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RevElations!

General Assembly in Columbus!

You might have already heard that our Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly will be here this June 22-26--at the Columbus Convention Center. The theme for GA 2016 will be "Heart Land: Where Faiths Connect." The faith world is increasingly multifaith. General Assembly 2016 will assemble leaders and communities of many faiths to worship together, learn from one another, and create a new vision of faith that no longer divides us, but connects us to an interdependent future that works for all.  
 
To register and/or learn more about General Assembly, you can visit
You can find more information about GA, and Register, at:
At this link you will also find a handy GA app for your phone, which you can use to plan your time, and learn more about the issues, speakers, and opportunities that GA holds.  You can register for a day, or for the entire period.  
 
Special events that are free and open to the public include the Service of the Living Tradition (a formal worship that honors the professional ministry,7:30 PM Thursday night), the large Sunday morning worship, and the Public Witness Event.  More about these events follow here. 
 
Worship at the Convention Center, Sunday, June 26, 10:30 AM.   Worship with thousands of other UUs attending at the downtown Columbus Convention Center.  The offering at the service will support, thanks to our own Pam Patsch's recommendation, the Horizon Prison Initiative, which strives "to transform prisoners, who transform prisons and communities."  (more about this program can be found in the Social Action Newsletter column below). 
 
NUUC Reception after Worship.  NUUC members and friends are invited to join Laura Howe and Eileen Watters for a reception immediately following the worship, at the Convention Center Hyatt in Suite 1905.
 
NUUC on Sunday, June 26, 10:30 AM.  While we will not hold regular worship this morning, will have our building open with a set up to watch the GA worship live streaming-thanks to Brad Bushman, who will host at church for any who would like to gather there to watch together
 
Public Justice Witness, June 23, 5:00 PM at the Ohio Statehouse: "State of Emergence: Faith Filled People Rally for Racial Justice" - Gather with UUS, in collaboration with the Ohio Student Association, the People's Justice Project, UU Justice Ohio and our multi-faith partners, for an interfaith event focusing on truth telling, fortification and commitment to boldly work for Black liberation. Including Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, Lena K. Gardner, Alicia Garza, Dr. Melissa Harris Perry, President Rev. Peter Morales, Lane Campbell and others.  (more about this event can be found in the Social Action newsletter column below).  

To Life!
Rev. Susan
NUUC Summer Spirituality Retreat June 18! 

Join Rev. Susan, Student Minister Katie Kuntz-Wineland, and Commissioned Lay Leaders Teri Cornell and Allison Fagan for a NUUC Spirituality Retreat, 
Saturday June 18, 9 AM-2 PM.  We'll meet on the beautiful campus of the Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio (a seven-minute drive from church).  You'll have your choice to participate in several different guided spiritual practices, including yoga, mindfulness meditations, drumming, reflection on sacred texts, walking the labyrinth and musical chant.  Included is a healthy lunch with items right from the seminary's own farm.  Register on the signup sheet in fellowship hall, or online at http://nuuc.org/education/adult-programs/
Calling all walkers! 
 Inspired by walking with our Coming of Age Youth in the CRIS 5k, we are beginning a weekly NUUC Walking Group.  We will meet weekly beginningTuesday, May 3rd at 9am, to walk the paved loop at Sharon Woods Metro Park.  We will rendezvous at the Maple Grove Picnic Area, at the picnic tables. Come as you can and enjoy the park and fellowship with other NUUC'ers.   Contact Allison Fagan at 614-270-8117 (call or text) or [email protected] for more information and to let us (Allison, Melinda Rosenberg, Rod Myers, and Kristen Grimshaw) know to expect your company.

Host a fellow UU for General Assembly and benefit NUUC
  This summer from  Thursday, June 23 - to Sunday, June 26, The UUA General Assembly will be held at the Columbus Convention Center We have an amazing opportunity to share our sense of community by attending this great event.  But we can also provide a service to the many others coming from all over the country to attend.

Please consider being a host for someone who might like to choose an alternative to the standard hotel room  during General Assembly.  If you live in the city of Columbus, or even on the outer suburbs, and have a spare room and a generous spirit, you might find this to be an extraordinary change to learn about other UU's.

