Brother, can you spare a dime?

By the time you read this many of you will have heard or read information about our ACT campaign. Fund raising campaigns can be difficult in the best of times and they become even more challenging during an economic downturn. When I started thinking about the campaign I remembered a reading from the Bible that stays with me to this day:

The Widow's Gift (Luke 21)

He looked up and saw the rich dropping their offerings into the temple treasury. He also saw the poor widow dropping in two tiny coins. "I tell you the truth," he said. "This poor widow has put in more than all of them. For all these people have put in gifts out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on."

I want to be clear. I don't want or expect anyone to give to the Church that which they need to live. No one wants to see a child go unfed, a mortgage payment skipped, other bills that are part of our modern lives go unpaid. For me, the real point that Jesus made was about those who gave out of their surplus. Jesus was saying that her level of devotion was greater than the rich who simply gave from their surplus. He was saying that they needed to not be proud or boastful of their gift. As Unitarians, we honor many traditions but I think the story can speak to all of us. The question we have to answer is: How important is my Church, my community, to me? What part of my surplus am I willing to use to support the Church?

A while back, my friend, Jac Grimes, gave a sermon about "Who owns the Church?"

The answer he shared was that the Church belonged to future members. I don't think that Jac was trying to diminish the value the Church holds for all of us attending today but rather to remind us of our responsibility to the future - our children, our grandchildren, those in the community looking for a liberal religious home. If we won't support our Church, it won't be there when they need it, when they look for it.

The ACT campaign is our most important fund raiser. The ACT is the basis of the budget submitted to the congregation for approval. Currently, only two thirds of our members complete a pledge. Non ACT donations represent approximately 11% of donated funds. We really would like to see all members complete a pledge as it allows the Board and the congregation make an informed decision about what we can afford to do in the following year. I would ask that each person, who has chosen to not make a pledge in the past, give serious consideration to making one this year. If for no other reason, a pledge gives the ACT team a chance to focus limited resources where they can best be used. Pledge only what you can afford, we understand that many are faced with difficult circumstances.

I want to share with you that the Board is committed to submitting a budget that reflects good stewardship of your gifts. The major expenses we have are the mortgage, staff salaries, and utilities. I am concerned that we have reduced staff salaries for two consecutive years. We, as a liberal Church, should be committed to paying our staff at UUA fair compensation levels. We have also reduced financial support to our committees. We need to stop balancing our budget on the backs of our staff and on committees that provide service and outreach in our community. We can do this if we do it together.

Jim Kalinowski

President UUCG 

February 6 - Do you want to know more about how to build a meaningful worship service?  Do you know what the components of worship are?  Are you interested in leading multigenerational worship?  Please come to a Multigenerational Worship Training on Sunday, February 6 at 9am.  Adults, youth, and children interested in learning more are always welcome.

Multigenerational Worship (10am every Sunday) for the month of February will be based on our 5th UU Principle. 

 February 20, 27, March 6, 13, 20 - Within any community are people at various stages of development.  In our own community of faith we must learn how to communicate with others while understanding the inherent differences in our journey.  To truly welcome, accept, and affirm each other in our covenant and on our joint journey, it is our job to educate ourselves.  Throughout February and March we will be discussing Faith Development Theory through an adult education class.  We will reference James Fowler's book "Stages of Faith", journal about our own faith journey, and share with each other the ways in which we explore and deepen our faith.  This class will take place at 9am on Feb. 20, 27, March 6, 13, & 20 in the ee cummings room (RE #3).

 The February 27 Teacher's Meeting has been cancelled.

Our Religious Education program is in need of volunteer "Floaters".  A floater is a person who attends the 11am worship service for the first 15 minutes and leaves when the children and teachers do.  They make sure RE attendance is taken and help teachers when a child needs to go to the bathroom or if they need supplies from the supply closet, among other tasks.  These individuals will "float" once or twice a month and report to the lead floater and to the DFD.   If you are interested, please see Michelle Puzio or Beth Walden (dreuucg@bellsouth.net).  A criminal background check is always needed for individuals working with children in our community and you will be asked to complete one.

Our ACT theme this year is Many Paths - Joining Together.

