September 2024

Sept. 6, 2024

Hello friends. We stand together at the threshold of a new fellowship year and a new shared ministry. I hope you’re as excited as I am about the possibilities ahead as we do the hard and joyful work of LOVE here in Western North Carolina. As I write this, fall is in the air. And just like the seasons, our fellowship never stands still. We are constantly changing and growing. Together, I hope we can embrace this as a time of renewal and re-examining. 

During August, I focused on planning meaningful worship experiences for the coming year and beginning to form connections in the community. Because this is a time of new beginnings, I and the Worship Team have created a theme of Roots and Wings for the 2024-2025 fellowship year. As the hymn Spirit of Life sings, “Roots hold me close, Wings set me free.” We must be well grounded in order to stretch our wings.

Within this arc for the year, we’ve created monthly themes. In the first half of the fellowship year, we’ll reground ourselves in this sacred and beautiful place we call home. In September, we’ll celebrate the journeys that have brought so many of us here to UUFH, merging our lives and our spirits. The symbol of journeying is water, starting with our water communion, then mapping our lives like the path of a river, and finally at the end of the month celebrating our renewed commitment to environmental justice with a water blessing. In October, we’ll then turn our spirits to re-grounding and the soil. In November, we’ll explore heritage, symbolized by roots. After a celebration of rest in December, we’ll move on in the spring to transformation and emerging new life that will allow us to take wing. 

As you might expect from a new minister, there will be a few changes in our worship. In line with our tradition of valuing music, we will have the welcome and announcements first, then begin the worship service with the prelude. Also, as we build up a multigenerational congregation, we will be deepening the participation of our children and youth by including them in our stones ritual before they leave the sanctuary. And we are repositioning our opening hymn to be a simple “centering hymn,” chosen to be accessible to both the children and visitors who are not familiar with our traditional hymns. 

Another new idea you’ll notice is reducing our environmental impact by printing fewer Orders of Service each Sunday starting September 15th. We’re giving folks four options.

• Option 1: You can access the order of service on your smart phone via our website. We’ll have a QR code available to make it easy to get to the link.
• Option 2: You can go “hands free” and just view the sanctuary display screens, which always tells you what’s happening. 
• Option 3: You can share a printed order of service with your partner or another attendee. 
• And, finally, Option 4: if you’re just not ready to let go of your personal printed order of service, you can feel free to ask for one as long as supplies last. 

Thank you for your openness to trying a few new things! 

But our life in fellowship goes beyond Sunday morning worship. The UUFH board is working on a draft Annual Vision of Ministry for 2024-2025. This vision will be finalized with your input, and you’ll be hearing more about very soon. Once established, these goals will help us focus our effort and resources during this important year of renewal.

I can’t wait to be with you on Sunday morning for our water communion service. See you soon.