We hope you’ll join us in this newly-listed activity and check previous This Week, This Month announcements for additional upcoming events. Some are educational, some are purely social and some are both. Inter-generational activities include children of all ages, while other activities are for adults only. Check the details to see if childcare is provided.

• Saturday, November 15, 2008 – 11:00 to 1:00 p.m.– Court Street Crafters – in the Clara Barton Lounge
  Do you enjoy quilting, knitting, beading, weaving, rug hooking, crocheting, or some other craft? Are you interested in learning how to do one of these? Then the Court Street Crafters may be just the group for you!

  Our goal is to be together and enjoy each other’s company. We’re also exploring possible service projects, such as making blankets for Project Linus and knitting mittens and scarves for those in need.

  After the holidays, we plan to meet twice a month on Saturdays, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the Clara Barton Lounge. However, so that we can learn about and possibly start some projects for the holidays, we will meet on Saturday, November 15, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

  Bring your ideas and crafts and join us! Also, please bring your calendar so that we can set future dates. If you have any questions, please contact Nancy Gaede.

We hope you’ll join us in this newly-listed activity and check previous This Week, This Month announcements for additional upcoming events. Some are educational, some are purely social and some are both. Inter-generational activities include children of all ages, while other activities are for adults only. Check the details to see if childcare is provided.

Saturday, November 8, 2008 – 9:30 a.m. to noon — Navigating the Sea of Social Services workshop at 1st Universalist Church, 150 S. Clinton, Rochester, NY. Our congregations may have members who need more help than what we as a faith community can provide:

• the beloved older member who lives alone and has become increasingly frail. Other members hold their breath as they watch her slowly drive her car to the parking lot and make her way to church. She has no family members living nearby to watch out for her.
• the eccentric whose grooming has deteriorated and whose behavior has become so strange that people are wondering if s/he may need professional help.
• the single mother who has lost her job and is struggling to support three children.

Navigating the Sea of Social Services is a workshop designed to help us help our congregants connect with services that will meet their needs over the short or long term. At this workshop we will explore all levels of services, from welfare to private pay, how to access them and what our role should be. Erica Vera, a licensed social worker with 15 years of experience in Rochester, will guide us through this process.

Registration information:
pre-register via our workshop flier,
9:30 to 10 a.m. the day of register
Cost: $5 per person or $10 for 3 people with advance registration
$10 per person registering at the door

If you have further questions, please contact the Caring Committee of First Universalist Church of Rochester.

Reverend Sally Hamlin speaking

Part of the preparation for my move to the Bay area five years ago to attend seminary included selling and packing up the home where I had lived for fifteen years. I worked on this methodically from the time I received my acceptance letter from Starr King School for the Ministry in December, until the day of my actual move in August. Sorting through possessions: keepsakes from my daughters’ early childhoods, old love letters written when I was newly infatuated, boxes of files and papers and unread books, old kitchen knickknacks- just lots and lots of stuff.

Each box was a stroll down memory lane, and I moved along this path slowly, not wanting to miss a thing. I wanted this transition, one of the biggest in my life, to be marked. I wanted to honor it and not let it pass without its due acknowledgement. A lot of life had occurred in that house, this place of childhoods, marital passages and deaths of family members, health challenges and career shifts. All of it was reflected in, not only the contents of the house, but in the sense of place of the house: the gardens I had built and designed, the huge messy maple tree out back that littered the yard with endless branches which fell when a strong wind blew, the deck off the back of the house where I had spent countless hours gazing upward, skyward, watching the wind move the clouds which came off the lake, listening to the animals, the squirrels and the birds, the buzzing insects that hummed in the deep heat of summer, and the rustle of the leaves of the huge trees that were like God’s own whisper to my soul.

I know within my body the ways the weather feels in Western New York. I can tell in my bones what the weather is planning even without looking at the barometer that stays near my front door. My body became the barometer in humid weather; it took on fluid like a dry thirsty cottonwood drinks in the first deep rain. In spring in Buffalo, the earth itself takes on a heady scent that reminds me that we walk upon a live underground world, supported by the pulse of Mother herself, her smell musky when she awakes after her long winter slumber.

