interim musings - gloucester unitarian universalist church · from small coffee houses to festival...
TRANSCRIPT
Showing up. The spiritual practice of
“presence.” That is what is on my mind as I
write to you on this clear fall day at the end
of September. Getting out of my car this
morning, the sun is warm on my face and I
can smell the salt in the air. The gulls wheel
overhead. It’s good to be here.
Showing up. I appreciate how many
of you are showing up. For one
another, for this community. It is not
easy for a church to be in a time of
transition. There is much that feels
unsettled. There are changes. You may like some, you may not
like others. What will happen next? Who will our new minister
be? There is ambiguity. One of the things that matters most
of all during a time of transition is that you show up. Simply,
be there for one another, on a personal as well as a collective
level.
And I see you doing that. You show up for worship, you show
up for choir. I appreciate how many of you have signed up
already for our All-Church Retreat on October 5th. I’m sure the
delicious catered lunch is a draw and the big pleasant “room
with a view” at Maritime Gloucester on the harbor where we
will meet (thank you, Karen! For making all the arrangements).
But I think as well you instinctively know that this is an
important year in the life of this church, and you want to be
present. You want to show up.
It was a little more than a quarter of a century ago that this
church had dwindled in numbers, so that it was in danger of
closing. Your last settled minister, Wendy Fitting, began as an
Extension Minister, her salary paid in part by the UUA in an
attempt to revive things here. And revive them, you did and
she did, in a ministry partnership together. This time, you are
established enough to have a real Search
Committee, using the “regular search
process” to find a minister. That is a big
deal. It will culminate in the Search
Committee bringing one candidate to
you in early May 2015 for your vote.
But first, a few things have to happen. On October 5th, you will
show up and help put into words the guiding spirit and mission
of this church. Your work will be invaluable to the Search
Committee as they tell prospective ministers about this
community. Who are you? What do you most deeply care
about? Where do you want to go? Later in the fall, you will
show up and make a pledge. Your pledges will pay the salary
of the new minister (you voted last January to increase the
minister’s time to 3/4). All fall, winter and spring, I know you
will show up—cooking, singing, teaching, visiting, leading.
Showing up. The spiritual practice of “presence.” I look
forward to practicing, with you, this year.
Jenny
Interim Musings
October, 2014 Volume 5: Issue 10
Newsletter of the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church The First Universalist Church in America
Organized in 1779 as The Independent Christian Church
THE REVEREND JENNY RANKIN, INTERIM MINISTER Worship Service: 10:00 am
10 Church Street [corner Middle & Church Streets] Gloucester MA 01930 (978) 283-3410 new email: [email protected]
www.facebook.com/
pages/Gloucester-
Unitarian-Universalist-
Church/205512609487543 www.gloucesteruu.org
Accessible Entrance at Corner of
Pine/Proctor & Church Streets
AND off Gould Court lot
Minister’s Hours
Wednesday and Thursday, by appointment.
Please call the church office (978) 283-3410 .
Meet our new Interim Director of Religious
Education: Rose Sheehan email Rose at:
Rose comes to us with experience in leading a
Unitarian Universalist religious education program
in Greenfield, Massachusetts and has had years of
experience in teaching, leading child care
programs and running groups for parents and
children in a variety of settings including parent/
child playgroups, Head start classrooms, private
nursery schools, summer programs and Waldorf
schools. She has worked with children from
infancy through middle school. While at All Souls
UU in Greenfield, she co-founded a junior youth
group whose members went on to participate in
District Youth Conferences.
Rose will have registration forms available and will
be soliciting teachers and co-teachers when
classes formally begin on Sunday, October 5th. If
you are interested, please contact her via email at
Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Rose is a life-
long Bay-stater. She’s lived in Boston, Greenfield
and Cape Cod. Gloucester has been her home
since 2004. Rose has had a lifelong passion for
children, learning and creative expression. She
studied early childhood education at Greenfield
Community College, holistic education at UMass
Amherst and Waldorf education at Sunbridge
College. Rose is a licensed early childhood
educator and holds a certificate in Waldorf
Elementary Education. During the early 1990’s,
she served as Director of Religious Education for
All Souls Church, a Unitarian Universalist
Congregation in Greenfield. During her tenure
with All Souls, she participated in the UUA’s
Renaissance Program for religious educators and
completed the Ministry with Youth, Teacher
Development and Worship modules.
