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Calendar
Wednesday, Dec. 10
7:00pm - Board Meeting
7:00pm - Young Adult Strategic Planning Advisory
Thursday, Dec. 11
12:00pm - Retiree potluck
6:00pm - LFD Council Meeting
7:10pm - Sight reading class
7:30pm - Choir rehearsal
Sunday, Dec. 14
Worship at 10am & 11:30am: "A New Day - A Season of Rest"; music by the 2U Band
All Ages Children's Chapel at 10am & 11:30am in Fleishman Hall
11:30am - Membership 101
12:30pm - Young Adult potluck brunch
Wednesday. Dec. 17
7:00pm - Pastoral Care Team Meeting
Thursday, Dec. 18
7:10pm - Sight reading class
7:30pm - Choir Rehearsal
Saturday, Dec. 20
9:45am - Council Meeting
5:00pm - Winter Solstice Celebration
Sunday, Dec. 21
Child Dedication Sunday
Intergenerational Worship at 10am & 11:30am: "A New Day - The Green of Winter"; music by the 2U Choir
11:30am - Parenting in multi-racial families
12:30pm - WIDE Community meeting
Monday, Dec. 22
Anvil Deadline
Tuesday, Dec. 23
5:00pm - Night Ministry cooking
6:30pm - Social Justice Meeting
Wednesday, Dec. 24
7:00pm - Christmas Eve Candlelight Service; music by 4 Now
Sunday, Dec. 28
Intergenerational Worship at 10am & 11:30am: Katie Norris preaches; music by the Folk Ensemble
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Holiday Service Opportunities
Many people have asked how they can volunteer or donate this holiday season. We have compiled a list of opportunities, supporting some of the organizations with whom we partner.
Howard Area Community Center
Adopt a family or individual for the holiday, purchasing specific items from a wish list. Contact: Sue Loellbach, Volunteer Coord. 773-262-6622 x.223 The Night Ministry
Prepare gift "stockings" that are distributed to people served by the Outreach bus.
Contact: Julie Delezenne, Coord. for Congregational Community Relations
773-506-6004
Lakeview Shelter
(Northside Housing)
Need cooks at 10am, servers at noon and hosts throughout the day for Christmas and New Years Day.
835 W. Addison
Contact: Lila Beukema 773-327-1427 |
Help us Give the Gift of Warmth!
A coat drive benefiting the homeless youth of Lakeview ends this Sunday, December 14th. The streets of Lakeview are home to many LGBQT youth who have been  forced to leave their home because of their sexual orientation. We can help! Please bring new or gently used coats and other winter outerwear items and put them in the the designated bin in the Palmer Room. The drive is sponsored by the Tuesday Night Small Group.
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EcoFactoid
Nothing biodegrades in a landfill! Landfills are sealed up and packed tight to
keep toxins from leaking into the surrounding environment. This means that
minimal amounts of air, water and microbes get in to cause breakdown. If
something is labeled "biodegradable," the only way it will biodegrade is if it
is put in with compost. Another reason to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!
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Share some of your Unitarian Universalist values with everyone you meet, without saying a word, through this newly designed canvass tote bag.
The back of the shirt reads: "Peace, compassion, resposibility, love, dignity, humanity, harmony, equity, community, liberty, interconnectedness, justice, reason and wonder. Unitarian Universalist values."
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Support World Bicycle Relief this Holiday Season
Please donate one bike (or more). One bicycle costs $134, and it helps many-like a caregiver who can now treat up to 20 patients. Five bicycles can help 100 people and ten bicycles can help a whole community.
Donations make the best gifts. Buy a bike in honor of a friend, your clients, your boss, your family-they will receive a card or e-mail acknowledging your kind gift with a personal message from you.
World Bicycle Relief helps healthcare, education and economic development initiatives-please help us, help others. Just donate with our online form. |
| Church Office Information & Staff
Office Hours
Tues-Thurs, 9am-1pm
Parish Minister: Rev. Jennifer Owen-O'Quill
Intern Minister:
Katie Norris 773-549-0260 ext. 29,
Business Manager: Suzanne Larimer
Membership Coordinator: Lisa Todd
Acting Music Director: Brett Rowe
773-549-0260 ext. 31
Choir Director:
Blake Adams
Early Childhood Manager:
Lani Schuster
773-549-0260 ext.28
Nursery Attendant: Noemi A. |
Communication Deadlines
Sunday Order of Service Mondays at noon Please make sure that the events are inclusive of all members. No additional inserts will be included in the order of service without the prior approval of the church office. Send announcement requests to secondunitarian@att.net.
