We want to remind all First UU Austin members and folks attending our worship services about the online Congregational Survey and to encourage everyone who hasn’t filled it out to do so today or at least by the deadline next Sunday, August 13. If you haven’t received an online copy of it, please visit Ministerial Search Committee members in Howson Hall this Sunday, and we’ll give you a paper copy of the Survey.

The Congregational Survey is one of three ways you can inform us of the qualities our First UU Church needs in a Settled Senior Minister as we use your information to discern what our congregation wants and needs.

A second way we want to hear from you will be for you to attend a Search Party and/or Focus Group meeting. We’ll share more about these meetings soon, and the Search Committee will rely heavily on the information we gather from these activities.

The third way you will give us feedback will be by VOTING if you are a member! We want to stress this because you may not know that in our UU faith, the only way a candidate becomes settled minister is through an affirmative vote of the voting members of our congregation present and voting at a congregational meeting, which will be called by our Board.

The Search Committee will complete its discernment and have conversations with Rev. Chris, our Inside Candidate, the first week in October. If both the Search Committee and Rev. Chris mutually agree that he is a good match for the congregation’s needs in its ministry, the Search Committee will ask the Board to announce a congregational meeting to vote to call Rev. Chris as our Settled Senior Minister. The meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, October 29.

If Rev. Chris receives 90% of the vote, he will be our settled senior minister. If he does not receive 90% of the vote, it will be considered a failed search. The church will extend its interim ministry. The search must start all over, a new search committee must be formed and the earliest we can expect a settled senior minister will be 2025. As is the case with all Inside Candidates, Rev. Chris will resign.

Your elected Ministerial Search Committee will share a FAQ with you online and in Howson Hall this Sunday and future Sundays to help you understand more details in our effort to be as transparent and informative as possible. Thank you for your full participation as we all work together to find what our congregation wants and needs in a new Settled Senior Minister.

For our service on August 20, Rev. Chris and Rev. Michelle will answer your questions about the church, life, the universe, and everything (though neither will pretend to have the answers to all that). We will provide materials to jot down and submit your questions on August 20; however, if you know you will be attending the service virtually or will not be able to attend the service live, please feel free to submit your question ahead of time to info@austinuu.org. Rev. Michelle and Rev. Chris will then answer as many questions as possible in the time allotted.

We appreciate everyone who has filled out the Congregational Survey sent by email Sunday, July 23 from First UU Church of Austin and look forward to more individuals taking it. Here’s the link for the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin Congregational Survey for Ministerial Search if you missed it.

The survey is how you’ll tell the MSC what you want in a new Senior Minister at First UU. The sooner you take the survey the better. It will be open for three weeks and closes at the end of day Thursday, Aug. 13.  It is only available online at this time and is easiest to take on a computer rather than a phone. If you need help completing it online or if you need a paper copy, please talk to any member of the MSC, who will table in Howson Hall on Sundays. After we tally the results, the MSC will use your responses to plan and conduct a variety of Search Meetings and Focus Groups that we’ll announce to hear more feedback directly from the congregation.

If you’ve missed our ongoing MSC announcements, please read more at austinuu.org. Go to the About Us file and scroll down to click on the Ministerial Search Committee tab. Thank you!

Green Sanctuary is part of a team of organizations and individuals who, for the past ten years or so, have been advocating to decommission the Fayette coal fired power plant. We just received a report* documenting the millions of tons toxic emissions this out dated fossil fuel burning catastrophe pumps into our atmosphere. We are writing this piece to share this info with you. We believe, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

On September 3, 2023, as we begin the 2023-2024 church year, will be changing the time of our worship service on Sundays to 11:00 a.m.

We will be making this change to achieve several goals:

• It will help make our church more welcoming to new folks by having a service time that is easier to remember because it is more standard than a service time that begins on a quarter hour mark.
• As our membership and attendance continues to grow, we anticipate eventually needing to return to two services. This new service time will allow us to plan for adding an earlier service more easily when the time comes.
• Finally, participation in our Lifespan Religious Education (RE) programs is also growing. Adjusting our service time will also allow us to structure our Sunday morning RE offerings to better accommodate this exciting growth.

Hello Fellow Planet Champion Congregants,

Last week we spoke about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), this is our tax money returned to folks who want to spend it on energy improvements in their home, church, non-profit organization, business or community. Our outstanding environmental leaders, Bob and Victoria Hendricks and their team, who have put together a slide show on how this IRA money is going to work for you, me and all. This is very cool and informative. If you want to know more about this environmental climate justice financial resource (hundreds to thousands of dollars savings). Click the link here!

