Sure, I’m clairvoyant.  Always have been able to predict the future.  I’ve confounded the experts, from the Amazing Randy to the kids in my household.  So when I share my list of predictions for 2019, I do so with both graciousness and no little arrogance:

1. There will be wars and rumors of wars in 2019. No, I am not talking about the Middle East.  The real war to watch is in Springfield now that a democrat occupies the governor’s mansion.  Why, the poor will be cared for, children will be fed, women will regain control over their own bodies and our guns will be locked up and loaded into obscurity.  I’m irate!  If he keeps his campaign promises the church will have nothing left to do!  (Good thing he’s probably just another politician.)

2. The Cubs, Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks will play sports in 2019. Don’t get too excited, I didn’t say they would play well.  As a truth teller I really don’t like to get into the details.  That’s why I am a Bulls fan.  No surprises there!

3. The Unitarian Church of Evanston will grow and change in 2019. And so will you.  That’s what separates the living from the dead, so far as I know.  And I want this congregation and its ministries to really go on living.  Sure beats the alternative (so far as I know).

4. First-time visitors will come to the Unitarian Church of Evanston in 2019. For some, we’re an emergency room for those who have been scarred and injured elsewhere by toxic theologies or broken dreams.  Others seek sanctuary from a world that refuses to accept them as they are.  Mostly they come because they know a good party when they see one.

5. Visitors will return to the Unitarian Church of Evanston in 2019 if somebody knows their name. That is where you and I come in.  Chances are, that’s how we got here in the first place.  Given the belief that all things will eventually grow into harmony with the divine anyway, shouldn’t we be making room at our banquet table now?

So much for predictions.  The longer I live, the more I want to live in the moment and experience life as it comes.  No predictions, no guidebook, no prophesy, no horoscopes.  Ready, set, go!

The joy continues,

Greg

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill

We have just completed an incredible season of giving at UCE. The Mitten Tree and other giving has been record-breaking. Our goal is not to break records, but to share our bounty, our wonderful, safe, privileged, and ordered lives with others.

It is important to think about who we have served. Curt’s Café students are learning restaurant skills and life skills, and the internship at Curt’s may provide them a path toward less risky living and a future with a skill set. This year, in addition to the current students, we provided grab bag and gift cards for returning students. Curt’s had a reunion inviting 40 graduated students to attend.

The YWCA has had the foresight to realize that women and families who suffer from domestic abuse may not be sufficiently stabilized in the shelter environment to make their way in the world. Their solution was to purchase an apartment building for transitional living. Our Mitten Tree effort provided Christmas dinner boxes for fifteen families living in the new apartments.

The children who live at the Rice Center have suffered neglect, abuse, and some suffer from mental illness. The Center is a stop on their way to recovery in a  structured and loving environment giving the children time for healing, growth and treatment and therefore  allowing  children to return to foster care, be adopted, or in some cases return home to their families. We have been serving the Rice Center for the past seven years. The 36 children living at the Center range in age from 8 to 14.

Other organizations we have donated to this year include El Rescate, providing services to LatinX youth, and the Vet Center on Howard Street. In addition to Mitten Tree, other donations included a generous family who gave almost $500 of housewares and toys to the YWCA, and an effort organized by Martha Holman to donate money for belts,wallets, and backpacks for the male Curt’s Café North students,

Here are the numbers:

Over 120 individuals and families donated gifts, food and gift certificates.

Overall, the church donated 15 Christmas dinner boxes, $2535 in gift cards (a total of 97 cards), $4215 for purchased 183 gifts.

Over 40 volunteers helped in many ways, managing the sign-up sheets, making paper mittens and labels, wrapping and sorting, and delivering food and gifts to 6 locations in the Chicago area. The Schatz Covenant Group deserves a big thank you for sorting and organizing the 15 food baskets and deliverying them. If you would like to volunteer next year and be a part of the organizing team, do deliveries, help organize the gifts, and help at the sign-up tables, please let Carol Nielsen (carolnielsen2100@gmail.com) know now. Carol keeps a list all year of those who enjoy the incredible task of organizing our generosity.

Available Serendipity Group Events

Christmas and Unitarian Universalists 

When I first discovered Unitarian Universalism, I was at first taken aback that we celebrated holidays like Christmas and Easter.  How could this be?  Historically, Unitarians believed in one God at most, and Universalists didn’t believe in hell.  So what’s the point of celebrating births and resurrections of a so-called savior? 

