Upswing Advocates Leadership Training: Building a Gender Inclusive and Affirming Community
The Board of Trustees invites members of the church who consider themselves leaders in the church in any capacity to join us for this workshop on Saturday, March 23rd from 10 am – 12:30 pm.
UCE is committed to radical welcoming and we seek to expand our capacity to live our first principle – not just affirming that all people have value but ensuring that those who might feel marginalized in other spaces, know they will find a safe and affirming space among us. This begins at a personal level with education and reflection about our understandings of gender and ways to be welcoming as a community surrounding gender and its effect on social interactions.
This workshop will provide an overview of key terms related to gender and an opportunity for attendees to explore their own attitudes and experiences related to cultural norms, gender identity, and gender expression.
For more information or to RSVP, contact Rev. Eileen Wiviott, ewiviott@ucevanston.org, or Lane Deamant, emdeamant@gmail.com
March 3, 2019
Is There Any Good News?
Headlines pummel us daily with bad news, and television news sources offer “Breaking News” around the clock with the fear that the end is surely near. Does Unitarian Universalism give us anything to hold on to in troubled times? We’ll find out by examining the core of our liberal faith and the Unitarian Universalist movement that arises out if it. I believe that what distinguishes our congregation from others makes us a destination for those who desire a fresh movement of the spirit, unencumbered by dogma and encouraged by debate. But how will they find us if we don’t articulate our faith? This is a good day to begin again. Downstairs start for Religious Education at 11 am. Service led by Rev. Gregory Stewart
From The Executive Operations Director
Accounting Update: We have not yet hired a replacement for Razvan Sofronie. I have been handling daily financial tasks with assistance from Tamiko Deville and volunteers Melanie Kitchner, Vickie Doebele. Twice a month I receive assistance from a CPA who does tax forms, checks tax payments and assists with payroll when necessary. We are searching for a 15 per hour a week accounting person. Thank you to Tamiko, Melanie and Vickie for your willingness to assist with these daily financial tasks.
Sunday offering: Please make sure your contributions are noted in the memo line of your checks. It makes accounting so much easier, especially now that we have volunteers assisting with deposits.
Pledge Drive 2019-20 will be done in March. Julie Milner has graciously volunteered to manage this effort and is off to a great running start. Julie presented highlights of her plans at the Board of Trustees meeting last evening. You will be learning more in the newsletter, website and through personal contact. Stay tuned for an exciting pledge drive!!
Capital Campaign volunteer positions have been filled thanks to CC Chair Martha Holman, Rev. Eileen Wiviott and others who have worked diligently to find just the right leaders. Plans are in progress. More information will be provided to the congregation shortly. Project leaders are beginning their work now.
Integrated Stewardship Council meets monthly. This is a vibrant team of financial leaders in the church. I am staff lead. Members include Susan Carlton, member-at-large and Secretary; Susan Comstock, Treasurer; Amy Dooley, Endowment; Marianne Griebler, Member-At-Large; Julie Milner, Pledge Drive Chair; Martha Holman, Capital Campaign Chair; Tom Ticknor, Member-At-Large. Last month the group approved a preliminary draft of the 2019-2020 which was then reviewed by the Board of Trustees at their February meeting. A budget presentation will be made at the March 10th Ministerial Search Committee Congregational Meeting. Changes will be made to the draft as the pledge drive moves forward and other decisions are reviewed prior to the Annual Meeting in May.
REALM Membership Database: Tom Carlton has taken on the role of Project Manager. Tom has made great progress in moving forward on the migration of data from MemInfo to REALM. Melanie Kitchner has been assisting Tom as she has extensive knowledge of the program due to her participation in the data scrubbing during the initial months after data was moved from MemInfo to REALM. We have a ways to go yet before launching our new database, but once we do it will be a great tool for our members, staff and leadership.
Please contact me anytime with questions on finance, buildings and grounds, rentals and administration. I am always available to talk with you. 847-864-1330 or srobinson@ucevanston.org
REAL Meal – Friday March 1, 2019
February has turned out to be too short and too busy to schedule a REAL Meal, so we have pushed into the first evening of March for our next event. We’ll meet at Good to Go, the Jamaican restaurant that moved last year across the street to their snazzy new digs on the Evanston side, 711 Howard. It’s a large establishment, with an extensive menu and space for a much larger group than we’ve been able to accommodate in the past. But we’ll still need to give the management a week’s notice on the numbers we expect, so make your reservation early with Betty Walker, blw35@comcast.net. And go to their website to check out the menu and read the story of the owner, Tony Levy, who learned the recipes for his signature offerings in his mother’s kitchen in his native Jamaica.