If you have an interest, and would like to learn more about hosting, please contact Eileen Watters ( [email protected] or740-225-5342).  To fill out an online application, please click here.
Worship
NUUC Recorder Ensemble

The NUUC Recorder Ensemble has full wind in its sails once again. We would like to invite you to join our
tootling fun! For more information, contact Becca Morse at [email protected] 
(or 614-805-6680) 
or Nathan Morse at [email protected]

We rehearse together on the second and fourth Fridays of each
month at noon at Friendship Village of Columbus. If you're interested, but the rehearsal time doesn't work for you, just go for Baroque and contact us anyway: 

If enough people are interested in an alternate time, I'm sure we can work out a second rehearsal schedule. Just because a hobby blows doesn't mean it's not fun!
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Hospitality Teams

No doubt you have noticed, that since November, there have been different greeters each Sunday morning. You may have also noticed that the coffee hour host signup sheet has been filled in three month blocks. This is the result of the Leaders' Council creating four hospitality teams, each of which would serve one quarter. Each team is responsible for making sure that we have greeters and coffee hour personnel assigned for each Sunday for a period of three months. It is up to each team to decide how this is accomplished. Members of the team could rotate themselves to cover these services or they could enlist other members of the congregation to fill these responsibilities.

The rationale behind this process is twofold. It eliminates the burden of a social committee constantly trying see that someone has signed up for coffee hour host and a membership committee trying to make sure there is a greeter each Sunday. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is provides more involvement opportunities with minimal time commitment for our friends and members.

We are in the middle of our second quarter with this system. It has worked remarkably well. So far, since November, we have not been without a greeter or coffee hour host on any Sunday morning. Being on a hospitality team may sound like more of a commitment than it really is. It consists of one meeting on a Sunday after the service and serving one, two or zero times as a greeter or coffee hour host. Normally there are 12 Sundays in a quarter. If there are 12 folks on the team, each team member is responsible for one Sunday as greeter and one Sunday as a coffee hour host. Some team members may not enjoy greeting but enjoy hosting coffee hour and vice versa. In that case, team members can trade off responsibilities or someone, not on the team, who enjoys one or the other of these tasks might be asked to take a Sunday.

The first two teams were filled by asking individuals. Very few, of which declined the invitation. We have two quarters left to complete a year. Consider this your personal invitation to be included on one of these teams. It would be wonderful if we could do this without having to asked those who have already served to do it again. Although, I know that many would be willing to repeat. Anyone willing to help out with this project, please contact John Rodeheffer ([email protected]).
Mowing at NUUC - We Need Some Help

For this mowing season, the Building and Grounds Committee plans to handle the mowing using the same approach as last year, which will avoid us having to contract out the mowing and save about $3,050 in the budget.  Our plan is for the B&G Committee to handle the mowing on a rotating basis with some help from the congregation.  B&G Committee members will mow 3 weeks of each month, and the 4th week and sometimes the 5th week will be handled by a different volunteer from the congregation.  This approach will spread the work so each committee member will mow about once a month, and each congregational volunteer would mow just one time during the season.  Our approach will keep everyone's work commitments reasonable. 
 
The area to be mowed includes both the church yard (bounded by the driveway and the parking lot) plus the yard around Nielsen House.  We have a riding mower, which is used for almost all of the mowing.  For a few small, tight areas, which the riding mower cannot handle, we use a push power mower.  The southern field at the rear of our property and the west side of the parking lot are excluded and will be mowed separately compliments of Gary Rusk, using his large tractor.
 
Therefore, we would like to get 1 or 2 volunteers from the congregation each month to mow one time in the season.  The mowing season runs from April through early November.  But volunteers from the congregation will be needed only for the months of May through October, which is 6 months.  Three of those months have 5 weeks and will require 2 volunteers, so we need a total of 9 volunteers.
 
Please consider volunteering to mow one time this season.  If would like to help the church handle the mowing, you can sign up on the mowing sign-up sheet in Fellowship Hall.  Just pick a date that works for your schedule.  If you have questions or would like more information, just contact Bob Keith at 740-369-1919 or [email protected] 
NUUC JUNE 2016 NEWSLETTER - SOCIAL JUSTICE NEWS

LOOSE CHANGE: Our Loose Change Offering on June 12th will go to the People's Justice Project. PJP organizes low income people and people of color to lead the fight against mass incarceration and the school-
to-prison pipeline. The organization is working on issues related to sentencing reform, fair hiring for restored citizens, police accountability, restorative justice, ending zero tolerance policies, and voter registration.

