Minister's Column – Sept., 2018

by Admin | Sep 4, 2018 | Minister

Our theme for September is Vision, fitting for us right now as we embark on a process to create and vision for UUCV for the next five years. Yet I confess that I am struggling to find an inspiring way to express our vision in our present context. Back in my Berkeley days I remember the bumpersticker, “Think globally, act locally.” It still has power, yet now thinking globally feels harder – especially in the realms of politics and economics – and can lead easily to an unhelpful sense of despair. It feels more manageable to think locally and act locally.
Luckily, we are all responsible for creating a vision for the church. I am grateful that we have such thoughtful, committed and caring people to dream together. I can envision many possibilities, yet perhaps my most significant role is holding the spiritual questions. What are you called to bring into the world – in your life and in the church? What inspires you? What spiritual connection will sustain you in that calling?
Together, over the next weeks and months we will be asking, “What is our story at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura? What is the story that we tell? What is the story we hope that others will tell about us?”
We ask those questions in the context of significant transitions.

• The irreplaceable Beverly Jordan will leave us – sometime between November and March – after nearly 5 years of service to UUCV. We are a better people, a stronger community because of her presence among us. She has helped us discover gifts we might not otherwise have seen. As sad as we are at her departure, we now have an opportunity to keep blossoming and living into what Beverly taught us we are.
• We are facing a significant budget deficit in the coming years. Deficits definitely produce their share of anxiety, yet once more we have an opportunity to evaluate what we need and want as a congregation and consider how and what we have resources for. My own anixiety is lessened by knowing that – even in the face of a deficit – the church is in strong financial shape. We have greater reserve funds than in any church I have experience with.

At least two more questions arise: What will we do with our gifts? As a generous people, what can we create in the world?
There are two opportunities to begin asking these questions.

• The board is hosting a Congregational Conversation to begin plan­ning for addressing our deficit on Sept. 16 after church at 11:30
• The 5-for-5 Visioning (task) Force* will be holding a BIG Vision Sat­urday on Oct. 6 from 9-12. It’s only the beginning of a process that will need your participation and input in many formats. I hope many of you will be able to attend one or both of these events.

We’ll find our way through these transitions together.
In times like these – within the church and beyond – I have never been gladder that we share the ministry of the church.
With love, Rev. Dana
* George Owens has stepped down from our 5-For-5

Minister's Column – August, 2018

by Admin | Aug 7, 2018 | Minister

My favorite metaphor for the church is a lighthouse. At our best the church is a light sent out into the darkness when seas are rough, guiding us to safe harbor, a place of rest and com­fort. Yet it is also a beacon sent forth to proclaim truths the world yet needs to see and hear. The work of the church is finding the balance point(s) between reaching in – for sustenance and depth of spirit, and reaching out – speaking truth to power, learning to love the world and its people ever more expansively, widening the circle of justice, inviting all in.
Creating a vision and plan for the next five years can help us at UUCV manage this dynamic balancing act as beacon and sanctuary. The five members of our visioning task force will be considering all this as we gear up to begin creating our vision for the next five years. We have dubbed ourselves 5-For-5: the Five-Year Vision Task Force, or simply 545. I am so grateful to be working with Kim Prieto, who has agreed to chair the team, Janice Frank, George Owens, and Andy Edgar Beltran.
Not that we are going to write the plan ourselves, that’s where everyone (and we mean everyone) comes in. 545 will facilitate a congregational process to generate ideas and input from members and friends. There will be congregational gatherings, surveys, phone calls, coffee hour conversations, and more. We’ll ask com­mittees and groups to balance dreaming boldly with being prac­tical and strategic. And on the other side of a year or so – after conversing, discussing, wrassling, dreaming, developing the art of the possible – we will have a planning document to guide us through the next five years. We intend it to be a living document to be revisited throughout the years ahead.
The 545 team has already met twice, and you’ll be hearing from us regularly.
First, we ask some questions:
What is your metaphor for the church? My lighthouse is only one among many possibilities. How does the church make a difference in your life and the world? What metaphor captures the energy, inspiration, delight and power of this church com­munity?
And lastly – In service to what? What is the larger purpose of all this visioning and planning? What greater good does the church serve?
We might not yet have answers. I can’t wait to discover the answers we live into.
The journey continues.
With love, Rev. Dana

