News: August 30, 2024
Dear Members and Friends,
This month we are starting “Future Visions, Future Selves.” It will run through June 2025. Through it we will aspire to deepen the spiritual life of our community, and the spiritual lives of our members and friends, by offering a programming devoted to the future.
The imagining the future has long played a pivotal role in religion. Most religious traditions have distinctive teachings about our individual futures, the future of society, and the future of our planet. Hinduism offers our individual spirits a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Some forms of Christianity claims that someday human society will be transformed into a kingdom of peace, love, and universal prosperity. And the ancient Mayans believed that the world would be completely destroyed and then recreated.
These examples have been chosen almost at random. But they suggest the framework through which we will be exploring the spiritual dimensions of the future over the next ten months. We will ask: what does the future hold for us as individuals, as a society, and for our planet?
Each month, as part of the program, we will have a sermon. The Senior Ministers’ book group will also focus on a text related to the theme. Over the course of the year, we will have five workshops connected to “Future Visions, Future Selves.” Look for announcements related to them in the coming weeks.
This month we will start our program with two sermons. The first, on September 15th, will introduce the series. The second, on September 22nd, will focus on what we can learn from the past when we imagine the future. It will be influenced by David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything, which we are reading in the Senior Minister’s book group.
This Sunday we will be holding our annual service celebrating the contributions of the labor movement to making our lives, and our world, a better place. On September 8th, Rev. Cooper will be returning to the pulpit with a sermon titled “Who is Unitarian Universalist?” And on September 29th, I will be leading a service as part of the Unitarian Universalist Climate Revival. This is a national effort to coordinate programming across our association on the climate crisis.
We will be holding a day long program as part of the revival on Saturday, September 28th. Several other Unitarian Universalist congregations in the area will be joining us. I hope you will be able to make it!
I also hope that you will consider attending our annual Leadership Forum on Saturday, September 21st. It is an opportunity to connect with other leaders in the congregation, learn about our plans for the year, and spend time with all of the teams that make our life together possible. Whether you’ve been in leadership a long time or if you’re considering getting more involved it is a great event!
I would remiss, before I close, not to mention an exciting development. We have our first college ministry intern! Rebecca Throop is a senior at Rice University who is planning to pursue the Unitarian Universalist ministry. Between now and June 15th she will be doing a part-time internship working to build a campus ministry program at Rice and to strengthen our young adult offerings here at First Unitarian Universalist. I hope you will join me in welcoming Rebecca to the staff!
It is going to be an exciting year at First Unitarian Universalist!
love,
Colin
This month we are starting “Future Visions, Future Selves.” It will run through June 2025. Through it we will aspire to deepen the spiritual life of our community, and the spiritual lives of our members and friends, by offering a programming devoted to the future.
The imagining the future has long played a pivotal role in religion. Most religious traditions have distinctive teachings about our individual futures, the future of society, and the future of our planet. Hinduism offers our individual spirits a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Some forms of Christianity claims that someday human society will be transformed into a kingdom of peace, love, and universal prosperity. And the ancient Mayans believed that the world would be completely destroyed and then recreated.
These examples have been chosen almost at random. But they suggest the framework through which we will be exploring the spiritual dimensions of the future over the next ten months. We will ask: what does the future hold for us as individuals, as a society, and for our planet?
Each month, as part of the program, we will have a sermon. The Senior Ministers’ book group will also focus on a text related to the theme. Over the course of the year, we will have five workshops connected to “Future Visions, Future Selves.” Look for announcements related to them in the coming weeks.
This month we will start our program with two sermons. The first, on September 15th, will introduce the series. The second, on September 22nd, will focus on what we can learn from the past when we imagine the future. It will be influenced by David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book The Dawn of Everything, which we are reading in the Senior Minister’s book group.
This Sunday we will be holding our annual service celebrating the contributions of the labor movement to making our lives, and our world, a better place. On September 8th, Rev. Cooper will be returning to the pulpit with a sermon titled “Who is Unitarian Universalist?” And on September 29th, I will be leading a service as part of the Unitarian Universalist Climate Revival. This is a national effort to coordinate programming across our association on the climate crisis.
We will be holding a day long program as part of the revival on Saturday, September 28th. Several other Unitarian Universalist congregations in the area will be joining us. I hope you will be able to make it!
I also hope that you will consider attending our annual Leadership Forum on Saturday, September 21st. It is an opportunity to connect with other leaders in the congregation, learn about our plans for the year, and spend time with all of the teams that make our life together possible. Whether you’ve been in leadership a long time or if you’re considering getting more involved it is a great event!
I would remiss, before I close, not to mention an exciting development. We have our first college ministry intern! Rebecca Throop is a senior at Rice University who is planning to pursue the Unitarian Universalist ministry. Between now and June 15th she will be doing a part-time internship working to build a campus ministry program at Rice and to strengthen our young adult offerings here at First Unitarian Universalist. I hope you will join me in welcoming Rebecca to the staff!
It is going to be an exciting year at First Unitarian Universalist!
love,
Colin
Where are the Ministers?
Dr. Bossen will be in the pulpit on September 1st, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. Rev. Cooper will be in Houston from September 2nd to the 8th, when he will be leading worship.
