A traditional Unitarian Universalist Christmas Eve service, with stories, carols, music, and candle lighting. Bring a candle and a source of light! What are the gifts that matter? Homily by Rev. Connie Grant; music by Ellen Gozion, Director of Instrumental Music and the Incidental Chamber Players.
Winter Solstice podcast Friday, December 25, athttps://www.wesa.fm/programs/pittsburgh-explainer#stream/0 Listento an NPR podcast interview of Erica Shadowsong, Director of Lifespan Religious Education, discussing our winter solstice service and its significance for today!
Darkness can be a place of fear and sadness or a source of comfort and rest. We’ll explore aspects of darkness in our lives. A collaboration of the Worship Team: Bryan Bandli, Alice Carnes, Kathy Fein, Louise Jencik, Ward Kelsey, Stephanie Pawlowski, and Melody Platz. Music by Nanette Solomon, guest pianist.
What have we learned from 2020? How will we begin anew in 2021?
Homily by Rev. Connie Grant; music by Ellen Gozion, Director of Instrumental Music.
SERVE
Church Sponsored Activities and Community Events
First UU 2020 Alternative Gift Market- Khasi Hills School Sponsorship Project
The Alternative Gift Market has chosen our long-time Khasi Hills School Sponsorship project in India to be this year’s featured charity. With our
congregation not gathering in-person, our typical Gift Market process is not feasible this year. By choosing to focus on one critical First Unitarian Church
project via the Alternative Gift Market, we can support a major congregational commitment and help our dedicated Khasi Hills Team who
has also been hampered in fundraising during the pandemic.
THIS LINK will take you to our church website article with more details on how to donate your Khasi Hills gift. We hope you will keep the Khasi Hills project in mind as a beautiful option for purchasing gifts in honor of special people in your life. There is a range of gift levels from a library book to portions of a teacher’s salary. Gift acknowledgments can be sent to you for inclusion with holiday cards (See details in website article)
Thank you for supporting this wonderful First Unitarian Church congregationally supported project and for your generous support each year through the Alternative Gift Market! Two-in-one this year!
What About the January Senate runoffs in Georgia?? 01/05/2021 7:00 AM
What about the January Senate runoffs in Georgia?
This is a question raised at last week's Women's Alliance meeting. So here are some suggestions if you have the time and energy and/or money to support GOTV for these important races. The suggestions from Madeline and Sandy are especially valuable as they come from people with personal knowledge of the effective organizations at work in GA. Check out these recommendations from Madeline Darnell, who recently moved from GA to join us here in Pgh: Stacie Abram's Fair Fight. "They are doing a great job and her organization knows how to get out the vote in Georgia." https://fairfight.com The Athens Clarke County Knock on Every Door Campaign. "I know the folks doing it and they'll do a good job (It's my former hometown). " https://flagpole.com/news/in-the-loop/2020/11/16/commissioners-mount-grassroots-campaign-for-democrats-in-runoff/ From a friend of Sandra Woolley in GA, here is a link to sign up with the Georgia New Voters Project focusing on assuring the youth voice is heard by helping students register and turn out to vote for the runoff election on January 5th. To do this, they will be holding weekly phonebanks on Mondays and Thursdays and weekly text banks on Tuesdays to get out the vote, focusing attention and messaging on the important deadlines leading up to Election Day. Use this link to sign up to help:: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSevfJnfgxFx8LFkEpCYy35YpA3v0hIacYIhnwv7mGam39oJuw/viewform The Environmental Voter Project, with who some of us have worked before, has identified 382,844 environmentalists in Georgia who are unlikely to vote in the two Jan. 5th runoff elections for U.S. Senate. Each session will begin with easy training so you'll learn exactly what you need to do. If you are Already Trained? Great! Sign up, get your log-in information at the beginning of the shift, skip the training session, and get right to making calls!
SIGN UP HERE: https://www.environmentalvoter.org/events?emci=3796148c-862a-eb11-9fb4-0003ff196a4c&emdi=b3af3a38-8a2a-eb11-9fb4-0003ff196a4c&ceid=2146788 UU the Vote Georgia Phonebanks began on Sunday, November 22, 2020. The work continues, from protecting the results of the election to continuing to expand democracy in Georgia, we must commit ourselves to build democracy and justice for all of us! One way to do that is by supporting our national partner Reclaim Our Vote, whose mission is to increase turnout among voters of color, by calling and texting voters in Georgia before the Senate Runoff elections on January 5. Go tohttps://actionnetwork.org/forms/reclaim-our-vote-signupto sign up and work with this group.
