Events
There’s almost always something going on at All Souls... For a full list of activities with dates and times please visit our Events Calendar.
Upcoming Special Events
Labor Day Fun: Annual Bethel AME and All Souls Potluck
Monday, September 6, 11 a.m - 1 pm
Simpson House, 4509 Walnut (next door to the church)
Last Names: A-E: bring salad/ F-H: bring veggie dish/ I-O: bring dessert/ P-Z: bring main dish
Children: bring swim gear for water play!
Member Artists September Art Show for UU Gallery
Sunday, September 5, after late service. Come meet the All Souls Artists, enjoy their unique creations and partake of the refreshments.
Contact: Rich Scherubel rich@scherubel.com
New Ear Contemporary Chamber Ensemble
Saturday, September 11, Preconcert Talk: 7:15 pm, Concert: 8 pm
AIDS Bike Challenge
Sunday, September 12
Non-competitive charity ride through vibrant downtown KC to benefit those living with HIV/AIDS. All skill levels are welcome.
Contact: Terry Cushman tcushman@yahoo.com
Women's Group Potlucks
Join us for conversation, food & drink
Sunday, September 19, 5:30: Tracy Van Quaethem's home, vanquaethemt@sbcglobal.net
Need childcare: contact Amy Robertson, rackofshoes@gmail.com, or Vickie Sovereign, vickie.sovereign@gmail.com
All Souls Used Book Sale
September 24-26, during the UnPlaza Art Fair
Drop off your used books: boxes are located at the back wall of Conover (previously the stage) for your convenience.
Harmony House Begins New Habitat for Humanity Home, Sept. 28
All Souls is a charter member of Harmony House, an interfaith relgious group founded in 1980. A Blitz Week beginning Sept. 28 will see the walls rise and roof go on. You can help:
Ushering for Lyric Opera: Bizet's Carmen
Wednesday, September 29, Usher call at Lyric Theatre: 6 pm
Carpools from church, 5:30 pm.
Contact: Joan Olsen, jsolsen@rdjo.com
Women's Retreat
October 22-24, Tall Oaks Conference Center, Linwood, KS
$115 includes 2 nights and 5 meals
Single night option available; some partial scholarships available
Early Bird Discount if paid by September 30
Registration forms: contact rackofshoes@gmail.com
Religious Freedom in Religious Community
To see the results of the All Souls survey of the religious diversity here, go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=_2bNEdrWKDY8otw7arnmV8t3UBV2Q0jqFcbnnycHWNKXg_3d
Review of the weekend with Rev. Christine Robinson on April 16-18, All Souls UU Church, Kansas City, MO
A weekend of thoughtful consideration and conversation
Freedom isn’t free or easy, and if we want it for ourselves, we need to make respectful room for those whose freedom leads them in a diversity of directions. It’s not so hard to be religiously free all by one’s self. Religious Freedom in Religious Community: that’s what UU’s do.
Remarks from Friday night Keynote with Rev. Christine Robinson:
Life long UU, the religion of my childhood is the Triumphant Humanism of the mid-twentieth century. I grew up in a Sunday School where we were taught to think for ourselves, to question authorities of all kinds, and to honor what Ralph Waldo Emerson said: Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” And my mind, he meant, what we would call both mind and heart, that is, one’s inner reality. By my teens my inner reality had moved me from atheism to agnosticism, as I finished college I discovered definitions of God that made sense to me and began to think of myself as a theist. I had a decade or so at mid-life of being a mystic but that seems to have abated, leaving me with an enriched theism which I have attempted to share with my congregation, and that sharing, I believe, is a very important part of our growth and vitality for reasons I’ll eventually explain. But my roots remain firm in the rich soil of Humanism and its core belief that the most important thing for we humans to be doing in our time in this life is to enrich the human experience.
But mostly, I’m a person who cares about Unitarian Universalist Congregations. I care that they are effective, serving, religious institutions that are going to last another 100 years. And since congregations only last another 100 years by serving the religious needs of successive generations, we are going to have to find ways to be comfortable with religious diversity, with “spirituality”, and with the religious needs of gen x. and the millenials, not to mention their little brothers and sisters. We are also going to have to get more comfortable with ethnic and racial diversity, and while that is another workshop, the skills we practice to become more religiously diverse can serve us well as we manage other kinds of diversity.
In 20010 this is an increasingly un-churched society. Plenty of people don’t go to church. Most parents who bring their children to church are choosing church over soccer, TV, shopping, and chores. Most school children go to school with Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Buddhists, and many of their friends do not belong to a religious body. The right to believe what your own heart and mind suggest to you is true, and the obvious fact that people’s hearts and minds lead them to different faiths is taken for granted in much of elder society and in virtually all of younger society.
When people decide that they don’t believe what they were raised to believe, they often go for years without belonging to any church, and when they decide they want to go to church again, it is often because they actively desire a religious community, not a secular one. So when people show up at our doors now, especially when people under 50 show up at our doors, they don’t need freedom. There’s freedom everywhere. Nor are most of them specifically interested in community. For that they have Facebook and adult soccer. They are interested in the one thing they can’t get anywhere else in our society, which is religious community and invitation, opportunities, and lessons in spiritual growth.
Research tells us some important things about younger generations and their beliefs…and this body of research is old enough that we can compare the religious beliefs of the current generation of teens and twenties; that group called the Millenial Generation…not only with older generations but with how older generations were in THEIR teens and twenties.
The interesting news for UU’s is this: that each successive generation is less likely to be churched than their elders were at their age, but that by and large each successive generation has many similar beliefs as their elders did at their age; in terms of belief in God and an afterlife, in the practice of prayer, and a few other indicators. But…here’s the big difference: Each successive generation is more likely to agree with a statement like this, “There are many paths to salvation,” and “Each person has to find a faith path that is right for them.” They are also much more likely to be accepting of homosexuality than their elders.
This tells us that there is a growing gap between what traditional churches teach and what their young members actually believe, that there is a growing number of people, especially young adults, who have given up on church, some happily, some not, and that in this religious ecology, UU’ism will flower because it offers persons the opportunity to live and grow in faith by participation in a diverse religious community. This is a sea-change for Unitarian Universalism, and we very nearly bled to death in the 1970’s before we started to discover and embrace it. I would maintain that that our health and growth into the future as local churches is dependent on our making this switch in thinking, talking our talk, and walking the walk.
Reflections from Greg Brown, Vice President of the Board of Trustees,
from Saturday workshop:
Religious Words:
In the workshop held at All Souls on April 17, Rev. Christine Robinson asked us to think about how we use or refuse to use important religious words. For those of you unable to attend, you might find it useful to review some of those terms and their origins (like we did at the workshop) --words like “worship,” “sacred,” and “sanctuary.” Sanctuary has become a contested word at All Souls, so let’s consider its multiple meanings.
A sanctuary can be a place of safety, a refuge for beleaguered humans. It can also be a refuge for animals. And, of course, a sanctuary can be used to designate a special place within a church or temple. It is this third usage that is uncomfortable for some of us. So given the three definitions, we considered “Bragg Wildlife Refuge,” as an alternative to either sanctuary or auditorium. This is said in good humor but maybe it can help us to keep things in perspective. Of course, we can each choose to use the words that are most comfortable for us. However, it is not helpful to attack one another because one of us has used a word or phrase that is different from our preferred term, when we’re referring to a common concept. Many of us say Bragg Auditorium; others may say sanctuary. Hopefully, we can all become more tolerant of each other’s use of religious words, aware that most of them have multiple meanings. As Jim Eller said, “all religious language is metaphorical.”