What I love about meeting members and friends at UUCG is hearing their unique stories of how they came to be here, as a part of our UU congregation. The stories are as unique and varied as the people. Many have come from other faith traditions. We arrive here because we somehow don't feel 'at home' in other faith communities. We arrive here because our partners and significant others found a home here. We arrive here because we personally connect with our church mission and covenant, and can seek our own truth here.

We stay because we do feel 'at home'. We stay because we feel spiritually fulfilled, emotionally connected. We make new friends here, we sing in the choir, we worship together, we learn new things, and we learn new ways of looking at old things. We engage with each other in so many meaningful ways.

Together -- we build a congregation. Together - we build a community. We join together because we are more powerful together than alone. Our impact is bigger because we are together. Our joys are more joyful because we are together -- our sorrows, less painful --because we are together.

Our congregation faces challenging times. Our staff has lived with pay cuts, our operational budget is limited, we need to bring on an interim minister, and many in our midst are out of work. But together, we can face those challenging times, and turn challenges into opportunities. Together, we are unstoppable.

It will take a commitment on our part. It will require us to make a personal promise to each other to do what we need to do to build our future. That will require a financial pledge to the church. It will require us to dig deep into what this church community means to us, and to support it at that level. With that commitment, together, we can fund the things that are important to us.

As our ACT campaign gets under way, let's build our future together. We have five weeks to collect over $250,000 in pledges, and a stretch goal of $350,000. Please join us in making your financial pledge to support our UUCG programs, our staff and our building. We need your support to make 2011-2012 a year of positive growth for all of us. Thank you!

In faith,

Abby Donnelly

ACT Committee Member

abby@strategic-choices.com

  

 SOME ITEMS ALREADY DONATED:

A Kindle reader      A vacation house at the Beach        Indian Dinner for 8         Complete set of golf clubs

COOKIES FOR FEBRUARY HOMELESS SHELTER MEAL

"Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap." Robert Fulghum (former UU minister and author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)

You can help by volunteering to bake or buy cookies to be used as part of the meal we prepare and serve at the homeless shelter (Urban Ministry's Weaver House) on the first Monday of each month. Thanks to all of you who have already provided cookies. Please know they were really a treat for the folks at the shelter. If you would like to donate cookies for the February 7 meal, please let me know how many you can bring by emailing me at sharinfrancis@hotmail.com  You can drop them off at church on the Sunday before, February 6. Please mark them for Weaver House and include your name.

 
The Unitarian Universalist Community of Central North Carolina (UUCCNC) which includes UUCG, is having their second annual February Food Fight!  The way it works is each one of the ten churches in the cluster will collect food for the month of February.  Whoever collects the most food per member wins. The winner is determined by calculating the number of members divided by the number of items collected. 
 
We already collect some food on a regular basis like peanut butter for Urban Ministry.  We are going to extend our donations to include all sorts of food for both Urban Ministry and FaithAction during February.  Please bring food to the church on Sundays to help track our donations.  There will be a clearly labeled barrel at the church.  Urban Ministry can use any non-perishable items you care to bring.  FaithAction has other needs outlined below in a notice they sent out.  If you are able to contribute some of the perishable items they requested make sure you bring them on Sundays.  We will have people available to make sure they are delivered promptly. 

From FaithAction:
Our African and Latino neighbors are in need food help in the winter months.  Many of these people do seasonal work and have special difficulty getting enough to eat in the winter.  Our church, in collaboration with FaithAction International House and The Servant Center, is helping collect some of the foods these people are accustomed to from their home countries.
If you would like to help, all of these foods, especially the exotic ones, are available at Super G Market at 4927 West Market Street. 

For a detailed list of the foods they are are asking for, see the "Latest News" section of our church website
uugreensboro.org

Editor's Note:  This section will contain a monthly article from the Congregational Cultural Task Force highlighting examples of "good health" they observe in our congregation. 

One of the attributes of a healthy congregation is having leadership that is transparent. That does not mean that every person in the congregation knows about every detail, but rather that the processes used to make decisions are clear, that anyone who wants to know about a specific area of the congregation will be able to find information, and that anyone who wants to have a voice in a particular decision will know where to go.

