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Our
Society
Glenda
Cosenza of the Dekalb UU Fellowship Visits Prairie UU Society for
Q&A
on Settled Ministry
On
November 22, 2009, the Long-Range Planning Committee of Prairie UU
Society hosted a member of the Dekalb, IL UU Fellowship (DUUF), Dr.
Glenda Cosenza, for an informational session on the experiences of
her congregation during its transition from contract to settled
ministry. This session was part of Prairie’s year-long
exploration of ministry and ministerial relationships.
Dr.
Cosenza held several different leadership positions within the
organization during the overall time span of
this
transition, including Board President and Chair of the Finance
Committee.
Dr.
Cosenza gave an overview of the history of the congregation and its
ministerial relationships. DUUF is small and lay-led. Its members
voted unanimously in 1990 (when the size of the congregation had
shrunk to 15 members) to engage a contract minister. The same
minister served in
Page
3
contract
capacity from 1991 to 2008. The initial appointment was part-time
(50%), later raised to 60%.
Milestones
and changes during this period included significant growth (to 67
members by 2003, currently 88 members); purchase of a building; and
strengthening/harmonization of lay-led services by instilling a
training program for lay leaders of Sunday services.
During
this period, a Long-Range Planning task force was formed to analyze
future ministerial needs. The task force recommended that ministry
appointment be increased to 100% to more fully meet the needs of the
congregation. DUUF was awarded a $10,000 Chalice Grant to aid in this
transition, and also received a $5,000 grant from the City of Dekalb
for building improvements. A fundraising campaign within the
congregation yielded more than $50,000. However, the congregation was
aware that it did not meet the Unitarian Universalist Association
recommended guideline for being able to financially sustain a
full-time minister. The UUA recommends that for full-time ministry
appointments, a congregation should have at least 100-150 pledging
units (not members; in other
words, 100-150 households.)
In
~2007-2008, the congregation voted to call the same minister who had
been serving in contract ministry since 1991 as a settled minister,
at a 100% appointment. Unfortunately, the recession and the death of
several major benefactors within the church negatively impacted the
financial resources of the congregation in 2009, and the congregation
was unable to sustain a full-time appointment. Currently, the
minister is serving at 70% capacity.
Dr.
Cosenza noted that the congregation continues to view itself as
lay-led, even with a settled minister, and that the minister prepares
only 2 services a month, with the other 2-3 services per month being
lay-led. This arrangement was deliberately entered because the
congregation and minister desired ministerial focus to be on other
areas, such as community outreach and pastoral care.
In
remarking on changes in the ministerial relationship that occurred
upon transition from contract to settled ministry, Dr. Cosenza said
that the relationship changed subtly but dramatically, and resulted
in a closer partnership between the congregation and the minister.
For
a more extensive summary of Dr. Cosenza’s remarks, please
contact Robyn Perrin (robyn@perrinhome.com,
345-1862).
Robyn
M. Perrin
Chairperson,
Long-Range Planning Committee
Prairie
Elders
The
Prairie Elders group aims to provide good times and mutual support
for Prairie UU Members and Friends over 65. Current participants
range from age 65 to 90-something. We meet once a month, typically on
the fourth Tuesday, beginning at 1:30 pm for informal conversation
and a more structured discussion beginning at 2pm. We meet in the
Nakoma room in the Heritage Oaks building, Oakwood Village West. (You
can park in front or
underneath the building.) Our December meeting will be on the 22nd,
discussing Ethical Buying, and our January meeting will be on the
26th.
Topics alternate between general issues and personal interests, and
our “round robin” format gives all an opportunity
to
speak and to hear. If you are interested and would like more
information about the group, or would like to arrange a ride, please
contact one of the following: Donna Murdoch 238-3802, Gordon
Cunningham 230-3367, Rosemary Dorney 238-4382 or Rose Smith 233-3363.
Doleta
Chapru
Prairie
Elders
Page
4
COMING
SOOM - PRAIRIE'S SERVICE AUCTION !
The
Service Auction is scheduled for February 28th with Orange Schroeder
again acting as our Auctioneer. Start thinking about what services
you would like to contribute. You may also be longing to bid on an
item - suggest it and we will try to find someone willing to put it
up for auction. Send your items to Barbara Park at
barpark(at)gmail.com.
This is also a good time to review what
you bought or promised last year so you can get those things done
before the auction rolls around again. There is a spreadsheet hanging
on the bulletin board across from the greeting table at Prairie; or
you can contact Kate Liu, Prairie's administrator, at admin(at)
uuprairie.org.
