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Cost
per person |
Yearly |
Weekly |
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Adults |
$1000 |
$20 |
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Children |
$300 |
$6 |
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Adults: 2 x $1000 =
$2000
Children 2 x $300 =
$600
Total:
$2,600
Continue
to improve our governance model – I’m calling this Consensus 2.0.
How do we continue to improve our governance model? Can we continue to use
consensus to bring everyone who is interested into the decision-making process
without burning people out? This has been a challenge in the past.
More
celebrations – This past six months has been a wonderful series of
celebrations – from moving into the new building, to the church dedication, to
our Thanksgiving dinner, to our monthly SoUUper Sundays.
More
outreach – We’re sharing the church with the Girl Scouts, the
budding Christian Fellowship, and the Psalms group. It’s wonderful when we can
share our good fortune and this wonderful building with other groups.
More
covenant groups – people get involved in churches through
integration into covenant groups. Our women’s groups, men’s groups, choir,
book group, etc., are the heart and soul of the church. Can we start more
groups? A singles group? A newcomer’s group?
I’m looking forward to a
wonderful Christmas season and terrific new year. Live Oak is positioned to
become the leading Unitarian Universalist church in the Greater Austin area.
It’s an honor to be part of this growth process.
Soulfully,
John Phelps
Strategic
planning. Sounds like something the government or military should be doing. But
actually, churches do it too. It’s an impressive term for figuring out where
you want to be in the future and putting a plan together on how to get there.
Live Oak has been focused on moving into the new
building and remodeling it for the past couple of years. It’s been a wonderful
journey and we now have a space that is truly spiritual and that looks pretty
good, too. I’m especially grateful for all the hard work, patience, and vision
contributed by George Huntington and Mike Enyart. They have done a wonderful job
and their contribution will be shared by generations of Live Oak members to
come. But now that the move is completed, the paint has dried, and the lights
are on, what do we do next?
The Unitarian Universalist Association cautions that
medium-sized churches, like Live Oak, can only do four or five things well.
Growing the church to the next level involves selecting the next thing and
beginning to do that well. The question is: what is the next thing for Live Oak
to do well?
A bit of perspective is in order. I think we do four
things really well today – finance, facility, religious education, and worship
services. Like a juggler with four plates spinning, to get to the next level, we
need to spin up another plate. Which one is it? Membership? Social action?
Music? Labyrinth? Political activism?
What do you think? Which plate should we spin up
next? What is it that drives the “… fire of commitment” in your soul?
Where would you like to see Live Oak in two years, five years, ten years?
Send me an email at johnphelps@austin.rr.com.
Call me at 733-0561. Grab me at church and give me a piece of your mind or tell
me what’s on your heart.
Your guy leading the strategic planning effort,
John
MY NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION
The kids
are back at school, the temperatures are beginning to moderate, the remodel
project is almost complete. Happy New Year!
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church dedication — Rev. William Sinkford, President of the UUA, is coming to Live Oak on Sunday, November 16 to dedicate our new church. We need to plan a big party! |
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membership — now that we have space for more people, we need to refocus our energies on attracting people and bringing them into our community. This is a great place and soon we will have room to share it with lots more people. |
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strategic planning — where do we want to be in 3, 5, 10 years? |
John
Remember the anticipation that accompanied Christmas Eve when you were a kid?
That’s how I feel about being the newly elected President of Live Oak as we
move into our new church. This is gonna be so cool …!
So, now that the move is accomplished, what’s next? Lots of questions come
to mind like …
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How do we maintain the enthusiasm and commitment that made the move so successful? |
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How are we going to grow the congregation to fill the sanctuary? |
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Can we find ways to reach out to the greater Austin community? |
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Can we find better ways to communicate with our growing community? |
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What can we learn from other UU congregations to help us on our journey? |
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How do we continue to nurture our children, involve our newcomers, support our members, and challenge our staff? |
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How can we make Live Oak the best it can be? |
I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve our community and humbled by your
support and confidence. All I need to do now is contain my enthusiasm so I can
get to sleep and don’t get everybody up at 4:30 am to see what’s under our
Live Oak tree.
With love, respect, and humility,
John Phelps
Spring comes so beautifully to Central Texas. The flowers are everywhere; in the gardens, along the roadside, even at the Rte. 183 construction site. The weather is warm, inviting us to enjoy the outside. And there is the feeling of rebirth and renewal everywhere. We UUs celebrate this rebirth at our Easter Flower Communion service.
