The Union Church in Waban               
Friday, January 31, 2020 

This Sunday
          8:00 a.m. - Bible Study (Stacy's study)
  9:00 a.m. - Choir Rehearsal  
10:00 a.m. - Sunday Worship 
11:30 a.m. - common art Show at the Union Church
Valentine's Day will be upon us before you know it! Come find a gift for that special someone after church service on Sunday, Feb. 2 nd , when we will host artists from Common Art. Common Art is a program of common cathedral which provides space, materials and caring support staff to support unhoused and low-income individuals as they develop their artistic abilities. People who live in shelters, rooming houses, on unclaimed couches and benches, and on Boston's streets, gather every Wednesday at Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street to draw, paint, sculpt, make crafts, and to share with other artists in like circumstances. For many common art members, art is a way of life. For others, it's a new discovery. But for all, art is passion, expressing and affirming life itself, a defiant or gentle "yes" in the face of stigma amid the constant struggle of poverty and homelessness

11:45 a.m. - Nicaragua Youth Planning
Deacon's Corner
Last Call on Valentine Care Packages for
Our Young People
hearts-icon.jpg
The Deacons will be compiling Valentine Care Packages to send to our UCW young people who are in their first year of being away from home. We want them to know that the church is thinking of them and sending love.  If you have a young person who is newly away from home 
whether as a college freshman or in another setting please send  Pastor Stacy  their mailing address so that we can send them a box of treats. 

CYFChildren, Youth and Families
Growing in Faith and Community 
THE NEXT TWO SUNDAYS IN SUNDAY SCHOOL: FOCUS NICARAGUA! 
This Sunday and Sunday February 9 th
During Sunday School this Sunday and next week, our kids of all ages will help prepare gifts of notebooks for the children of our partner church in San Juan del Sur Nicaragua, Alpha-Omega.  The travelers on our Nicaragua Mission Trip will hand-deliver the notebooks to the children when we worship with them on Sunday, February 16th.  Alpha-Omega has more than 100 children, which means a lot of notebooks to decorate!  If anyone can help by taking a few home over the week between Feb. 2nd and Feb. 9th, please let Pastor Amy (amy@ucw.org) or Jill Coull (jillcoull@gmail.com) know. We'd be so grateful for the help!    
MIDDLE SCHOOL & HIGH SCHOOL YOUTH GROUPS - Events Coming Up!  
Many thanks to the awesome kids and families that made our Middle School Friday Night Dinner Out on the Town such a great evening! Please save the date for upcoming Middle School get-togethers:
  • Feb. 2 th , 6:00 - 8:30 p.m.: Cookie Baking and Delivery
    - Middle and High Schoolers will have dinner together, and then bake and deliver cookies to members of our congregation who could use a little extra sweetness!
  • March 1st: High School Youth Group - Please hold the afternoon on this day for a fun activity TBD.
  • March 8th: Common Cathedral - All ages are invited to help prepare food in Sunday School, and then to serve lunch and worship with our friends experiencing homelessness on Boston Common.
  • March 27th-28th: Middle School Overnight! We'll gather for an awesome night of fun, games, food, connection and worship.
EXPLORING OUR FAITH - Visit to the Islamic Center in Wayland
Sunday, February 9 th 
The Islamic Center in Wayland generously opens their doors to visitors, and we will gather with them for a time of learning and worship on February 9th. Exploring our Faith students and other high-schoolers are especially encouraged to attend, and mentors are always welcome! We'll gather after UCW worship for a brief lunch, and then head to the Islamic Center by 12:30 p.m.  
Adult Education, Spiritual Formation and Fellowship

February Book Group
SUNDAY,  February, 23 rd , 7:00 p.m.- 8:30 p.m. 
Our next book is " The Soul of America " by Jon Meacham.

*Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in  The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature" have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women's rights; the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson's crusade against Jim Crow. Each of these dramatic hours in our national life have been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear-a struggle that continues even now.
While the American story has not always-or even often-been heroic, we have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, "The good news is that we have come through such darkness before"-as, time and again, Lincoln's better angels have found a way to prevail.