Barbara
Park
Finance
Committee Chair
Housing
and Property Notes
The
heating system and several of our lights at the Prairie meeting house
are controlled by a program called "ActiveHome." This
program is what allows your administrator to set the heat to come on
for you when you use the building at night, also turns the heat on
for us on Sunday mornings so that the building is warm for us when we
arrive for services. To help this system to work most efficiently,
here's how you can help: when you are ready to leave the building,
look at the thermostat at the back of the main meeting room. Make
sure that the heat is set as low as possible on the thermostat that
has the green light above it, and make sure that the other one (with
the red light) is set at 65 degrees. Don't worry about whether the
red or green lights are on or off, and please don't leave both
thermostats at the lowest settings (or at 65.) There is a pair of
thermostats for the downstairs too, on the wall to the right of the
door that leads into the 4-5 classroom. Leave these set the same way
as the upstairs ones: green thermostat as low as possible, red
thermostat at 65. The ActiveHome program makes sure that the heat
will not stay on too long, so as long as we leave the thermostats set
correctly, the program will take care of the rest.
On
another note, please help keep the Prairie kitchen clean and pest
free. Do
not leave any food at Prairie, unless someone is taking
responsibility for using or taking it that day. Please do not
"donate" food by leaving it somewhere in the kitchen
unlabeled. If you do leave food at Prairie, be sure to label it with
the current DATE and the NAME of the group or person who is
responsible for it. All unsealed containers must be put in the
refrigerator - this includes the sugar and creamer bowls we use on
Sunday morning. We have had pests in the past and it is crucial that
we not put out food for them. If you are cleaning up and aren't sure
if a leftover will be used, throw it out or take it home. It is
important that we keep the refrigerator clean and uncluttered so that
it can be used for church functions. Our kitchen guru, Paula
Pachciarz, intends to be ruthless about throwing out items and
keeping our kitchen clean - thank you Paula!
Kate
Liu
Prairie
Admin
Governance
Vision Group Forming
We are
still looking for a couple of folks to help envision the best way to
structure Prairie at this stage in our growth. This group will
discuss alternative ways to lead a church, and make a recommendation
to the Board as to what would suit us best. It should be an
intriguing discussion - let me know by January 10th if you want to
join us.
Rachel
Long
Prairie
UU President
Page
5
 Humanist
Union News
At
the Meeting House on Wednesday, Dec. 23, the Humanist Union will host
the group's biggest party of the year, our annual HumanLight
celebration. The event is cosponsored with the Madison Skeptics and
Madison Brights, and will take place from 5:30 to 9:30 pm. Ours will
be one of more than 20 such events scheduled around the country, as
listed at http://humanlight.org/.
Your family is invited to join us in this celebration of humanism and
the light of reason.
Our full program for the evening will
include an appetizer and dessert potluck, music by award winning
Madison singer/songwriter Ken
Lonnquist,
storytelling with Rose Smith, folk dancing led by Doleta Chapru, arts
& crafts organized by Julie Q., and star gazing in Marlborough
Park if it is a clear night or otherwise an indoor program led by
amateur astronomer and photographer John Rummel, with Jane Esbensen
as our master of ceremonies. See the local event website at
http://humanlight.madisonwi.us/
for more details. If you can join us, our planning committee would
appreciate and RSVP to humanistunion@gmail.com
indicating how many adults and children are coming.
The
monthly meetings of the Humanist Union usually occur on the first
Sunday of the month and include a potluck lunch and discussion. On
Jan. 3, 2010, our potluck at 11:45 am will be followed by a group
discussion on the topic "Humanist review of 2009 news
stories/program ideas for 2010". Prior to the meeting
participants are asked to review news stories from 2009 dealing with
issues of particular concern to humanists (separation of church and
state, discrimination against atheists and gays, efforts to organize
coalitions of humanist/atheist/agnostic/freethinker groups in the
U.S., international effects of religious bias, etc.). Each will have
the opportunity to give a brief summary of one or two stories that he
or she finds to be of particular significance. We will conclude by
discussing which topics we would like to deal with in our monthly
meetings during 2010. For a sampling of stories see the media page of
our website at http://humanist.madisonwi.us/media.htm.
Bob Park,
Humanist Union
Spanish
Speaker's Potluck
The
Spanish Speaker's potluck will take a break for the month of
December, but will resume in January. The next gathering will be
Thursday, January 7th at 6:30 pm at the home of Dave and Marcia
Johnson, 305 S. Segoe Rd. Please call Dave and Marcia at 441-0271 for
directions, or Rosemary Dorney at 238-4382 for more information.