I could predict thunderstorms, and there are some magnificent ones in here Western New York, by reading the patterns of the leaves in the trees; and I could forecast snowstorms by watching the way the clouds bank and form their mass: they huddle down low and dark.

Looking back at my memories of that place, and especially of how I depended upon the weather patterns for orienting myself, I am surprised that I did not predict that I would feel so displaced by my move to the West coast, where the weather patterns were all new to me. At times I felt a great sense of both sadness and bewilderment, that goes beyond missing family and friends, and that I framed as part of simply not knowing how the weather in the East Bay “worked”. I realize I had simply not learned to read the signs of the weather there in my first few seasons. The seasons are more subtle, the changes unpatterned and unpredictable to my emigrant eyes.

However, when I would speak about the disorientation I felt with native Californians, I was often met with blank stares, or with incredulous faces that implied something like: there is weather in Buffalo that you would miss?

There was one person who responded immediately and with compassion to my bewilderment. Rebecca Parker heard something beyond the words I was speaking and took the time to listen to my story of dislocation and displacement. She patiently explained the northern California seasons to me, taking me through each subtle shift in an imaginary year. She explained the weather by describing the colors of the hills and how they change from gold to emerald green, the seasons of the flowering plants and trees, how the air patterns move, and when and where the birds would appear.

When she did this, I felt as though I could finally consider this place as a home for me. I could imagine it to someday feel like something I could know, in my body, although at the time this knowing felt like a long ways away. Whether she knew it or not, Rebecca extended a very big kindness to me that day; she gave me hope that this place would one day feel like home.

Why is the sense of place so important to our sense of feeling at home? How and why do we use our sense of place to navigate our world? What is it that Rebecca Parker did that helped with my feelings of displacement?

Yi-Fu Tuan, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says that the sense of place and rootedness that people have increases proportionate to their experience of languaging within the place. He says that how a place is spoken about, described and named, and how a person is introduced to it will influence their connection to it. Language, he says, “is never neutral”¹ and that “words have the general power to bring to light experiences that lie in the shadow or have receded into it, and the specific power to call places into being”.²

How does this information help us in our church community?

If it is a fact that almost 80% of new Unitarian Universalists come to our faith from some other religious tradition, then we can assume that most people come to us by choice. But it is necessary to consider that even though this is true, these so-called religious immigrants may still have some difficulty understanding the new ‘culture’ they find themselves in. New members may be suffering from a feeling of displacement, which is defined as “any movement or shift from a customary setting”.

People who are born and raised in our faith tradition have had the opportunity to name the landscape of Unitarian Universalism, so to speak. They have a familiarity with its symbols, rituals, traditions, language, and culture. Our religious ancestors created Unitarianism and Universalism by naming it, they languaged it. They called it into being. They brought to life something that did not exist before. Part of our heritage and what gives it such power is that many of our forebears also suffered and sacrificed for these beliefs, some of them with their lives. This profound commitment, in part, is what underlies and makes vivid the pictures of the stories of our faith tradition. Knowing these stories helps us have a sense of being part of something much larger than ourselves. When we light the chalice together on Sunday morning, we are instantly transported through sight, and words, and symbol across centuries and oceans, to our religious roots, and connected vibrantly to the web of life of which we are a part.

But even many life-long or old-timer Unitarian Universalists can unknowingly suffer the effects of displacement when their congregations shift and grow with the addition of new members.