Initial presentation designed for consumers, owners and renters

The next Sierra Club Climate Crises Committee (zoom) and in person meeting is 7:00 – 8:30 PM, first Tuesday of every month (August 1st) in Howson Hall.

Do you wonder about the cause of this heat-full time we are struggling through? You know our climate is warmed by what we pump into our atmosphere. We Austinites and Texans are co-owners of the Fayette Coal Fired Power Plant in Fayetteville, Tx. That is about 90 mins. east on 290 from Austin. Our power plant annually pumps into our sky tens of millions of tons of heat, the trapping gasses carbon dioxide, and nitrogen oxide as well as carbon monoxide and NOx that cause air pollution and respiratory illnesses.  A recent report attributes 8 deaths annually to this coal fired monster. These deadly toxins are a contributing cause to our weather turning fatal. These extreme fires, drought, floods, heat, sea warming/rising, and more are caused by heat trapping gasses in our atmosphere that distort our climate. Our Fayette Coal Plant is spewing these poison gases out every day. 

Solution: one remedy is to decommission this old monster. Replace it with cheaper, cleaner renewable energy sources. If you want to help clean up our breathable air, share this with every one you know, family, friends, classmates, clubmates, sororities, fraturnaties and ask them to join you in communicating to the Austin City Council (40% ownership for us) and the Tx. Governor (60% ownership thru the LCRA, whose board the Governor appoints, for us). Say, in your words, ‘please decommission this dangerous coal fired Fayette power plant ASAP and replace it with renewable energy and energy storage’. They know this is true and just need a flood of determined communications to motivate them to action. 

Green Sanctuary Ministry green@austinuu.org Beki & Richard Halpin
“Together, we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.” 

From your Healthy Relations Team

Dear Healthy Relations Team,

It’s difficult enough trying to engage people I don’t know during coffee hour. Now, it seems, I must worry about pronouns. I am so nervous about making mistakes that I retreat to the corners or engage only with people I know. This certainly doesn’t seem welcoming. Any suggestions?

Confused and Wary

_____________________________

Dear Confused and Wary,

There are so many ways in which we can fail to be welcoming. Thank you for bringing to our attention one way that is new to many of us and, therefore, uncomfortable. Today we have turned to an expert and asked Evan Mahony, a trans competency trainer and new board member, to provide us guidance both about how to avoid allowing our silence to inhibit progress and/or failing to interrupt hurtful interactions when we witness them. Evan writes:

“In my professional life as a trans competency trainer, my first piece of advice is to initiate introductions        yourself by saying, ‘Hi, I’m Evan. My pronouns are they/them.’ If they don’t respond with pronouns, don’t worry. If they do, you know what they prefer.

People ask, ‘What do I do if I misgender or mis-name someone accidentally?’ There is a lot of worry and concern about accidentally saying the wrong thing. My answer is to briefly apologize, quickly correct yourself, and move on. It’s as simple as ‘I was talking to Alex and he—sorry, I mean she—said that she would bring the cups for the party,’ or ‘After service today I have to talk to Jenny—oh, sorry, Jonathan—about our class.’

Apologizing too effusively or too lengthily runs the risk of centering speaker’s own feelings and making the trans person feel pressured to reassure the speaker. Everyone makes mistakes—wires get crossed (for example, many people have had the experience of a parent absent-mindedly calling them a sibling’s name)—even trans people misgender each other by accident sometimes (I certainly do)! The point isn’t to be perfect and never make mistakes—the important part is how we recognize, take responsibility for, and correct our mistakes going forward.

Another question is what to do if you observe someone misgendering a trans person in front of you. This can get a little more complicated depending on the circumstance, but usually I would recommend, if you have a relationship to that trans person, ask them, ‘If I observe someone misgendering you, would you like me to correct the speaker? Does your preference change depending on whether you’re present for the conversation or not?” And then follow their preference.’

For me, personally, I very much appreciate when other people speak up and correct others for me, so that I don’t have to do so myself! It doesn’t have to be a whole conversation—just a quick interjection of ‘Oh, Evan uses they/them’ or ‘Oh, Evan is nonbinary’ can be very helpful. At a previous job, I had a coworker who repeatedly used the wrong pronouns for me, and my boss very consistently corrected my coworker over and over until my coworker started getting my pronouns right. That was a wonderful example of allyship and support in action.”

The Healthy Relations Ministry thanks Evan for their help today. We are available to you as a resource if you need help with a difficult situation here at church. The Healthy Relations team includes Margaret Borden, Tomas Medina, and Julie Paasche and can be reached at healthyrelations@austinuu.org.