Green
Committee News
Your
Green Sanctuary Committee will be inaugurating a 6 week course on
"Menus for the Future." This is one of a series of courses
offered by the Northwest Earth Institute. The courses are directed
and led by the participants and consist of readings from a course
book with the meetings consisting of discussions of the questions
listed in the readings. There is no "leader". Participants
take turns chairing the meetings. Each participant, or couple if you
wish, needs to buy a course book. The cost is about $20.00. Groups
usually consist of 8 to 10 people. The groups decide when, where, and
how often they will meet and how long the meetings will last. The
final meeting is a feast, either a potluck or restaurant meal.
Marcia
and I will be facilitating the course (or courses, if there are
enough people interested.) A time and place will be announced later,
but it will start shortly after the holidays. For more information,
contact Marcia or me or any member of the Green Sanctuary Committee.
Our e-mail is pinefarm(at)uniontel.net
.
Dave
Johnson, Green Committee member Page
6
Movie
Group
The
movie group is taking a break, and will likely resume in the spring.
If you have suggestions for movies, please contact Al Nettleton at
aanett(at)execpc.com or 238-6053.
Social
Action News
News
From No More Deaths
Our
Social Action Chair, Mary Somers, is wintering in Tucson, where Walt
Staton, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson and the
humanitarian organization No More Deaths, has been found guilty of
littering for leaving bottles of water at the US-Mexico border. Mary
will be attending his sentencing hearing on Monday, December 21st as a
member of the press. For more information about the case and the No
More Deaths organization, please visit their website,
http://nomoredeaths.org/ .
Mary
Somers
Social
Action Chair
Rev.
Ralph's Ruminations
This
past heavy snowfall (eighteen inches in our backyard in Stoughton)
brought, at least for me, a mixture of challenging snow removal and
risky driving conditions but also filled my eyes with the visual
brilliance of all-dressed-up evergreens and the blinding whiteness of
the open fields that form the landscape on the farms around our home.
Such a strange result, producing a mixture of aching muscles and
amazingly beautiful scenes for the senses. No mighty epiphany
occurred but a few simple glimpses of nature’s joy and
beauty.
Wordsworth captures some of the meaning of this for me in these words
from “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" -
...For
I have learned
 To
look on nature, not as in the hour
Of
thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The
still, sad music of humanity,
Nor
harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To
chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A
presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of
elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of
something far more deeply interfused,
Whose
dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And
the round ocean and the living air,
And
the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A
motion and a spirit, that impels
All
thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And
rolls through all things...”
During
this holiday season, as Unitarian Universalists, we draw on many
sources of meaning to make sense of
this
time in
our lives. Some would call this a season for epiphanies. It may be a
time, as Wordsworth frames it, when one can feel “a presence
that disturbs ….. with the joy of elevated
thoughts”.
You may be one who is asking, “Come on Ralph,
what’s this
stuff about “elevated thoughts?” " Here’s
what
another Ralph would urge you to do: ”Hitch your wagon to a
star,” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Hitch your wagon to a star,
whatever the cost in comfort may be. If you resonate to this advice
-- if you really yearn to see things as they are, and yourself as you
are, if you long for a glimpse of “a sense sublime, Of
something far more deeply interfused,” you must be alert and
pay attention. That’s really the only requirement. Although
it’s not guaranteed to enlighten you, all experience suggests
that it’s necessary if you want to be enlightened. Page
7
Don’t
be too busy for an epiphany. But the good news is that you
don’t
need to leave what you’re doing. Wherever you are, whoever
you
are, whatever’s happening in your life, is more than
sufficient
focus for your attention.
My
good friend and mentor Dr.Patrick T. A. O’Neill, the minister
at the First Unitarian Congregational Society, Brooklyn, NY, invites
us to ponder deeply these words: "Here’s to epiphanies
great and small whenever they occur. A blessing on all Wise Men and
Women, East and West. Here’s to the stargazers and pilgrims
everywhere, who are still foolish enough and brave enough to follow
their stars, who travel by night, who bestow their uncommon gifts on
us all."
And
for this New Year 2010, my wish for the Prairie community is that we
continue to aspire to be like those stargazers and pilgrims
everywhere, foolish and brave enough to follow our stars, and strive
to share our gifts on all whose needs are still unmet.
Glad
to be stargazing with you,
Ralph
UU
Community News
Charlie
Clements to visit Madison
Charlie
Clements, the president of the UUSC (Unitarian Universalist Service
Committee,) will be in Madison at First Society the weekend of March
6-7, 2009. You are invited to attend the events of that weekend; more
details will follow.
Bayside
Unitarian Universalist Family Camp
Mark
your calendars now for Bayside UU Family Camp, July 11-17, 2010, at
Wesley Woods Conference Center, Williams Bay, Wisconsin. See the camp
website at www.yahoodrummers.com/bayside/ or talk to Jill Delisle at
238-5536 for more information.
Prairie
UU Society
2010
Whenona Dr.
Madison,
WI 5371
608-271-8218
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