Sunday Services

August 7 - Memorial Service for Andy

Please join us to celebrate the life and mourn the death of Andy. Hue Jacobs will share his memories of his long-time friend, and invite you to share your memories of Andy as well. 

August 14 - UU Roots and Branches - "From Across the Gulf"

This month we look at the early wellsprings of Unitarian and Universalist beliefs in Greece and Europe . If we could meet our forbears, we might seem as strange to them as Odysseus seemed to Penelope when he returned from his long journey. We've traveled a mighty distance from our early philosophical homes and we might well ask if and how we should remain faithful to our theological origins. Do we recognize who we are now by better knowing who we were then? 

August 21 - Natural Cycles as Frames for Search - "The Water Ceremony"

This Sunday we welcome back all those who have made Odysseys of exploration, whether geographically or right here at home. Please bring a small container of water to represent some  meaningful experience of your year's journey, and a brief story of a deep pain, joy, or discovery that you wish to share with your congregation. 

August 28 - Constellations of Faith - "Meditation as Source of Renewal"

Dr. Vrnda Chaitanya is VSU’s Louie Brown Visiting Scholar for 2004-5.  She is a professor of Indian religious and philosophical traditions and is currently teaching a course in Hinduism.  She will share her insights on her religious tradition and on meditation as a source of renewal.

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SPARC - Sunday School With a Purpose

The Service Planning and Reflection Committee (SPARC) will be meeting two Sunday mornings each month at 9:30 AM in the Religious Education Building  to reflect on our church’s ministry to each other and the wider community. The group will be reading a series of books and articles on lay ministry, discuss beliefs and ideas members feel are most critical to our church, and develop layled services to present those reflections to our congregation. Please join the group to shape the path we walk together.  

Don’t forget to sign up in the SPARC notebook on the counter in the vestibule. Please take time each week to check the sign up sheets and volunteer to help make our services meaningful for all.   

INVITATION TO MEMBERSHIP If you are interested in becoming a member of our fellowship, we encourage you to talk with our President, Lars Leader.  We welcome your questions, and we extend an open invitation to all who want to join our liberal community of faith.

 

 

 

 

 

Beloved Community 

Wednesday Potluck and Discussion:

August 10:  6:00 PM Potluck-7:00 PM Discussion

Joan Cline’s Home

Joan invites you to bring a potluck dish to her home. Joan has been reading up on Small Group Ministries and will guide the discussion for the evening.  Note that the group is meeting this month on the second  (not the first) Wednesday night.  Contact Joan if you need further information. 

About Our Members and Friends

v     Anna Mitchell and Jim Hall – Anna will be beginning her studies at Emory School of Theology soon.  We will miss her musical contributions to our services and their commitment to social concerns.  Best wishes to them both as they take another step together into a new venture.  

Several of our members and friends are experiencing serious health concerns this summer.  Please keep them all in your loving thoughts, and contact Betty Derrick, if you can provide food or other help.

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Social Action Activities

Break Bread Together

Our date for meal deliveries with the Break Bread Together program is the 2^nd Monday of each month.  If you can deliver meals on this day beginning about 11:00 AM, please contact Betty Derrick.

Social Action News This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9), Japan . This summer, as war in Iraq continues, offers us an opportunity to increase our public witness for peace and prepare for the fall when Congress will debate the The Homeward Bound Act (bipartisan legislation for a phased withdrawal of US troops from Iraq ). Several other bills headed for hearings this fall will address nuclear proliferation. The UUA has joined a grassroots advocacy campaign launched by Win Without War in support of the Homeward Bound Act. And a major mobilization for peace is planned for September 24-26th in Washington , DC . See our Summer of Peace webpages at http://www.uua.org/ for more information and resources. There are many intergenerational activities our congregations can participate in that will send a message of hope and peace. Churches will toll their bells on August 6 at 8:15 a.m: a somber tolling, 60 times in 6 minutes.

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UU Board News: July 20, 2005 Meeting; attending were Rosie Asbury, Joan Cline, Helen Gerhardt, Jim Ingram, Lars Leader, and Doug Turner. The Board discussed the church archives that will be kept in the front office. It was suggested that having the Master File both in printed copy and on CD would be very helpful, as well as purchasing a fire proof file cabinet. Lars Leader attended General Assembly this summer and brought back some books and video, which we can use for our Sunday services.  These materials will be kept in the library. Helen volunteered to help Lars and Carol with the Yahoo UU Valdosta list monitoring and they will decide how to go about it. Helen also suggested the need to have a committee in charge of publicizing our church programs, especially in the newspaper. She will discuss this idea in the next SPARC meeting.  Helen described the planned programming schedule for the next two months. The Board will review and approve invited speakers if expenses will be more than the allowed $200.00 plus travel expenses. Jim Ingram volunteered to eventually construct an out-building for our lawn mower, gas and other church equipment. Laurel Hahlen resigned from the position of Membership Director.  The Board elected Joan Cline to replace Laurel.  Joan continues to service as R.E. Director.  The next Board meeting will be on August 3, 2005 at 6 PM.

