Dear UUCCSM RE families and volunteers,

 

RE UUpdates are back from their summer hiatus and will be coming to you weekly from here on out, though they will soon change to a more attractive newsletter format, no longer run through the Yahoo Group.  When we make that transition I’ll make sure to let everyone know how to stay connected.

 

In these emails you’ll be getting important information about the start of the 2012-13 RE program year and lots more.  There’s a great deal in store for us this year!  I hope you’ve all had a fabulous summer and are looking forward to getting our new church year started. 

 

 

Don’t forget – this Sunday is our first week back to two services, at 9:00 & 11:00, for our intergenerational Ingathering Sunday service!

 

 

Calendar of upcoming events:

 

 

Sunday, 9/11

Ingathering Sunday – All-ages service in sanctuary– first week of our new church year! Multigenerational service of celebration, with Rev. Rebecca Bijur, Catherine Farmer Loya and new Music Director DeReau Farrar

Sunday, 9/15

RE Volunteer Training, 8:30-12:45 (lunch to 1:30)

Sunday, 9/16

First day of RE classes! 

Friday, 9/21-Sunday, 9/23

UUCCSM camp weekend at de Benneville

Sunday, 9/23

Multi-age Social Justice Sunday

Sunday, 9/30

Youth Programs brunch for youth in grades 8-12 and their families, hosted by the Youth Programs

Subcommittee of the Lifespan RE Committee.  Held between the services from 10:15-11:00

Sunday, 10/28

Day of the Dead Multigenerational service

 

 

 

Volunteer Opportunities:

 

NEW VOLUNTEERS STILL NEEDED IN CHILDREN’S RE -The first day of RE classes is September 16^th, and we still have just a few volunteer spots open that need to be filled!  Would you enjoy spending 1-2 Sundays per month with our vibrant young UUs?  Teachers work in teams and serve as lead teacher just once per month, with lots of lesson and planning support, and also serve as assistant once per month.  Assistants show up once a month on their designated Sundays to help out during class time.  We have need of volunteers in the following areas:

 

TEACHERS:

K-1^st Grade Class – 11:00 – Uses an adaptation of the “Spirit Play” story-based program model.  Class includes sharing of the week’s story with a basket of small objects that provide a visual focus for the story, discussion time, and a class activity to build on the theme of the story. One teacher still needed.

 

3^rd-5^th Grade Class – 11:00 – This year we’re offering the second half of the brand new “UUniverse Story” curriculum, developed by UUCCSM members Margot Page & Ian Dodd, with lesson plans and lots of support provided to teachers.  The curriculum is designed to nurture a sense of awe and wonder about the world around us through a hands-on, science-based program.  Kids will explore the Big Bang and the origins of the Universe, the chemistry of life, the ideas of evolution and change over time, and the interconnectedness of all people from our shared ancestry with each other and every other life form on the planet. One teacher still needed.

 

ASSISTANTS:

9:00 or 11:00 Nursery – Sign up to assist nursery staff 1x per month.  Several assistants still needed.

9:00 or 11:00 Preschool Class – Sign up to assist preschool staff 1x per month.Several assistants still needed.

 

 

This Week in RE:

 

Ingathering Intergenerational Sunday Service:  This Sunday we will be celebrating the beginning of our church year together in a service designed to be engaging for people of all ages.  Families are invited to attend the service together; there will be no separate RE classes (the nursery will be open for babies and toddlers).  Join us as we celebrate “Standing on the Side of Love” as one UUCCSM community.

 

 

Announcements:

 

NEW RE Registration & Parent Commitment Form for 2012-13:  Every child and youth who participates in our RE classes needs to have a registration form and parent commitment form filled out and signed each year.  The registration form helps us make sure we have current contact information for your family as well as information about your children’s needs, your dreams for their experience in our RE program, and the areas in which you’d like to help support our church’s educational ministry.  The parent commitment form asks for parents of children in our RE program to help out as volunteers during the year to ensure that our program is fully supported and of the highest quality we can make it.  We’ll have plenty of blank forms at the LRE table in the courtyard before and after the services on Sunday mornings in September, and they are also posted on the UUSM website at http://uusm.org/sundays-and-services/lifespan-RE/registration-permission-forms. Please bring yours on Sunday, or stop by the table to fill them out.  It is very helpful for us to have our registrations right away, so we can begin to build our class rosters and update our church records for this year.

 

NEW Youth Programs Brucnh, September 30:  Youth in Coming of Age (grade 8) and YRUU (grades 9-12) and their parents are invited to a brunch between the services on Sunday, Sept. 30^th from 10:15-11:00 under the shade structure in the courtyard for an introduction to our youth programs for the year and to meet our fabulous Youth Programs committee members.  Siblings are welcome too!  We’ll share calendars for the year, talk about our monthly COA/YRUU social events (and ask for parents’ help in coordinating), and discuss the “big picture” of our congregation’s engagement with and support for our youth. 

 

 

NEW RE Books Wish List on Amazon:  Another arm of the “master wish list” for the RE program, is an Amazon Wishlist of books and supplies that will be useful in RE classes this year or that will be valuable resources for teachers & families in our church.  We do have some money earmarked for purchases, but we are running on a tight RE budget, and donations are happily accepted.  If you’d like to help out by donating to the program, check out the Amazon list at http://tinyurl.com/rewishlist.  (Used books in “good” condition are just fine!)  THANK YOU to the members who have already sent books or other supplies our way – they are so appreciated!

