Advent 2019

Live Radio Play: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Sunday, December 22 at 1pm at United Presbyterian Church, 42 Chenango St., Binghamton

a joint production of UPC and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Binghamton

Do you want to be part of the cast & crew? We have over a dozen speaking parts as well as room for a handful of people on the sound effects table. We’re also in need of greeters and ushers for the performance.

There will be three 90-minute rehearsals on Sundays, December 1, 8, and 15, 1–2:30pm at the UUCB (183 Riverside Dr.) and a two-hour rehearsal on Saturday, December 21, 1–3pm at UPC. (If you need to miss one of the three Sunday rehearsals, we can be flexible; but everybody needs to be at the full tech rehearsal on Saturday 12/21.)

To sign up, contact the UPC office (607-722-4219 or office@upcbgm.org).

The UU’s are coming! The UU’s are coming!

January through August 2020 (or maybe slightly longer)

On December 29, following their worship service on Riverside Drive, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Binghamton will be processing over to 42 Chenango Street to bring their chalice and flame and to share — what else? — a potluck luncheon with us.

This will be a symbolic beginning to a real event — the congregation will be sharing space with us for about 8 months, or slightly longer, while their building undergoes some much-needed renovation. Since the repairs include a new roof and asbestos abatement throughout the building, they need to move out for awhile. And since we know and love them, and since we’re sorta that way anyhow, we said, “sure, why not?”

WHAT IT WILL LOOK LIKE:

• The office conference room will become their office space, so meetings currently held in that room will be moved somewhere else.
• They will be worshiping in our sanctuary on Sundays at 12:30pm, joining us occasionally for coffee hour, potlucks, and other shared events.
• Their evening events will be scheduled onto our calendar and open to us, as ours will be to them.
• We will have a couple of public conversations about what it means to be Presbyterian and what it means to be Unitarian-Universalist, and hope to learn from each other.
• Some shared events and mission possibilities.

WHAT IT WILL NOT LOOK LIKE: A merger.

Really. The UU’s want, expect, and need to return to their own space and their own mission on the West Side. They are just coming alongside us for awhile as they build their future — and we hope that they will become even closer allies in the work of justice and mercy during the time we are together.