We have been particularly impressed with the transparency that has surrounded the work that was finished recently by the Ad Hoc Group on Ministerial Tenure. This began nearly a year ago when the Committee on Ministry gave their report to the Board of Directors recommending that we bring in an outside consultant to discuss some of the ongoing conflict within the congregation. As we moved forward, the processes that have been followed by the Board and their designees have been incredibly transparent: anyone who wanted to know what was going on had only to read the newsletter, and the Board has been careful to make certain that Board minutes were published for anyone who wanted more details.

When the Consultant came, there was care taken to make certain that anyone who wanted to speak to her would have a chance to do so. The time and effort put into the logistics for her visit were impressive, and resulted in her having an opportunity to meet with and hear from an amazing number of people. Her report was made in an open meeting, with written copies readily available.

The Board immediately began to act on the recommendations in the Consultant's report - and, again, their decisions were made available. When they began to form the Ad Hoc Group on Ministerial Tenure, they made that known, and took suggestions from many people about who should serve on that committee.  Once the committee was formed, their names were made public:  five lay leaders plus the Minister.  This group began to meet and to make regular reports to the congregation, outlining the process they were using in moving forward. They had regular newsletter articles letting us all know what they were doing, with estimates of how long it might take

Transparency isn't about having all information available to everyone -- this group's work included interviews that were necessarily kept confidential. They demonstrated an excellent understanding of what needed to be confidential and what needed to be transparent. Their final report and recommendation were given to the Board, and immediately given to the Congregation. The Board, the Ad Hoc Group and the Minister were all in agreement about what was best for the Congregation.

We applaud the work done by so much of church leadership this past year in bringing transparency to our governance, but especially to the hard working folks on the Ad Hoc Group on Ministerial Tenure.

Archiving UUCG documents

Are you wondering why there's a sign on the door of the library in the administrative wing of the church? The room is currently being used for sorting through boxes of church documents and preserving those we will need in the future. We appreciate the efforts of Julie Hamilton, Congregational Administrator, and the Archive Team for developing and carrying out a system for this project. This process will make it possible to have an inventory of essential records and provide better access to appropriate documents.

If you have or know of any important church documents that are not at the church or if you have other questions, please contact Julie, Erica Derr, Nora Bird, Ken Williams, Sue Moran, Geneva Barnes, Carolyn Crumpacker or Sharin Francis . Meantime, thanks for your patience with the room being temporarily off limits. The crew is working as fast as they can to empty the room so it can be filled up again in February with items for the Cabaret Auction.

• Board Winter Retreat to be held on February 5, 2011; transition and transformation are to be the focus
• Vested Beth Walden with the authority to act as an officiant of UUCG.
• Charged Julie Hamilton to oversee the church sign repair
• Financial report from Breakfast with Santa - Julie will request  
• Board accepted the Finance Committee's Proposed Policy on Reserve Fund
• Board members were reminded to attend the International Dinner on February
• Multi-generational Service Assessment tool - Beth will continue work
• Recommended that the target budgets developed by Vance/ACT be presented to the congregation
• Unanimously accepted the nomination of Barbara Hands as chair of Worship Committee
• Members were urged to donate events/services to the Cabaret Auction.

• Promote a search for personal meaning, respecting individual truth in a community process of quest
• Speak and act with caring, courtesy and love thereby maintaining emotional, physical, and spiritual safety for all
• Support UUCG and denominational efforts with our resources
• Combat injustice while promoting equality
• Nurture our children on their spiritual journeys
• Hold ourselves to this covenant, especially during times of conflict and disagreement

Karen Madrone (2011)                                                                                           kmadrone@juno.com
Ken Williams (2011)                                                                                                 williams@ncat.edu

Michelle Lee (2011)                                                                                          nc.dogwood@yahoo.com
Carolyn Crumpacker (2012)                                                                                      msjazzzz@aol.com
Janet Eley (2012)                                                                                                 eleyjanet@yahoo.com
Steve Andrews (2013)                                                                                              sand3420@aol.com  
Charlotte Hamlin (2013)                                                                                        chamlin1@triad.rr.com
Thomas Clayton                                                                                                          tnt@riseup.net