Aug-03
From Our Minister:
The summer has brought change once again to our congregation and larger UnitarianUniversalist community. We look forward to greeting a new director of religiouseducation, hopefully by the fall. And in September an intern minister, the Rev.Stefanie Etzbach-Dale, will be joining us for the church year. Look forher column in September.
Here in Santa Monica, change will bring us new personalities, skills and energiesfor our ministry and community. The year promises to be a good one. We willgain much from the addition of new leaders.
Change has taken place in our larger UU community too. At Neighborhood Churchin Pasadena, the senior minister, the Rev. Lee Barker, has resigned to becomepresident of Meadville-Lombard Theological School in Chicago. Many of you knowLee from our annual pulpit exchanges. His new position will draw on his strengthsnot only as a parish minister but also as an alumnus of Meadville, an advocatefor theological education, and a transformational leader. It’s a greatchange for him.
Neighborhood Church has given Lee a warm send-off and prepares to welcome interimministers to lead them through a transitional year or two. The transition, however,affects more than Lee’s former congregation. It also affects me. I willno longer have one of my closest colleagues in the ministry just a couple offreeways away, sharing the unique challenges of ministry in Los Angeles.
Lee and I will stay in touch, of course, but his departure will be a significantchange for me. I say goodbye to him and his family knowing that the move willbring them new opportunities and advantages, which they deserve. And thoughthe change is a loss for me, I know that it will bring growth. It always does.
What other changes the summer and new church year have in store for us, I cannotsay.
What I can say is that change is constant and that good can come from whatbegins as loss. All we need to do is keep growing.
-- Judith Meyer
From Our President:
I have been confronting change lately, both at home and at church. It’snothing serious, but it is still slightly uncomfortable. At home, the summerschedule always requires a little tweaking of the school year pell-mell rushout the door to suit the only slightly less hectic summer camp rush out thedoor. Although the change in morning routine is not major, it is still oddlyunsettling. (Of course, once I get used to it by July, it changes again whenMeghan heads off to school in mid-August!)
There have also been some changes for me at church, where I have taken on thetask of being president and I am playing a new, often more organizing, roleat executive committee and board meetings. So, as a person who craves routine,I am facing a summer of change and awkwardness.
This is not the first change in my adult life, of course. Aside from obviousevents like college, marriage and having a child, I have also given up everythingknown and certain in my life to move 9,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean tothe island of Guam. In 1996, Shawn and I changed jobs, moved from a lovely housein San Francisco to Navy housing, prayed our household belongings would arrivea little faster than the projected eight weeks, and began making friends ona Navy base where we didn’t know anyone. That was unsettling, to be sure,but it was also invigorating, exciting and challenging. It also changed ourmarriage in a very positive way. We discovered a lot of important things aboutourselves and our marriage, including the fact that change should be embracedas a positive force in life.
I wanted to share this idea about change as a positive force because we aremoving ahead with some changes here at church, too. This summer, we have beenseeing the beginnings of the Stewardship Committee’s generous congregationplatform. This fall, we will see the arrival of a ministerial intern and a newdirector of religious education.
The congregational meetings sponsored by the Stewardship Committee began aproductive dialogue on stewardship and the idea of a generous congregation,and will certainly generate additional conversation. But the meetings may havebeen unsettling for some; the conversations may have asked for more thinkingabout why we are here and what we want to accomplish together than some of usare ready for. Nonetheless, I encourage you to embrace the opportunity to examinethe way you think about this church and your role as a member. If that examinationprompts change, I am confident you will ultimately find the change invigorating.
-- Carol Kerr
Featured Articles:
Most members of our congregation have e-mail addresses, and we have a recordof most of those addresses. Last month a message was sent to every address wehave, asking recipients to take an online survey about our electronic communications.In case you didn't receive that message or haven’t taken the survey, pleasevisit http://old.uusm.org/survey2.html.
As our church continues to expand its electronic communications offerings,we need to find out more about how our congregation uses the online informationand publications we provide . . . and how we can create stronger relationshipsamong our traditional newsletter, our website, and our very newest publication,the Faith in Action Bulletin. Youcan provide this valuable input by taking a few minutes to complete the electroniccommunications survey, even if you are not a regular newsletter reader.
The survey contains 22 questions, divided into three sections dealing withnewsletter, website and Faith in Action Bulletin issues. It should take fiveto 10 minutes to answer all the questions. Thank you for your help. We lookforward to hearing from you!
New Website Design is Up and Running
Liz Fuller has finished her long-planned revisions in our website design.The new layout, which creates eight top-level navigation categories, with sub-menusfor each one, will allow us to add a lot more content to the site, while alsomaking it easier for our users to find things (no matter how big the site gets),and much, much easier for them to bookmark favorite pages. All the old contentis still there, and Liz has added a lot of new things, too, particularly inthe Newsletters section.
The Stewardship Story: Commuication and Community
Stewardship is defined as the careful and responsible management of somethingentrusted to one’s care -- and this church is entrusted to our care. Whatwill make us better stewards?
We’ll be better stewards when we can communicate effectively the stateof our church finances. We’ll have more vitality when we know, and canarticulate and fulfill, what the church expects from each of us. Closer to ourspirit, though, we grow in faith and commitment when we create personal connectionswith each other.
During June we held a number of informal conversations about stewardship. Consistently,people talked about the need for creating a stronger sense of community in thecongregation:
- “I’d like more interchange of people.”
