The Union Church in Waban
Friday, July 23, 2021
This Sunday
Summer Worship
July 25th at 10:00 a.m. Worship - Jaap vanReijendam, preaching
Join us for our Summer Worship each Sunday at 10:00 a.m.! Gather on Zoom from wherever you are, or come by the church and worship with us in-person (masked) in our beautiful Memorial Chapel. This Sunday, we are blessed to have UCW member Jaap vanReijendam as our preacher and worship leader, as he shares a special reflection on Isaiah. His family will also help lead worship, including contributing some special music. You won't want to miss it!

Popsicles at the Picnic Table: All are welcome to join us at the church picnic table directly following worship for snacks and fellowship.

To join Sunday Worship on Zoom:  
Zoom Link: HERE
Meeting ID: 832 2059 8969
Passcode: 458322
Dial in only: 1 646 558 8656 

The bulletin is available HERE

To connect to Sunday Worship or to any of our online offerings, you may also go to our website at www.ucw.org.  
Summer Pastoral Care & Staff Vacations
Pastoral Care Connections
During this time of transition in our church, please know that our Associate Pastor, Deacons, and congregation are here for you. Please don't hesitate to reach out to Rev. Amy Clark Feldman by email at amy@ucw.org, or call/text her cell phone at
617-938-8112. She will be here full-time through August 1st.

In the weeks in August when Pastor Amy is on vacation (Aug. 2nd-23rd), we will be sure to share contact information for our Deacons, as well as details about our pastoral care coverage. This information will be in next week's e-newsletter and on the website (www.ucw.org).
E-newsletter for August
Our office manager, Aidan Cunningham, will be on vacation from August 9th-17th . For the weeks when Pastor Amy and our office manager are away in August, we will prepare and schedule our Friday e-newsletters before we leave. If you have items you would like to include for any of the first three weeks of August, please send them to Aidan at ucw@ucw.org by next Wednesday, July 28th. Thank you!
Upcoming Summer Sundays & Gatherings
Backyard Church Summer Social!
Monday, August 2nd at 7- 8:30 p.m.

Would you like to reconnect with Union Church folks in person this summer? We'll be hosting backyard "socials" with dessert, conversation, and, if the spirit moves us, some reflection on what it has been like to be people of faith (more or less!) during the pandemic. The first social was held at Jon and Anya Bassett's home last week, and it was so joyful and meaningful to be together and reconnect! We hope you'll join us for our next gathering:

The second will be at Erika and Kyle Pond's house on Monday, August 2nd from 7-8:30 p.m.

We will ask non-vaccinated people to wear masks. RSVP to epond33@gmail.com by Sunday, August 1st so we know how much food to prepare and so that we can send directions and parking information. We can't wait to see you in person!
Worship in August
Come Together each Sunday at 10:00 a.m.

We will continue gathering for 10:00 a.m. worship in-person and on Zoom throughout August. We hope you will join us! The following is a brief look at the weeks ahead:

  • Aug. 1st - Communion Sunday - Rev. Amy Clark Feldman, preaching
  • Aug. 8th - UCW member, Jaap vanReijendam preaching
  • Aug. 15th - UCC Pastor and Spiritual Director of the Agape Spiritual Center, Rev. Matt Carriker preaching and sharing music
  • Aug. 22nd - UCW member, Jenny Weisz preaching
  • Aug. 29th - Rev. Amy Clark Feldman preaching
Greater Boston Interfaith Organization
Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO)
Upcoming Events

Everyone is invited and encouraged to help represent UCW at these two GBIO events on Zoom. Feel free to come whether or not you have previously participated in GBIO events! RSVP to Kathy Malone (j2kathleen@gmail.com) and feel free to reach out with questions.
Issue Platform Launch
Thursday, August 12th, 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Twenty people from UCW participated in UCW’s listening campaign this past spring. Now, 1500 people and 10 regional caucuses later, it’s time to unveil the top issues which will be the foundation of our action for the next 3-4 years! 

“Show Up for Boston” Mayoral Candidates Forum
Tuesday, August 31st, time TBD
All those who work, play or live in Boston are encouraged to contribute to a huge turn out as we seek policy commitments from the mayoral candidates. You do not need to be a resident of Boston to attend or have a stake.

Advocate for Racial Justice
segregated general store in Belle Glade, Florida, circa 1941. Corbis/Getty Images
A (very) Abbreviated History of
Exclusionary Zoning

More than 100 years ago, the city of Louisville, Kentucky, had a zoning ordinance that prohibited a white man from selling his property to a Black one if the neighborhood was already majority-white. 

In 1917, the Supreme Court ruled in Buchanan v. Warley that this was unconstitutional, recognizing that the city might have a legitimate interest in the “promotion of the public health, safety, and welfare,” but that did not justify the “direct violation of the fundamental law enacted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution preventing state interference with property rights except by due process of law.”
In what would become an enduring American tradition, white homeowners found other ways to keep their neighborhoods segregated.

