Minister's Musing

Rev. Mark Ward
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville

September 2007

Out in the garden I heard the first cicadas of the season a little while ago. To me they’ve always been the first signal that the end of summer is approaching. It may still be August, but at church our time right now is spent gearing up for a great fall. I think you’ll find some exciting opportunities.

Much of my attention has been focused on planning our worship year, and I wanted to give you a preview of some of what I have in mind. Sunday worship is the focus of our community, the place where, as I tell our UU 101 classes, “we celebrate the values that bring us together, confront the challenges of life, explore many sources of wisdom and understanding, touch the sense of awe in living, and build connections of fellowship, trust, caring and concern.”

How we worship evolves as our community evolves. One goal I have this year, as increasing numbers of young families are joining our church, is to find ways for our Sunday worship to bring us together as a community. So, I have asked our Religious Education leaders to leave space in our classes once a month to begin Sunday services with all of us together – children, youth and adults – for a special moment of ritual, story, or reflection. We will also have several fully intergenerational services, during which you will be hearing more from our Intergenerational Choir led by Music Director, Lenora Thom. Also, for the first time in several years we will have a worship service planned and led by the youth of our church.

As I thought about what might be a suitable subject for a sermon series, my mind kept coming back to the Strategic Planning process that we began last year and will continue in the coming year. Central to deciding where we want to go as a church community is articulating a vision of who we are and who we want to be. The Strategic Planning Committee will lead us in some of this work, but I think that Sunday worship also gives us a unique occasion to reflect on it. So, this year I am organizing a series of worship services around what I think could be some answers to those questions, some elements of what our vision of our work as a church could be. I’ll also be looking for opportunities to invite your participation, too, so stay tuned. See you in church.