Both Sides By Rev. Nina D. Grey April, 2002

Canvass Sunday is April 7. Our Canvass proclaims that our congregation, this congregation, is a Learning, Loving congregation. And our Canvass calls us to Build Our Future and Change the World. These invitations to Learn, to Love, to Build, and to Change, beckon us with their intimations of depth and possibility.

We are a Learning Congregation. We learn about our faith through our worship experience, through its spoken idea and story, through its wonderful, moving music, and through rituals which express our diversity and unity.

And we learn so much through our Lifespan Religious Education program. Our children from nursery age onward and our youth learn much about themselves, their environment, the rich heritages of many of the world's religions, and their UU identity. They learn more about who they are and how to relate with others respectfully. They learn to grow in creativity and they learn how to use and value freedom. They learn important values through story, experience and relationships.

We can be proud of the depth of our religious education, not only for our young people, but for people of all ages. We offer opportunities for adults that awaken minds and nurture spirits. We are growing as a Learning Community and the possibilities for even deeper growth are great.

And we are a Loving Congregation. We include the Hand of Friendship in our worship, so that we can relate to each other in worship, and begin to welcome newcomers as soon as they arrive with us. We welcome folks well in our coffee hour. I see members going up to talk with visitors often. We have created a new Visitor's Card which invites newcomers to indicate their varied interests in our faith community. And we are strengthening our Caring Committee with a program called Caring Connections. The Caring Committee has tripled in size and are able to respond to more needs. We are guiding volunteers in reaching out to others.

We Build Our Future by offering ourselves to our community, by sharing our ideas, our creativity, our caring, our vision and our gifts! We Build Our Future by the example of our participation. We Build Our Future through the ways we relate to the larger community beyond our doors -- our neighborhoods, our city, other faith communities, and our own larger UU faith.

We can change the world by bits and pieces of vision and effort. When we give where it is needed, when we witness for freedom, when we insist that hate is unacceptable, when we stand for our profound belief in beloved community both within and outside the church, we are changing the world. When we provide study groups and forums for education about the challenges our world faces, we are taking steps toward the changing of the world. The opportunities to make small, medium size and even large choices for a better world are there for us to see, when we open our eyes, our ears, our minds and our hearts.

I am grateful that we are a Learning, Loving Congregation, which seeks to Build Our Future and Change the World. Join with me in offering ourselves, our gifts, and our vision, for the sustaining and growing of this faith, this church. Let us join together to make generous pledges for the growing and building of our faith, our church, and our future.

In faith, with love,

Nina