The effects of displacement should not be underestimated, especially when it comes to religious identity. Two contemporary theologians (Nieman and Rogers) describe the impact of displacement thusly: “Displacement separates us from the patterns that have been central to us, the strategies that have helped us mark off who we are. . . it threatens the very core of what culture at its best seeks to provide. . . ways toward identity, belonging and action.”³

While these same theologians argue that we usually associate the effects of displacement with immigrants from other countries that come to North American culture either by choice or as a refugee from persecution, “displacement is a cultural issue of some considerable magnitude for native-born Americans as well. . . Americans no longer tend to live and die in the same place”, and “Middle class professionals have been described as the new migrant workers.”⁴

So even though you may have come to Unitarian Universalism from another faith tradition, where rituals, roles, and polity were clearly defined for you, it is likely that your previous religious experience no longer “works for you”, or you would not be here. You may have felt hurt by your tradition in some way, or been denied full access to its rituals or practice because of some core part of your being or identity, such as your gender or sexuality, for example.

If this is the case it may take you some time to feel at home here in Unitarian Universalism. You will have some work to do to heal your wounds. It will take some time, but we will help you.

Or, conversely, you may be one of the people who immediately felt at home once you attended a UU worship service. I have heard this from more than one person to know this is not an uncommon experience.

But it cannot be assumed that all people will immediately feel at home in a new congregation where, our UU ideals or tenets, our rituals and our roles, our polity and absence of creed and doctrine are new or different.

If we want to help new members or visitors feel welcomed and part of our congregation then the learning about Unitarian Universalism must take place with the understanding that how we language the experience for visitors and new members will have a huge impact upon them. It will influence their level of participation, their sense of belonging, and, most especially, it will influence how long people will stay with us, or, whether they decide early on, that the differences are too vast to navigate, and will require too much emotional, spiritual and psychological work on their part.

As Nieman and Rogers, the theologians quoted earlier, say, “as a private psychological wound like grief or depression, the effects of displacement can . . . easily remain hidden from others” and may even make it difficult for those suffering from the effects of displacement to recognize others around them who may be suffering from the same plight, thereby increasing feelings of isolation, rejection, and cause “available social resources for expressing and addressing displacement. . . unused.”⁵

What are the implications of this information for us as Unitarian Universalists who, as a religious group, have a higher percentage of visitors than other denominations, and yet have one of the lowest “stick around and join” rates?

The first thing we can do to assist in diminishing the power of displacement is to name it, to “draw this reality into the open and make it visible.”⁶ It is important for both the minister and for the congregation to have a sense of how disorienting cultural change can be for those who are experiencing it for the first time.

If you have come to us from another faith tradition, do you remember the first time you participated in a Unitarian Universalist worship service? If you identify as one who carries hidden wounds from other religious experiences, this recollection is critical. This will be the first step in not only feeling that you belong here, but it will crack open your heart and allow the loving healing community that is First Universalist to embrace you on your path to wholeness.

When we listen to one another’s spiritual journeys, sharing our stories with one another, we begin to create a bond that can deepen a tentative connection or cement an otherwise wavering one. We have begun the process of languaging a spiritual home together.

Part of this naming and listening is what “rounds out the task of attentiveness, testing our understanding by holding us accountable to others”(96). Such naming helps to begin to pave the path to reclaim a lost vision for those who are displaced, so that they can find in our church community a destination, a home, and thus, recover some sense of purpose, hope and belonging, building social capital along the way.⁷

We have much to learn about what shapes and strengthens our congregations. For those of us who have successfully navigated the journey from another faith tradition to Unitarian Universalism, we especially treasure our new found faith community. We value our polity and the freedom it provides.

Much like I have had to learn to read the signs of a new geographic weather pattern in order to feel a sense of place, home and belonging in California, we need to begin to offer one another a listening heart, much like Rebecca Parker did for me that afternoon,. By recognizing the longing that our visitors and seekers have for a true religious home where all of who they are is welcome, we can take the first step, provide a willingness to hear the tale of the traveler’s journey to help the wandering pilgrim find a home in our Unitarian Universalist congregation.

Today, about fifteen minutes after the service ends, and for the next few weeks the Membership Committee and I will be offering a series of gatherings that will begin this sacred dialogue of sharing our stories, of languaging one another into a sense of place. It is our hope that as we begin to practice intentional religious hospitality, that we will help others find in First Universalist, a place to call home.

