While Unitarian Universalism comes out of Christianity, many of us have–at best–mixed experiences with the Christian bible. Whether you are bible-curious or concerned about what’s in there, this workshop is for you.

Join UU seminary student AJ Juraska online, Sunday, December 29th from 1 – 3 p.m. to learn tools for understanding the bible from an academic/historical perspective, rather than a “literal” one. We’ll focus on what the bible does–and does not–say about being gay and how to research what bible verses “really” say. A Zoom link will be provided once you register on Church Center.

First UU’s Mission is Building the Beloved Community. By sharing 60 minutes of your time, you can invite First UU’s members and friends to build a world of justice, compassion, and love. Sixty minutes of your time in the comfort of your own home is a great way to demonstrate your spiritual values. We have opportunities to sign up for writing thank you cards and participating in virtual text banks. 

Please share your time with the stewardship team by signing up here.

Building the Beloved Community

With love and joy, we invite you to join the 2025 First UU Stewardship Campaign. Commitment Sunday is coming on Sunday, October 13. This is the day that we will ask all members and friends to make their annual pledge to First UU. What is a pledge?  Making a pledge simply means declaring how much you expect to contribute to First UU during 2025. 

This year, we are striving to make pledging joyful by encouraging positive reasons to give, easy ways to make your pledge, and a churchwide celebration recognizing our congregation’s accomplishments and having some fun.

Join the hundreds of Austin families committed to the spiritual practice of supporting our progressive faith community by pledging on October 13. If you already pledge, we encourage you to increase your support of First UU in 2025. We will then celebrate our commitment to First UU with a party on October 27 from 12:15 – 2. Learn more about pledging and the 2025 Pledge Drive on the Stewardship Webpage.

Are you wanting to deepen or expand your spiritual practice? Would you like more opportunities to worship with your family?

Starting in October, FUUCA will be offering evening Vespers services on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month at 6:30 PM. The 2nd Tuesday will be a meditative service and will be held in the sanctuary. The 4th Tuesday will be a family friendly service in Howson Hall with dinner provided (all ages are welcome).

This month the services will be Tuesday, October 8th and October 22nd. Please reach out to Nancy Mohn Barnard with any questions: okrasalad@gmail.com or 512-914-2917. 

In 2013, co-founders Frances Schenkkan and Dr. Juno Woods expanded on the 2007 organization, Students for Gun-Free Schools in Texas, to create Texas Gun Sense, with a broader focus on public safety. The mission of Texas Gun Sense is “. . . to prevent gun violence and other gun tragedies in Texas through education, partnerships, and policy change. We achieve this mission through a multi-faceted approach centering around education, collaboration, and advocacy.”

Texas uses a common-sense approach to political action and, in doing so, has achieved some careful, measured success in Texas. The 2015 launch of The Texas Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, an alliance of organizations and experts working on gun violence prevention, is one such success, as is the Texas Invest in Us Coalition, designed to secure investment for violence intervention. TGS works politically to prevent dangerous laws from being passed as well as supporting and advocating for new laws. And it
works educationally, an example being its webinar series, “Education to End Gun Violence.” Go to txgunsense.org for more information.

In 2023, during the 88th session of the Texas Legislature, TGS was successful in working with a lawmaker to add a measure to the school safety legislation (HB 3) that requires school districts to educate every child’s parent or caregiver about safe gun storage. The work goes on!

On Sunday, October 13th the collection will promote Texas Gun Sense.

Sign Up for the Green Sanctuary Committee, a Different 1st UU Social Action Pillar, the Sierra Club,
Citizens Climate Lobby – or All of Them

The Green Sanctuary Committee will try a new process. You can sign up as a Green Sanctuary Activist. You will receive a weekly communication about how you can help fight for the climate at local, state, and national levels. You are not expected to take all of these actions. If you are one of the many folks at 1st UU who is too busy with other causes, with work, and/or with family, we encourage you to sign up as a Green Sanctuary Supporter (not money support, action support). We’ll inform you of at least one action a month that will take as little as five minutes yet that, joining hundreds or thousands of others, can exert powerful pressure on our leaders to take action. We’ll also notify you of several meetings each month where you can learn and act with a major climate organization even without joining it.

We’ll also have sign up sheets for the other committees that make up the six social action pillars of 1st UU: LGBT Rights, Anti-Racism, Immigration, Reproductive Justice, and UU the Vote/Democracy.

We’ll also have a sign-up table for Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL). CCL focuses effectively on trying to get the most important climate legislation passes at the national level. They are unique in recognizing that most climate legislation will need bipartisan support to pass, and looking for and supporting legislation that both parties can support. CCL provides superb volunteer training and has a strong Austin chapter.

We’ll have a sign-up table for the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club is the largest grass-roots environmental organization in the country and has strong advocacy programs at the local, state, and national levels. Fighting for the climate and for climate justice is a top priority. They have excellent speakers on climate and the environment at many local meetings. They also provide many volunteer opportunities. They lead excellent hikes in the local area.

Heat claims more climate crisis deaths than anything else. 645 people died from heat in Phoenix in 2023
alone. 47,000 people died in Europe. As heat waves become longer and more intense, even more will
die. Deaths from heat is also a top climate justice. It’s important that we realize that real people are
behind cold statistics about deaths.

We will watch the film Cooked – Survival by Zip Code, the story of a Chicago heat wave. We’ll discuss the
reactions of different people in the U.S. to this tragedy. We’ll of course have popcorn. Children will
watch a different movie at the same time, Seuss’s Lorax. Please join us.

Building the Beloved Community

With love and joy, we invite you to join the 2025 First UU Stewardship Campaign. Commitment Sunday is coming on Sunday, October 13th. This is the day that we will ask all members and friends to make their annual pledge to First UU. Making a pledge simply means declaring how much you expect to contribute to First UU during 2025.  

