Letters from Leadership (Page 4)
Each week, our leadership publishes a message to keep the congregation informed about what’s happening at UUCE.
From Religious Education
Trying RE over Zoom It’s been a long time since we were together for RE way back in November and we’re really starting to miss the kids of UUCE! Now that the holidays are behind us, we’re starting to offer some time for our kids to see each other on Zoom until we can physically gather again. We know they miss each other and the community they find at church, so we hope to give them some time and some…
From the Worship Team
At our Worship Team meeting earlier this month, someone asked an interesting, thought-provoking question: why do we use the word “worship” in our Sunday service (e.g. Call to Worship)? For most of us, the word “worship” invokes images of supplicants kneeling before a higher power. As a non-creedal religion, Unitarian Universalists don’t come together to worship a common god – so what is it that we’re worshiping? The question reminded me of a sermon Rev. Brosier gave years ago that…
From the Revitalization Team
In the face of a continuous onslaught of challenges to the UUCE, I’m pleased to report that there are many reasons to remain optimistic about the future of our congregation. As part of the Revitalization Team, I’m fortunate to get to hear the excitement in the voices of our group members who are actively working to bring stability and enthusiasm back to our community. One of the consistent sources of that excitement is our transition to being lay led. While…
The Seven Principles
Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote seven Principles, which we hold as strong values and moral guides. We live out these Principles within a “living tradition” of wisdom and spirituality, drawn from sources as diverse as science, poetry, scripture, and personal experience. As Rev. Barbara Wells ten Hove explains, “The Principles are not dogma or doctrine, but rather a guide for those of us who choose to join and participate in Unitarian Universalist religious communities.” 1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every…
From the Board of Trustees
Welcome to the New Year! I hope you all had a great holiday season however you chose to celebrate and you’re all heading into 2022 full of hope and enthusiasm. I wanted to fill everyone in on what the Board has been up to recently and give you some information on the status of the church. It’s no secret that the Covid Pandemic and subsequent shut down has thrown the whole world for a loop, our church included. Our membership,…
Practicing Gratitude This Holiday Season – A Message from UUA President Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray
However you celebrate, holidays and rituals are an invitation for reflection. They remind us of our past, and they also invite us to be attentive to the present moment. Practicing gratitude helps us all to be intentional in naming the gifts that surround us, reminding us that we are loved and we all share a fundamental interdependence. Practicing Gratitude This Holiday Season – A Message from UUA President Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray – YouTube
From Religious Education
I don’t know how you all are feeling, but I’m certainly having trouble grappling with the fact that we’re in the midst of another holiday season while this terrible pandemic continues. It’s so hard to plan anything or imagine a time when we might be on the other side of this, but I do have faith that we will get through it. The pandemic has brought into sharp definition for me a new way of understanding our 7th Principle. Most of the…
Connecting With Gratitude and Our Interdependence
So much in our lives right now—the ongoing pandemic, attacks on our democracy and rights, and the increasingly frequent impacts of climate change—seeks to isolate us, to wear us out and wear us down. Turning toward a concrete practice of gratitude helps us resist the ways in which we are being called to isolation and division, because gratitude actually turns us toward each other. Gratitude reminds us of our interdependence, which is so critically and spiritually needed in our world…
Revitalization, Evolution, and Moving Forward …Oh My!
Revitalization, Evolution, and Moving Forward …Oh My! Earlier this year, when it became clear that UUCE could not support a full-time minister, many on the then-appointed Minister Search Committee still wanted to provide a service that would help our church community for years to come. After conversations between ourselves and some members of the Board of Trustees, it became obvious to us that what UUCE needs is not just better care for our members and friends, not just greater financial…
From Our Worship Team
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been asked a few times how the Worship Team is doing with the recent changes in leadership. For the first time in the history of our congregation, we are a lay-led church and the responsibility for Sunday services now lies squarely on the volunteers on the team. The good news is that we have an excellent team with a wide variety of thoughts, ideas, spiritualities, and heart-felt issues and causes. We last met on…
Let Us Give Thanks For Our Common Humanity – Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray
As our lives become busy making plans with friends and family and holiday celebrations in our congregations, I am mindful that this year marks the 52nd annual Day of Mourning protest—an event that began when Frank Wamsutta James* called upon hundreds of Indigenous Americans and allies to gather in Plymouth, Massachusetts and declare Thanksgiving Day a National Day of Mourning for Native Americans. James wrote: “History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history…