April 23, 2012
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Our 40/40 Campaign Is Off To A Great Start!
Dear UUCR folks,
We had a great start to our 40/40 Earth Day Food campaign! Yesterday quite a few adults and children made pledges while at church to make a small change in their lifestyles for 40 days, and check in with each other about how the experience goes. The pledge cards make a beautiful prayer flag in the floor to ceiling window in our atrium, thanks to the 5th and 6th graders and a couple of folks from our church-wide food initiative coordinating group. Take a look, enjoy! You can fill out your pledge card there, take a list of sample actions to peruse, and pick up a 40/40 sticker to put on your name-tag. Wear it proudly. We’re doing this together!
Personally, I have moved my reusable shopping bags into the front seat of my car, and more importantly, I have promised myself that whenever I remember I need to use them, even if I am already at the check-out counter, I will go back to the car and get them! Have you gotten started?
There’s going to be a bulletin board in Fellowship Hall for the 40 days of the Campaign. I encourage you to share what you are doing there, and read what other folks are doing. Think of it as 40/40 Central. Maybe you’ll want to connect with some of the folks who are doing something similar? Or if you come up with an idea, you can post it there. I understand Reverend Millspaugh did a great job of kicking our campaign off and I am very grateful to him for that. And when Reverend Tim returns on May 7, I think he will be quite happy to see our 40/40 campaign up and running and making a difference!
Save The Date: June 10, 2012
You, dear UUCR folks, are ordaining me on June 10. You’ll be doing this cooperatively with my home church of First Parish of Lexington, and it is important! The ceremony is more like a marriage than anything else, I would say. In our Unitarian Universalist tradition, there is no higher body that says, ‘yes, this person is a minister’, no centralized group that ‘sets us apart’ (which is what the word ordain means) for professional ministry. That is only done by a church, which alone can bestow the title Reverend. This goes hand in hand with the long process of “fellowshipping”, as we call it, the arduous process of preparing for the ministry that is managed by the Unitarian Universalist Association. Without being fellowshipped, one cannot apply for ministry positions with congregations other than those that ordained you. You can see that the ordination and the fellowshipping process work together.
I will write more about this process, but here’s the important thing for today: please save June 10, at 4 pm, for this wonderful time not only in my life, but also in your life as a congregation, the time when you say “Yes” to someone’s ministry, and give the gift of that person to the rest of the denomination in service. And you’ll get the added bonus of hearing another sermon from your minister, Tim Kutzmark: he’ll be delivering the ordination sermon. I will share more details on who will be doing what later, in the meantime, get those calendars out and please mark the date.
Blessings,
Meg Soens