This year, we are striving to make pledging joyful by encouraging positive reasons to give, easy ways to make your pledge, and a church-wide celebration recognizing our congregation’s accomplishments and having some fun.

Join the hundreds of Austin families committed to the spiritual practice of supporting our progressive faith community by pledging on Sunday, October 13th. If you already pledge, we encourage you to increase your support of First UU in 2025. We will then celebrate our commitment to First UU with a party on Sunday, October 27 from 12 – 2 p.m. Learn more about pledging and the 2025 Pledge Drive on the Stewardship webpage.

Trans Hostile States/Safe States Training with
Transforming Hearts Collective and UUSC

On Sunday, September 15th from 12:30- 1:30 p.m., we will watch a Ted Talk by Katherine Hayhoe. We’ll briefly present the five barriers to thinking about the climate crisis, and how to talk about climate to breach them. We’ll present a few additional tips from Katherine Hayhoe’s latest book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. And we’ll talk about all of this.

We’ll have a light lunch. Join us.

Those of us who appreciate how vital solving our climate crisis is must talk about the climate, and talk about the climate in the right way. Katherine Hayhoe, climate scientist and communicator, argues that this is “the most important thing you can do for the climate is talk about it.”

Yale Climate Communications surveys show that fewer than 25% of Americans hear anything about climate change once a week or more. Psychologist Per Epsen Stoknes summarizes research into five barriers the brain builds up to avoid thinking about climate change, and how to overcome them. Although most people report that they know climate change is real and needs action, it is not in the top ten priorities of most people. This allows many politicians to feel they can continue to cater to their big donors in oil and gas and do little or nothing to stop the climate crisis we’re in.

During the long fight to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the greatest climate action bill ever passed, the climate movement generated hundreds of thousands of messages to Congress. It barely passed, but pass it did, although it was declared totally dead three times.

So folks, talk more about the climate crisis. Out descendants will thank you

The Only Guaranteed Things in Life…are death and taxes.

We are honored to have church member Liz Nielsen, Founder of Nielsen Law and estate planning attorney, share wisdom and best practices around getting one’s affairs in order in advance, so that one’s wishes may be carried out as fully as possible. She will also discuss some tax efficient charitable giving techniques.

Please join us on Sunday, November 3, from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. in Room 13A. Register here!

1st UU has really stepped up. We estimate that 1st UU members have written about 3,000 postcards and counting. 3,000! Utterly amazing.

This Citizens Climate Lobby Postcard Project is sending postcards to registered voters who do not regularly vote, who have a score indicating they care about the Climate Crisis, and who live in a district with a competitive U.S. House or Texas State Legislature race. We also have read studies with a control group which show that, to reach a large number of voters to go vote, postcard writing is the most effective method. Those same studies discovered what should go on the postcards and when to send them for the greatest effect. They tested dozens of different messages. We strongly feel that your time writing these postcards is well spent. We also think that voters who care about the climate will also care about other social justice causes and will vote for people more in accordance with UU values.

We’re holding a Postcard Writing Party from 1-2 p.m. at Howson Hall this Sunday, September 8th. We’ll have light lunch eats and music. We’ll ask writers to suggest one of their favorite songs, and play all we can during the party. If you prefer to pick up postcards and write them at home, the more power to you. But those of you who might enjoy writing in community, please come. And leave with a song in your heart.

Intersections, any social justice fight is a fight for climate justice

Climate change hurts us all. We all suffer from wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, etc. But generally, people who are oppressed or discriminated against suffer the most. They live in flood prone areas, next to fossil fuel plants that contaminate air and water, in houses that offer less protection. When disaster relief comes, it come first and most to higher income households. As you can see on our climate justice movie night on Tuesday, September 24th, people from poor neighborhoods die from heat waves in much, much larger numbers than those in middle- to upper-class neighborhoods.

One of the areas that cuts most clearly across areas of social justice is Democracy Justice/Voting. If we have more legislators who advocate for social justice, we clearly can get more done. That is why we’re holding a special Postcard Writing Party this week.

We also plan to do a social justice map with some of you. Many of us volunteer to help with many different causes in our fight for social justice. We’re want as many as are willing to place a small magnet on a chart under the type(s) of social justice you fight for. Also remember that many of us have a social justice issue we really fight for, but when needed, we should all be ready to sign a petition, write an email, or make a phone call for the other causes.

We’ll also provide an opportunity for you to sign up with any of the 1 st UU Social Action Committee Pillars: LBJT, Reproductive Justice, Democracy/UU the Vote, Anti-Racism, Immigration, and Climate (Green Sanctuary).

Presentation on “Status of Climate Crisis and What To Do About It

Presentation in Room 13 from 12:30 – 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 1st: “State of the Climate Crisis and What You Can Do About” It by Bob Hendricks.

Bob Hendricks is the top climate volunteer leader for the two largest grassroots climate organizations in Texas, chair of the state Sierra Club ExCom and state coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby. He has given climate presentations at the national, regional, state, and local levels.

We will quickly note how the situation is worsening despite positive efforts to stop it. We’ll cover the challenge of tipping points which can accelerate global warming and cause irreversible damage. We’ll briefly cover the most important things we can do to stop it, most of which take little time or effort and do not involve significant lifestyle changes. Finally, I’ll summarize how we can help accelerate reducing U.S. carbon pollution through the Inflation Reduction Act, the most important climate legislation ever passed. The U.S. is the world’s worst carbon polluter over time and we must move faster to cut our carbon pollution.

We’ll provide sandwiches and drinks for those who come. See you there!