Blogging GA: Ministry Days & Chapter Leader Training

-
I got into Charlotte, NC yesterday afternoon for the 50th annual UUA General Assembly, which begins tomorrow evening.  Before GA begins, however, there are "Ministry Days," and before Ministry Days this year there is Chapter Leader Training, which began yesterday evening and continued through the day today.  As Heartland Chapter President, and still feeling my way around the job, it was a welcome opportunity to hear what other chapters were doing well and where we all were struggling -- mostly around membership questions, welcoming, and technology.  It's become clear to me that something we need is a Chapter Connections/Technology officer in the Heartland.  Luckily, I seem to have found someone for the job, and it's not me.  Members of our chapter will not be surprised at the wonderful techie colleague who has indicated her willingness to step forward.

Don Southworth, the UUMA Director, started us off in worship today at Chapter Leader Training by talking about those moments when we feel really blessed to be able to do the work we do.  It was a feeling echoed in our opening worship for Ministry Days when our Charlotte Colleagues reminded us how blessed we are in this work.  And, yes, when we get together at this time of year we like to tell stories of how busy we were and how tired we are.  But it's an amazing gift to get to do this work.  And what a joy, really, to be together here with all these wonderful UUs engaged in the work of faith and love and justice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
The UUA has announced a new campaign against hate crimes, "Standing on the Side of Love." Hate crimes are definitely something we've had enough of in the last year: July 27, 2008: Jim David Adkisson enters the Tennessee Valley UU Church and kills two people and wounds more. He says in his manifesto , "This was a hate crime: I hate the damn left-wing liberals." May 31, 2009: Scott Roeder enters a Lutheran Church and kills Dr. George Tiller. He is quoted as saying on a blog, "Bleass [sic] everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp." June 10, 2009: James Wenneker von Brunn enters the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and kills a guard. Von Brunn ran an anti-Semitic website and had connections to hate groups. What is striking about these three, in comparison to all the other horrible hate crimes that happen, is that they all took place in places that should be places of peace, where we hono
Read more

Garrison Keillor Is no "Companion" for Unitarian Universalists

-
Many Unitarian Universalists, myself included, are regular NPR listeners.  And among them, many listen regularly to Garrison Keillor's " A Prairie Home Companion ."  It's on weekly at about the time I leave church, so I have listened to it many times.  Garrison Keillor makes a regular practice of poking fun at Unitarian Universalists on his show.  I've often had church members come and tell me he mentioned us again, often with delight, because we're so rarely mentioned in the media.  One example of a Unitarian Universalist joke attributed to Garrison Keillor is: "A sign at the Unitarian church said: Bible study at 7:00. Bring your Bible and a pair of scissors."  So, yes, some of the joke are funny, some point out our foibles and idiosyncrasies.  But lately I've been turning off NPR whenever "A Prairie Home Companion" comes on.  Listening to him talk about us over the years it's becoming more and more evident that he isn't laugh
Read more

Triggers

-
Image
Photo by  Quentin Kemmel  on  Unsplash I'm realizing that although I have at least two degrees of separation from any mass shooting, these school shootings and other mass shootings are still something of a trigger for me. It's at least in part related to the 2013 shooting deaths of Chris Keith and Isaac Miller . Chris Keith was a former member of my church. She and her son Isaac were killed in an act of domestic violence, by her estranged husband. Like the killer in the recent school shooting, Chris's killer was a known threat. These are the things I know about her killer: He had been abusive of Chris for some time. Chris minimized the abuse when talking to me, saying it was the first time, when it wasn't, but she wasn't ready to leave. What I didn't know, but found out after her death was that authorities had been called all the way back in 2003, before I met her. In the news it was revealed that Chris had taken out a personal protection order agai
Read more