 

 

 

UU Everyday (resources and ideas for practicing your UU values at home):

 

Chalice Lighting Words of the Week (September’s Theme – FORGIVENESS):

 

 

September 9:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope.  Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith.  Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.  No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

        -- Reinhold Niebuhr

 

 

 

For the 2012-13 church year we’re trying out a new way of living as one lifespan religious community: congregation-wide ministry themes.  Each month we’ll explore a new theme, and in September our theme is FORGIVENESS.  The chalice lightings shared here will be used in all of our RE classes, and I hope that your family will also share it at home during the week.  I’m tickled by the idea of all of our UUCCSM families sharing a reflection in common each week as we go about our daily lives. 

 

 

 

An At-Home Activity to Reinforce our UU Values – “Daily Rituals: Mealtimes”: (adapted from The Book of New Family Traditiona  by Meg Cox)

 

Grace - Even for families who aren’t religious, saying grace before a meal can be a wonderful ritual of transition.  It functions like a call to reconnection after a day of separation.

 

Simple and Good:  Some of the most profound graces are the simplest, such as the lovely Quaker grace “Us and them: God bless.”  I also like “Now my plate is full, but soon it will be gone.  Thank you for my good, and please help those with none.”

 

Sing for Your Supper:  The Hodge family sings together often, including for grace. A favorite is the Johnny Appleseed song which goes: “Oh the Lord is good to me, and do I thank the Lord/For giving me the things I need/The sun and the rain and the appleseed/The Lord is good to me.”

 

Silent Prayers:  Elizabeth Fergus-Jean prefers that her husband and children observe a moment of simple silence before eating.  “I’ve told my kids that this should be a moment of thanks, but also a moment of connectedness.” 

 

Holding Hands:  The Michaels of Minneapolis say a simple grace, and then all squeeze hands before they eat.

 

Choosing a Grace:  Two terrific books are A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles edited by M.J. Ryan, and The Classic Treasury of Children’s Prayers by Susan Cuthbert, which also includes bedtime prayers, and more.

 

Chalice Lighting:  A lovely way to connect your home life with your UU community is to keep a chalice on your table, and light it along with a simple grace at mealtimes.

 

 

 

This Week in UU History: (From This Day in Unitarian Universalist History, by Frank Schulman)

 

September 8, 1553:  John Calvin wrote to another Swiss minister that Michael Servetus was injuring public good not only because of his own rude conduct but also because large numbers of people were expressing agreement with his anti-Trinitarian views.

 

September 8, 1647:  Twelve Arguments Against the Deity of the Holy Spirit by John Biddle was burned at Westminster Square in London, England.  Biddle is considered the father of English Unitarianism.

 

September 10, 1797:  Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin died at age 38.  Her exact date of birth is unknown.  She was a tireless worker for women’s intellectual, domestic, and political freedom and one of the early devotees of women’s rights.  Her best known of many works is A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792).  Godwin wrote about the power of human reason to improve life.  She died after giving birth to Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.  Godwin did not hold membership in a Unitarian church, but she was friends with prominent Unitarians and was heavily influenced by them.

 

September 11, 1832:  Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson submitted his letter of resignation to the proprietors of the Second Church in Boston (Unitarian).  He decided to seek another situation, either in another church or a new profession.

 

September 13, 1660:  Jonas Schlichtingius, a lifelong Unitarian who served as a missionary and was imprisoned in Stargard, Germany, for his beliefs, finished his commentaries on the Pauline epistles.  His sons and other colleagues published them after Schlichtingius’s death as part of a reference series for Polish Unitarians.

 

September 14, 1638:  John Harvard died at the age of 31.  He was a congregational minister in Charlestown, Massachusetts, who left numerous books and some money to a college newly formed in Newtowne, Massachusetts.  The school was then renamed in his honor, and the town’s name changed to Cambridge.  Harvard College became a center of Unitarian intellectualism and the dominant training ground for Unitarian ministry.  (Catherine’s note: In fact, UUCCSM has a strong connection to Harvard, as our own Revs. Rebecca Bijur, Judith Meyer, and Ernie Pipes are all graduates of Harvard Divinity School.)

 

September 15, 1847:  President William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He served in a variety of government posts, from assistant prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County, Ohio, to superior court judge.  He went to Washington as solicitor general of the United States and then became civil governor of the Philippines, mentoring that nation toward full independence with as little attention to racial differences as he could.  He then became secretary of war before being elected president of the United States (1908-1912).  When his term was over, Taft went to Yale University, where he taught law until 1921, when he was appointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.  Taft also served as moderator of the American Unitarian Association and was a member of the First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati.  He died on March 8, 1930.

 

September 15, 1853:  Women’s rights activist Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell was ordained as a Congregationalist minister by her church in South Butler, New York, becoming the first woman pastor in the country.  She became a Unitarian in 1854, helped found All Souls Unitarian Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and served as its first minister.  She wrote ten books on religion, philosophy and science, and was the mother of six children.  She died on November 11, 1921.