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Healing Ourselves and Our World, District Events, News and more...

 

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Healing Ourselves and Our World

Dear Pacific Western Region Congregational Leaders,

We often speak of the importance of learning to address and regulate our own anxiety so that we are grounded and centered as we attend to the important relationships in our lives and our work in the world.

Some years ago, I participated in a Capacitar International workshop and learned of their good work aimed at healing ourselves and our world. They have a toolkit of body practices that they created when they were working with victims of Hurricane Katrina. You can download the toolkit [Word doc] in over twenty languages. In it you'll find exercises based on breathwork, tai chi, fingerholds to manage emotions, emotional freedom technique, a variety of holds, head and shoulder releases, and acupressure.

As a parish minister, I introduced a few of these during "A Time for All Ages" and during contemplative times of the service. They were always well received. I used them with our Pastoral Associates and offered a few workshops where we taught them. We found ourselves blessed in the process. I kept copies of the toolkit in my office to hand out when appropriate.

And I found it helpful to incorporate a few of these in my own spiritual practices.

In the spirit of healing,
Rev. Jan
PWR Congregational Life Staff

 
 
March 16, 2017
In this Issue
  • Healing Ourselves and Our World
  • Webinars
  • Events & Training
  • District and UU News
  • Youth Ministries
 
PWR Quick Links
 
PWR Field Staff
 

Events, Training and Webinars

 

Webinars

Webinars offer a convenient way to engage in online collaborative learning. Participating as a learning community in your congregation gives your team a starting point to gain insight, discuss with religious leaders, and focus your congregation on what matters. Webinars are just $20 per connection and can be watched by one person at home or with a group from your church.


Reaching Out to Millennials & Young Families

Rev. Annie Gonzalez Milliken & Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh
Mar. 18, 2017 - 9-10am PT

This webinar is designed for UU congregations who know their community has something to offer young adults and families with young children and want to intentionally reach out to those groups. We'll explore characteristics of successful outreach efforts and help you identify concrete ways your congregation can build meaningful connections with members of these groups.

Reaching Out to Millennials & Young Families


Free Online Conversation!

Creative Responses to Budget Shortfalls

Rev. Jan Christian and Kay Crider
Apr. 4, 2017 - 6:30-7:45pm PT

Join on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/6640792098

No need to register for this online conversation exploring the many ways that congregations can respond creatively to budget shortfalls or pledge campaigns that didn't meet their targets. Join Rev. Jan Christian, Congregational Life Staff, and Kay Crider of Stewardship for Us, as they share guidance from their years of experience working with congregational finances.

 

Online Courses

UU Leadership Institute

Registration is only $30/person. You have until June 30 to complete the course!


Leading Adaptively

Develop advanced leadership skills to learn how to face your congregation's toughest challenges: the ones we don't have ready answers for. The "Adaptive Leadership" framework, pioneered by Harvard's Dr. Ronald Heifetz, is more than a toolbox of tips. It will change the way you think about your own leadership and will equip you to lead through any change, welcome or unwelcome.


Healthy Leadership 101

Whether you are brand-new to leadership or have been a leader for decades, this course will give you and your leadership team an understanding of how your congregation functions as an interconnected, organic system of relationships.


Compassionate Communication

By engaging in Compassionate Communication during this course, practitioners "rewire their brains," grow their consciousness of compassion, and increase the depth and effectiveness of an embodied response to injustice and suffering in the world. Participants gain expertise so that they can themselves be trainers and facilitators of these practices.


Intercultural Skills for a Diverse World

Each of us has culture–conscious and unconscious ways of being in the world. To become a truly multicultural faith, we need leaders who can build relationships effectively across difference including ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, gender, and more. Come learn about a model of understanding cultural competence which will help you learn these skills.


Spiritual Direction in Congregational Life

As America's religious landscape continues to change dramatically, congregations are confronted with a host of unprecedented challenges; challenges that require fresh approaches to leadership. How might spiritual direction nurture a soulful and heartfelt way of leading congregations?


The History and Theology of Covenant, UU Style

Why does covenant matter so much? This course represents a deep dive into one of the hottest conversational topics in today's Unitarian Universalist world: our commitment to covenant.


Transgender Inclusion in Congregations

Do you want to take your knowledge and skills to the next level in terms of trans identity and creating congregations that are fully inclusive and affirming of the full breadth of gender diversity? Regardless of where you and/or your congregation are on your journey, this course is for you.


From Visitor to a Full Spectrum of Member Engagement

Growing your membership isn't just about numbers, it's about how we welcome the stranger and create beloved community.