 Today, some UUs celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus, even while questioning his divinity.  I include myself in this category.  But many others have given new meaning to the reason for the season.  And yes, there are those among us who do not celebrate Christmas at all.  This only makes sense: there will never will be only one way to celebrate a UU Christmas. 

This means we get to be creative!  Some of us celebrate the season to develop a culture of generosity in our own homes, and live out of abundance rather than scarcity.  Others embrace Santa, with gifts and trimmed trees, which brings delight to both the young and the young at heart.  Some of you have told me that you and your extended family gather at Christmas in a special place every year.  Others use this season to relax, play, and rest up for the coming new year.  Some UUs celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanza, in addition to or instead of, Christmas.  The possibilities seem endless. 

My own family comes together in our home and this is often the only time we are all together.  We celebrate new birth, fresh perspectives, and future success.  We view the baby in a manger and remember that we too were born to love the hell out of this world and serve “the least of these.“   We might serve meals at a soup kitchen or burp bottles of bleach at the local food depository.  In other words, we put hands and feet on our cerebral Principles and Purposes.  We also do this, remembering, a little child shall lead us. 

This Christmas, however you intend to celebrate (or not), please make room in your heart for a little child that hopes to burst forth in wonder and amazement, and later shape the world we only dream about.  From my family to yours, happy holidays, friends, and may yours be a merry and bright! 

 The joy continues, 

Rev. Greg

Do you know how we choose congregational leaders at UCE? Do you think the leadership selection process should be more equitable and more transparent? Do you have opinions about who our future leaders should be? Do you want to join the UCE board or one of the UCE leadership committees yourself? Read on to understand our leadership selection process, and to make your voice heard about how it works or who our leaders should be.

Per the UCE bylaws, our congregational leaders are elected at each Annual Meeting in May, when the voting membership selects a third of each of the Board of Trustees, the Endowment Committee, and the Nominating and Recruiting Committee. Trustees and committee members each serve a 3-year term, starting and ending a third at a time, on a staggered basis, so that a third of each group has their terms expire and their replacements elected each year. (Members often drop off for personal reasons before their 3-year term ends, resulting in more than 1/3 turnover most years.)

The Nominating & Recruiting (N&R) Committee identifies and nominates qualified candidates from the congregation to serve on each of these committees. Through a process that starts each fall, the N&R team conducts one-on-one conversations across the congregation to find members who are interested in and whose skill sets match the needs of the positions opening in the spring.

The N&R team recruits broadly and aspires to find diverse, previously unidentified candidates. This article is penned by the N&R team to spread the word about recruiting, in hopes of finding leadership candidates who may not be known to N&R, or who may not be aware of UCE leadership opportunities.

What can you do to help shape our future UCE leadership? You can:

• Talk with any of the 2018-2019 N&R team: John LaPlante (co-chair), Shirley Adams (co-chair), Vicki Doebele, Alice Swan, Sarah Iles, Ruth Orme-Johnson, Woody Haynes, Beth Thompson and Maggie Wilson.
• Help recruit your fellow UCE members as volunteers, especially people the N&R team may not know.
• Share your thoughts with N&R through the feedback forms we will have set up at bulletin boards, or look for us at the back of the sanctuary on first Sundays of each month.
• Email the N&R co-chairs with questions, thoughts and feedback: shirley@comeoutdancing.com, johnlaplante73@gmail.com.
• Suggest a UCE member as a potential leadership candidate.
• Let us know that you’re interested in being considered for leadership!

Stay tuned for a follow up article about the current N&R team’s aspirations for 2018-2019.

Following up on Rev. Greg Stewart’s sermon on mercy, his words help guide us to small acts of mercy, giving generously to provide Mitten Tree gifts. We try to find a balance of organizations serving those groups that our Social Justice program supports and also helping local Evanston based organizations.

Mittens will be available on Sundays between services and after church on November 11, 18, and 25. All gifts are due by December 2. On December 9 we will have our annual wrapping party as part of Ornament Sunday. Sign-up to help at the table, sorting gifts, or delivery of gifts.  https://tinyurl.com/y89xdubk

Two weeks ago we spotlighted three of the organizations we are serving including The Vet Center, Curt’s Café, and the YWCA Transitional Housing Program. That article can be found at: https://ucevanston.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-Mitten-Tree-Organizations.pdf

Below are the other three organizations we are serving.

