Dear UUCPA folks,
I’ve had an exciting week here.
Several people joined the congregation, and several more asked for membership packets. We’ll be formally welcoming these new members on April 9, Easter. That service was already shaping up to be full of wonderful stories and music (I just love planning services with Rev. Cat), and now this!
The Mission Task Force came to the Committee on Ministry and Board meetings to share the words they have crafted in response to everything we have shared over the course of the past several months through surveys, gatherings, and individual conversations. The congregation will vote on it at the annual meeting on April 23, and in the meantime we’ll share it in various forms to try it out.
I learned that UUCPA is once again on the local Growing Native Gardens Tour. When we have events like this, it attracts the people in the wider community who are also passionate about tending the planet and making beautiful spaces.
We on the Sabbatical Seek Committee (Randy Helmonds, Marianne Neuwirth, Kevin Crane and me) chose our sabbatical minister! When they’ve accepted the offer, we’ll introduce them, so watch for the next Weekly Update. We already know they’ll be a marvelous addition to UUCPA from July to December this year.
In preparation for my sabbatical, I’ve been approaching lots of people to be guest speakers between the two services a month led by the sabbatical minister. This week I got a yes from the dynamic, thoughtful, inspiring Julie Lythcott-Haims, and I’m so excited, I might have to don dark glasses and sneak back from sabbatical to come to her service!
I had three Steward visits and emerged from each of those conversations with the deep happiness of being connected to people whose lives are a blessing to the world.
We have new cleanouts and a new sewer pipe going in! This is the stuff they don’t prepare you for in seminary but hey, we are embodied beings, and sewers are as embodied as it gets. Our Congregational Administrator, Jeff, and our amazing, all-volunteer Buildings and Grounds Committee–Barbara, Kevin, David, Robert, I see you–have worked countless hours. A beautiful but 60-year-old building has its challenges, exacerbated by bomb cyclones and atmospheric rivers, but this chapter is coming to a close.
I’ll be digesting all this excitement with a quiet week of staycation, but I’ll be here for our Healing Past Hurts and Moving Forward conversation on Monday and to lead Dismantling White Supremacy on Tuesday*, and fully back on April 4.
Love,
Amy
*Okay, I’m not very good at vacations