Revitalizing the Smaller Congregation

Does your congregation have fewer than 100 members? Do your leaders burn out quickly? Do you get first time visitors but not many repeat visitors? This course is for you!

 

Save the Date

 

Denominational News

 

Want to make your congregation more accessible and inclusive?

Rev. Tandi Rogers, our region's Accessibility & Inclusion Ministries specialist is gathering congregations interested in (or actively working through) the UUA's AIM certification program. The AIM certification program is very much like Welcoming Congregations or Green Sanctuaries, only for Accessibility & Inclusion. Imagine a year connected with other congregations working on their certification for mutual support and cross-pollination. We're better together! Contact Tandi at trogers@uua.org.

 
 

PWR Congregations in the News

God above politics: Local churches oppose Trump seeking to 'destroy' Johnson Amendment
"Elizabeth Stevens, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, feels the separation between church and state is a part of the fabric of this nation. 'Religious pluralism is one of the values of this country, and that means all religions,' she said. Stevens went on to describe how religions, from Catholicism to Buddhism, are independent from each other and from the state, which she said is an important relationship to maintain."
Read more in the Daily Evergreen

Fresno's faithful on front lines of protecting undocumented immigrants
"Sanctuary churches have been making national headlines in other cities, including a Unitarian church in Denver that sheltered an immigrant who sought sanctuary after skipping an appointment with an immigration agent. 'I think the biggest question is, 'Will the current administration respect what has been the practice, that if there are refugees on a church campus, that they won't break that sanctuary, enter and arrest,'' says the Rev. Tim Kutzmark of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno."
Read more in the Fresno Bee

Banners fly over I-25 as group supports immigrants, refugees and keeping families together
"Nearly 200 people gathered at Washington Park in Denver on Saturday to rally and march in support of immigrants, refugees and keeping families together. Jeanette Vizguerra and Ingrid Encalada Latorre, who are seeking sanctuary at the First Unitarian Society of Denver and Mountain View Friends Meeting respectively, spoke to attendees before the march by phone. Both women thanked supporters in Spanish."
Read more in the Denver Post

'Valve turners' get warm welcome
"They didn't look like heroes. But the so-called "valve turners" — five climate activists who got themselves arrested on Oct. 11 when they broke into oil company control stations in four states and simultaneously shut off pipelines carrying Canadian crude into the United States — got a heroes' welcome from a Corvallis audience Saturday night. More than 150 people filled the sanctuary at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis to hear a presentation from the five activists, who looked more like unassuming middle-aged professionals than dangerous eco-guerrillas, and a sixth person who was arrested for assisting them."
Read more in the Corvallis Gazette-Times

New book 'True South' looks back on civil-rights movement and 'Eyes on the Prize'
"Two days after the "Bloody Sunday" march in 1965, when African-American protesters in Selma, Ala., were battered by police on national television, Martin Luther King Jr. led another march across the same bridge. Among those at that second march was Henry Hampton, a 24-year-old official with the Unitarian Universalist Church. Hampton was proud to be there — and then, like many in the march, was baffled when King and the march's leaders halted, knelt in prayer and turned around."
Read more in the Seattle Times


Tools Available Now at uucsj.org

As UUA, UUSC and CSJ develop new campaign strategies and the tools and trainings to support them, we are coordinating our efforts to make it easy for our constituents to find what they need. A common website is under development to host these resources, and will also offer a way to amplify and share strategies and resources coming from UUA regional staff, UU State Action Networks and congregations.

Resources that have already been developed are available at uucsj.org, under the tab "Act": "Tools for Sanctuary and Solidarity".

In particular, we'd like you to know about the following:

The Congregational Action Guide has a range of activities, links and support resources and will be updated continually.

For churches interested in declaring Sanctuary, we have a completely updated Sanctuary Toolkit that will answer many of the questions that arise and offer practical guidance and support. We have also recorded two webinars on the topic with Katia Hansen of UURISE: one focused primarily on the discernment process and the other offering a practical guide on getting there. Both include Q and A and presentations from members of Sanctuary congregations.

Beyond sanctuary, the UUA's Standing on the Side of Love has created Protect and Defend Organizing, a rich compilation of suggested actions, grassroots groups and strategies widely applicable in a range of congregational settings. UUSC has recorded two webinars as a survey of options for action, including but not limited to the offer of physical sanctuary.


2018 Justice Trip needs a justice project!

The PWR is working on a Pacific Western Justice Project Trip. The Advisory Panel for the 2018 Pacific Western Justice Trip is searching for a project or congregational initiative that needs some help.

