“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." --Albert Einstein
We have an awesome Youth Kick-Off coming up this Sunday 9/9 at UCC Watertown, and we hope you’ll join us also for a grill-out after the service. Then come out next Wednesday 9/12 at 6pm for dinner and “Wednesday Church.” Bring a friend – especially friends who might like to join us on our learning journey this year!
I have colleagues who like to talk about religious exploration rather than religious education. I love that! The way I see it, faith formation should be more about helping students discover how the tradition can support their lives here and now, than holding them hostage to the past. It should be more about experimentation and encounters with difference, than memorization and staying in our comfort zones. It should be more about asking good questions than “definitively” answering them. In fact, this exploratory approach reflects the original Latin roots of the word education, which means “to draw forth” – to draw us forth into our best, most curious, most loving selves. That’s not a linear process – perhaps because God isn’t terribly linear either!
As we dive into “religious exploration” this fall, then, may we be open to non-linearity and all the frustrations—and transformations—it brings. May we never stop asking good questions and seeking good answers. May we cultivate our imaginations like seeds in a seed-plot. And in the words of the poet Yehuda Amichai, may “the windows of a classroom always open to the future.”
Blessin’s, --Tom COMING UP
Sunday 9/9
· Youth Kick-Off Worship followed by a potluck meal, 10am
· Evensong Labyrinth Service, 7pm
Wednesday 9/12
· Wednesday Church, 6pm (dinner followed by worship and classes for kids)
There will be a sign-up sheet in the narthex to prepare meals for Wednesday Church.
· UCCW Choir, 7pm
Thursday 9/13
· Tom’s Community Office Hours, 9am-12pm @ Gather
Sunday 9/16
· Adult Bible Study, 8:45am
· Worship, 10am
· Special Meeting to vote on by-laws changes, 11am
· Specific language regarding the propose changes will be located in the Narthex.
· Church Council meeting, 11:30am
College Students who want to apply for the Betty Erling Scholarship here is the URL link, https://goo.gl/forms/dTK2IUlVqCHD7xpg1. It is a Google Form.
Applications are due by the end of September. It is a $500 scholarship which is renewable up to 4 years
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