All Souls Community Church

State of the Church Address, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:39:00 +0000

See the board of trustees blog post for the State of the Church Address for 2012, delivered on February 12, 2012. The address referenced the end of year financial statements for 2011, available here in summary form and here in detail form, both from google docs.

Tis the Season at All Souls

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:37:00 +0000

All Souls celebrates the holiday time with a number of special events during December. The month kicks off with our semi-annual congregational meeting on Dec 4. A special musical presentation for the December 18 service: "A Charlie Brown Christmas", is a musical service featuring All Souls' Adult and Children's Choirs and Instrumental Ensemble and an Intergenerational Celebration with Children, Youth and Rev. Lynda Smith as readers. A Winter Solstice celebration on Thursday December 22 from 6-7 pm in the Ahavas meeting room is a time to hear poetry and other readings to connect ourselves with the calling of the earth and the cycle of the sun. All Souls celebrates every child as sacred and our divine purpose in this world with our Candlelight Christmas Eve service on December 24 at 6:30pm. Come join us for carols and readings of the season. There will be no Sunday morning services on Christmas Day or New Years Day.

Congregational Meeting Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:12:00 +0000

All members are invited to the All Souls Community Church of West Michigan Semi-Annual Congregational Meeting to be held on Sunday December 4, 2011 in the Ahavas Social Hall immediately following the service. The agenda is to review and approve the operating budget for the 2012 fiscal year, starting on January 1, 2012 and ending December 31, 2012.

See the posting in the Board of Trustees page for materials presented at the meeting.

All Souls 10 Year Celebration on September 11th

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:42:00 +0000

We were blessed Sunday by the presence of so many of you and by the abundance of affection and care. The Tenth Anniversary and Homecoming Worship and Commemoration was perfect in so many ways because so many people of all ages and time with the congregation participated. A special thank you to organizing committee whose vision and great effort truly made the day what it was. Also thank you to all the young adults, youth, and adults who participated in the service as readers. Rev. Dr. Brent Smith and his wife, Pat, also honored us with their presence and Brent with his reflection and prayer. Thank you to the Board of Trustees and congregants who supplied the picnic food. Thank you to Carla Beebe-Grunwaldt for coordinating the children's "Young Souls" program under the canopy by the playground. There were also the "behind the scenes" people who also were essential to helping the day go smoothly.
I know I'm forgetting to name some important people who contributed greatly to making the day a blessed event. You KNOW who you are; and please know you are appreciated. Suffice it to say that when a beloved community meets with holy intentions, authentic relationships and meaningful rituals and words, the space and time becomes sacred. That is what happened on Sunday and everyone played a part in making that happen.

To those of you who were unable to attend the Tenth Anniversary - Homecoming, please know that you were all there in spirit. I know some of you were away due to family illness, memorial services, recovery from surgery, or a myriad of other life events. May you find peace, comfort, happiness, and what you are seeking in your life journey
in peace and love,
Rev. Lynda Smith, Interim Minister

Ministerial Search Update

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 01:58:00 +0000

By October 1, the Ministerial Search Committee (MSC) will be drafting the "Congregational Record," which is a thorough profile of the ASCC congregation, for posting on the UUA Transitions website. As you might guess, our profile has changed quite a bit over the past two years, so once again we entreat you to participate in gathering your voice in this process. There are two primary ways for this: in a cottage meeting, and via an online survey. The meetings are a key part of our effort to develop a meaningful portrait of the 2011 version of ASCC. If you participated two years ago, we'd love to talk with you again. If you're brand new to the church, we'd love to talk with you. We'll hold meetings before and after church August 28 (9:00 and 12:15), and finally on Monday, August 29, at 7:00 p.m. All of the meetings will take place in the meeting room at Ahavas. There's no need to register or RSVP: just join us! We look forward to it.

The congregational survey to help us develop the description of All Souls Community Church and what we are looking for in a minister. We will use this information as we continue in our process of calling our first settled minister at All Souls. The Ministerial Search Committee needs to complete analysis of your responses by mid-September in order to stay on schedule to post our opportunity this fall.

Thank you for your voice and participation in this democratic process of calling a new minister to All Souls Community Church!

