Dear UUCF members and friends,
This month, we're inviting you to really settle into what it means to be part of this community. In this ever-changing world, we want you to have in UUCF a spiritual home where you can truly:
Be included. Be involved. Be invested.
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When we engage with UUCF on these three levels, we deepen our loving relationships with one another. In turn, those strong connections ground us when we tackle the injustices found in the larger world.
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Over my years with UUCF, I have witnessed the positive, transformative impact on the lives of those who have been included, involved, and invested in our congregational life. In recent years, I've witnessed this congregation coming together in solidarity to creatively and relentlessly advocate for reproductive rights. In recent months, I've witnessed this congregation compassionately welcome in those devastated by losing a spouse. In recent weeks, I've witnessed one of this congregation's children sitting down after the Sunday service and reading a story to comfort another child who was an anxious first-time visitor.
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What we do here matters. YOU matter. You being included, involved, and invested matters. When you invest in UUCF by filling out your pledge card this year, I ask you to consider what this congregation offers both you and the larger world. Your generosity is not only greatly appreciated, it's vital to carrying on the transformative work of this congregation–the work of bringing a better, more just, more inclusive world into being.
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In deep gratitude--and love,
Rev. Dr. Jason Cook
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UUCF is a place where you can be welcomed, seen, and known. Together we create a community that overcomes isolation, that counters apathy, and practices the fundamental power of love that alone can save our increasingly divided world. We are kind, open-hearted, and curious people. UUCF is the place where we don’t have to give up any of that to be part of a strong, interconnected community. A fellow UUCF congregant shared this story about their family.
When my oldest daughter Griffyn was in middle school, the principal called us in because her phone had been confiscated in class. The principal showed us a text conversation with one of her friends planning to buy weed after school. My daughter had become more withdrawn. When I asked about her day, she responded, "You don't get to know about me." So later that month, when she arrived in the living room one Sunday morning and announced she wanted to join the UU church, and wanted us to go together, my wife and I tripped over each other to get our shoes on, and get in the car and go, right then.
Griffyn remained a middle school girl, she struggled with friends, with school, with mental health, with growing up, and she stayed in that RE program and went to church with us every Sunday. I was so relieved that she had a community surrounding her that shared our values of open mindedness, ethical relationships, social justice, and community service. Not only of her peers, but a multigenerational community of children, teens and adults that embraced her and reflected our values back to her and our whole family. A place where we all gathered every week together, right until the last Sunday of her Senior year, when the entire congregation listened to the graduating teens make a statement of their personal values.
– In Fellowship, a UUCF Congregant
UUs made a home for this family, in a world that is increasingly confusing and overwhelming for many children. UUCF is our village, the community we rely on to reflect a vision of the future for our children that draws us closer, that inspires hope, that is open to the individuality of kids like Griffyn her friends, that they can rely on not to reject them, no matter how they develop or change. Schools and sports leagues can’t be counted on to fill that role. Your support is critical to this community. We can grow this community for our families and all the others who will come. When they need that safe place, to make real connections, to embrace them wholeheartedly. Your donation supports a community that will be there for all of us and as a model for the kind of world we want to live in.
In Service,
Colleen Clay, UUCF Treasurer and Pledge Team member
