Sept. 13 – UUCB on Solano  We will be hosting our annual UUCB Solano Stroll booth on Sunday, September 13, from 9am to 6pm. This is our chance to put our best face forward before the 200,000+ people who are out on Solano for the day. We need YOUR beautiful face at the booth! 

We will be decorating our booth with joyful, life-celebrating, exuberant, exotic, and whimsical decorations to evoke the celebration and embrace of life and the spirit. There will be games and activities for kids, too.

Booth volunteers are needed in one-hour slots 9am – 6pm. If you have a flare for design, we particularly need booth decorators at 9am.

If you can’t commit to a booth time slot, please just come by and hang out for a bit. The booth will be between Santa Fe and Curtis, in front of the Pub on Solano.

Members! Our beautiful new name tags are ready and waiting at the Welcome Table. They come with a hands–free holder — easy to put on and no more ugly pin–holes in your clothes! And now names are BIG ENOUGH so people can actually read them! (What a concept!) No more frantic fumbling through your mental rolodex while you smile vacantly hoping for enlightenment. So, please, be kind to your church friends who have trouble remembering names. Pick up your new name tags the next time you’re at church.

What would it be like to be “out” as Unitarian Universalists?  Our faith tradition has good news that is itching to be shared.  That we are all connected much more than we know.  That there is an embracing love available to us, and all we need to do is reach out for it.  That this love is emergent from a community like ours. That we share this love through our work for justice. And, unlike many other religions that make similar claims, our community embraces everyone for exactly who they are and for what they hold most dearly in faith and in practice.

Share this good news, and live our faith on your sleeve and on your yellow Standing on the Side of Love t-shirt.  There are many ways to invite friends and neighbors to taste a bit of what UUCB has on offer to them and the world.  If everyone invited just one new person a year, we would deepen our service to each other and to the local and global communities, and enrich our programs of worship and learning. The Membership Ministry Committee and our Outreach Team has assembled this document, Ideas for Extending Invitations into UUCB, to help you live our faith out loud and make UUCB’s presence and good news be known far and wide.  Please be part of our ongoing, everyday outreach!

In faith

Paul and Lonnie

Thursday, July 30, 2015, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

PotLuck, Vespers, Connections, Information, Sharing Your Story, and Love! Wow!

Are you considering membership at UUCB? Or have you visited a few times and are curious what the UUCB community is all about? If you answered yes to either question, please come to a special Membership Night on Thursday, July 30, 2015, at 5:30 p.m. 

Email Lonnie Moseley to make a reservation and/or to get more information or call 510-655-1444.  We will provide childcare for your entire evening, if you need it.  So definitely let me know if you want childcare services and I’ll make arrangements.

Here’s how the evening will go.  We’ll provide dinner starting at 5:30 p.m. and during dinner together with other members, you’ll enjoy great conversation and a delicious meal prepared by Chef Richie Dawkins. At 7:00 p.m., there will be a Vesper service that promises a sweet time of quiet, reflection, and song. When vespers end at 7:30 p.m. the Membership Information portion will start and you will get answers to all of your questions about UUCB and being a member of this wonderful community; and also an opportunity to share your story of how and why you came to UUCB.

 By the end of the evening, you will have greater understanding of UUCB and how the programs and people can be of support to you. And for those of you who make the decision to join UUCB, you will be able to sign the Membership Book and add your name to the other people who are helping UUCB make a difference in the lives of its members, children, community and world. Please let me know if you will be able to come on July 30th.  

Regards,

Lonnie Moseley
Membership Co-Chair with Paul Hudson

Those of you who know me, know I’m a fairly opinionated person (“Fairly opinionated!!?” said my friend, Carol Carlisle, in astonishment). Ok, I have strong points of view and I like talking and interacting with people who also have strong points of view (Elizabeth Hutchins).

So, I’m just providing you that caveat in case you strongly disagree with my column this month. Just know I would enjoy having a strong conversation with you about my thoughts on the “Ideal UUCB Member–for me!”

I joined UUCB as a member eight years ago for two primary reasons, our inclusiveness and our Covenant. I quickly learned that all liberal religions are inclusive and that’s not what made UUCB completely unique for me.

It was our Covenant of Right Relations that really intrigued me. And over the years, I have learned to love this Covenant deeply. Our Covenant is posted on a large sign above the doors to our Administrative Offices. I try to read it every time I am at UUCB so that I am reminded and put back into that wondrous space when I first joined the church and thought I had found a miracle oasis in my desert world of blockheads and block-hearts.