For UU the VOTE work in GA go to https://www.uuthevote.org/phone-banking/.They will be using a manual dialer so that we can leave voicemails with important voting information. All training will be included in the event. Once trained, you will be able to use this system to make calls after your initial phonebank any day of the week.
And if you want to write letters to GA, try Vote Forward who has several campaigns in Georgia to encourage application for ballots and to vote: https://votefwd.org/campaigns. It has been a long election season, but our efforts are valuable and the work will continue even with a new administration.
Sharing the Plate! Is there an organization you’d like to nominate to be the recipient of our third-Sunday Share the Plate offering? Please send your nomination to Tony Rutigliano (arutigl@comcast.net) on behalf of the Serve Council. Please include the following information:
Name of organization
Website address or other source of information
Is this a 501 (c) (3) organization (required)?
What is your involvement with this organization?
Why do you consider this an appropriate recipient for our Share the Plate offering?
Preferred month (if any)
Helping Each Other During these trying times, members of the church may occasionally need a helping hand. The Pastoral Care Team asks you to identify ways you may be able to assist. We expect you would be called only a few times during the year. Please contact a member of the team if you are able to help.
You’ll be asked to indicate which of these you may be able to help with from time to time:
□ Transportation
□ Providing a meal for an individual or family
□ Shopping
In the event of a need in the congregation, you may be contacted to see whether you are available to help at that time. Your help will be appreciated!
Pastoral Care Team Contact Information:
Christine Beregi: cberegi1@verizon.net Phone: 412-992-1888 Jan Carlino: jancarlino807@gmail.com Phone: 412-727-0200 Julie Childers: julie36pa@gmail.com Phone: 412-726-3590 Jim Cunningham: cunni@comcast.net Phone: 412-256-0205 (Co-Chair)
Kathy Miller: kathymillerotter@gmail.com Phone: 412-639-8012 (Co-Chair)
Bob Sullivan: r.sullivan13@verizon.net Phone: 412-952-7772 Rev. Connie Grant: constance.l.grant@gmail.com Phone: 847-840-8542 (Church Office: 412-621-8008)
LEARN
Adult Religious Education
Announcing a book discussion starting on January 7th at 7:30 p.m.
Tales of Two Planets Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World
Edited by John Freeman
Building from his acclaimed anthology Tales of Two Americas, beloved writer and
editor John Freeman draws together a group of our greatest writers from around the
world to help us see how the environmental crisis is hitting some of the most vulnerable
communities where they live.
Galvanized by his conversations with writers and activists around the world, Freeman engaged with
some of today's most eloquent storytellers, many of whom hail from the places under the most acute
stress--from the capital of Burundi to Bangkok, Thailand. The response has been extraordinary.
Margaret Atwood conjures a dystopian future in a remarkable poem. Lauren Groff whisks us to
Florida; Edwidge Danticat to Haiti; Tahmima Anam to Bangladesh; Yasmine El Rashidi to Egypt,
while Eka Kurniawan brings us to Indonesia, Chinelo Okparanta to Nigeria, and Anuradha Roy to
The Himalayas in the wake of floods, dam building, and drought. This is a literary all-points bulletin of
fiction, essays, poems, and reportage about the most important crisis of our times.
If you wish to join our discussion on Thursday evenings via Zoom starting on January 7th at
7:30 to 9:00 p.m. Contact Alice Carnes for a Zoom invitation. Alice.carnes51@yahoo.com or 704-453-4175.
New Book Group Starting in January
Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Viktor E. Frankl
Eleven months after he was liberated from the Nazi concentration camps, Viktor E. Frankl held a series of public lectures in Vienna. The psychiatrist, who would soon become world-famous, explained his central thoughts on meaning, resilience, and the importance of embracing life even in the face of great adversity. Frankl’s words resonate as strongly today—as the world faces a coronavirus pandemic, social isolation, and great economic uncertainty—as they did in 1946. He offers an insightful exploration of the maxim “Live as if you were living for the second time,” and he unfolds his basic conviction that every crisis contains an opportunity. Despite the unspeakable horrors of the camps, Frankl learned from the strength of his fellow inmates that it is always possible to “say yes to life”—a profound and timeless lesson for us all. To sign up, email eshadowsong@first-unitarian-pgh.org.