We invite you along for the journey.

May it be so. Blessed Be. Amen.

©This sermon was written by Reverend Sally Hamlin for the congregation of the First Universalist Church of Rochester, New York and was delivered on October 19, 2008. No part of this sermon may be copied without permission of the author.

We hope you’ll join us in these newly-listed activities and check previous This Week, This Month announcements for additional upcoming events. Some are educational, some are purely social and some are both. Inter-generational activities include children of all ages, while other activities are for adults only. Check the details to see if childcare is provided.

• Friday, Oct. 24, 2008 – potluck @ 6 p.m., workshop @ 7 p.m. – Clara Barton Lounge — Building a relationship with our new minister The whole congregation is invited to attend. When a new minister is welcomed into a UU church, the congregation and the minister have an obligation to make certain that expectations are clear – expectations of the minister to the congregation, and expectations of the congregation to the minister. Tom Chulak, St. Lawrence District Consultant Minister, will facilitate.

Here are some events and activities you might like to put on your calendar. See our previous Outside 1st Universalist announcements for other upcoming events.

• Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008 – 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at Shults Center Forum (Nazareth College) — What Religious Values Do You Take into the Voting Booth? During this political season, you are invited to an evening of comfortable table talk on common ground, discussing “What Religious Values Do You Take into the Voting Booth?” This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.  Sponsored by CISD and The Interfaith Alliance of Rochester (TIAR). Need more information? Call CISD at (585) 389-2963 or contact us by email.

• Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008 – 7 p.mm at Third Presbyterian Church — Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network (RAIHN) training. New to RAIHN? You’ll want to attend this volunteer training session. Please contact Matt Comeau.

• Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008 – 3 p.m.  – at Washington Square Park, Rochester, NY — Veteran’s Day Peace Observance and Ceremony. The Observance starts 3 pm, there will be a Ceremony at First Universalist at 4:30 pm, followed by food and community-building.  Contact: kcastania@frontiernet.net

On Sunday, November 16, there will be a soup and salad lunch following the morning’s service, sponsored by the Membership Committee. Please plan to join us in our Clara Barton Lounge for some great food and fellowship! If you would like to help with the lunch, either by  making soup or by helping with set-up/serving/clean up, please  contact Nancy Gaede.

The Rev. Sally Hamlin speaking

When I was parenting teenagers a few years back, I recall more than one conversation that went something like this. I would say: “Well, I understand that you would not say/do/or participate in (fill in the blank with whatever topic), but from what I have seen and by your own admission, some of your friends do those things (or say those things, etc).  So, you might want to consider who it is you choose to associate with. You do have a choice; I hope you will give this a little thought.”

And this is one way to frame our discussion about Association Sunday, which we celebrate today.  It is all about choice. After all, we associate with one another, in this congregation, by actively choosing to do so. No one has legislated or demanded our participation.  And we, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, who are in covenant with one another, need Association Sundays to strengthen the bonds of common purpose among us.  We need to bring our congregations together to pursue our mission of affirming “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”.

Association Sundays are a request by our UUA for all congregations to support, both spiritually and financially, the national work of the Asssociation.   It is a day during which thousands of UUs across the nation simultaneously celebrate our shared commitment to our faith.

Today is the second Association Sunday that our UUA has organized to help support its mission to Growing Our Spirit.  This means ‘our group spirit, the human spirit, the holy spirit, the spirit of life, the spirit of love’.¹  The monies collected today will not be used for the general operations of our association.  Rather they will be directed towards projects focused on deepening our Shared Ministry as part of the Now Is the Time! Campaign.

Last year’s Association Sunday funded, in part, the Time magazine ad series on Unitarian Universalism.

This is the first year that First Universalist is participating in Association Sunday. So congratulations are in order!  Because once we decide to associate with one another through our covenant, we are creating the beloved community which we have visioned together, and in which all are worthy of participation.