In addition to her work in education, Rose is an
active folk performer. She plays music for Morris
Dance ensembles and sings at a variety of venues
from small coffee houses to festival audiences.
Adelphi Records is producing a CD of Rose singing
with her two sons Owen and Colin. A release date
in late 2014 is anticipated.
Rose is also a founding member of Folk Life Studio,
whose mission is to keep folklife vibrant in our
contemporary culture. She has organized a series
of contra dances on Cape Ann and has developed a
series of traditional music classes for children
called “Sing through the Seasons”.
Page 2
Welcome! Rose Sheehan
Interim Director of
Religious Education
Church member, Willie Alexander and
his group entertained an appreciative
audience recently in the courtyard of
the newly renovated Cape Ann
Museum. … photo by Karen Bell
Janet Young (our
Facebook administrator),
has just concluded a
successful Facebook ad
program that is likely to
draw more visitors on
Sunday mornings.
From now on, she plans to promote each
Sunday service on Facebook and Twitter,
by giving the title or theme of the
sermon, a headshot photo of the minister/
preacher, and a two-sentence bio. She
would also like to feature -- in a separate
post -- the composers/titles of the music
pieces and the names/photos of guest
musicians, if any.
Filling Our Pulpit During October
Page 3 You Told Us What You Thought! Now What?
October 5 Rev. Jenny Rankin
October 12 Rev. Edwin Lynn
“Banana Cream Pie and a Band-
Aid: Kindness as a Daily Virtue”
The Reverend Edwin Lynn is Minister Emeritus of
the Northshore Unitarian Universalist Church in
Danvers, MA, where he had served the
congregation for 33 years. He is a recipient of a
first place prize in the Unitarian Universalist
Borden Sermon Awards, has served on the Borden
Sermon Award jury, and for many years had been a
member of the Billings Preaching Prize jury at the
Harvard Divinity School.
In 1986 Harvard University awarded him a Merrill
Fellowship, after which he served there as both
Denominational Counselor to Unitarian
Universalist students and as a Visiting Lecturer for
22 years, which included teaching the course
“Unitarian Universalist Polity and Practices.”
In addition to his serving as a Unitarian Universalist
minister for over 40 years, Reverend Lynn is also a
registered architect. He is the author of the book
Tired Dragons: Adapting Church Architecture to
Changing Needs and has served as a lecturer and
architectural consultant to over 70 Unitarian
Universalist churches. His newest book, published
in 2011, is Shore Lines: Life Lessons From The Sea,
in which he creates a connection between the
seaside environment and human experience
through imagery and story.
He is a graduate cum laude of the Syracuse
University School of Architecture and received his
MDiv from the Thomas Starr King School for the
Ministry. Rev. Lynn and his wife, Marj, live in the
coastal town of Ipswich, Massachusetts.
October 19 Rev. Jenny Rankin
October 26 Lindsey Crouse
This service will be led by a representative of the
UUA who will speak to us about the ministerial
search process. The theme is "Beyond Categorical
Thinking." Later there will be a workshop to help
our congregation find the best minister match.
Please check the official calendar on our website
for updates. As soon as we have titles for the
homilies, they will be posted on the calendar.
NEW Church email: [email protected]
As we work on the search for our next
settled minister, your thoughts about
the church and our next minister are
very important. We have gathered a lot
of information and opinions about who
we are as a congregation, where we
want to go, and what kind of person will
best help us do that, and we thank all
who have participated in this effort.
Now it’s time to put together a truthful,
dynamic and positive picture of our
church that will attract potential
candidates to look at us. We will do this
by creating a “packet” of information
for prospective candidates and by
enhancing and updating our website.
We will update photos of the church,
church activities and the congregation.
There will be an enhanced section on
our church history, another on the
Gloucester community and a summary
of our survey results. We plan to add
information on our building and include
a description of the music program.