- “Get people involved in the church community.”
- “People give to people…create people connections.”
- “What’s important to me is building personal relationships insmaller groups.”
- “I’d like to get to know people outside of a didactic environment.”
- “We missed both greeters and ushers in service today. These are an integralpart of making congregants new and old feel welcome.”
- “We need a more sharing and open approach. We are inclusive as a religionbut not as individual members.”
- “There’s a perception of an in-crowd.”
- “Let’s have social activities during the week.”
- “We used to hold monthly potlucks that allowed people to get togetherinformally and get to know each other there.”
We’re living in a time where we’re information-rich and connection-poor.But our church has an opportunity to combat this truism. As UUs, we can createcommunity without dogma, making the best of what “religion” hasto offer.
Someone said in my stewardship meeting on June 22, “We are more thanspiritual people. What makes us religious is that we’re joining togetheras a community for similar principles.”
Our challenge, then, is to truly join together and strengthen our bonds. Inthe case of the stewardship committee it means engaging this congregation byasking “If a stronger community means a stronger congregation, what canwe do to get there from here?”
Continue the conversation. It’s a good one, isn’t it?
In faith,
Jacki K. Weber
Stuart Moore Honored
On June 22, the Rev.Judith Meyer presented Stuart Moore with a plaque honoring him for taking careof the physical structures of our church since 1970. “He has done morethan any other person to keep our religious home in good condition,” thewording on the plaque states. “He is knowledgeable of all standards, codesand regulations pertinent to the care of our buildings, and has the myriad professionalskills and techniques required in their maintenance. . . The entire congregationowes Stuart Moore a debt of gratitude for his extraordinary services to thischurch.”
News & Announcements:
Items Worth More Than $50 Sought for Mini-Auctions
Have you noticed the mini-auction that was posted on the bulletin board inthe Forbes Hall seating alcove? We sold a set of Shakespeare books and a PalmPDA with a keyboard. This money will go to the building fund.
The next item for sale will be a Macintosh G3 computer, complete with monitor,extra memory, software, and manuals. Other items will be sold when they aredonated. Donors will receive a receipt for income tax credit.
Items must be worth at least $50 used. Unless they are things that have appreciatedin value, they should have been several hundred dollars new. If you have somethingto auction, please contact Carol Agate.
Faith in Action News:
Personal Opinion Letters and Essays are Invited for the FIA Bulletin
A major theme of the first issue of the FIA Bulletinwas our church’s statement of conscience opposing unilateral preventivewar in Iraq. Because of this statement, Faith in Action was able to speak forthe church on this issue and we worked hard to make our congregational voteknown to the press and our congressional representatives.
Shortly after the first issue of the FIA Bulletin was published in mid-March,our country attacked Iraq without seeking final approval from the United Nations.By the time the second issue was published in June, President Bush had declaredvictory in Iraq and our country was in the throes of trying to “win thepeace.” Consequently, the theme of the second issue was speaking to (notfor) the congregation on issues of peace, civil liberties and social justice.
As we approach publication of the third issue of the FIA Bulletin in September,the goal is to expand congregational participation in discussing these issues.It is important for us to understand each other’s diverse views. To helpus do this, I would like to invite the members of our congregation to submitmaterial for possible publication in future issues. Essays, letters, poems,photographs, and other original documents expressing the personal opinions ofchurch members on issues of peace, civil liberty and social justice will beconsidered on a space available basis. Letters and essays may be edited forpurposes of space or clarity. Further details about submitting material forpossible publication may be found in the most recent version of the FIA Bulletin,which can be found at http://old.uusm.org/fia0603.pdf.
The deadline for submission of original material for the next issue of theFIA Bulletin is September 1. Material may be sent to me bye-mail at chaskell@ucla.edu or placedin the Faith in Action box in the church office. Won’t you join our growinglist of authors?
Won’t you share your views, so we can learn from each other?
Charles M. Haskell
Chair, Faith in Action Commission
Splinters from the Board:
The board met on July 8 in what may be the shortest meeting on record. ChristianCollingwood was appointed to the Personnel Committee and OfeliaLachtman to the Finance Committee. The membership report showed ourtotal is now 464 members.
The treasurer, Carol Agate, reported that the year-end figureswound up very close to the forecast Carol Kerr made at theannual congregational meeting in May. Warren Mathews explainedthat there is a problem in calculating our pledge income because the fiscalyear and the pledge year differ, and some people pay their entire pledge atthe start of the fiscal year and some pay at the end of the year. His softwareprogram used to account for those differences, but our new program does nothave that capability. The Finance Committee will discuss this issue at its nextmeeting.
The Stewardship Committee reported that its meetings were well attended, andparticipants provided some valuable insights. The committee will prepare a reportof the feedback received at the meetings.
A Girl Scout troop leader, who is a member of our congregation, asked thatour facilities be made available at no charge for a teenage troop. The boardendorsed the request and accepted the scout troop as an official church activity.
The Personnel Committee proposed a policy providing for overtime for hourlyemployees, even though we are not legally obligated to pay it. The committeealso proposed a modification of our non-discrimination policy so that an employee’sreligion may be considered when the person’s religion is a bona fide occupationalqualification for the job. As the policy stood previously, we could not haveconsidered the religion of a director of religious education. The board approvedboth proposals.
There will be a board retreat in August, focusing on setting up a system ofliaisons. There will not be a board meeting unless an urgent issue has to bedecided before September.
-- Carol Agate