The Rice Center of the Children’s Home and Aid Society of Evanston: When a child abruptly leaves a family or foster home due to abuse, violence, or mental illness, he/she may arrive at the Rice Center in Evanston without clothing, personal items, or toys. Through the Mitten Tree, we have been serving the Rice Center since 2011. Recently the director, Keith Polan (who is a UU at Unity Temple) told me that our gifts are spot on!  We give the right balance of clothes, toys and therapy or educational items. This year we are serving 12 children. The Rice Center houses approximately 36 children. Children live, play and are educated at the Rice Educational Center on Ridge Avenue. District 65 provides schooling. A team of social workers, psychologists, pediatricians, nurses, art therapists and others provide a structured environment to help children build healthy relationships.  The goal for the children is to eventually return to their own family, a foster family, or an adoptive family.

El Rescate: Finding housing for homeless LGBTQ and HIV-positive youth between the ages of 18-24 can be difficult. El Rescate (The Rescue) offers culturally appropriate, identity-affirming housing for these young adults. Also offered are HIV prevention services, employment, educational resources and life skills training. The program is part of the Puerto Rican Community Centers many programs. Our donation of gifts helps support this wonderful program.

The Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants is a non-profit, faith-based organization of staff and volunteers called to respond actively and publicly to the suffering of all individuals and communities affected by immigration detention, deportation, and post-detention through pastoral care, advocacy, public witness and other activities. UCE’s Immigration Solidarity Team has been working with ICDI this year. Their Executive Director, Melanie Schikore (a UU and member of Countryside Church in Palatine) was thrilled to be asked for gift lists.

The Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants is a prophetic voice for just and humane treatment of immigrants caught in the immigration detention process. Upholding the dignity and basic human rights of each individual as ICDI Chicago stands in solidarity with immigrants as a powerful collective voice to minimize the use of detention and to seek justice.

Part of the important work I do at the Unitarian Church of Evanston is to get to know the congregation, to hear your stories, and for you to tell me what kind of a congregation you hope to have in the next two years.  Sounds simple enough, but most of us are already overscheduled.  So I will try to make it easier. 

Starting November 15, I’ll be at Curt’s Café from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. every Thursday.  You are invited to join me for coffee and informal conversation in this warm and inviting setting.  You don’t need an appointment; just show up.  The only agenda will be yours.  Please remember that this is a public place, so it’s not a good place to share sensitive information.  I hope to see you then and there! 

If you would like to make an appointment to meet with me at my church office, please call, text, or email me at church and we’ll find a time to meet on weekdays, weeknights, or weekends.  You may come alone or set up a session for your church committee or team.  Of course, I’ll also come to your monthly meetings if you’d like me to do so, just ask.  My calendar fills up quickly. 

I will be officially welcomed to the congregation on Tuesday, November 13, at 6:30 p.m.  We’ll be showing the documentary “Preacher’s Sons,” which chronicles the life of the Stewarts as five at risk, children of color, join our forever family.  If you want to know more about me or my family or my ministry, you’ll see it all on the big screen.  This is a great opportunity to invite a friend to come too.     

In early December we will begin to offer programs about and for interim ministry.  We will look at our history and see the clues it offers for our current situation.  We’ll explore who we are and what we want to be.  We will consider the theologies that have meaning for our members.   We will determine what is working and what is not. We will do this in small groups and at open forums.  

As I’ve said before, a big part of my job is to hold up a mirror to the congregation and ask, “Is this who you are?” and “Is this who you want to be?”  We’ll tackle this in fun and creative ways.  We may hit some corporate sore spots that make us uncomfortable, but it is better to deal with these now rather than to wait for the arrival of your next settled minister.  Transitions are rarely easy. 

So let the conversations begin with your story and your hopes and dreams for the congregation.  I’m eager to hear from you.  Blessed be! 

 The joy continues, 

Greg 

Rev. Greg and his husband Stillman adopted five at-risk children of color through the county of Los Angeles, CA. The boys were between two weeks and seven years old when they were adopted. All but the youngest had been in as many as fifteen previous foster homes. When the family moved to Lincoln, NE, they were part of a successful lawsuit against the state that made it legal for same-gender couples to become foster parents. Their story was also featured in the book “Social Action Heroes: Unitarian Universalists Who are Changing the World.”

 Rev. Greg and Stillman and two of their sons will be in attendance, and there will be time for questions and conversation after the screening in the Sanctuary. As with any good movie, there will be popcorn and brownies! Please join us for this opportunity to learn more about the remarkable story of the Stewart family and the values that drive Rev. Greg’s ministry. The Board and the Transition Team are sponsoring this fun event.

2018 Mitten Tree Organizations