This year we have a special rebirth - our move to the El Salido church. Looking around the current sanctuary the other day I was reminded of a caterpillar tightly wrapped in its chrysalis. Like us, it is managing a remarkable transformation under very crowded and tight conditions. On June 1, we will complete our transformation and emerge as a beautiful butterfly in the new building. Of course, we can't just sit around admiring our wings all day long. As with any birth or rebirth, this is the starting point for growth with all its work and joys. That, too, will come in its time. Meanwhile, the next time you have trouble finding a seat at the service, or a room to hold a meeting, think chrysalis now, butterfly on June 1.
--Alice Sessions
The Big Move is June 1 after the 11:15am service. That's when we will formally transfer the church from our current home to our new home on El Salido. And each one of us wants to help, so each of us has set aside that day. And that is good.
Each of us is also needed in the months before the move. There are plans to make, communications with our UU neighbors and the greater community, there are the sexton and the administrator to hire and there is work to do at the new church. In fact there are over 87 separate items that need doing for our move.
So what can you do? Eighty-seven items sounds like so much, but we have nearly 120 members and many friends and children. If each of us offers to do only 1 item or help on a couple of items, we can pull this off. And what is so great about volunteering to the church is that, not only you get that good feeling about helping, but you will also get the warm and wonderful feeling of belonging. This is YOUR church home where you can come for support and growth and friendship and roots. That is what we mean by "community" and we can best belong when we put something of ourselves into it. So, take a look at the list and think about how you would like to help. That way you will be ready to answer when a volunteer calls you, "Sure, I can help."
--Alice Sessions
Our church community. It evokes a warm and pleasant feeling in all of us. We gain strength to face life's vicissitudes and we feel the increased pleasure of shared joys when we belong in our church community. I love Chuck and our Sunday worship time, but that is only part of what feeds my soul. The rest comes from the Live Oak congregation.
A new idea to help us all increase our sense of belonging to the church community was discussed in the Membership committee meeting in February. This idea, first presented by Jack and Lisa Cowling, involves a modified phone tree. Once a month or so, committee members will make a few phone calls. Group chairs will be called to see if anyone in their group needs meals from Mary Pritchard's Caring Committee, a hospital visit from Chuck or church members, or perhaps flowers or a congratulatory card. They will also check to see if a group member hasn't been attending for a while and may want help. New people in the church and those who are still only peripherally involved will also be called to see if they would like help joining a group or even starting a new group as well as to see if they need meals and other support.
We want to increase our sense of church community by making it easy for each of us to support our church friends and bring them into the community circle. By adding intentionality to our caring, we will be better able to help each other through the rough spots and share the joy of our good times. Our working name for this committee is Tree of Life Committee.
In the next few weeks, Membership Committee will be starting an electronic discussion of this by soliciting suggestions. Please give your feedback to Jon or Donna Durbin. Together we can continue to build our church community.
--Alice Sessions
Live Oak UU Church is unique. It’s unique not only because it has such wonderful people like you in it, but also because we make our decisions by consensus. We work to make sure all perspectives are heard and will make a decision only when everyone in the room can live with that decision. For us consensus is a part of living our lives as UU’s, respecting the worth and dignity of every individual.
We were the first UU congregation in the country to live by consensus and are still in the forefront. There are gloom-and-doom types who say a small church may live by consensus, but it will fall apart as we grow. A mid-sized church, they say, cannot support consensus. We are proving them wrong.
Over the past few months a Consensus Committee has been meeting to come up with ways to accommodate growth in the consensus process. And the leadership group has been brainstorming as well. The January Steering Committee used recommendations from these groups to hold a meeting with four key people: an agenda-maker and timekeeper to organize the meeting, a facilitator to run the meeting, a scribe to write down discussion points and action items, and an empath to keep track of the emotional temperature.
Wow! What a great job each one did. The meeting went very well indeed. Ideas were heard and decisions made. There were people assigned to follow through on communication and ideas. And above all, we had a spiritual experience as evidenced by the comments of “Awesome” and “Great meeting” that I heard afterwards.
We can take great pride in our consensus process, Live Oak’s unique way of living the UU life.
January is such a
quiet time. The
excitement of Christmas and New Year’s is over and there is nothing more
than MLK Day to break the routine.
The weather is iffy and the garden’s asleep.
So I follow the earth’s pulse and rest too.
Long evenings with a book and my tea are my preference for January.
But by the end of the month the earth is reawakened and so have I. The weather is improving and it’s time to put down the book and go outside. That’s why the Astronomy Workshop Weekend promises to be so great. The timing is perfect—January 24-26 and a weekend at the beautiful U bar U ranch in the hill country is an ideal location. Imagine what friends, countryside, workshops and stargazing can do for our souls. And join us at the Astronomy Weekend.
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Copyright
©2006, Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church.