC is pleased to offer scholarships to young people in our church through the generosity of our members and friends. Eligible students pursuing undergraduate, graduate, or vocational studies in Fall 2025 are encouraged to apply. Applications are due by April 15, 2025.
Local Faith Leaders Call for Justice, Equity, and Inclusion in Sarasota
Local Faith Leaders Call for Justice, Equity, and Inclusion in Sarasota
“Our destinies are bound together, and the path to true peace is paved with justice and the recognition of our shared humanity.”
— A Call to Solidarity, Sarasota Faith Leaders
Standing Together for Justice, Inclusion, and Positive Peace
Rev. Dr. Wes Bixby, Pastor of First Congregational UCC, along with leaders from diverse faith communities, has co-authored two powerful opinion columns published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, calling for justice, equity, and solidarity.
📖 A Call to Solidarity: Towards Positive Peace (January 30) (Read as PDF) – This column challenges harmful policies targeting LGBTQIA+ individuals, immigrant communities, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. It calls on Sarasota to reject exclusion and embrace true peace—one built on justice, dignity, and compassion.
📖 Black History Month Message (February 19) (Read as PDF)– This piece honors Black history as an essential part of American history and includes a call to action. It highlights the ongoing struggles for racial justice, the importance of acknowledging the past, and the moral imperative to build a more equitable future.
Together, these statements affirm that peace is not the absence of tension but the presence of justice. We invite the Sarasota community to stand in solidarity with those who are marginalized and work toward a future rooted in inclusion and compassion.
Discover Our Culture
First Congregational United Church of Christ, rooted in Sarasota with a passion for God, all God’s people, and God’s planet, prayerfully seeks to be a light to the world. We covenant with God and each other to honor racial justice and people of color in all we do. We are open, affirming and allies of LBGTQ+ people. We seek creation justice, learning to actively care for our planet. We commit to study, learn and live these values.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.” John 15:5
UCC Sarasota values – click here for the pdf
Our Covenants
Creation Justice
It is our duty to conserve natural resources, protect the existing natural environment and repair damage.
Open and Affirming
We work faithfully and prayerfully to end discrimination against our LGBTQIA+ siblings.
Racial Justice
We are intent to discuss America’s original sin of racism and that everyone is made in God’s image.
Meet Our Pastor
“Maybe you’re new to our church, new to Sarasota, or new to church altogether. Whatever brings you here, I’d love the chance to get to know you better. Please know I am available to talk with you and help you connect in meaningful ways with our community of faith.
“During times such as these, we are aware that many in our community are facing challenges. If you are in need of prayer or care, please let me know.” 🙏
Latest Sermon
In Blessed Borrowing, Pastor Wes reflects on the way Holy Week begins—with a borrowed donkey—and how that theme of borrowing flows through the days ahead: a borrowed room for the Last Supper, a borrowed tomb after the crucifixion. He connects this sacred pattern with personal stories and the everyday reality that much of what we have and experience is borrowed—from palm branches steeped in cultural symbolism to the very moments we share in worship.
Rather than a parade of power, Jesus enters Jerusalem humbly, through the back gate, as the crowd cries “Hosanna”—a word that means “Save us.” Pastor Wes invites us to step into that crowd with sacred imagination, to reflect on why we show up and what we seek. Palm Sunday, he reminds us, isn’t just a celebration—it’s a prayerful entry into a story of love, sacrifice, and grace that we are all borrowing for a time, and called to live into fully.
Morning Meditation
The Spiritual we will sing at
noon today mournfully asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” And I answer, Yes. Not literally or historically speaking, but I
am here right now the morning after another shooting at a school where my
children attend, causing my heart to break and frustration at our collective
normalizing of gun violence. I am here
right now as we constantly critique each other on social media with keyboard
courage and venom dripping from words that belittle others. I am here right now as racism, sexism,
homophobia continue to be used by those in power to separate...
Latest Sermon
In Blessed Borrowing, Pastor Wes reflects on the way Holy Week begins—with a borrowed donkey—and how that theme of borrowing flows through the days ahead: a borrowed room for the Last Supper, a borrowed tomb after the crucifixion. He connects this sacred pattern with personal stories and the everyday reality that much of what we have and experience is borrowed—from palm branches steeped in cultural symbolism to the very moments we share in worship.
