In essentials–unity,
in nonessentials–diversity,
in all things–charity.
What We Offer
Our online skill-building and spiritual learning opportunities equip clergy and lay leaders for effective leadership and provide lifelong learners with abundant choices to deepen their faith and theological knowledge.
Members in Discernment
For Members in Discernment (MiD), we serve as a Regional Theological Education Program, offering coursework and training toward authorized ministry in the UCC, whether ordination, licensure, or lay ministerial standing.
We welcome MiDs from any Conference of the UCC. Your participation in our programs is dependent on the approval of your own Committee or Commission on Ministry. Please be sure that your COM will accept our coursework before registering as an assessment learner. As an assessment learner, you will receive a narrative assessment which interprets your course engagement relative to the Marks.
You may include the assessment in your MiD portfolio, and we will issue you a course completion certificate when you finish and fulfill a course. The Damascus Project is not academically accredited by the Association of Theological Schools, and is not an authorizing or credentialing body in the United Church of Christ. That work is done via your Association or Conference.
Laity
We offer a range of programming for Lay Leaders and Learners who are theologically curious or seeking practical training in the skills and tasks of congregational leadership in the UCC. Any lay person is welcome to register for our Leadership Skills, Faith Foundations, and Ministry Studies offerings.
Authorized Ministers
We offer Authorized Ministers in the UCC periodic trainings designed to fulfill standing requirements, including Boundary Awareness Training and Anti-Racism/Anti-Bias Training. Clergy are welcome to register for any of our academic courses, book studies, lecture events or leadership training as part of their clergy continuing education plans. Clergy are also encouraged to sign up for our Leadership Skills, Faith Foundations, and Ministry Studies offerings.
Confirmands
For Confirmands, our Lilly Endowment grant allows us to offer our Living Faith online confirmation cohorts for young people who desire a confirmation program in company with other youth from the UCC. Each Living Faith cohort launches in September of the calendar year. If your congregation is interested in participating, please contact Rev. Uriah Williams, Living Faith Director.
Worship Resources
STAR (Small Town and Rural Churches) Worship Resources
The Damascus Project Regional Theological Education Ministry of the Minnesota and Wisconsin Conferences, United Church of Christ is pleased to make these worship resources available free of charge to those across the United Church of Christ. These worship resources and sermon seeds for Liturgical Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary are made possible through a donor-directed grant from the Fox Valley Community Foundation, Wisconsin.
The Damascus Project became aware of the desire for worship resources through conversation with local churches and pastors in our home conferences, and through conversation with the wider UCC STAR Alliance of small town and rural churches. Many of these churches rely heavily or even primarily on lay leaders who plan worship, lead worship, and often preach. They expressed a desire for orders of worship which are easy to download, affordable, and which are reflective of small town and rural settings, agricultural cycles, and local festivals and customs. The worship resources commissioned by the Damascus Project through the grant are designed to reflect the contexts of our STAR churches in the upper Midwest/Great Lakes region.
Access the Worship Resources by Clicking Here: STAR Worship Resources Advent Year A 2025 - Google Drive
Using the Resources:
These resources align with the scriptures and scriptural themes of the Revised Common Lectionary, a set of four scripture readings given for each Sunday of the church year. The whole lectionary can be accessed at https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/
Our worship resources strive for simplicity of language and imagery that in part reflects the landscape, communities, and commitments of those in UCC churches in the Upper Midwest. We use expansive, inclusive language for God and for human persons. The worship resources are organized so that they can be led by multiple voices or members of a congregation. Hymn and song recommendations from the UCC New Century Hymnal or from other public domain sources are included.
The Order for Worship followed is a historic pattern of gathering (call to worship, invocation, confession and assurance), listening to and hearing the Word (scripture and sermon), response (prayers, offertory, sacraments and rites when celebrated) and sending (benediction and dismissal). This pattern of worship is described in the book The Work of the People: What We Do in Worship and Why, co-authored by Marlea Gilbert, Christopher Grundy, Stephanie Perdew, and Eric Myers.
You are welcome to use these resources in their entirety for a given Sunday, or to cut and paste materials that best assist you in celebrating worship in your local church. Should you reproduce or cut and paste, please give credit to this series’ author, Rev. Marlea Gilbert, PhD, a pastor in the Wisconsin Conference United Church of Christ.
Each Liturgical Season we are also providing sermon seeds compiled by Rev. Dr. John F. Roschen, a retired clergyperson in the Minnesota Conference United Church of Christ. The sermon seeds are based on the publication Alive Now, published by the Upper Room Ministries from 1971-2017, which Rev. Dr. Roschen has drawn on with publisher permission.
Access the Worship Resources by Clicking Here: STAR Worship Resources Advent Year A 2025 - Google Drive