Community Conversations Continue

Thank you to the twenty-four people who registered or showed up for the conversation on “Church 2.0” with board member Clovice Lewis. Clovice provided us with a framework for examining the broad and long-term contexts in which we will be making decisions on how to be a congregation in the near future. The raw recording of the conversation is available here. People expressed a desire for a day-long conference to explore various subtopics in greater depth! If this appeals to you, exploring resources on “church planting” are a great place to start.

Here are some other topics that people are interested in discussing with others:

  • Religious education, volunteer development, whole church ministry
  • Promising practices for search committees to invite diverse people into congregational leadership
  • How is engagement with the report of the UUA’s
    Commission on Institutional Change going?
  • What kind of help can we offer each other as congregations try to maintain both virtual and in-person services? 

Please tentatively reserve Sunday, May 16th at 3PM PT/Noon HST for our next community conversation. The final date and time and a link to a registration form in which you can indicate your preference for a topic will be published in April.

With the Love Right Through Forums also taking place, there are many conversations…and PCD Board hopes to continue to host spaces for conversations open to topics that matter to us at the moment we gather.

Chalice Lighters

We have raised $3700.70 for the UUA Disaster Relief Fund! Thank you to the 167 people who contributed to the last Chalice Lighters call. 

If you can give to support local initiatives to grow in our mission to love all the world and every each other, please consider becoming a Chalice Lighter. You can set up automatic giving on PCD’s automatic giving page or make a one-time donation at PCD’s general giving page. 

The next call will support the Unitarian Universalist Church in Berkeley to create a UU History Pilgrimage for Youth around the crucial areas of Unitarian and Universalist history in the Bay Area. UUCB hopes this program of field trips and events for 10th-12th graders magnifies and fosters relationships with other congregations in the spirit of shared history and connection. In addition, the Chalice Lighters grant will be used to establish a care package program with local universities to foster and build connection with the faith of the present and the faith of the future simultaneously.

If you are interested in the future of the Chalice Lighters program and how the four PWR Districts might fundraise together, the next Love Right Through Forum on Monday, April 5th will center on the Chalice Lighters program. Register here if you haven’t already, and provide your input here if you can’t attend in person.

PCD Annual Meeting in June

The PCD Annual Meeting with take place either Saturday, June 5th at 3PM PT/Noon HST or Saturday, June 12th at 3PM PT/Noon HST. The date will be set in April. Please put these on your calendar, and reflect on whom you might want to have as delegates from your community, and whom you might want to have as a board member. Change is in the air!

Final Thoughts

In so many ways the times we live in feel pivotal. As I write, news of a second mass shooting within a week fills my screens. My tears were not dry yet. This cannot be our new normal. This cannot remain our normal. Thank you, fellow UUs, not only for continuously affirming that there are other possibilities, but your ongoing willingness to make those possibilities real.

Catherine