Next Sunday is the official beginning of summer. Our worship service will be broadcast at 10:00 AM on ZOOM. The entire service has been pre-recorded. The following Sunday, June 27th at noon, we will be joining Unitarian Universalists across the country for the denomination-wide virtual worship service, which will be brought to us from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Minneapolis. The following Sunday, July 4th at 10:00 AM, will be our first of nine summer worship services held both in person and broadcast on ZOOM. Members of our larger UU community will be leading a variety of services. All of them will be innovative and stirring.
Similarly, the ministers will not be communicating via Wednesday and Friday videos or Tuesday email messages during the summer months. Instead, congregants are invited to share their wisdom in one of these time slots. Please reach out to Beth Cliff if you are interested in being part of this communication work and lay ministry. We’d love to hear from you.
While the pace of our congregational life slows down a bit in the summer, we are still very much open. You can reach most of the staff throughout the summer. I will be using the last two weeks of June to continue my training in Spiritual Direction through the Shalem Institute, an ecumenical organization with a deep history in spiritual training and thought.
I will spend most of July at our small cabin in Maine reading, writing and recreating with family and friends. In August, I have several conferences to attend and a trip to CA to visit family before returning in late August to gear up for a new year.
I am available by phone call or text to 310-710-6846, or by email for most of the summer. Don’t hesitate to reach out should the need arise. The rest of June and most of July, Rev. Ed Thompson will provide in person pastoral coverage and for most of August, Rev. Jim Francek will be available. Most of the time I will only be a day’s drive from Westport. If you do have a pastoral emergency, either phone me directly or call our pastoral care line 203-227-7205 ext. 19 and leave a message. Some one will get back to you right away.
Over the summer we will be readying ourselves for a transformational year. Very soon I will be announcing our new Lead for Children and Family Faith Formation who, along with Nate Pawelek as our Lead for Youth Faith Formation, will be ready to welcome new families to our dynamic congregation, including yours.
Let’s renew and restore for our post-pandemic reality. I, for one, can’t wait.
Yours Always, Rev. John