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(No minister's letter this month).
| CHILDREN'S RE/YOUTH PROGRAM |
Kids, join us for three half-days of fun! We provide the
stories, games, crafts, songs and fun. You provide the
play clothes, bag lunch and friends. Call Ellen Monday
or Thursday mornings, 7:30-12:30, or visit the office on
Sundays to sign up. You must register your child by Monday,
July 26. Camp is for entering K-5th graders. Older children
may register to be camp helpers but must be prepared to
assist the leaders and younger children. Hope to see your
child's name on the list!
Are we all enjoying the summer? It is great to see so
many of us attending the 10 AM services and children's
Super Summer Sundays. The UUFA really does run all year
long, offering a community of support in our busy times,
and in our down times. It isto meet new people, not just
visitors, but those Fellowship members who miss each other
by attending alternate program times during the rest of
the year.
I am looking forward to many opportunities as we rotate
into a new fiscal cycle. My third and final year on staff
at MidWest Leadership School will take place July 21 through
August 1. This will be a bitter- sweet parting for me as
I take with me many treasured memories and experiences,
and leave behind far away friendships that have thrived
through our work together. I also leave the Prairie Star
District Volunteer Recruitment Committee, having completed
my one year term.
If you ever get a call from someone asking you to serve
as a district volunteer, I hope you consider it. Imagine
all the essentials volunteers do at our Fellowship to keep
things running smoothly. Now imagine the bigger picture
of Prairie Star, which includes the congregations from
eight states all working together to offer support, connections
and services to our UU congregations. Some UUFA members
are already serving the district: Brian Eslinger as the
VP to the Board of Directors, Sam Wormley on the Denominational
Affairs Committee, and Liz Weber heading up theSharefundraising
effort, to name a few. I will join them as I serve on the
Committee on Religious Education (CORE) with other DREs
from Prairie Star District.
And as a UUFA member, I am looking forward to being a
mentor to Samanthya Rennings in the Coming of Age program.
Many of you have already had the honor of being a mentor
to our youth, and more of you are involved this year. These
are the kinds of commitments we make to each other as a
Fellowship community. We learn and grow together, strengthening
our connections and our purpose. By reaching out, we reach
within, finding more strength and courage than we can muster
alone. "From you I receive, to you I give. Together
we share, and from this we live." Blessed Be!
Deb
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Fresh coffee and leisurely newspaper reading are hallmarks
of our Sunday morning routine before we head to the Fellowship.
Most days, Mark wakes up first, makes coffee and works
his way through a section or two of the paper before I
appear downstairs.
But on those mornings when our timing is off and he's
not a step ahead, we're not above hoarding coveted sections
and snatching the same from each other's stacks when we
sense a momentary distraction. Staggering, we find, works
much better. In much the same way, our Fellowship could
benefit from some more intentional staggering on Sunday
mornings during the fall and spring. Attendance at the
11 AM services is often double that of the 9 AM services.
And while next fall's 9 AM RE classes are so small as to
barely be viable, the 11 AM classes are so full that moving
a group back into the tower room (former library space)
is already a real possibility. Some families are unable
to attend the 9 AM service because they have children in
middle school or high school groups, which only meet at
11. And those groups are already straining at the seams. The high school group
expects 22 this fall, and the middle school group has 19. Each of those groups
could fill the combined space downstairs if the divider wall were opened, but
as it stands, all 41 plus teachers will occupy the compartmentalized space
at 11.
But for those families with the flexibility to make the
move to the earlier service, the benefits could be dramatic.
Parking, often stretching a quarter-mile west on Ross Road by 10:50, is much
more accessible at 9. Visitors now face either a sparsely populated fellowship
hall at 9 or a room so full at 11 that we must set up rickety folding chairs
in the aisles as people arrive, both intimidating, unwelcoming scenes for
newcomers.
Upstairs in the elementary RE classes, fall registration
for the third- and fourth grade classes shows just four
children at 9 AM but 17 at 11 AM. Splitting the later group
into two sections would mean finding more space to meet
and recruiting two more teachers. In the earlier session,
combining groups into wider age ranges to reach critical
mass would mean abandoning the two-year cycle of the RE
curriculum we just purchased.
Given all this, our family has reluctantly but
with a sense of purpose agreed
to wake up earlier and see how the other third live (and who the other
third are). I'm not at all sure how this will play out
at home as far as newspaper reading goes; perhaps dual
subscriptions will be necessary. But I'm confident that
both the Fellowship and our children will benefit from
our switch.
Brenda
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