First Unitarian Stewardship

"My role is all about developing relationships, which strengthens everything we do.  In addition, I am able to maintain systems   which  consistently  support programs that provide space for relationships to deepen. It is such a vital role." -- Tina Lewis Tina Lewis, Unity Temple, Oak Park, IL Our new mission statement declares that “connecting with each other” is one  of our core aspirations. The Prudential Committee has turned this aspiration  into a goal for the coming years: ensure that newcomers, new members and  established members report higher levels of welcome and connection. A Connections Coordinator is a membership professional. Currently, more than 80 UUA congregations have a membership professional on staff.   They are known by a number of names:  Conne ctions Coordinator,  Con gregational Life Director, Coordinator of Member Programs, etc. What all membership professionals share in common is the goal to g row the...

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 ...

It doesn't matter what brought you here.  What matters is that you are here now.  That you live the covenant. That you pray, that you sing, that you are of service.  -- Jay Lavelle I am a Unitarian.  I am not a Unitarian-Universalist, or  —  God forbid —  a "UU".  I was in the church before the merger and was thankfully grandfathered in so I wouldn't have to deal with the music requirement.   I would like to able to say that my church childhood was idyllic, walking down the tree-lined streets to the white wood church facing the town common. However, most of my childhood memories are blurred, blended, or blocked.  Or just wrong.  What I do know is that an interest in spirituality attempted to surface in my adulthood.  It was not a review of my past and current lives that brought me back to the fold of Unitarianism, but something far more subtle than that.   On a cold New Year's Eve I was at Worcester's First Ni...

I feel my giving has little to do with ‘business’ and all to do with the sacred work of transforming our world to become more just and fair. I give joyfully and look forward to working with others to do the same.  -- Laurie Ross My daughter Zoe always loved to read. When she was six or seven, we were both looking for something a little more challenging than typical first-grade fare. A friend suggested Harry Potter—and we were hooked! All of the Harry Potter books were out by that time and we devoured all seven over the next few years.  When she was in third grade, we went to a StArt on the Street festival. Paul Ropp was there with flyers for the First Unitarian Church of Worcester’s own Hogwart’s [1] style summer program. We were very interested, but the dates didn’t work for us that summer. I kept my eye out for more Harry Potter themed activities. The following spring, the church held a Hogwarts event. I signed my kids up. When I picked them up, I asked them ho...

Stewardship—protecting, tending, caring—is at the core of what it means to live out my faith, of building and nourishing the beloved community. It is  a call to bring my best self to the mission and life of the church. --Ellen Foley What calls me to First Unitarian Church?  In many ways I can’t take credit for my Unitarian faith.  I grew up in the Unitarian church of Flint, Michigan; my grandparents were all Unitarian.  Religion did not occupy my conscious thoughts during my childhood and early adulthood. And yet I have always had a strong moral compass and a certainty about my own spiritual values: justice, interdependence, the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings.  In my adulthood I have found, unsurprisingly, that Unitarian churches are the places where I find those who share this moral compass.  I find people I want to know.  People I admire.  People who I hope will shape my son’s sense of his place in the world and his res...

The message of inclusiveness [is] central in this spiritual community of diverse thinkers and believers.   [Yet] I can partake only as much as I am willing to give of myself – of my love, of my time, of my skills, of my resources. -- Carol Gregory How wonderfully unexpected! My experience here at First Unitarian during the last four years has been just that – wonderful and unexpected. Sitting in the pew with Wendy during the first service I attended, I had to keep reminding myself I wasn’t attending a great concert listening to gifted musicians and vocalists in a magnificent venue. Enchanting as that experience was, I didn’t expect the music to draw me in so powerfully and so often. I began attending our church during a transition. When The Reverend Tom Shade moved on, both The Reverend Tracey Robinson-Harris and The Reverend Gary Kowalski helped us rise to the challenging work of refocusing ourselves to call M12, The Reverend Sarah Stewart, to be our minister. What a ...

Every year Lee and I have given generously of ourselves and our money, and in return we have experienced church life as focal to our family life. We have developed relationships that are worth far more than we can fully express. --Steve Knox Lee and I feel so very fortunate to belong to the same church community as our daughters.  It was at First Unitarian where they received their religious education, then participated in the youth groups, and now also belong as members.  And we are filled with delight to see our grandson starting in the same programs our children started in. What a gift First Unitarian continues to be for our family.  From the start we have never been shy about getting involved.  A sense of belonging is a basic human need and getting involved is how we fulfill it.  Lee and I signed the book right after our second Sunday service.  Not too long after that, we were participating as volunteers in the Sunday School, and also in a pr...