The Anvil
2nd and 4th Monday of the month Send newsletter submissions directly to the office at faithdev_2u@att.net. Please note that this is a change from the last several months.
Scheduling Events
All space for church activities must be scheduled in advance through the Membership Coordinator, Lisa Todd secondunitarian@att.net. The church is open for group activities on Sundays 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and Tuesday through Thursday from 6:00p.m. to 9:00 p.m. | |
Happy Holidays Everyone!
In this season of sharing and giving we wish for you 
a growing faith to carry you in the coming year,
a deeper love that transforms your spirit,
and fresh joy in small, everyday wonders.
May your spirit know a larger hope for our common humanity, and may we begin to fashion a greater peace for our world, for the change we want to see in our world begins in our own homes, and with our own families.
With love from your ministry team,
Jennifer, Katie, Gabrielle, Lisa, Suzanne, Brett, Blake, Lani and Noemi |
Wanted: Cookies and Other Edible Holiday Treats!
Annual 2U Holiday Bake Sale-December 14th!
Come and Buy!
We want your cookies (brownies, quick breads, candies and other delights) for the annual 2U bake sale. Nothing says, "Holiday" like the taste of ginger, molasses, chocolate, peppermint, or a good old-fashioned frosted sugar cookie. As you plan for the season of baking plenty, throw an extra batch or two (or three or four) in the oven for the benefit of 2U.
Bring as many dozens of bake sale goodies as you are able to the sale. Please label your cookies if they are vegan, or contain tree nuts or peanuts. The Cookie Team will do the rest. Cookies will be sold by weight.
As an additional treat this year, we will be auctioning off pies, cakes and other holiday desserts fit for a festive table or Sunday supper. This is the time to share your family's best ever pecan pie or your justifiably famous apple tart.
If you're not inclined to bake or dip pretzels in chocolate, come and buy! If you're sick of your own cookies, come and buy. If you need a last minute treat, come and buy. If you have no baking skills but are trying to impress your current or future mother-in-law, come and buy. If you need cookies for the school holiday party, come and buy. If there's too much to do and too little time to bake this year, come and buy.
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| Membership 101 - Orientation to Unitarian Universalism
When? Dec. 14 (usually the 3rd Sunday) 11:30-1:30
Where? the Loft (top floor)
Who? Anyone who wants to know more about UUism, Second Unitarian Church or who wants to meet some other good people.
What? A conversation about UU ideas and a sharing of our own questions and paths. Lunch and child care are provided so please RSVP.
Why? Because if you've gotten this far in the blurb you have some questions about church or faith or belonging to a community in an intentional way. Join us! |
Bright Yule - Winter Solstice Celebration
SATURDAY, DEC. 20, 5-7PM Come celebrate the Winter Solstice in a lay-led ritual. This ritual celebrates the gradual return of the sun's light after the darkest days of the year. All ages welcome - bring your kids! Please bring a snack or drink to share afterward. | |
From Our Minister
by Jennifer Owen-O'Quill
Several months ago we made some changes in our church
life. One of those changes was to have
our children go directly to their own Sunday faith development programming and
not join us for the first part of worship in the sanctuary. This change came for a number of reasons,
mostly related to the growth our children's program has seen over the past
eight years. Eight years ago we had 6 or
8 kids in attendance on Sunday. Today we
typically have 25-30 kids on a Sunday (at times we have 40 kids with us on
Sunday morning) and there are 80 kids involved in our children's ministry. Our volunteers and staff have worked hard
over many years to strengthen our program and the results are astounding. I am proud of the excellent work they have
done.
But what works for a
small church with a few kids doesn't work for a bigger church with a lot more
kids. We had some problems to
overcome. First, we had lots of kids at
one service and few if any kids at another.
Worship was uneven, with a great intergenerational time at the first
service and an uncomfortable and awkward time at the second service. As the staff and I began to talk through this
issue, we found there was another concern.