We are living in extraordinary times, with headlines that seem as if they are coming from another planet, so bizarrely they barrage us, with warnings of more dire things yet to come. Our financial market is in complete upheaval. Our very foundations are cracked and weakening.

The frame we have used to determine what helps us feel safe has now been turned upside down.  For generations we heard the mantra: live within your means, save for your future, invest wisely, take care of yourself now so you can have a healthy and long life.

It is time to think about doing the things we always do, the things we have always done, in a new way.

We need to ask ourselves what it is that will help us through these upheavals.  What role does our congregation, our beloved community, play in our sense of security?  How can I contribute to strengthening this relationship, when my own resources seem to be dwindling day by day? What can I possibly contribute to Association Sunday when I don’t know if my cash is secure?

Well, first of all, you should know this: You are more important to this community than your money is. I will repeat that: You are more important to this community than your money is.  This has always been and will always be, true.

At the same time, we know that money is needed to bring the community we vision into life. As Janus Mary pointed out last week in her offertory words, money, in and of itself, is neutral, it has no ethical denotation.  The only meaning money has is the meaning that we give it.

Secondly, it is important to know what it is that will be funded by Association Sunday.  Fifty percent will support Lay Theological Education programs.  Congregations, districts, and seminaries can apply for grants to create programs which focus on spiritual and theological deepening.

The other half will be divided among three initiatives that support Excellence in Ministry programs, including scholarships for seminary students and support for our minsters of color.
Earlier we sang:

Blessed Spirit of my Life, give me strength through stress and strife.
Help me live with dignity; let me know serenity.
Fill me with a vision, clear my mind of fear and confusion.
When my thoughts flow restlessly, let peace find a home in me.

The words of our hymn today could not be more appropriate words for our current times, I think.  We sing our prayer to find strength to deal with all that is before us, we pray for dignity, for serenity.  We pray for clear vision, for freedom from fear.  And we recognize that when our monkey mind takes over and we spin instead of settle, we sing our prayer that peace finds its home within us.

And sometimes, especially right now when our financial institutions teeter dangerously over the brink of the abyss, threatening to disappear with our carefully saved assets- if we were among those fortunate enough to put anything aside- we find a new opportunity to make a difference.

But in times of stress and fear, we tend to forget the basics about what is important.

I have had conversations with several of you who are very concerned about your financial future. Some of you retired with well-planned retirement funds in place, but are now considering returning to work, given your recent loss of capital.  You wonder if your investments will have time to recover from these losses before you will need to draw on them.

Some of you were already living pretty close to the bone.  You are now worried about what will be next. Will your health benefits be cut back?  Will your premiums increase to the point of unaffordability?  Will you need to find ways to help adult children raise their children, your grandchildren, as their jobs are lost and incomes halved?

In times such as these it is easy to slip into the mind set of ‘Scare-city’ as political comedian Swami Beyondananda names it. Swami B calls us to, instead, declare ABunDance for All.  He says we need to turn to thinking of wealth for the whole, instead of wealth down the hole, we need to turn to concern for justice, and turn away from the concern for ‘just-us’.  We need to live by the Golden Rule, instead of the rule of gold.  We need to live in a state of ‘Emerge ‘n See’, instead of residing in a state of emergency.

This is the time when we begin to realize we need to weave a web of mass construction, as Swami says, and imagining a new world to replace our sick one, tell one another of our visions for the future, playing the game of Extreme Planetary Makeover. Speak of our fears, but work to change the way we see these times. ²

What can we do to change our perspective, to move from survival to ‘thrival’ (Swami B)?  Well, Association Sunday gives an opportunity to do just that, with a gift of our financial support.

Let me explain why I will be donating $100 to Association Sunday today, and why I have asked your board of trustees to consider making donations of $50 or more.

It has to do with stewardship, and putting my money where my mouth is, and walking the path of faith instead of fear.