Praise for The Soul of America
"Brilliant, fascinating, timely . . . With compelling narratives of past eras of strife and disenchantment, Meacham offers wisdom for our own time." -Walter Isaacson
"Gripping and inspiring,  The Soul of America is Jon Meacham's declaration of his faith in America." -Newsday
"Meacham gives readers a long-term perspective on American history and a reason to believe the soul of America is ultimately one of kindness and caring, not rancor and paranoia." -USA Today.  

Mission Outreach 

homelessness and housing


This year your    Mission Outreach Leadership Team  is organizing its work (and coordinating with the other areas of UCW life) around seasonal themes. These will provide an organizing context for the many mission activities and we will coordinate educational opportunities, worship, and children's education around these themes when possible. We also hope to coordinate our seasonal offerings around these themes.

Our winter theme is  -  Homelessness and Housing.  Please consider participating in some of the offerings listed below: 
The Haley House Bakery is Back in
Our Community!
The Grand Re-Opening
Tomorrow,Saturday, February 1st   
 
The Grand Re-Opening was yesterday, Saturday, February 1 st . Haley House is a multi-faceted organization that provides permanent, affordable housing, promotes urban agriculture, and offers economic opportunities for people with barriers to traditional employment (especially those transitioning out of incarceration).  More det ails here .
CRADLES TO CRAYONS COLLECTION 
THROUGH SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16

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Please bring in new or gently-used donations for Cradles to Crayons! Donation bins are located in the chapel and will be available through Sunday, February 16.  Cradles to Crayons provides children from birth through age 12, living in homeless or low-income situations, with the essential items they need to thrive - at home, at school, and at play. 

 
Most Needed Items:    
  • Everyday shoes/sneakers    
  • Boys clothing  
  • Sweaters/sweatshirts
Other Accepted Items:
  • Clothing and coats (youth sizes 0-20 and adult sizes small & medium)
  • Baby equipment, especially strollers and car seats within five years old
  • New and like-new toys (Gently-used toys must have all pieces. We do not accept stuffed animals, ride-on toys, or plastic play structures. No large toys please.)
  • Baby equipment, especially strollers and car seats within five years old
  • Shoes, boots, sneakers, and sandals (infant/child sizes 0-13 and adult sizes 1-10)
  • New socks and underwear
  • Pajamas (can be new or gently used)
  • Books, especially baby board books
  • Brand new arts and crafts/school supplies
  • Baby supplies and bedding (up to size twin)
  • Diapers, all sizes
  • New hygiene supplies for ages 0 to 12 
  • New batteries
Go  HERE for more.

Zoned Out: Who gets to live in suburban Boston
Sunday, Feb. 9 th ,  11:30 a.m. 

Ever thought about why you live where you do? Or considered what unseen forces might have led you there? Join Kathleen Hobson, Nancy Zollers, and Frank Laski, three of our Advocates for Racial Justice, for a discussion about the origins of the Boston suburbs, the roots of our chronic housing shortage, and what it will take for us to achieve a more equitable and inclusive community. Everyone and all ages are welcome, no preparation necessary-but these three easy-to-digest pieces create a helpful frame for the conversation we envision*:
 
The Character of the Neighborhood- Rev. Howard Haywood, Newton TAB (op-ed), 1/21/15, during the Austin Street fight
 
" Special: Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law Mission YIMBY event"- Rothstein here gives a particularly clear and vivid version of the argument in his book ( The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America). You can skip to 5:10, where his lecture begins. (Infill podcast, approx. 45 min)
 
" You have a better chance of achieving 'the American dream' in Canada than in America"- Ezra Klein interviews Raj Chetty, Aug. 2019 (both in written and podcast form, vox.com )

Public Voice Speakers from City Mission
Sunday, March 1 , following worship

We are privileged to host two speakers from City Mission's Public Voice program on Mar.1 st after fellowship. Public Voice provides trained storytellers/speakers whose lived experience gives insight, understanding and perspective to the issues underlying homelessness. City Mission's Public Voice Project customizes storytelling training and presentations to help participants find and share the stories which break down barriers and build understanding within oneself as well as across groups, cultures and communities.
Po tluck with Speaker, Josephine Bolling McCall, author of:
The Penalty for Success - My Father was Lynched in Lowndes County, Alabama.
Sunday, March 8 th, at 6:00 p.m .


