the OUUC spark

Our “church year” (the program year that roughly follows the school year as well) for 2022-23 is coming to a close. This year Rev Mary and I chose a theme of “Building Beloved Community with a focus on anti-racism and the practice of coming together again, in-person, online, and in covenant” to guide our program activities. So let’s look back a little bit, on how we built beloved community this year. This is, by necessity, only a partial account of all that went on, so I apologize for all omissions.

We launched into the Fall with a gusto this year, with no more reservations required to attend worship in person, although seating was still spaced out a bit more and masks were required. We also launched the Thursday Dinner program in September, and we gathered to eat together every week (except for 2 snow cancellations and the one planned week off between Christmas and New years).

In the Fall we held a wonderful Blessing of the Backpacks for students of all ages, and we had 9 youth join us for the 7th-9th grade Our Whole Lives class that began meeting on Thursday evenings. We also held an anti-racism class for elementary aged kids on Thursday evenings. Our Sunday offerings for kids were nursery care and a “SpiritPlay” (Montessori style story program) class and we also created a comfy corner in the sanctuary that allowed families with little ones to stay in the worship service comfortably with their kids. The youth group also started meeting on Sunday afternoons and chose to spend their year exploring anti-racism topics as well as building community with each other through planned fun and social activities. Many other programs for learning for people of all ages began.

The Fall also saw the return to the in-person Books, Beans, and Brownies sale, with a huge team of dedicated volunteers coming together to make that a success. We welcomed the general community back into our building again, even as we continued to require masks. The sale raised over $10,000 for our Faith in Action community partners.

We worked on our understanding of Covenant and a behavioral covenant writing team began their work. Our community continued to grow, as we welcomed a great cohort of New Members.

But we also faced a big challenge to our community, as the furnaces went out and the building got Cold. We launched a Capital Campaign and a Reserve Study Task Force to look at the repair and maintenance needs of our building and to raise funds to do the necessary repairs and to pay off the mortgage.

We rang in the New Year with a beautiful outdoor Fire Communion.

Our Tech and Communications teams worked hard to keep us all informed and continued to offer multiplatform engagements with our community. And I launched a new project with the Tiny Little News Show.

The youth group asked if they could have an overnight again - something they hadn’t done since pre-covid. We had a lot of fun returning to that tradition, with an honestly pretty chill night of karaoke on youtube, pizza, board games, and sleeping bags on all the comfy spots that could be found.

The Stewardship Team started their campaign by focusing on community and gratitude first, and held a lovely Valentine’s Party.

Energy and attendance grew, and we called for hymnals to be returned as we started to run out on Sunday mornings. We went to mask optional. We held classes for all ages and study groups worked with hard topics like anti-racism. The Faith in Action Alert List was busy with many calls to action and advocacy during the Legislative session. And we continued to be challenged by no furnaces and cold offices through the winter, so many of us bundled up!

With the spring, the work began to put in a heat pump to replace the broken furnaces. We had to move worship into the classrooms for a few Sundays, while encouraging most of us to attend online if that met our spiritual needs.

We had a lovely Easter Egg Hunt in the park down the street, and then the kids returned to the church to trade eggs for fun prizes.

We showed up at the Capitol to support Trans Rights.

Our Coming of Age group went on their camping retreat, with each of them spending 24 hours in silent reflection (mostly).

And we had a very fun “Come Together” Beatles-themed auction, with great energy and fun in the OUUC building and a successful fundraising for the OUUC program budget.

We navigated some tough budget decisions and held our Annual meeting, followed by a short party to recognize three staff anniversaries: 10 years for Marie Arensmeyer (Facilities Manager), and 15 years each for Anissa Bentlemsani (RE Assistant) and me (your Director of Community and Faith Development).

We celebrated and shared about all we had done this year at our End of Year Party, with Teams tabling and talking to each other.

And we celebrated our youth who were Bridging and Coming of Age in worship.

That was a beautiful year of building Beloved Community, with a focus on anti-racism, in person and online, and in Covenant with one another. This is a beautiful community, made up of all of us.

This program year comes to a close, and things will be a bit different over the summer. But there will still be opportunities for community! We worship every Sunday at 10am. And I hope to see you all at the All OUUC Picnic at Millersylvania State Park, Saturday August 26th, 3-6pm.

Thank you for being part of this Beloved Community.

It is a long OUUC tradition to do a flower ceremony in June to mark the coming of Summer and the end of the congregational program year.

This year’s flower ceremony at OUUC will be in the service on Sunday, June 11. If you plan to attend the service online, please find a flower or flowers to show on your camera. If you plan to attend onsite, please bring a flower (or several) with you. We’ll have some flowers available, so no one will go home without some color and beauty.

It is also a long Unitarian tradition to hold a flower ceremony in the Spring. The flower ceremony ritual was developed by Rev. Norbert Čapek in June 1923, so it is 100 years old this year! The idea of flower ceremony is to celebrate our colorful diversity. In the ritual, we share the beauty of flowers and go home with a different flower than we came with.

Plan to join this service filled with history and beauty.

https://www.ouuc.org/worship-and-music/worship/

See you there!

Rev. Mary

Minister@ouuc.org

Website: https://www.ouuc.org

Email: liberalfaith@ouuc.org

Location: 2315 Division St NW, Olympia, WA, USA
Phone: (360) 634-2005

Office Hours

Tuesday - Thursday, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

Staff Contacts

Rev. Mary Gear, Minister

Rev. Sara Lewis, Director of Community and Faith Development

Troy Fisher, Music Director

Darlene Sarkela, Congregational Administrator

Teresa Madsen, Communications & Tech Coordinator

Marie Arensmeyer, Facilities Manager

Anissa Bentlemsani, Religious Education Assistant

Carbon Marshall, Tech Specialist