Over time I learned what it really took to live and honor that Covenant. That it meant I had to get off my high horse of righteousness; to stop talking long enough for someone to tell me in what way I had hurt their feelings and to recognize the courage that it took for them to tell me.

And that’s why I love our Covenant. It calls me to remember that I love you. To remember that I’m so grateful to have found this church community. To remember that none of us is perfect. To keep our Covenant takes tremendous will, courage and remembrance of love. The practice of love inside this church helps me to practice love outside of our church family with people who don’t hold our Covenant dear.

So guess who is my ideal type of UUCB Member? It’s you who won’t back down from love. It’s you who will breathe through difficult moments and stay in connection or return to connection. And it’s you who covenants with me to do this again and again and again.

When someone becomes a new member of UUCB, our Covenant is read aloud by everyone at Membership Night. I know for sure that as our new members get used to being in covenant at UUCB, their understanding of our covenantal words will deepen with practice. And I’m also sure dealing with my opinionated self will probably be a source of much practice.

---

Lyric Trees

Our roots need to dig into the earth, our fingers to unfold like leaves being born. Our bodies need air, need rain, sun to untangle knots of pain.

Touch us sky, blue visitation, drift of cloud. Hold fast, hopes, be green-blooded stems when wind wears rough boots and kicks.

Dreams trees dream cut open apples, find the juice sweet rain. We would be shade, shelter, be silent or whisper with our leaves. © Claire J. Baker

At the first Membership Night in January, Rev. Greg quoted Rev. Mark Morrison Reid that the role of the church is to transform society. I loved that. At the same time, Rev. Greg said that the role of the church was to also help us transform ourselves. To understand our own triggers and immediate fight-or-flight tendencies.

When we are together in the Sunday service or in Personal Theology listening to uplifting words or in a workshop where the higher values are being talked about, we relax and expand. Our brains feel safe and we are better able to transform ourselves.

Transform myself? Who has time for that? It’s been so busy lately with all the UUCB activities that I’m just trying to transform the clothes in my laundry hamper to clean clothes. Transforming myself just sounds like more work – for which there is a to-do list the length of my arm that precedes even the thought of transforming myself.

Yet Rev. Greg’s words have stayed with me since January 29th and so I’ve decided to figure out what transforming myself within the community of UUCB would look like during the month of March.

I know a big part of my transformation possibilities would be in slowing down—to hear my quieter voice. Maybe I would come to a 9 a.m. service that is quieter and has less people to whom I’ve promised things and haven’t delivered yet. That would be different for me.

Maybe I would sit in on a Board meeting this month — as a visitor. I used to sit on the Board. Maybe I could join with my UUCB family that volunteered for the Board this year and show up in solidarity for an evening. No purpose. Just to be with the people who have committed to represent me.

Maybe I will commit to visiting my friend, Marion Thompson, at her new retirement center. Marion hasn’t been at UUCB for a while dealing with health issues. She and I share a love of Donna Leon mystery books. We could talk about that or just walk around her new surroundings.

I wonder if our choir director, Bryan, would let me sit in on a choir rehearsal – even though I’m not a choir member. I have no idea what a UUCB choir rehearsal is really like from beginning to end. I would sit quietly and not bother anyone.

And you know, I’ve never been to a Humanist meeting on Sundays. I’ve been at UUCB for eight years and I’ve never attended a Humanist meeting. I wonder if I can sit still and just listen for two hours to the wonderful thinkers who come to the Humanist meeting.

Yes, I think I know what I’m doing in March. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to slow down and just be with my community. Just be with my UUCB Family – no goals, no measureable outcomes, and probably no deep transformations either. But that’s OK. It will be good to get out of my head for a while and be inside my beautiful UUCB body.

LOOK

From within you comes your
sense of the world.  The world
is always waiting for you, and
moving ever on.  To open
your eyes is to look, and to 
filter, what you can make
of the world.  The world can 
slip away from you as you
dream.

Helena Knox

Welcomed into What?

“Ok, don’t get me wrong, I feel plenty welcomed. I just don’t know what the heck I’m being welcomed into. I want to know how this church works!”

That was a statement made to me from a woman who had been coming to UUCB since early 2014 and was thinking about becoming a member. I absolutely loved her words because they were coming from a place not of criticism and cynicism but from a place of “I want to be informed, connected, and engaged.” Essentially she was saying, “I feel y’all but how does one get to know y’all?”

