How Many UUs Does It Take

Mar 25, 2021 | Weekly Message

Earlier this month you received an action alert inviting you to consider the role of UUCA in funding Room in the Inn and supporting BeLoved Villages. I appreciate the emails with your feedback and those who offered to volunteer.

A few people inquired about the expectations for coordinating Room in the Inn volunteers. Although the program is radically changing and will no longer need volunteer support, in the past, we had two coordinators who recruited over fifty volunteers three times a year to support Room in the Inn (a program of Homeward Bound https://homewardboundwnc.org).  Volunteers provided meals, shelter, and other support for women living in homelessness. Our partner church, Grace Baptist Presbyterian, hosted the program and we both provided volunteers. We also provided a donation to Homeward Bound to support the program.

As noted, the nature of that program will change as we emerge from the restrictions of COVID-19 in the months ahead. Volunteers to host women in local churches will no longer be needed. Therefore, we will not allocate funds for this program in our budget. However, Homeward Bound can be a Community Plate recipient.  Through our Community Plate Program and your generosity, UUCA shares financial resources with local groups engaged in justice work.

Regarding BeLoved Villages https://belovedasheville.com, Rev. Amy Cantrell emailed the following:
“How many UU’s does it take to help build home and community in the BeLoved Village? 
At least 5 multiplied by many more as you all start to share the good word!!!”

Five of our members and I met with Rev. Amy on March 23. Rev. Amy shared general information about BeLoved’s work in the community with an emphasis on the BeLoved Village Project. Their goal is to build twelve tiny houses on a lot donated by Land of the Sky United Church of Christ providing deeply affordable housing to serve those who don’t qualify for affordable housing.

The most exciting part of this opportunity is that it is not a transactional approach to justice (e.g., write a check, drop things off, etc.) but a transformative community approach. Volunteers will work side-by-side with other community/church volunteers as well as with those being served by the project. And, within the congregation there will also be opportunities for strengthening relationships as folks work together toward a common goal. Nancy Ackerman from All Souls Cathedral shared how this project has engaged and transformed her congregation throughout the pandemic. 

To our question: Where do UUCAs gifts fit in? I heard Rev. Amy say that by linking to current projects and brainstorming together this team can imagine and create ways to invite UUCA participation. So, if you hear from Margaret McAllister, Anita Feldman, Mariah Wright, Nancy Gamble or James Gamble, I hope you consider how you might be able to support this important community project.

Rev. Claudia Jiménez, Minister of Faith Development

We’ve Been Thinking….

Mar 18, 2021 | Weekly Message

I don’t suppose it’s surprising, but people who work in churches think a lot about “church.” Here are some things our staff members have been thinking about, in no order, and none of them have been decided but they are ALL related to returning to “normal” after this l-o-n-g time away.

Worship
We know for sure that we will livestream (to a closed link due to copyright issues) and record our worship service. We are in the process of finding a vendor to provide the equipment we need to do that. While doing that we also learned that ALL of our microphones need to be replaced because they work on a frequency that Verizon now owns and that makes them illegal for us. Oops.

Every single thing that is published in church-oriented literature from all denominations surmises that in-person attendance on Sunday mornings will drop quite far below the old norm. So, does that mean that we re-start with just a single service?

And if we do that, can we/should we shake things up by re-formatting Sunday morning entirely? Many Protestant churches hold faith development classes for children and adults before worship, and then they have their worship services. The littlest kids get dismissed to activities like we were doing BC, but older children and youth are welcome at church. And the worship services are not adjusted to account for this wider age range. Should we try that? How great would it be if we could incorporate many more children and youth into our worship? We can’t do that now because they are “in class.” Imagine adult faith development groups of various sorts meeting before worship. Is that exciting or terrifying?

Sunday RE
This is one big area of unknowns. It turns out to be much easier to make a decision about resuming Sunday worship since anyone who might feel nervous about being in the Sanctuary with others (with whatever restrictions might still be in place) still has an option of attending or watching virtually. That’s not really possible with RE. Right now, virtual RE classes meet every other week. Should we keep doing that even when things are in person to reduce the class sizes? Kids are in school. Do we want our RE classes to resume as we had them before? Our classrooms are pretty small, and we have adults of all ages leading them. Will people feel safe enough to do that? And WHEN will we start recruiting the adult leaders?

Interim Minister
This is just another big unknown. It’s pretty complicated to think about opening, let’s call it in September just for this conversation’s sake, when a new minister doesn’t arrive until August 1. That’s not much time to plan a massive change. (Although what am I saying? We changed from in-person to virtual within 4 days. I still can’t believe it myself.)

Membership
What’s a “member” anyway? Now that we have some virtual participants who do not live in the area, can they be members? Legally, the institution needs official members, a board of trustees, and an annual meeting where official members vote. But lots of folks can be connected to UUCA in a number of ways without being an official member. Does that matter? How do we count our membership?

There are other issues, of course. When we add video to the work of our Sunday A/V techs, will we have to add a second tech person each Sunday? How do we pay for that? We’ll need childcare workers again and we have none at the moment. When do we start the hiring process? And lots more.

Just thought I’d share a little since these are big issues that your staff is working on now and that you will be hearing more about in the coming months. Please answer our calls or complete any surveys you get. It’s hard to get feedback these days when we don’t have much casual, in-person time with each other.

Linda Topp, Director of Administration