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Need a Name Tag?  Bobbie Dixon has agreed to make new nametags for the congregation but is waiting on supplies and information to complete this task.  In the meantime she will be glad to make a nametag for newcomers who are without a nametag at all, if you will let her know.  See Bobbie at Sunday services to let her know.

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Lars Leader’s President's Column will be back in August! Lars represented our congregation at the annual UU General Assembly held this summer in Fort Worth , TX June 23-27 (see below).   Talk to him about his experiences when you see him.  Perhaps he will write about those experiences in a future column.

Pete Seeger performs at the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly (GA).  Photo provided by our new president, Lars Leader, who represented the congregation at GA, in Fort Worth , TX June 23-27.  For more highlights of GA, please click here.  Lars also suggests reading the 2005 Sermon of the Living Tradition, entitled "Out From Walden," given by Rev. Dr. Patrick T. O'Neill, which is posted here.  (Both links are web pages from the UUA and each will open in a new window).

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Treasurer's Report

Randy Thompson/Doug Tanner

June 30, 2005

General Fund				$20,301.73
Restoration Fund				17,214.64
Total (Cash in Bank Accounts)				$37,516.37
OUTSTANDING DEBT
Mortgage				$24,849.54
OPERATING RECEIPTS AND DISBURSEMENTS:				June	YTD
Receipts:
Plate				286.00	1,473.20
Pledge				1,296.00	18,166.00
Rent				240.00	2,930.00
Interest Income					808.13
TOTAL RECEIPTS				1,822.00	23,377.33
Disbursements:
Minister Expense				0.00	19,999.44
Mortgage				500.00	6,000.00
Speaker's Fees & Expenses					873.68
Repairs and Maintenance					586.01
Child care expense					510.00
Ministerial Music					50.00
Insurance & Termite Bond					1,588.90
Postage				111.00	463.72
Supplies					678.62
RE Programming					480.00
Membership Programming				0.00	184.77
UUA dues					2,208.00
UU Conference Attendance				697.00	1,042.00
Utilities				150.19	2,112.60
Advertising				0.00	627.50
Andy Phillips Memorial Gift				394.00	394.00
Other				0.00	445.90
TOTAL DISBURSEMENTS				1,852.19	38,245.14
NET RECEIPT (DISBURSEMENT)				($30.19)	($14,867.81)
RESTORATION FUND
Receipts			Contributions	$16,539.85
			Insurance	30,971.07
				$47,510.92
Disbursements
			Contractor	$25,403.19
			Other Repairs	31.40
			Replacements	3,962.69
			Program	98.00
			UU Westside Church	801.00
				$30,296.28
FUND BALANCE				$17,214.64

*It was anticipated the church would incur deficits each month during the minister’s term.  Minister expenses ended in May

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UUA TRUSTEE TIDBITS

Joan Lund

It is my guess that each of you who read my column is a leader or future leader in your congregation. In the District report I submitted highlighting my week at General Assembly I said I would expand in more detail about a workshop I attended entitled: “On Being a Board Religiously”. This workshop was conducted by two UUA Board members, and was one that offered ideas and solicited sharing from the attendees on the spiritual business of a congregation board. How do we ground our work together in our religious values and communities?

Before sharing sample “openings” for board meeting beginnings the leaders presented several ideas. It is important that leaders take their own individual spiritual lives seriously. Boards need to remember that “check-ins” need not dominate the meeting. Boards can be creative with ideas to vary the “check-in” experience. Examples: one month ask people to check-in with an observation on a recent development they think is going particularly well; in another month ask board members to check-in by sharing their perspective on a current issue or a reflection on the life of the congregation.

Boards should begin meetings and retreats with spiritual grounding. Honor the different ways that people experience spirituality. For example, introverts tend to prefer readings while extroverts prefer singing or open sharing. Care needs to be given that one “type” does not dominate. Or invite board members to alternate writing an opening liturgy. The UUA website can provide some examples.

Create a Board Covenant if you do not already have one, and revisit it from time to time, perhaps as the opening a reading. Give each new board an opportunity to adjust the covenant, and have a conversation about how you will hold each other accountable to it.

This workshop encouraged boards to embrace conflict as a community-building experience not to be avoided but to be embraced as a growth opportunity. And finally, make a commitment to attend a common worship and community celebration together.

Let me hear from you with your questions and concerns: jlund@uua.org. By the way, all the past Trustee Tidbits columns are at the District web page under Trustee News if you have missed some, and for some reason, feel compelled to read them. Enjoy the summer.  

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At the Church-in-the-Woods

Tai Chi – Monday and Thursday Evenings: Continuing Class 6:00-7:30 PM until mid-August, then 6:30-8:00 PM; a new Beginner’s Class will begin August 15 meeting 5:30-6:30 PM.   Contact Dennis Bogyo. 

New Hope Christian Fellowship - Sunday evenings: Choir practice at 5:00 PM. Service at 6:00 PM. 

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UU Activities and Announcements

Further information is posted on the bulletin board in the R.E. wing at the church.  Also check your Sunday Order of Service for announcements.  Please also check the Florida District, UUA, and The Mountain Web sites.  Your editor has not received updated information from these groups in recent months.