There were also so many kids pouring out of the sanctuary it was getting
difficult to manage the transition to the classrooms.
I turned to my colleagues for their advice, and another
concern emerged.
My colleague Laurel Hallman from Dallas shared with me that they stopped having
time in worship with their kids when one of the children went missing during
the dismissal and transition time. It
took two hours for them to find the 6 year old, who had wandered out of the
building and into the parking lot.
Fortunately she was waiting by the family's car, but you can imagine how
frightening that was for her parents. For
Laurel it was a
safety issue.
You can imagine what it would be like if a child wandered
out of our church, in our dense, urban setting.
It would be much harder to find a child who wandered off and there are
many more strangers to come across if a child were to leave our building. There are five separate exits to our
building. We immediately began
attempting to staff all those exits to meet these safety concerns. One Sunday, a few months after we implemented
this protocol, we spot checked its success and found two of our exits
un-staffed. It became clear to me that
we needed to establish a stronger chain of custody to ensure the safety of our
kids each morning. What that means today
is that children must be checked in by their parents or caregivers to an area
only accessible to volunteers and staff who have been background checked, and
that children must be picked up from their classroom by their parent or caregiver. In this way we ensure the safety of our
children to the best of our ability. Our
kids deserve no less.
The question remains, how do we meet all of these concerns
and maintain the value of multi-generational community? Last year I took the problem to the Lifespan
Faith Development Council. The
suggestion of that group was to implement a significant number of
intergenerational services this year. We
designated 25% of our services where the whole community would worship together
and began planning for those services.
The response to those services was swift and overwhelmingly
negative. Families did not like them and
told me they would not come as it was too hard to manage their young children
for the whole hour. The stories I told
were not age appropriate for three year olds, and didn't meet the needs of the
kids. In the face of their feedback, we
reduced the number of intergenerational services to a more palatable number and
I had to face the fact that I do not have the gift for this aspect of
ministry. We would need skilled
volunteers to come forward to help me with the remaining services.
Today, we are still searching for ways to involve children
and families in the worship life of our church.
I want everyone to know that, while we have not figured out what the
best solutions are to meet those needs, we are working on it.
In September we mailed a letter to all our families letting them know about the
changes that were coming this fall. (In retrospect we should have sent this
letter to the whole church.) The letter included an invitation to help us
work on a solution that would address the concerns and provide a way for
families to be together in worship. In
response to this letter, two of our parents have come forward to volunteer
their time to work specifically on this issue.
It will be no surprise to many of you that those who stepped forward
were Keeley Sorokti and Jennifer O'Grady.
For those of you who don't know them I want to assure you that we are in
excellent hands with Keeley and Jenny, as both of these women have been so personally
committed to the faith development of our kids and families that they have each
worked on our church staff in the past as Director of Faith Development. (I would be remiss of I didn't commend
Gabrielle for her openness to the input and collaboration of two people who
used to hold her position.) It is fairly
extraordinary to watch how respectful, thoughtful and honest these three women
are when they get together to work on a project. I had the privilege to be with them for a 3
hour brainstorming session, and it was impressive.
I know Gabrielle, Keeley and Jenny want to hear your ideas
about how we should move forward, and so they are working on a survey to get
feedback about the ideas they have so far and to solicit any other ideas you
might have to add to the mix. Whether
you have kids in our program or not, please take the time to answer the survey. (The link to the survey is at the top of this email.)
Being a multi-generational community means everyone in our
church has a stake in this, not just our families. Beyond our church-wide survey, Keeley, Jenny
and Gabrielle are happy to talk with you directly about your thoughts and ideas
and will need volunteers to come forward as we work to implement the ideas they
feel will have the best impact on our church.
We are committed to making the best decisions: decisions
that are well-considered, thoughtfully planned and sustainably
implemented. This will take time. Some changes can come right away. Others may take months or a year to plan for
and implement successfully. In the
meantime there are some things families can take advantage of right now. Families are always welcome in worship, any
Sunday, if that is what they feel is best for them. This has always been the case. Given our current situation, I want to add
that families who want to have both faith development for their children and a
shorter time to worship together as a family, you are welcome, if your child
attends the 10 AM Sunday school, to stay for the first part of the second
service and leave after the candle-lighting.
