Welcome back from summer adventures!

I have been glad to have time this summer to settle into our new home in Portland, unpack many boxes, and get situated in our new place. Margy and I also spent some days at the beach swimming and enjoying the sunny weather. I hope you had a chance to be outside as well. During my August study time, I have been working on preparing for the coming church year.

I want to give a big welcome to our new Director of Religious Education, Carolyn Barschow, and our new Intern Minister, Israel Buffardi. I am looking forward to working with them this coming year, and I hope you all will help them to feel at home at A2U2. 

During my study time, I created a new course, “A Spiritual Journey Into Earth Community,” which I will teach over seven sessions from the end of September into December (mostly on a bi-weekly schedule). Earth Community is a vision of human beings living in mutually beneficial relationship with all of life on earth. Through readings, conversation, and experiential practices, we will explore how to deepen our connection to the earth, to each other, and to the Mystery at the heart of life. (For those of you who may have taken my previous “Spirituality” class, I've borrowed some activities from that class, but enough will be new that I hope you'd find this one engaging.) There is more information about the course later in the newsletter.

I am also trying a new experiment this coming year, called “theme-based ministry.” Over 190 congregations across the US are now participating in a common theme-based ministry through a program called Soul Matters Sharing Circle. It originated at the First Unitarian Church in Rochester, NY, as a way for congregations to go deeper into important questions for our personal and congregational growth. The themes for 2016-17 are framed with a preamble “What does it mean to be a community of...” and include “Covenant, Healing, Story, Presence, Prophecy, Identity, Risk, Transformation, Embodiment, and Zest.” We are starting in September with the question, “What does it mean to be a community of covenant?”

 How it works is that about six weeks before the month of a certain theme, a packet of resources is made available that can be used for worship, music, small group ministry, and religious education. (We have been using something similar in our theme-based workshop model religious education—but designed around themes chosen by the RE Committee. Interestingly enough, our RE themes for this year are somewhat analogous to the Soul Matters themes.) Each month, the worship services will explore various aspects of the theme, and spiritual enrichment groups can also use the theme for their small group sharing topic. If desired, there could also be further conversations based on the theme. (Men's group? After worship discussion group?) If you are curious, be in touch with me, and I can forward you the theme packets to explore for your group. You can find out more about the program at http://www.soulmatterssharingcircle.com.