August 2-6 – Interfaith Visions for Peace: Beginning the Dialogue, $548(by July 3), includes lodging, etc, The Mountain Retreat and Learning Center , Highlands , NC

August 6-11 - “Ways, When’s, Who’s, and Where’s of Peacemaking: Nonviolence as a Personal Creed and a Public Mission with Colman McCarthy, $744 (after July 7) Includes lodging & food and a Certificate of Completion. C.E.U.’s available upon request.   The Mountain Retreat and Learning Center , Highlands , NC

October 14-16,  Vermont Fall Foliage Escape,  11th annual B&B weekend offered by the UU Church of Rutland, VT.  A wide variety of activities: hiking, canoeing, historical tours, tours of quaint towns. All are guided by UU hosts.  Fees, if registered by September 1, for single, $225; for double, $425.  Includes two nights lodging with a church family, all meals, entrance fees, local transportation. For information email:  uufoliagevermont@yahoo.com .

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Newsletter Staff

Editor:  Betty Derrick

Website:  Carol Stiles

August 15: deadline for the September newsletter. Your editor will be depending on your timely e-mails for all of the information for the next two newsletters.  It will be imperative that you send information about thank yous, member needs, as well as announcements, programming, and columns.  Meeting the deadline will be critical. 

 

 

E-mail correspondence from Herb Vetter, Director, Harvard Square Library:

Harvard Square Library website (www.harvardsquarelibrary.org) this past year, I am delighted and astonished to report, had more than one million page views from 100 countries on six continents. Aside from our growing color illustrated biographies of some 300 Notable American Unitarians from 1740 to 1961, and the color illustrated history of the First Parish in Cambridge, there have been 18 additions published online, including: The Relevant Reverend, The Harvard Square God, People of Power, Heraclitus, Rabindranath Tagore, Prayers of Power, Meditations on Power, A New World View by Charles Hartshorne, Charles Hartshorne (the first online biography), Bibliography of Hartshorne: philosopher of life, Dancing with the Sacred:  Evolution, Ecology, and God (review), Cambridge on the Charles (review), Harvard Gallery of Photographs, President Charles W. Eliot, The Drama as Secular Faith, Are We Mortal? (Centennial itemization of the Harvard Ingersoll Lectures), Speak Out Against the New Right (Harvard Square Online Edition), James Luther Adams Articles.  

Other publications during the past year included six issues of UU Notable News, sent to 2000 ministers, religious educators, administrators, and congregations.  Two new Harvard Square Library paperbacks are: Speak Out Against the New Right, a new edition of the book, edited by Herbert F. Vetter, originally published by Beacon Press in 1982, and described by Publishers Weekly:  “SPEAK OUT documents some of the best thinking to emerge from this decade so far.”  Notable American Unitarians, 1740-1900 by Herbert F. Vetter.  Brief illustrated biographies celebrating 125 women and men who contributed to civilization in fields of government, literature, religion, social change, education, art, science, and business.  

Finally, in 2005 Jack Mendelsohn, Gloria Korsman, and I met to begin reckoning with a promising problem. There are now 480 women and men in 75 professional schools preparing to become Unitarian Universalist ministers, but we have only 1039 UU societies, more than half of which have less than 100 members. What must be done?

Herb Vetter, Director, Harvard Square Library      www.harvardsquarelibrary.org

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Count Your Blessings  If you reduced the world’s population down to 100 people, 57 (or 57%) would be Asians, 21 would be Europeans, 14 would be from the Western Hemisphere and eight from Africa .  Among those 100 people would be 52 females and 48 males.  Seventy people would be nonwhite; 30 would be white.  Seventy would be non-Christian; 30 would be Christian.  Six people would possess 59 percent of the world’s wealth, and those six would be Americans.  Eighty people would live in substandard housing.  70 would be unable to read and 50 would suffer malnutrition.  Only one person would be college-educated, and only one person would have a computer.  If you have food to eat, clothes to wear and a place to sleep tonight, you are richer than 70 percent of the world’s people.  Furthermore, if you’re alive at this time next week, you won’t be among the one million people who died during that time.  Think about your blessings and your responsibilities to this world and its people.  Adapted from the Sunday Bulletin of St. John’s Lutheran Church in suburban Baltimore , Maryland .

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What is this Congregation Meant to Be? 

·        A place for people to come together and share positive meanings about the lives we can and do lead.  

·        Communing with people who accept me and accept each other with the desire to improve our spiritual lives.  

·        We don’t have to think alike to love alike.  

·        This congregation is for people who are searching for companions in their life pilgrimage to provide caring, loving support, intellectual stimulation, religious education, fellowship and fun on the journey together.  

·        This congregation exists to offer a place for my spirit (inner self) to find nurture, friends---not just for me but we who seek a better world for all the world’s people.  

·        This church is for mindfully exploring what it means to be human, mindfully acting to build healthy community, mindfully honoring, questioning, respecting, and protecting the sacredness of life.

From the words of our congregation one evening this spring.