Pastors’ Reports

We planned and celebrated a beautiful Advent season telling the stories that have shaped our understanding of Christmas and of incarnation, and we have continued to work together to assure that our worship is inclusive, educational, and open to the spirit of God. We purchased projection screens for the sanctuary, and have been experimenting with the best ways to use them in our worship life, including streaming guest preachers from New York City and from Tucson.

We evaluated and reshaped our Community Meal and Pantry program, and continue to adapt to the changing needs of our community. We started dreaming about a day center that would provide a warm and safe place for our unhoused friends to make calls, charge phones, do laundry, and perhaps even take showers. Then…

We began a partnership with the Addiction Center of Broome County, providing an overnight comfort station five nights each week, and hope that the program will expand to seven nights by the time cold weather comes again. This new venture has raised new questions about how we can best be stewards of the space and the resources entrusted to us. This conversation will continue, as we consider the changes that continue to happen in our congregation, our families, our communities and our world.

In May, after the CDC reported that Broome County’s COVID risk and hospitalization rate has been low since March, the session voted to make mask-wearing in worship optional, recognizing that if the danger increases we will revisit the question. We continue to seek balance between our very human need for contact and community, and our desire to keep each other safe from harm.

And we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of our life together at United, as we gathered on the lawn for an outdoor worship service and picnic just as we did in June of 2013, when I first arrived.

One of those ways is our Sunday school packets. It continues to be a great joy as Associate Pastor for Spiritual Formation to spend time each week designing a lesson to send home to the 21 young people in our congregation that goes along with the scripture we are learning about in worship. Because we are striving to learn more parts of the Bible than just what the lectionary gives, it means that traditional curriculum often does not cover the stories that we are learning about. So it is a fun and satisfying challenge to create the material and crafts to send home each week that help to bring a piece of the lesson to each family for them to engage in. I often design a craft and make one in my office so I can take pictures of the steps to include in the instructions. As a result, I have quite the collection of example crafts in my office that remind me of all that we have learned this year (pictured below). Other weeks were activities or science experiments or pieces of a craft that I no longer have in my office. Many thanks goes out to Marilynn Guinane, who comes in most weeks to cut construction paper or yarn, count out pipe cleaners, label envelopes, fold letters, stuff the lessons into the packets, and get them to the post office! Because we mail them out each week, we can help all of the young people of our congregation have a chance to interact with the Bible lesson each week, not just the weeks that they’re at church in person.

We have office hours for students to stop in and talk or ask questions, and we table at orientation and accepted student days. We are having a good response to our presence, and we hear a lot from students and parents that it is great to see faith leaders from different religions working together and having a good time together. We have also been invited to come to two different classes to teach about Interfaith Dialogue this past spring, and they were great opportunities to teach others about working together and about celebrating differences. Thank you for valuing this work at the University.

We continue to meet people where they are with worship, bible study, and meetings as well. Being able to have in-person, Zoom, or YouTube options has allowed people who have been away from our community for a while to take part. We feel that this is extremely important and will be committed to continuing it in the future. We also have heard over and over again how wonderful it is to see people in person or to have Zoom opportunities to get to know each other. We were able to catch up with so many of you at Christmas, Easter, and at the picnic. And our Friday night Happy Hour is still continuing on Zoom at 5:00 each week, when we share all kinds of things from our lives. Being a part of a community is not just worshiping together, it is sharing ourselves with one another. Sharing the little bits of conversation about a trip you took or a book you read or a struggle you are going through. So in the next few months, we would like to work on ways to have book studies or walks or other types of gatherings to strengthen the relationships that are very important for a community to have as well. Jesus gathered with disciples, he sent them out in groups, and God is in community all the time. If we are created in God’s image, we need to take seriously the building of our community together. If you have ways that you would like to foster building our community, we would love to hear it!