Details are still being worked out, but here's what we know so far:
Who: Up to 20 high school youth and adults
Time: July 2018
Duration: One week
Location: Pacific Western Region

Is your congregation involved in a justice project that could use some help? Have you identified a need in your community? Contact Katie Covey, PWR Justice Trip Lead, at justicetrip@pwruua.org.


Worship Attendance Increase Focus Group

For those of you experiencing a Trump Bump (increased seekers and perhaps membership engagement), or as I like to call it, the Lifting of the Veil or the 21st Century Great Awakening — would you be interested in being part of a virtual, regional focus group? Your Pacific Western Regional Staff has prioritized designing and curating resources to help you navigate these times. We want to hear how this increase has changed your congregation's understanding of membership, pathway to membership and/or your congregation's sense of mission. We want to hear how you are responding to the increase, what's working, what's not, and what you need to succeed. If you are interested, please contact Rev. Tandi Rogers at trogers@uua.org


Chalice Lighters Across the Region

The Pacific Southwest District's Winter Chalice Lighter Call is going toward the renovation of rooms at First UU Church of Los Angeles. Assistance from Chalice Lighters will allow them to bring two lovely but badly-worn rooms back to attractive shape. They will become spaces that communicate UU values with beauty and warmth.

The Pacific Central District's Winter Chalice Lighter Call opened February 20. For their inaugural call under the new program, they are supporting a new type of ministerial internship program. Funds collected from this call will be held by the district until an application comes from a suitably sized congregation to run this trial internship program.

The Pacific Northwest Winter Chalice Lighter Call raised grant money for the Magic Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Twin Falls, ID to replace the roof and make additional urgent repairs. The generosity of Chalice Lighters in the Pacific Northwest will help attract future UUs needing a liberal religious home in a religiously conservative community.


Briefs

Skinner House Books, the imprint of the Unitarian Universalist Association, invites members of UU communities to submit proposals for the Spring 2018 inSpirit title. The inSpirit Series was previously known as the Meditation Manual Series. Meditations can be prose or poetry, humorous and personal, or formal and liturgical. Each prose meditation is typically between 200 and 650 words. Poetry meditations should be no longer than 54 lines each. All meditations should be suitable for both private reflection and public worship. The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2017.


Are you interested in receiving regular updates with tips and resources on compensation, staffing, and personnel matters? Sign up for Compensation and Staffing News, a new monthly publication from the Office of Church Staff Finances. Developed with supervisors and human resources teams in mind, topics may also be of interest to administrators, finance committees, and others who assist with employment matters.

 

Youth

 

Goldmine Youth Leadership School

Applications are open!

Goldmine is a week-long community-building and training space for high school youth interested in leadership, activism, and spiritual growth. Goldmine 2017 will be held July 23-29, 2017 in Golden, CO (just outside Denver) at Jefferson Unitarian Church.


High School Youth Civil Rights Pilgrimage

Join a life-changing and awesome summer experience! High School Youth Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham, Alabama being offered June 5-9 for rising 9th graders to graduated 12th graders.

This trip is being planned by the Living Legacy Project along with UU DREs, retired UU ministers, song leaders of the music of the Underground Railroad and the modern Civil Rights Movement, and Civil Rights Era Veterans. This high school generation may be one of the last generations to hear the Veterans of the Civil Rights Era share their stories firsthand!

Visit the Living Legacy website to get more info about this amazing opportunity and register! Youth Leadership Grants are also available for this trip!

Contact Tina DeYoe - tina@uulosalamos.org or Jules Jaramillo - dlre@ccuu.org for more information.


Upcoming Youth Ministries Events

 
 
 
Day of Promise: Collected Meditations

Edited by Kathleen Montgomery, Skinner House, 2001

This collection of prose and poetry, gathered from the more than 1,700 meditations published since 1961, was created with a specific audience in mind: a reader looking for comfort and challenge, perhaps not a Unitarian Universalist but someone open to our values and our theology. For that reason the selections are not about Unitarian Universalism but of it. Each is by a Unitarian Universalist; each, I think, captures something important embedded in our tradition.

Becoming: A Spiritual Collection for Navigating Adulthood

Edited by Kayla Parker, Skinner House, 2015

A spiritual companion for young adults and all who live amid transitions and tensions. Dozens of carefully selected readings address themes that are prominent for people in their twenties and early thirties. A companion small group ministry guide is available on UUA.org. The topics include: passion and purpose, identity, community, losing and finding, and justice and creation. This treasury of uplifting and thought-provoking meditations can serve as a guide and provide comfort on our never-ending journey of becoming. Named one of the best books of 2016 by Spirituality & Practice.