Happy New Year!

Looking back on the past year in the life of People’s Church, I would enthusiastically say it has been a very good year.  With a solid foundation, lots of new growth and joyous energy bubbling forth, we have many things to celebrate. The coming year will be filled with promise and hope.

December 2006 has been a busy month for church leadership!  At a recent daylong board retreat, the members of the board agreed to become a mission-centered church. The mission of People’s Church includes our seven principles yet none of us at the meeting (including me) could recite all seven. The goal for the next year is to become more familiar with our mission statement and the principles and purposes of Unitarian Universalism. Adult RE has a wonderful class planned to facilitate this goal.

The board also agreed that a covenant statement should be crafted and presented for approval to the congregation. A definition of covenant statement “describes the way people will be with and behave toward one another, as well as what is promised or vowed to one another and the congregation as a whole. A congregational covenant grows from an affirmation of shared needs, values, principles, and purposes. It is rooted in the past and reflects the promises made for the future.”

The Worship Committee met on December 20^th to plan for the New Year. Exploring ways to live up to our commitment to be an inclusive loving religious community for people of all ages and to provide meaningful worship for members, friends, and newcomers, the committee has decided to make some adjustments in the service. Beginning in January, the Story for All Ages will be once a month presented as a special time for the children with the minister. The rest of the Sundays, there will be a brief summary of the RE lesson, a time to acknowledge special moments in their lives, and finally an affirmation of our commitment to the spiritual growth of our children.

The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own, not to make them see with our eyes, but to looking inquiringly with their own. —William Ellery Channing

We pause in gratitude each child among us for they renew in our hearts a sense of wonder and joy and stir us to a fresh awareness of the sacredness of life and divine possibility. May we so live that our   children might acquire our best virtues and leave behind our worst failings. May we pass on the light of courage and compassion and the questing spirit, and may that light burn more brightly in these children than it has in us.  Amen.                                             (congregation sings as the children follow the teacher carrying a candle lit from our chalice: Go now in peace….)

I am sad to say that I won’t be traveling to Nicaragua this year but I am planning a trip to Ireland in April to attend a Forgiveness and Loss workshop at a Buddhist monastery.  And, I will be gathering at the end of January with my colleagues from the UU Heartland District for a retreat and educational program. The program responding to the dilemma, “How do ministers fill the dual roles of religious /spiritual guide and lead administrator?”  Maybe I’m not the only one dealing with this issue! Things are improving….

We now have a wonderful team of volunteers helping with administrative tasks in the church office and answering the phone from 9-3 Monday-Friday.  Special thanks to Jeannene Hall, Carolyn Beeker, Carol Farley, Judy Harrington, Alice Dennison, Didi Hoepfinger, Ann Schrader, and Diane Boulais.

Working together as a loving religious community we cannot help to succeed as we live our Unitarian Universalist values in our own lives and in the world.

I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year!

In faith,  Cathy