The mission statement that comes out
of our retreat on October 5 will be
included, and will help us show
prospective candidates what the
congregation’s priorities are. This
picture of our church and congregation
is our principal recruiting tool and we
are working hard to get it right. We
have asked various members of the
congregation
and staff to do
some of this
work for us in
the next few weeks. And then we edit,
redo, evaluate and revise the website.
Look for this to go live at the end of
November.
If you have questions or input, please
speak to any member of the Search
Committee.
Gloucester Meetinghouse Benefit Concert & Lecture Series
Page 4
The Fall Concert scheduled for October 11 has been
cancelled.
The next event in our MMM series will be held on
Sunday, October 26th, at 7:30 pm in the
Sanctuary. The meditation leader will be Lama Jesse
Fallon, from the Rockport Buddhist Center. Music
will be provided, but the name of the musician was
not available when we ‘went to press.’
A free will offering of $10 is suggested but everyone
is welcome. There will be a reception afterwards in
the Entrance House with light refreshments.
The meditation leader for the November 30th Music
& Meditation will be Lanesville Yoga instructor Janet
Green.
On November 15th at 7:30 pm, Bob Wech, Music
Director at the Gloucester UU Church is giving an
organ concert which will include Introduction and
Toccata by William Walond, Prelude and Fugue in G
Major, and other selections by J. S. Bach, Organ
Sonata #2 by Felix Mendelssohn, Choral #3 by Cesar
Franck. This concert is a Benefit for the Meeting-
house Preservation Fund, suggested donation at the
door is $15.
Green Initiative Roundtable on
November 2 at 7:00 pm in our
sanctuary. This is a shared event
with the Cape Ann Forum. The title
of the event is The Global Climate
Change Crisis and Making
Gloucester Carbon Neutral, "Where
do we go from here?" The event is
open to the public — there will be
a free-will offering which will
benefit either the Cape Ann Forum
or the Meetinghouse Preservation
Fund.
We especially thank our Event Sponsor
for this event, Harry Hintlian from the
Superior Nut Company — a firm that
has gone beyond carbon neutral. Harry
will join the roundtable to explain the
work of a foundation called Reforest
the Tropics, which plants trees and
manages forests in Central America as a
means for Americans to offset carbon
use and help combat climate change.
The motivation for our city to
participate and even subsidize
Gloucester going carbon neutral is the
benefits to economic development.
Based on the experience of European
towns and communities that have gone
this way, that benefit is considerable.
The cost of utilities are lowered, eco-
tourism booms, business are attracted
to locate here, especially those with
clean energy products. Gloucester’s
brand as an innovative and beautiful
place where creative people live and
work, would only be enhanced.
Our public goal for our Green
Community Plan for Gloucester will be
to reduce our carbon footprint, by 80%
in a decade. But things are moving so
fast, that a 100% or even a net positive
reduction of carbon, could be a possible
goal soon.
Looking Ahead
We need Concert & Lecture Series gifts in order to go forward with our proposed schedule.
Please consider making a tax deductible gift as a Series "Friend" ($10-499), Series "Supporter" ($500+) of the
Series, or as an Event "Sponsor" (varies with cost of event). All contributors will be acknowledged in our
programs. We are also willing to name the Series for a personal or corporate "Guardian Angel"...please
contact the church office for more information about this.
All levels of giving are needed for us to continue presenting concerts whose proceeds will benefit the
Meetinghouse Preservation Fund and sustain the ongoing restoration effort.
The current need is to fund the repair and re-installation of our 1918 stained glass windows with new external
protective glass panels.
More on Page 7
Reaching for the Future
Page 5
THIS IS AN
ABSOLUTELY
PIVOTAL YEAR
FOR OUR
CHURCH.
When You Give Something … You Should Get Something
Did you vote in support of a three quarter
time minister?
Did you vote for the search committee?
Do you plan to vote when a candidate for
settled minister is presented?
Do you want to see religious education
strong and growing?
Would you like to see fewer or no
withdrawals from the endowment?
This is an absolutely pivotal year for our church.