According to a report by the Century Foundation, homeowners banded together and adopted covenants, or neighborhood contracts, that would prohibit their neighbors from selling homes to Black Americans: “in city after city, courts and sheriffs successfully evicted African Americans from homes that they had rightly purchased in order to enforce racially restrictive covenants,” write Richard Kahlenberg and Kimberly Quick. It wasn’t until 1948 that the Supreme Court deemed this practice unconstitutional. 

Extralegal action (a nice way of saying racist mobs) still enforced segregation, though. As Richard Rothstein documented in his book The Color of Law, authorities from Richmond, California, to Levittown, Pennsylvania, allowed violent intimidation of Black families who attempted to move into segregated communities. “From 1917 to 1921, when the Chicago ghetto was first being rigidly defined,” Rothstein writes, “there were fifty-eight firebombings of homes in white border areas to which African Americans had moved, with no arrests or prosecutions — despite the deaths of two African American residents.” 

This isn’t to say local governments gave up on segregation by design. As Buchanan was being argued in the nation’s capital, there were only eight American cities with zoning ordinances — 20 years later there were 1,246, according to economist William Fischel. While previous attempts at zoning had to do with safety concerns like fires or light-and-air regulations, Fischel writes that zoning from the 1910s onward “represented an important break with the past. The new features were the comprehensiveness of its map and the law’s presumption that single-family residences were to get the most protection.” 

Comprehensive federal protections from housing discrimination wouldn’t come about until 1968. Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Congress passed the Fair Housing Act — an extraordinary piece of civil rights legislation that not only clarified that it was in fact illegal to discriminate due to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability, but also that the government had the obligation to “affirmatively further fair housing.”
Boarded-up row houses in the Middle East neighborhood of Baltimore in December 2003. Alex Wong/Getty Images
Despite this mandate, zoning laws proliferated that have entrenched de facto discrimination. Instead of explicitly barring people due to their race, these laws have taken the form of regulations like minimum sizes for new homes, which effectively ban more affordable dwellings. Localities have also weaponized seemingly neutral regulations that make the cost of development so exorbitant that the only profitable type of homes to build are large or luxury units.

There’s some disagreement about where the worst offenders of exclusionary zoning are today: In one index created and managed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, New England and the mid-Atlantic region have the most stringent zoning regulations. The West Coast and Hawaii come second, and Southern and Midwestern states are considered to be the least regulated. 

However, Thomas Silverstein, a lawyer at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Fair Housing and Community Development Project, says, “Many suburban areas in the Midwest outside of major urban centers — whether it’s Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee — suburb after suburb, you’ll find plenty of places where much less percentage of land is zoned for multifamily housing” than in coastal cities.
A sign placed across from the Sojourner Truth housing project in Detroit, circa 1942.Arthur Siegel/Anthony Potter Collection/Getty Images
Adult Education and Formation
Going Deeper-July Worship:
Return from Exile - The Bible Project
This month in worship, Pastor Amy will explore the themes of exile, and the return from exile. We'll look at passages from the prophets who wrote as the Jewish people were returning from their exile in Babylon, and consider what wisdom they may have for us as we emerge from the last 18 months of our own kind of displacement and exile. If you'd like to learn more about the theme of Exile in the Bible, consider clicking on the link below to watch this video from The Bible Project:

Bible Project Link: HERE
Exploring Our Faith Families - This would be a great video to watch and discuss together!
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Tea Time Bible Study
Tuesdays at 3:00 p.m.

Please join us for a walk through the Book of Acts with Rev. Arlyne Grant and other friends. No biblical study or experience is needed. This will be a fun filled time of conversation and learning.

Zoom Link is HERE
Meeting ID: 847 2838 1864
Passcode: 837512
Dial in: 1 646 558 8656
Mission Matters
Newton Freedge
Summer Volunteers Needed!
Despite Newton’s image as an affluent suburb, too many of our neighbors struggle to put food on their tables. The Newton Freedge is one way we can help. A free, 24/7 outdoor refrigerator and pantry, the Freedge provides free food and personal supplies to anyone who needs them. We are in need of more volunteers to help on Saturdays this summer. Please Email chanellobdell@gmail.com for more information and to join our team!
Common Cathedral Continuing in July and Beyond
Volunteers needed for the last two weeks in July!
With our partners at the Wellesley Hills Church, we've delivered more than 3000 sandwiches since the start of the pandemic! 
Thank you to everyone who has made this ministry possible. It means so much, and there is still so much need. We'll continue delivering food (sandwiches, fruit, and granola bars) as long as we can to our unhoused siblings in downtown Boston, and are signed up for each week this June. To learn more or sign up to help with this ministry, please CLICK HERE. Thank you!
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, gender identity and expression, nationality, ability or economic circumstance. We invite all to full participation in our worship, membership, leadership and life of this church.