When I was in seminary, I took a class called Sociology of Religion.  I was challenged by my professor’s claim that while Unitarian Universalists were among the wealthiest of all denominations, our financial commitment to our denomination was among the lowest.  I was shocked by this information.  I didn’t know who he was talking about, but it wasn’t the UUs I knew! The UUs I knew were generous and committed.  We were proud of Unitarian Universalism.  We found ways to live out the principles of our faith in the world by working on and donating to many good causes- ACLU, Save the Whales, Doctors Without Borders, National Public Radio-what was he talking about?

Well, after doing my own research I came to the sad conclusion that Professor Baggett was correct. Proportionally speaking, UUs, in general, give a smaller percentage of their net worth to support their faith tradition than others do.  In fact, we were second to the bottom on the list.

But, still, something did not sit right with me about this. I thought and thought about it until finally I came up with this theory.  While others commit their resources to their faith communities with the desire and trust that their faith community will represent their values in the world, as UUs we often spread our resources out, over, and among, many worthy causes, and we make our congregation and our UUA only one of the many to which we pledge our funds.

This was a light bulb moment for me.  It was, in the words used by those who give proportionally more of their net income to their faith community, a “Come to Jesus Moment!”

This got me thinking: if I truly believed in the saving message of my chosen faith community, then it was time to put my money where my beliefs are: in you, in one another, in Unitarian Universalism.

My new plan of giving, or stewardship focused on my faith, has completely reinvented the way I think about giving in my life. I now think about how I can be a steward of my faith and my religious community, and my beliefs at the same time.  I think about how the money I have to give can be used within the Unitarian Universalist world, and I give until it feels good.  My colleague, the Reverend Victoria Weinstein says this about stewardship: “Stewardship of the 21st century is not about providing services and a superior product to consumers, it is about fostering worshipful hearts and reverent souls who love what the church represents so much that they begin to live their lives in accordance with its ideals”.³

I now tithe to support Unitarian Universalism. Some years this has been a full ten percent of my net income.  Some years, it has been much less.  I certainly did not start with anywhere near ten percent.  I started small, and waited to see what difference my focused giving made in my life.  I was concerned that I would feel a bit too stretched.  And I <i>was</i> stretched. But not in the way I expected.  By making my regular tithe to Unitarian Universalism, and by redirecting other monies I might ordinarily have focused other causes, I was finding that I was feeling spiritually stretched, as in expanded.  As in, strengthening my belief in others, strengthening my belief in my belief. Tithing has helped me keep despondency, hopelessness and powerlessness at bay.

Tithing has also given me a new way to look at my faith. It has deepened my commitment to working with others to change the world by living the life I say I believe in. Tithing as a spiritual practice allows me to feel more deeply connected to all, more embedded within the interdependent web of all existence.  It helps me see myself as only one part of all that exists. And it helps me feel that I have something to say in the face of all that seems outside my control, and that is this: I choose to associate with you.  I choose to associate with others who can make a difference, and I choose to make my association count, with my time, with my life, with my resources, with my heart and with my soul.

And this, for me, is enough.  And this, for me, is just and good.  And it gives me great comfort to know that my financial support of our faith is one way I can express spiritual congruency.  Will you join me and your Trustees today in supporting Association Sunday, with your best offering?

If you did not get a chance to place your offering in the plate as it passed the first time, there is still time to do so now; you can give your envelope to an usher on your way out after our Postlude.

In closing, the words of the 19th century Unitarian theologian and minister, William Ellery Channing come to mind.  Let me share them with you:

To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
This will be my symphony.

May it be so. Amen.

©This sermon was written by Reverend Sally Hamlin for the congregation of the First Universalist Church of Rochester, New York and was delivered on October 12, 2008. No part of this sermon may be copied without permission of the author.

The Reverend Sally Hamlin speaking

(What follows here is the text of the first sermon preached at our church, on October 4, 1908 by the Reverend Arthur W. Grose. The Reverend Hamlin spoke extensively from this sermon.)