If we all reach for the future with our dollars as
well as our work we will show prospective
candidates and ourselves that we have the means
Read the Canvass Brochure when it comes in the
mail. It will tell you where we stand and why this
is such a crucial year. It will ask you to think anew
about your pledge before making a decision.
You have a new choice about how to pay your
pledge. You can choose automatic fund transfer
from your bank account, an easy way to keep up
with your pledge which will greatly benefit the
church. (See the Karen in the Church office for
details.)
Together we are the church. If you and I don’t
step up, who will?
Come to the canvass celebration the weekend of
November 22 and 23 at George Smith’s
wonderful house in Manchester. You will receive
an invitation when you make your pledge. If you
haven’t by then, you can still make your pledge at
the party. Exact date and time to be determined.
Going into the fall, we're
continuing the practice of
having various committees and
groups take turns hosting
coffee hour. To help you
remember when your turn is,
the committees will go in
Building & Grounds 9/21
Care 9/28
Choir 10/5
Finance 10/12
Membership 10/19
Music & Liturgy 10/26
Religious Education 11/2
Social Justice 11/9
And now for that sweetener...
You get a chance to engage the
congregation and tell them
about your committee -- except
if that day a congregational
meeting, discussion, or other
event is taking place.
A table will be set aside in the
Vestry for your committee to
use to introduced yourselves,
let people know about a
project you're working on, sign
up volunteers for an upcoming
event, or ask people a question
relevant to your work.
On a recent Sunday morning,
the Social Justice Committee
was asking people "What do
you think is the most important
social justice issue right now?"
The only caveats about your
engagement table are :
(1) that it be opt-in, not
mandatory (people must
come to you on their own)
(2) that it not interfere with
anyone's enjoying coffee
hour in their normal way.
Janet Ruth Young
Chair - Membership &
Communications Committee
alphabetical order.
The 2015 Canvass Launches on October 12
Pledging is your chance to express your heartfelt
commitment to all of that and more.
and the will to fulfill our goals.
Nearly forty members of our congregation posed on the
church steps on Sunday, September 7, to send a group
blessing to the Unitarian Universalist Association in their new
headquarters.
The UUA has moved from Beacon Hill to larger quarters in
Boston's Innovation District.
The church photo, in which several members wore
fishermen's slickers and sou'westers and held fishing rods,
was also used in the church's recent Facebook ad that went to
over three thousand people.
Thanks to everyone who participated and to Karen Rembert
Janet Young
Membership and Communication Chair
“BLESSINGS
FROM OUR
HOUSE TO
YOURS”
Page 6
Our Photogenic Congregation
Photos from all UUA churches to be
used as a video which the UUA will
produce to introduce their new
digs.
Ready ...
Set ...
GO!
Choir member, “G” (Georgeanne
Hyatt) has finally received a
voucher for Section 8 housing.
She needs a one bedroom
apartment. If you have one
available, or know of a source,
please call her at 978/876-7689.
OUR TURN TO HOST
AN OPEN DOOR MEAL
Saturday, October 18 (3—7 pm) ...
You don’t have to stay the entire
time. Any help would be welcome.
Contact: Heidi Forrester
for taking the photo.
Lecture on Cape Ann’s Participation in
the Slave Trade, November 9 at 7:00
pm.
Lise Breen’s talk will be the second she
has given at our church. Her first
talk, “To Light the Fires: A Sketch of the
Daltons- Black Citizens of Gloucester
and the World” was delivered at a
service on Sunday, February 9, 2014,
and was supported in part by a grant
from the Gloucester Cultural Council, a
local agency which is supported by the
Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state
agency.
Lise’s research is supported by the
Peabody Essex Museum Phillips Library
and the Munson Institute at Mystic
Seaport.
The event is open to the public and
there is only a free-will offering to
benefit the Meetinghouse Preservation
Fund.
Religious Education: We have a
talented new Interim Director of
Religious Education who will begin the
church school year on October 5. We
are in search of a new Chair of
the Religious Education Committee. If
you are interested, please let Karen
(church administrator) or the
nominating committee know.