Coming of Age and New Members

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 01:52:00 +0000

This year’s Coming of Age Class has taken five ninth-grade students through a whole year of study about the history, ethics, and beliefs of Unitarian Universalism. The Rite of Passage Recognition this past Sunday for Dylan Harris, Kayleigh VanOveren, Cassie Fields, Erika Waalkes, and Ethan Lussky showed how focused these young people are. They articulated their beliefs with a depth and sense of perspective (and humor) that is mature and respectful. Their poise and public speaking ability shined. Most congregations feel that youth worship services are one of the highlights of the year. I certainly do.

The parents of Dylan, Kayleigh, Cassie, Erika, and Ethan are rightfully proud and deserve kudos for organizing and teaching the year’s lessons, trips, community service, fundraising and all it took to do a quality program. Two things most dear to me as I was on the chancel with the Coming of Agers: 1) their friendship and cooperation with each other, 2) each one speaks about Unitarian Universalism with creativity and originality! That's what's beautiful about being raised UU.

But it's also good when adults come to Unitarian Universalism. Please get to know the 6 new members who joined All Souls this past Sunday: Mary Schat, Joseph Finley, Heather and Juergen Dietrichson, Heather and Scott Haskins. Mary actually joined a few weeks ago, has been active in religious education for several years and was just elected to the Board of Trustees. Joseph also joined a few weeks ago and it was good to recognize him. Heather and Juergen (and their daughter), Scott and Heather (and their son) are fairly new-comers, but took joining very seriously. With Ann and Timothy Zeddies, Cheryl Dennenberg, and Fred and Judy Vocino who joined last fall, we’ve had 11 new members--which just shows you how friendly, solid, and growing All Souls is.

New Blogs Available

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 23:09:00 +0000

Welcome to a new way to participate in the life of All Souls. News items (this area of the website) is published from a blog, and 2 additional blogs have been added. Rev. Lynda Smith is posting notes and sermons on the minister's blog (also available directly at http://asccwmmin.blogspot.com/ ). The Board of Trustees is posting a variety of topics including short financial updates, and other news and notes (also available at http://asccwmbot.blogspot.com/) . We hope to keep you informed, and able to participate in the conversation! You should be able to sign in a leave comments using your google or facebook account. You can also post a link to the article to your facebook wall.

UUA General Assembly 2010 Highlights

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:19:00 +0000

The UUA General Assembly 2010 was held in Minneapolis, MN. Archived events are available on the UUA Website at this link. Topics include the plenary sessions, worship, workshops and lectures.

The UUA also has a YouTube channel. Check out the video on the channel, including U.S. Senator Al Franken's speech during GA 2010 where he says "Your church is so cool"!

Other highlights are Introductions to Unitarian Universalism and Social Justice messages.

Also on YouTube, check out the video "T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already?!) by emma's revolution". Be sure to watch the whole video including the credits for a special thank you mention of 2 All Souls members (Hint: 04:15)!

Church Directory is On Line!

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:16:00 +0000

The 2010 All Souls Church Directory is online and available for download! We are using an online service for maintaining the church directory, and the directory is available on this site for downloading.

To download the directory: Click here (or the picture to the right) to download the file. It is in PDF format and you will need Acrobat Reader to open the file.

To open the directory: You will need a password to open the directory file. To insure privacy of members, you can get the password from the Stewardship or Newcomers table.

The Stewardship committee is aware that there are some members without Internet access, and a hardcopy will be made available to them. If you would like a hardcopy version, you can purchase one. Please see the Stewardship committee or the Newcomers reception for assistance.

Many thanks to the Stewardship Committee for all their hard work in collecting the information, taking pictures and uploading the information for the directory! Please check your listing for accuracy and send any updated contact information to Jackie Vines (jackievines@sbcglobal.net).

Hope, Freedom and Love!

noreply@blogger.com (All Souls Community Church) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 18:34:00 +0000

Chalice

This is a first post for the new All Souls Web Blog. UUs embrace hope, freedom and love - and this project embraces those concepts too! It is our sincere HOPE that writing a blog will allow the FREEDOM to our members who can provide content for our website and that our community of followers will LOVE it! Here is our hope in a bit more concrete fashion:
- Change the all souls website articles on the front page to showing items from this blog.
- We may even be able to change our newsletter approach to a weblog
- Allow our minister, staff, boards and committees a way to communicate easily (ie. write an email) and have it show up on the web site.
- Allow members and other intersted parties the ability to subscribe to updates and get information on their schedule!