UUSC FAIR TRADE COFFEE: Shop for delicious Fair Trade coffee, tea, cocoa, and chocolate after the service on June 12, 2016. Your purchase of Fair Trade products means that workers along the supply chain are provided a living wage. The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) supports a number of worker-owned, local producers who are in danger of being replaced with multinational corporations that have little respect for workers' rights. Making consumer choices that are aligned with our UU Principles is one way to help create a more just world community.

UPCOMING SOCIAL JUSTICE EVENTS

JUNE 19, 2016, 7:00 PM AT FIRST UU COLUMBUS: Rev. Michael Dowd will present the forum, Ten Commandments to Avoid Extinction: Religion as if Survival Mattered, a provocative look at how humans are putting ourselves and our planet at risk by our actions. Michael's work has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, Discover, and on television nationally. He and his science writer/evolutionary educator wife, Connie Barlow-both climate hawks- have spoken to more than 2000 groups throughout North America since 2002, including 450 UU churches. Their work has been featured on the cover of UU World twice, in 1997 and again in 2006, and he has presented several TED talks.

Please consider viewing this film before attending the evening event: https://youtu.be/YJj33_omnkg. Michael Dowd will also be the keynote speaker at a General Assembly workshop Friday, June 24, 3-4:15pm, Faith Communities Can Work Together to Reverse Climate Change. This workshop is sponsored by the Interfaith Caucus of Move to Amend and will highlight the actions UU congregations and other communities of faith and ethical convictions are taking to accelerate the accomplishment of an amendment to the constitution to eliminate "corporate constitutional rights" and "money as speech". For more information, see the bulletin board in Fellowship Hall or contact Michael Greenman at [email protected].


JUNE 23, 2016 5:00 PM OHIO STATEHOUSE, COLUMBUS, OH - STATE OF EMERGENCE: FAITH FILLED PEOPLE RALLY FOR RACIAL JUSTICE. Gather with Unitarian Universalists, in collaboration with the Ohio Student Association, the People's Justice Project, UU Justice Ohio and our multi-faith partners, for an interfaith event focusing on truth telling, fortification and commitment to boldly work for Black liberation. Join Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, Lena K. Gardner, Alicia Garza, Dr. Melissa Harris Perry, President Rev. Peter Morales, and other Movement for Black Lives and multifaith leaders for this year's Public Witness. A mass movement for Black liberation continues to grow across the United States. The movement calls us - as people of faith and conscience - to center the lives and experiences of Black people as we build an intersectional, anti-racist movement that transforms ourselves, our communities and our collective power. State of Emergence will 
complement programming about organizing for racial justice at GA 2016 including the Black Lives of UU and Building a Transformative Movement for Racial Justice workshop tracks, coupled with programming in general
session, worship and healing/ritual space. [Rain location Battelle Room at Columbus Convention Center]

JUNE 26, 2016, 10:30 AM - GENERAL ASSEMBLY SUNDAY MORNING WORSHIP: The service will highlight the Horizon Prison Initiative, the Service Project being supported through GA this year. Horizon was nominated by NUUC member Pam Patsch and the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio (IACO). Horizon Prison Initiative is an Ohio-based prison program. Their mission is "to transform prisoners, who transform prisons and communities". Horizon breaks cyclical incarceration and its effect on society by helping the incarcerated become aware of self, others, and religious faith at the center of their lives. Horizon Prison Initiative, now in its 16th year, has served men in three prisons. The program will now be offered to women in the Ohio Reformatory for Women; it will begin serving 120 inmates this summer. Required classes include:

Character Reformation; Spiritual Development; Family Reunification and Parenting from Prison; Emotional Awareness and Trauma Healing; Outside Volunteers; and Building Community-Learning to Live Together.

Inmates apply for the program because they want to change, not because of the nature of their crime or the length of their sentence. Most are serving long sentences. Horizon is not a re-entry program but rather helps inmates translate faith into practical living and face realities that brought them to prison. The graduates are living examples of faith, love, and respect. Their message of spiritual development and personal growth positively impacts prison culture. They make light out of darkness and bring hope where little is expected. Free donations at this service will support the Horizon program.

North Unitarian Universalist Congregation | 1574 Franklin Street | PO Box 541 | Lewis Center | OH | 43035