Minister's Column – July, 2018

by Admin | Jul 3, 2018 | Minister

It has been quite a year, start to finish. My overwhelming memories of 2017-2018 will be about the power of community. We talk about creating the Beloved Community, and we have lived it fully at UUCV this past year.
Truly, I can’t remember all that much before the Thomas Fire swept in, and I watched this congregation rise to the moment. We opened our doors, checked in with each other, supported our families, cared for each other, our children, and our four-legged companions. Since then, I’ve watched as we’ve grown in depth and in the ties that hold us together. Our tapestry of love is more beautiful and strong.
This is a congregation that shows up. Yes, lots of folks come to worship on Sundays. Yet there are so many places to show up – women’s and men’s groups, Open Mic Night, annual meetings, Cluster Camp at deBenneville Pines (this year Sept. 28-30), picnics, Sunday luncheons, city council meetings, covenant groups, committees and teams, Pub Theology with the minister, book groups, movie nights, late services on Christmas Eve, water-coloring, Women’s Marches, Park Outreach, and so much more. Including memorial services.
You all helped create a powerful moment at Cindy Camillucci’s memorial last month. Cindy was taken from us too soon and too quickly. Her death was particularly hard on her son, and this community showed up for him in so many ways. We organized the reception, created the program, rehearsed the music and so much more.
The minister’s main role at a memorial is “holding the space,” creating an open and safe place for grief, laughter, sorrow to arise as they will. It’s harder than it may look. In a particularly emotional moment for Cindy’s son and his father, I was holding that space as mightily as I could. Then, I looked up at you all and realized that you were holding the space with me, just as mightily. I got chills as I thought, “Yes, this is what we do.”
This is how we keep the feeling of a family even as we have grown to more than 300 souls among our members, friends, children and youth. That many people really counts as more than a family. We don’t (and can’t) all know each others’ names. Yet we can create a sense of home. This is a place where there is room at the table for all.
We show up. We pull up a chair, pull out an extra plate, show a newcomer where to wash it (because we try hard to be environmentally sustainable). We listen to stories. We reach out and reach back. We do our level best to create a Beloved Community.
Just wow.
With love, Rev. Dana

Minister's Column – February, 2018

by Admin | Feb 2, 2018 | Minister

Have you noticed yourself start to date things from before and after the fire? Such happens when we’ve been through such a major and collective trauma. I also have realized that somewhere in there I lost December. So now we get to pick up and carry on.
Sometime Before the Fire, the Board of Trustees held a Congregational Conversation to hear from folks about how things are going in church. The question we posed was: What ways do we want the church to grow? The point was not to dwell on numerical growth, but to consider all the aspects of growth within the church. Folks responded with all sort of ideas about how we can grow in spiritual depth, in being a congregation of many diversities and generations. There were ideas for worship and religious education and for how we might improve our sanctuary’s aesthetics and acoustics.
Have you noticed, in the mean time, we are growing like gangbusters? Some Sundays we are filling up nearly every seat. We now are singing “We Hold You In Our Love” three times through before all our kids make it through the Bridge of Love. People have been finding their way through our doors. We will welcome 30-35 new members in just four months. Our RE program is close to doubling in size in 6 months.
It could just be that what we offer in a free church with progressive values and an openness to spirit and possibility resonates more profoundly in our times. Perhaps the fires served as a powerful reminder of the importance of community. It becomes clearer how much we need each other and the power we have when we come together.
We are now growing in all the ways we spoke of in November and in numbers of people seeking a spiritual home.
Such growth is simultaneously wonderful and challenging. We have bought more chairs for the sanctuary and more tables for Berg Hall, which will help.
Yet more important is that we keep our hearts and arms open, that we remember the gracious art of hospitality. We offer a profound message of freedom, resistance, hope, possibility, and joy, even as the world swirls around us. We may, each of us, need this community. And we must keep the doors open behind us and offer to others the same sense of home we have found.
So that we may ever say, Welcome home. We’re so glad you’re here.
with love,
Rev. Dana