February 24, 2019
UCE Through the Decades
We celebrate the heritage of UCE by hearing from members of UCE about the decade they joined the congregation. We begin in the 1960s and end with the 2010s. Please come and hear about these journeys of faith, hope and justice through the decades. Service led by Rev. Gregory Stewart and Rev. Eileen Wiviott. All Ages Worship at 9:15. Religious Education class begin downstairs.
Courageous Love
Literal trigger warning. I’m going to be talking about guns here. Please take care before proceeding, or as you proceed, to read this.
As I write, it has been 22 years since Margie and I had our first date on Valentine’s Day, 12 since we had our first public ceremony, and 4 since we were legally wed.
It has also been 1 year since the Parkland shooting, which took the lives of seventeen students and staff members, and 11 years since the NIU shooting, which took the lives of six students, including the shooter.
My partner, who was at work on the NIU campus that day eleven years ago, reminds me that celebrating love on Valentine’s Day is a complicated task when memorializing hard things, such as a terrible, violent trauma. Complicated but important.
As I ponder these events, and face my own anger and fear related to them, I’ve found myself thinking about other shootings. I think about the Tennessee Valley UU Church, where a shooter in 2008 opened fire on a congregation watching a chorus of children – and about longtime member and usher, 60-year-old Greg McKendry, who stepped in front of the bullets to protect others from harm, and church members John Bohstedt, Robert Birdwell, Arthur Bolds, and Terry Uselton, and visitor Jamie Parkey, who intervened to restrain the shooter. These people risked – and in McKendry’s case, gave – their lives in service to their beloved community.
I also find myself thinking about Wendi Winters, a Unitarian Universalist who worked as a reporter at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, MD. Even when she was alive, Wendi was a defender of our faith. As a newspaper reporter, she stood for the search for truth. She also stood for democracy – she was such a defender of democracy that she kept her local representatives on speed dial. On that day in June of last year when a shooter showed up at her newspaper’s office, Wendi stood between the shooter and her fellow reporters. She had just recently been to a training at her UU church about what to do in the event of a shooting, so she knew that the first choice is to run, and then to hide, and then, only if absolutely necessary, to fight. She chose to fight. She ran toward the shooter, yelling at him to get out, throwing a trash can and a recycle bin at him. She gave her fellow reporters time to run. She saved their lives. And she stood up for our faith – for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. She gave her own life to save the lives of others around her. There were too many people at Wendi Winters’ memorial service for it to be held at her UU church – they had to hold it at the much larger Annapolis Creative Arts Center. There were nearly 900 people there. They were there to bear witness to Wendi’s courage, and her love.
And I think about the NIU campus police and others, who rushed toward the danger at Cole Hall eleven years ago, and the scene they encountered when they arrived. And the loving courage it took as NIU responded to the tragedy there – the phone calls and vigils and counseling and memorializing and the massive work of community it took to respond. And about the fact that Mary Kay Mace still memorializes her fallen daughter, Ryanne, by working closely with the Brady Campaign and Everytown and speaking out publicly to prevent gun violence, as some of us from UCE saw her do last year in Springfield on Lobby Day. And I think about the Parkland Students who, in their grief and terror, created the March for Our Lives, and who for Valentine’s Day this year unveiled a ballot initiative to ban the sale of assault weapons. These efforts, too, are courageous love.
As you likely know, since Rev. Julie Taylor’s visit here in July, efforts have been underway to update UCE’s safety protocols. Recently some of our staff and congregants attended a training at another congregation led by Evanston Police, and plans are in the works for training here at UCE as well. In the meantime, I hope we all remember what my son-in-law – who was also on the NIU campus on that day eleven years ago – reminded me of in remembering these events this year: the best time to stop a mass shooting is before it happens. May we elect and support legislators willing to do the crucial work of gun violence prevention. May we support campaigns like Brady and Everytown and Moms Demand Action and Courage to Fight and Americans for Responsible Solutions, March for Our Lives, and the Peace Warriors here in Chicago, who help us understand how to move forward. And may we learn to love one another so courageously that we can stop a bullet before it ever leaves the gun.
© February 15, 2019
February 17, 2019
Trusting In Imagination
Our youth will be contemplating imagination and asking us to wonder with them, “imagine if . . .” Both the 9:15 and 11:00 services will be intergenerational and youth-led — come see what our youth have imagined into being for worship!