Sponsored by the Advocates of Racial Justice, Josephine will tell the story of how her father's success as a businessman in Alabama led to his lynching and how that impacts his descendants and the community even today. She will provide updates on the Legacy Museum and the Memorial in Montgomery both of which honor her father as one of many victims. Jo will also challenge us to rethink the reality of life for Blacks and Whites in the mid-20th century rural South by considering joining a literacy campaign. Research shows that children who have learned to read by the third grade have a much better chance of completing high school. Alabama has a new law that children will be retained if they do not successfully complete the third grade. The speaker hopes her presentation will set the stage for dialogue on creative ideas for participants to help improve literacy in Lowndes County, Alabama.    

If you are interested in sharing in this evening with Josephine, please rsvp to Pastor Stacy.                   

Advocates for Racial Justice - 
A mission moment offered on  Sunday, January 19th by  Kathleen Hobson

National Memorial for
Peace and Justice
There is an inscription at the entrance to the Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. It reads:
True peace is not merely the absence of tension. It is the presence of  justice .
The  quotation  is from a sermon that Martin Luther King gave in March of 1956, when he was 27 years old and the assistant pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The title of the sermon was: "When Peace Becomes Obnoxious." He was referring to a local newspaper's reporting that "peace" had returned to the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, after a day of white mob violence triggered by the arrival of Autherine Lucy, the first African-American to be admitted. (con't)                                                                                      
Go here to read the full post and listen to the mission moment.
  Our spring theme is  -  Climate Change  (and disaster relief)

For more information about these offerings please feel free to reach out to
Carol Bascom-Slack,Jaap van Reijendam or Julie Heffernan.

                                                
                                      Our Covenant
 
We, the members of The Union Church in Waban, true to our founding principle of being an inclusive church, covenant together to nourish and to sustain in our common life and practice a fully welcoming and affirming church for all persons. Welcoming all persons who seek to join with us in a commitment to love God and our neighbors, affirming the inclusive love of Jesus, we are open to all, without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, ability or economic circumstance. We invite all to full participation in our worship, membership, leadership and life of this church.


            
Union Church in Waban -  Inclement Weather Advisory

It is the hope of the Union Church to always have our sanctuary open on Sunday mornings for worship and fellowship. We also realize that conditions may be such that the safest option for staff and congregants is not to travel. We ask that all use their best judgment. As such, in inclement conditions, the church will remain open - however we cannot assure that there will be childcare, Sunday School, professional music or pulpit coverage. Every effort will be made to keep walkways and stairs clear, although this cannot be guaranteed. Congregants will find an open door, a worship service and sanctuary together with others. In the extreme situation in which the church is unable to open, notification will be on the church website ( ucw@ucw.org ), and a message will be on the church phone - 617-527-6221.
     

From the Wider Community

City Mission Pilgrimage

April 16, 2020 - April 19, 2020
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
Montgomery, Alabama
DEADLINE TO REGISTER IS FEBRUARY 16, 2020:
The Pilgrimage is limited to 55 participants.
REGISTRATION FEE:
$250 per person (this is non-refundable)
WHAT'S INCLUDED:
Tickets to the Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice * Local tours * 2 meals


For a complete listing, and details of all upcoming events,  please 
visit our website, www.ucw.org 
 
Note : Material for inclusion in the Friday e-Blast newsletter should be e-mailed to the office at ucw@ucw.org , by 9:00 a.m. on the previous Wednesday morning.