I have to admit that after eight years of being a member, I’m still finding out things about how UUCB works. Like… it is a complete mystery to me how our Lynne Cahoon finds out what is going on with people to make the Supercards every Sunday. I just think she is magical, but I know there is a process.

And speaking of process, after hearing great feedback and getting volunteers at the Membership Summit on December 14 and listening to wonderful strategies at the “Where Are We Going Conversation” on January 11, 2015, the Membership Ministry Committee In-Reach members are working on the recommendations put forth by people and making sure there is a process for every aspect of being a member here at UUCB.

So what does that mean? Well, at the most core level, our Welcome Table team members need informational paragraphs from each of the groups at UUCB. We want to be able to hand out engaging content to newcomers and existing members who are interested in let’s say Social Justice, or the Caring Circle, or Climate Change, or understanding what the Humanist Group is all about—above and beyond just meeting times. So if you are leading a group I will be contacting you to include your information in a new Membership hand-out.

The Membership Ministry Committee (whose volunteers are growing — think about getting involved) also want YOUR QUESTIONS about UUCB and Membership. For example,

1. Will there be ongoing UU History classes? What about having some of the history information online so it can be watched at any time?
2. Where is the darn list of all the groups at UUCB and the person to contact to get more information?
3. How do I find people with similar interests?

If you have questions you want answered, email me (lonniemoseley@hotmail.com). The MMC (Membership Ministry Committee) will make sure your question(s) is included and answered in a FAQ document we are creating.

Thank you for all your support and love,

Lonnie Moseley, Co-Chair with Paul Hudson, Membership Committee

Meet with the Ministers, Have Lunch, Talk about your Journey, Sign the Membership Book

 

If UUCB feels like the place and community where you can bring your whole self, your commitment to social justice, your care for yourself and others and a commitment to our children for a liberal religious and humanistic view, then become a member of UUCB.

The Sunday Membership signing at UUCB (after services around 12:30 pm) involves meeting with our ministers, Revs. Christian and Rev. Kristin.  Sometimes both of them or just one of them, as they have two little ones to take care of after services on Sundays.  Lunch is provided (Vegan, Vegetarian and non-Vegetarian).  And we talk.

Everyone at the signing goes around the room and introduces themselves and then talks a little about their religious or spiritual journey before coming to UUCB.  The Reverends talk about their journey and why they became Unitarian Universalists ministers and about their commitment to UUCB.

A brief history (Rev. Chris calls it a “drive by history of Unitarian Universalism”) is given of the origins of UUism and its commitment to the dignity and worth of every human being.

Then the conversation focuses on UUCB (Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley) and its commitment and covenant to each person in the congregation.  Questions are answered about what are the benefits of membership?  What are the responsibilities of membership?  What does it cost to be a member of UUCB?  There isn’t a fee to be a member–there are, of course, costs to run the church and each person decides what they can pledge (promise) each month to keep the lights on, staff paid and the programs running.  Some people can pledge $15 a month and some can pledge $1500.00 a month.

Finally, if your decision is made to become a member, the Membership book is passed around for each person to sign their name and the date of becoming a member.  After the signing, we congratulate each other…no, not really…but everyone is pretty happy and excited about becoming a member of UUCB and getting more involved with guiding its future.  Then a picture is taken of each person or family so that it can be posted on the new member Kiosk at the church (internally –not on our website).

Yellow “Standing On the Side of Love” tee shirts are given to each new member.  These shirts are worn in solidarity for when we attend protests and events to show our support for love, compassion and our liberal, religious and humanist values.  Other people know when the “UUs” have shown up because we all have on our yellow “Standing On The Side of Love” tee shirts.

If you would like to become a member of UUCB or discuss membership, please email Lonnie at membership@uucb.org for information and the next date for becoming a member.

 

 

Sunday, July 20 at 12:15 p.m.
Pathways to Engagement and Membership, Minister’s Office

Sunday, July 27 at 12:15 p.m.
Becoming a Member, Minister’s Office

A Ministry of Membership – Do you feel called to growing UUCB in spirit, diversity, justice, our ability to make a difference in the world, and yes, in numbers?  We’ll be talking about all of this, setting priorities, and forming action teams at the Membership Ministry Committee meeting on November 3rd, in the Fireside Room, from 12:45-2:00 p.m.  We need and want YOU!

 

Paul Hudson and Lonnie Moseley
Co-Chairs, Membership Ministry Committee

Alisa Gould Sugden
Welcoming Coordinator/Office Administrator