Strength and Beauty

Psalm 96:6.  Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

We meet to-day for the first time in our new house of worship.  We must defer for a few weeks the formal dedication of this temple to the great purposes it was built to serve and we trust that before that day comes the building in all its parts will reach a degree of perfection and completeness in detail not possible to-day.  It seems wisest however to begin now the use of at least such portions of the church as are ready for occupancy and it is inevitable that our thoughts shall centre around the fact that we are again permitted to dwell in a church home of our own.

Some months ago in looking over the sermon preached by Dr. Saxe at the rededication of the old church in April 1871, I was struck with the appropriateness of the words of his text for this occasion as well as for that similar one so many years ago.  This thought was confirmed when I discovered that Dr. Montgomery, while using a different text, struck the same note of strength and beauty in his sermon at the dedication of the First Church, November 23, 1847.  Surely if there are any two words that fitly characterize our present house of worship they are these same words—strength and beauty.  I am confident that to you, many of
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We hope you’ll join us in these newly-listed activities and check previous This Week, This Month announcements for additional upcoming events. Some events are educational, some are purely social and some are both. Inter-generational activities include children of all ages, while other activities are for adults only. Check the details to see if childcare is provided.

• Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008 – 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. — Eastman @ Washington Square concert. The concert season starts with Just Another Tuba Quartet. See the Eastman @ Washington Square listing in our Upcoming Events section for more details.
• Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008 — Social Justice Plate Offering during service. Money collected will benefit the Minister’s Discretionary Fund. This fund is used to provide critical assistance to church members, friends, or others who are facing a crisis or a specific unmet need.
• Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008 – after service  — special congregational meeting in the sanctuary to vote on the Nominating Committee slate that was proposed during our Oct 12, 2008 semi-annual meeting.
• Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008 – after service — Craft Club organizational meeting in the sanctuary If you are a quilter, knitter, or crocheter (or if you might like to learn how) and would be interested in forming a group, please plan to attend this organizational meeting. Contact Nancy Gaede.
• Friday, Nov. 14, 2008 – 6 p.m. — Centennial Cookbook Cook-off in the Clara Barton Lounge. Bring your favorite recipe from our cookbook as a dish to pass!

We hope you’ll join us in these newly-listed activities and check previous This Week, This Month announcements for other upcoming events. Some are educational, some are purely social and some are both. Inter-generational activities include children of all ages, while other activities are for adults only. Check the details to see if childcare is provided.

• Sunday, October 5, 2008 – noon — Worship Associate Training in the Sanctuary.
• Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008 – during the service — SEM food ingathering. See our Social Justice page under Congregational Life for details.
• Sunday, October 12, 2008 – immediately following the service — Semi-annual Meeting. The semi-annual meeting will be held in the sanctuary immediately following the service on Sunday, October 12. The agenda will include:
  1. Approval of the annual meeting minutes.
  2. Final financial report for the 2007-2008 church year.
  3. Election of new Nominating Committee.

  Please plan to attend. Childcare will be available.

• Sunday, October 12, 2008 – All Church Italian Potluck Dinner. Please bring an Italian dish to pass that serves 6-8.
  • Why: The Mirth and Merriment Ministry is kicking off the first of their “Juust for Fuun” Events!
  • What time: Set-up 4:00 pm. Dinner begins 5:00 pm. Event ends 7pm.
  • Where: Clara Barton Lounge

  Contact Marie Sidoti for more information.

• Sunday, October 19 OR November 2, 2008 (choose one) – 11:45 a.m. — RUUU? All are welcome! Introduction to Unitarian Universalism session right after Sunday service. Childcare is available. See our Membership page for more information about our membership activities. To register, please contact the Rev. Sally Hamlin.

Other announcements:

Statements for those who contributed to the Mini-Capital Campaign are available outside the Sanctuary door. Thanks to all for your continuing stewardship of our church.

“A Time To Embrace: Same Gender Relationships In Religion, Law and Politics” lecture series. This is the book by William Stacy Johnson, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. See the bulletin board for schedule.