UU Spiritual Affinity Groups Do you consider yourself a UU Buddhist? UU Christian? Buddhist? Humanist? Pagan? All of these and more are part of our congregation, but not all of us know who we are! I am looking to help those interested to start affinity groups in which they can explore and practice those spiritual paths that call them the most. Unitarian Universalism represents a wide variety of faith paths among individuals who share our 7 Principles in common. Many of us have a need to engage with our spiritual paths with others more directly and frequently than we otherwise might as a whole congregation. Please email eshadowsong@first-unitarian-pgh.org to let me know of your interest. When I have a minimum of 4 for any group, I will connect you with each other and we will discuss possibilities for activities, learning, and engagement.
Young Adults Religious Education
Young Adults Small Group Weekly Meetings on Zoom
Please join us for our weekly meeting at 7 pm on Wednesdays, where we explore spiritual practice in our everyday lives. Interested in joining us? Email Erica at eshadowsong@first-unitarian-pgh.org
Children and Youth Religious Education
The Artist's Way for Parents - New Book Group for Parents!
Now a book group especially for parents of school-aged children and youth.
According to Cameron, “Every child is creative—and every parent is creative. Your child requires joy, and exercising creativity, both independently and together, makes for a happy and fulfilling family life.” Focusing on parents and their children, newborn through age twelve, The Artist’s Way for Parents builds on the foundation of The Artist’s Way and shares it with the next generation. The spiritual concepts and practical tools in this book will guide parents as they steer their children gently to greater creativity. The Artist’s Way for Parents provides an ongoing spiritual toolkit that parents can enter—and reenter—at any pace and at any point in their children’s early years.
This book group will be facilitated by the LRED, with dates and times to be determined by committed participants. This group will be held if there is a minimum of participating parents of 6 families. Participants can be parents in the RE program or who have school-aged children and are friends or visitors of the church. Contact the LRED at eshadowsong@first-unitarian-pgh.org right away if interested!
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES Sundays @ 11:30 am to 12:00 pm Join the director of religious education and religious education volunteers for an ongoing exploration of living our Unitarian Universalist faith at home, in our families, and beyond. During this year of the church building closure, we are spending more time than ever with our families, a situation that presents many challenges, but also some opportunities. Religious education for children this year will have a multi-age, family focus; parents are invited to attend with their children via Zoom. This year, we are diving into the6 Sources of Unitarian Universalist faith (https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/sources). Zoom information will be sent to the parent list; please email me directly to be added to the list at eshadowsong@first-unitarian-pgh.org.
CONNECT
Men's Group of 1st Church The January 13th meeting of the Men's group will be from 7:30 to 9:00 with a ZOOM gathering. We will begin with our usual check-in and then - we will have a discussion.
What gives you JOY now. Not just pleasure, Not just fun, Not just something about which to think pleasant thoughts, but true, deep down JOY and Satisfaction - and why.
If you need any help with the zoom link, get back to me. I will copy the link at the bottom of this message. AND send me your ideas for a meeting topic you would like to lead. For more information contact Jim at J5650R@comcast.net. Join Zoom Meeting - https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85308963103
Women’s Alliance First and third Thursdays of each month on Zoom from 10:30 am. to 12:15 p.m. From 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 we have a business meeting and announcements. All are welcome!
On Thursday, January 21st we are discussing the book Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and facilitated by Margaret Fuhrman on Zoom from 11:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Contact Alice Carnes, co-chair, alice.carnes51@yahoo.com 704-453-4175 or Kathy Fein, co-chair, kathyrsp@comcast.net 412-337-4925 for the Zoom invitation.
Introduction to Unitarian Universalism Fourth Sundays of the Month, 11:30 – 12:15
Find out more about the history, varied theologies, and organization of Unitarian Universalism. Led by church staff and representatives of the Membership Team. Fourth Sundays of the month, January 22, February 26, and March 26. Start out in Zoom social time following the service, and you’ll be directed to a breakout room for “Intro to UU.” RSVP to Constance.L.Grant@gmail.com to receive the link.
Covenant group Opportunities Consider joining or creating a virtual covenant group.
If you are interested in joining or creating a new covenant group, you can complete a Covenant Group interest formor contact Alice Bright : ab03@andrew.cmu.edu
If your group would like to set up meetings using the church account please contact Rev. Connie Grant at Constance.L.Grant@gmail.com.
OMBUDSMAN
Need an answer to a question and don’t know who to ask? Want to pass along some feedback and not sure who to contact? Reach out to your Board Ombudsman Ebe Emmons. Ebe will coordinate with staff, committees, and the board to get an answer or pass along feedback. Ebe can be reached atfirstuupghombudsman@gmail.com