Music and Liturgy: Bob Wech, our
newly selected Music Director had his
first rehearsal with the choir on
September 24. He and the choir enjoyed
it greatly. It looks to be an excellent
year for the music program.
Membership:
Our new Social
Justice chair,
Janet Young, is
off and running
with ideas
about coffee
hour, engaging visitors and attracting
new members.
Social Justice: Heidi Forester has
stepped into the position of Social
Justice chair. We are grateful and
excited about her enthusiasm for social
justice programs. We look forward to
another year of community involvement
led by the social justice committee.
Finance: The Finance Committee has
been hard at work on the canvass, in
support of the canvass chairs, Holly
Tanguay and Doug Smith. Finance Chair,
Ken Belanger and the church staff has
worked very hard developing new
building use policies that will clarify our
expectations of renters. Ken will be
meeting with representatives of the
Grace Center this month.
The finance committee believes a
representative from the church should
be in the Church Street foyer to monitor
comings and goings during Grace Center
hours. We will need volunteers to do
this. Please let Karen or Ken know if you
are interested.
Our One Man Technology Committee:
Ken Belanger has also been functioning
as a one man, ad hoc committee on
technology. He just supervised the
installation of a high speed internet
system throughout the church. Security
cameras will be coming soon. Hallelujah
and many thanks to Ken.
NEW Church email: [email protected]
Building and Grounds: As fall begins
and B&G Chair Newt Fink returns from
his honeymoon, action on the building
and grounds will step up.
In case you haven’t noticed there is a
new sign donated by George Smith sign
just outside the main sanctuary
entrance porch on the Church Street
side. The insert is temporary; a final,
weather-resistant insert will be installed
later this month.
Newt Fink commissioned the
reproduction of the wood frame, based
upon the historic version in the
Entrance House. It’s made of Spanish
cedar and should last a very long
time. He also oversaw painting it in the
matching buff trim color with black trim
on the edging. Newt also did the wood
sign installation, including cement
footings and electrical work for the
light.
The first of five donated granite
benches was installed in the front yard
recently, because of the efforts of Shep
Abbot.
Care Committee: The Care Committee is
in transition as Peggy Kimball, former
chair, has resigned to be active on the
Ministerial Search Committee. Please let
Karen or the nominating committee
know if you are interested in being the
new chair. Committee work for those
who are ill or otherwise in need goes on
nonetheless.
Holly Tanguay, Clerk
Page 7
Board Notes
Looking Ahead Continued from Page 4
September 14 Given by Dennis and Janis Daulton in loving memory of
Dennis’s parents, Everett and Marion (Sammet) Daulton, and to honor
the late Harold N. Pike Sr., Dennis’s mentor and friend, and a good friend
of this church.
September 21 Given by Ann Leamon in loving memory of her Grandmother Moore, whose birth-month this is.
September 28 Given by James Schoel and Nicole Richon-Schoel in honor of their mothers, Georgia Brantingham Schoel and Doris Johnson Graham.
Page 8
2 Joanne Taveira
4 Linda Kidder
10 Tish Thornley
11 Dick Wilson
14 JoeAnn Hart
19 Kerry Mullen
20 Lucy Garberg
23 Charles Nazarian
24 Megara Wood
27 Barbara Wilson
Walk to End Homelessness
Saturday, October 18th!
Gather your friends, family and coworkers and join us for
The 1st Annual Family Promise North Shore Boston Walk to End Homelessness
The walk (rain or shine!) begins and ends in Beverly’s historic Lynch Park.
8:00 am: Registration Confirmation/T-Shirts/Coffee/Breakfast Items -- Arrive Early!
9:00 am 5K (3.1 miles) Walk Begins!
11:00 am Food, Raffle Prizes, Music and much more!
To register on line, click here http://www.familypromisensb.org/
Becoming a Pilgrimage Destination … Little by Little
The latest addition to our upstairs hallway are the first two of a group of
small framed portraits of most (if not all) the ministers here since John
Murray in 1774.
Thank you to Holly Tanguay who arranged for the framing. Take a look!
They are a great addition as this community takes steps towards
becoming a “pilgrimage destination” for the wider world and the UU
movement.
--Jenny Rankin