Taking Care of What we Love

Stewardship is about taking care of something that you love. And we offer that care so that our church community will be here long after we are gone. -- Ellen Foley

What is Stewardship? Someone asked me this at the yard sale last Saturday, and my off the cuff answer was, “money!”. But Stewardship isn’t really about money. Stewardship is about taking care of something that you love. And we offer that care so that the thing we cherish, in this case our church community, will be here long after we are gone.

What will Stewardship look like this year? Those of you who saw the Stewardship skit during the in-gathering lunch on Sept. 11 th learned that we will be organizing stewardship visits with all church members this fall. For everyone else, here’s a brief overview:

What are Stewardship visits?
They are a chance for visiting stewards (i.e. other church members) to visit you and talk to you about your connection to the church. We want to visit everyone, and most of what we want to do is listen.

During Stewardship visits, we will share what we love about the church, and we want to learn more about what you love. What connects you? How are YOU living out our mission to honor the sacred, to connect, to serve justice?

Finally, we will invite you to think about your role as a steward, and all the ways, including generous giving, that you can help take care of this place that you love. We’ll invite you to think about how your annual Stewardship pledge reflects your sense of connection to First Unitarian.

Stewardship is about all of us and we will need your help. In the coming weeks you’ll be hearing more from us about how to get involved. But for now, thank you, each and every one of you, for being you, for being here part of this community, and for the gifts that you bring.

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Hearing the Call: Rudy Cepko, YRU2 Mentor and Advisor

“I believed that my day job as an RN in the Pediatric ICU at UMass would make it easy for me to handle a bunch of teenagers. However, I was surprised to encounter teens willing to gain more knowledge in their spiritual quest and to learn how to use this in their everyday lives.” Rudy Cepko For many years I had not stepped into a church except for weddings and funerals. In the mid-1990s, my wife, Alesia, started attending church to sing with UU choir. She was impressed by the message that she heard from Barbara Merritt and suggested that I try the church. I felt I was in a place that spoke to me, and our son Stefan was enrolled in the Sunday school programs. I had some involvement with church stewardship as a volunteer in the Garden committee. Mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, planting and laying yards of mulch were part of my contribution to the church. Then when my son, Stefan, was in YRU2, he asked if I would be interested in becoming an assistant during the Sunday m

First Unitarian Stewardship

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