If your child attends the 11:30 AM Sunday school you are welcome to come
early and join the congregation for the last part of the service. In this way we can sing together, share
ritual together, and help our children understand they are part of a larger
community.
I hope this birds-eye view into how and why this decision
was made and what we are doing to address the need our families have to grow in
their faith together has been helpful. I
look forward to working with Gabrielle, the Faith Development Council and Jenny
and Keeley as we try new things as a community.
We will need people to step forward to volunteer to implement the ideas
we come up with, and your patience and support as we work on this is
appreciated. If everyone can be a constructive, creative
collaborator we will help our church move through this transition well and have
a stronger community in the process.
May every blessing be yours this holiday season. I look forward to seeing you in church.
In faith,
Jennifer
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Social Justice News
by Curtis
 I want to thank all those who attended the 2008 Social Justice Kick-Off: without you it would not have been the success it was.
As you may know, working for justice in our community is an important way for Unitarian Universalists to express our faith. During the Social Justice Kick-off those who attended learned many different ways in which here at 2U one can participate in social justice work. In case you missed it, below is a sampling of what was discussed.
1) Night Ministry - The Night Ministry needs people to help prepare and deliver meals to a community of homeless youth in Chicago. Jobs would involve preparing food for the Night Ministry's van and then going out on the street to serve it to the youth.
2) Green Sanctuary - If you are concerned about the environment in which we live, work, and worship, please join us in helping our community lead a sustainable lifestyle at 2U and create an environmentally friendly neighborhood and city.
3) Lakeview Action Coalition - If you think globally about the larger world, but have a need to act locally, LAC is looking for leaders from 2U who seek to be a part of grassroots organization for the purposes of increasing social justice, integration and power in communities on north side of Chicago (Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Uptown, Rogers Park, North Center). Participate in a LAC taskforce and help bring about justice in:
a. Affordable Housing
b. Access to Healthcare
c. Homeless Youth
d. Environmental Justice
4) WIDE (Welcoming, Inclusive, Diverse, Equitable) Community- For those who know that our church community is great, but who want to make it even greater! This ministry works toward enhancing 2U's capacity to be a faith community where each of us is held in a Welcoming, Inclusive, Diverse and Equitable embrace!
5) Community Renewal Society - If eradicating racism and poverty is a calling, then join the Community Renewal Society. The Society works toward the elimination of racism and poverty by organizing and training individuals at our church to action--to go out in our communities, in a sustained strategic effort, to engender systematic change.
a. Criminal Justice
b. Education
6) Lifespan Faith Development Program - Building the foundation of social justice begins early in our Unitarian Universalist faith tradition. The Lifespan Faith Development Program gets children involved in social justice work.
7) Jane Addams Senior Caucus - The more things change, the more things stay the same. The fight for justice is forever an enduring one. The Jane Addams Senior Caucus is a grassroots, membership based organization of Chicago area older adults organizing to build relationships, develop leaders, educate people and create the power necessary for older adults to play a central role in determining their quality of life. The Jane Addams Senior Caucus challenges and transforms social injustices impacting seniors through leadership development, community organizing and grassroots policy advocacy.
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Young Adult Ministry
by Liz Krumwiede
The Young Adult Ministry is geared towards people aged 18-35. As a welcoming outreach ministry, we aim to bring young people together in fellowship and help everyone feel at home in our congregation. We encourage spiritual formation, social justice work and involvement in the larger church community.
Upcoming Events:
Dec. 14: Potluck Lunch & Worship. The Young Adult Ministry holds a potluck lunch followed by a worship service on the second Sunday of every month from 12:30-2:30 pm in the Loft. This is a great way get to know each other on a deeper level by engaging in meaningful conversations and sharing a community meal. Mia Mapes will be facilitating our next Potluck Lunch & Worship on the topic of Spiritual Practices.
Canned Food Drive
The Young Adults are collecting
supplies for the Lakeview Pantry. The
most needed food items are peanut butter, jelly, tuna, juice, canned
meats, soup, stews, canned fruit, canned beans and chili. The most needed non-food items are toys,
canvas bags, personal hygiene products and winter coats. Please place your donations in the collection
barrel located in the Palmer Room. Envelopes
for cash donations are available on the What's Happening table. Thank you for giving generously!
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