Hallie Bowie, President of the Board of Trustees (she/her)

How are you doing today? I’m doing pretty well, and relieved that my son is feeling better today. Wednesday he woke up with body aches and fever. As you can imagine I was very worried, both for him and for how it might affect more vulnerable members of our family if he had the corona virus. Fortunately, it looks like it was just a bad case of strep.

This may be an unusual way to start a monthly president’s column, but this kind of “check in” is central to the covenant we have to support one another, and to be a sanctuary of love and welcome for all. UU Churches are famous for having a lot of committees, but that’s not all bad! At their best, committees provide a place for us to get to know the other people in
the congregation better while doing work that makes the world a better place. And at the UU Church of Action, we have groups that discuss, plan and learn; as well as ones that give us a chance to act with our hands. Practices like lighting a chalice, opening words, and having a check in time before a meeting starts business help us to remember our covenants and to put relationships first.

As I write this, it’s Rev. Tim’s last day as our settled minister. While I will miss him and all he has given our church very much, I am also excited to begin our work with Rev. Kate. Given all the changes in the world right now, in some ways it is fitting that we are starting the work of interim ministry, reflecting on what the church has been doing, and what we want to do going forward. As the Corona Virus Pandemic continues, we need to re-examine every aspect of how we “do church”. When the UUA first suggested that we might need to meet virtually until next spring, it seemed hard to imagine. Now it’s starting to seem like a definite possibility. In order to continue being a sanctuary of love and welcome for all and to lead, act, and speak for social justice and stewardship of the earth, we need to come to terms with the realities of Zoom services and physical distancing. There are so many challenges to solve: How do we let new visitors know about our services? How do we have those discussions with visitors that help them to feel welcome? What did we leave out of our early virtual services that we’d like to add back in? What are the informal but important conversations that we aren’t having because we aren’t in the church building together, and
how can we re-create that unstructured creative collaboration? What do you need now that church used to provide, but isn’t doing now?

In the weeks ahead, I’d like each of you to give some thought to these questions. If you have ideas, please reach out to the board of trustees and let us know. And if you miss something but aren’t sure how to re-create it in a virtual world, let us know that too. Sometimes all it takes to solve a problem is to share it with a group and bring some collective creativity to it.
The board will be having more informal discussion groups in August and the coming months to strengthen our connections and spark some of that creativity. I hope to see you there!