Rather than a parade of power, Jesus enters Jerusalem humbly, through the back gate, as the crowd cries “Hosanna”—a word that means “Save us.” Pastor Wes invites us to step into that crowd with sacred imagination, to reflect on why we show up and what we seek. Palm Sunday, he reminds us, isn’t just a celebration—it’s a prayerful entry into a story of love, sacrifice, and grace that we are all borrowing for a time, and called to live into fully.
Morning Meditation
The Spiritual we will sing at
noon today mournfully asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” And I answer, Yes. Not literally or historically speaking, but I
am here right now the morning after another shooting at a school where my
children attend, causing my heart to break and frustration...
Upcoming Events
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Open and Affirming Covenant
March, 2021
We of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Sarasota, Florida, by vote of our Church Council and ratification by our congregation became an Open and Affirming Congregation in 2001, as documented in our church bylaws. We now re-commit to God and one another our covenant with our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning sisters and brothers.
As we celebrate the diversity of the people of God, we commit to remain an Open and Affirming congregation that welcomes all our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters with love and support. We will be a place in which they can be fully themselves, where their full selves are embraced and where their God-given talents are utilized in the life and work of the Church.
We honor the vision of those in our congregation who, more than 20 years ago, founded COLLAGE (Coalition of Laity for Lesbian and Gay Equality) to provide support for LGBTQ+ persons in the congregation and community. In league with COLLAGE, we will continue to reach out to and welcome LGBTQ+ persons into our church family. We will serve as a refuge from hurtful words and harmful actions and work toward eliminating social injustices too often directed against them.
This covenant statement is hereby adopted this 16th day of March, 2021, by unanimous vote of our Church Council.
Creation Justice Covenant
January, 2021
We of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Sarasota, Florida, by vote of our Church Council and ratification by our Congregation, do solemnly commit to God, one another, and all creatures, to walk in God’s ways by cherishing the earth and all living beings who dwell upon it. This is the divine creation and we commit to promoting its health and sustainability.
We acknowledge at the outset that we are inseparably part of the web of life; our well-being dependent on the welfare of fellow creatures. We recognize the utmost value in creation – inherent value independent of creation’s usefulness for us. In this covenant, we understand that our creation is in crisis, in large part because of human activity. As a consequence, we promise to educate ourselves and others about the causes of and solutions to environmental degradation.
We commit to finding ways to respect and conserve our natural resources for the benefit of future generations and for the future of the planet. Because of our covenant with God and the earth, we will seek divine guidance and strive to follow God’s will. We will pursue justice for the earth, protect vulnerable living things from exploitation, and seek remediation of the environmental damage humans have caused.
This Covenant Statement is Hereby ADOPTED this 19th day of May, 2020, by unanimous vote of the Church Council of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Sarasota, Florida.
RATIFIED this 24th day of January, 2021, by a Congregational vote of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Sarasota, Florida.
Racial Justice Covenant
January, 2022
We of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Sarasota, Florida, by vote of our Church Council and congregation, commit to God and one another our covenant with our sisters and brothers of color.
As we celebrate the diversity of the people of God, we commit to remain a congregation that welcomes all our brothers and sisters with love and support. We will be a place in which we all can be fully ourselves and where our full selves are embraced. We will serve as a refuge from hurtful words and harmful actions too often directed against others.
First Congregational United Church of Christ of Sarasota has a history of embracing diversity and racial equity. We have sought and still seek to confront racism and the oppression of people of color. We strive to model the love and grace of Jesus as he reached out to all, especially those on the margins.
We reaffirm our Christian call to understanding and unity through discussion, research and the sharing of personal witness to identify systemic racism in all its forms.
We lament current racial injustice conditions, and commit to actionable steps of hard listening and anti-racist engagement by our ministers, church officers, church community and as individual participants in our local and greater community. These steps will build on our current practices of intentionally selecting diverse lay leadership, and promoting programs and community activities that reflect our stance on diversity and inclusion.
We reaffirm our commitment to policies of equity and steps to dismantle harmful myths, actions, rules and laws. We also commit to celebrating different cultures and voices, both in worship and in our community.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Micah 6:8
This covenant statement is hereby adopted this 30th day of January, 2022, by unanimous vote of our Church Council and the vote of our congregation.
Please click here for a list of resources put together by the SCOR group (Sacred Conversations on Race). The group meets Wednesdays at 3 on Zoom. All are welcome. See the events page for more information.