scrubbed The Anvil - January, Vol. 2 Newsletter from Second Unitarian Church

The New Year is upon us. 2009 will hold many firsts for our nation and for us personally. I look forward to charting the coming year with all of you.

I know many of you are feeling anxious, or at the very least, uncertain, about the future. As we begin this year together I have a couple of thoughts to offer.

First, reassurance. I am confident that we will weather the coming years together well. I am confident about getting through this season together because sustainability and scale, generosity and integrity are goals it will do us good to pursue. And I know we in this church, in this neighborhood and in this nation have the ingenuity and the generosity to take care of each other as we all find new ways to live and make the changes in our values to right the ship we are on personally and collectively. As your pastor I am personally committed to helping each of you, the whole church and our neighborhood get through this time together. We have a chance to come together to chart a new direction for our lives, one that is more explicitly inter-dependent. That is a good thing. With the right intent, strong leadership and creativity we will find ourselves stronger at the end of 2009 than we are today.

Second, challenge. I think we are feeling anxious and uncertain because, deep down, we know that the lives we have been leading personally, as a nation and even worldwide, were not founded on the right principles. Sustainability and lifestyles of scale have not been watchwords for a few generations. We're anxious because something is changing and we are not familiar with what is coming next. As a church community leaders are emerging to begin a financial care ministry in the life of the church.

We just had a wonderful conversation among our young adults about lifestyle changes, financial stability, and what changes we see ourselves making as trustees of our financial resources. I was impressed by the thoughtfulness of the reflections around the table and am so grateful to the three capable volunteers who led the conversation and presented financial material in a faithful way. This conversation will be offered to the wider community in coming months, as these days I know we all are reflecting on lifestyle changes and choices. I hope you will take the time to be a part of one of those upcoming conversations as we seek to help one another live lives grounded in the values of sustainability, generosity, responsibility, scale and integrity. I look forward to being a part of that conversation. There is also hope that we might be able to offer one-on-one support to members as the year progresses. I hope all of you participate in one of these informal, informational conversations. Check here to see when Financial Care offerings are beings scheduled.

Finally, here are my resolutions for our church in 2009:
We resolve to take care of each other this year, and every year.
We resolve to say "yes" when asked to help another.
We resolve to take steps to scale down our lifestyle so we are better equipped to help each other and ourselves.

I look forward to living into these resolutions with all of you!

Faithfully,
Jennifer