Adult Education
Winter 2012 Adult Education
Winter 2012 Opportunities to Deepen Your Faith: Adult Education Classes and Groups
•Wednesday February 22nd: Genesis
Video and Discussion Group based on the Bill Moyers PBS program: ”Genesis: A Living Conversation” with Ken and Adair Small. Final Wednesday at 7:15-9:00 pm in the Social Hall: February 22nd. “Genesis” is a Video/Discussion Series based on the PBS Video, “Genesis: A Living Conversation.” Bill Moyers gathers thoughtful and engaging individuals…to discover what the Genesis stories say to us today.
•Tuesday March 13th: Class “Early Christianity” with Keith Jenkins and Lynn Jackman.
6 Tuesdays from 7:00-9:00 pm in the Social Hall:
- March 13th
- March 20th
- March 27th
- April 3rd
- April 10th
- April 17th
Look for more information on this webpage. Register by email (adulteducation
ocuuc
org)
•Tuesday March 13th: Taizé Singing as a Spiritual Practice
With Amy Tompkins and Ted Lundholm, meets the second Tuesday of each month, 7 – 8:30 p.m. in Gillan 3.
Taizé Singing originated in Taizé, France. Simple rounds and chants are sung over and over as the participants improvise as the spirit moves them; each person sings louder or softer, faster or slower, harmonizes or not as they become immersed in the experience. Eventually, the song ends naturally and the group moves on to a new song. Those new to Taizé Singing are invited to join the group as we deepen our spiritual experience through the beauty of the music we create. Register by email (adulteducationocuucorg)
•Sunday March 25th: “Journaling and Memoir Writing” with Marcia Hackett
Exploratory meeting of those interested in a group to deepen your spiritual practice on Sunday March 25th at 1:00 pm in Boag 3; may lead to an ongoing group. For more information, please check with Marcia. Register by email (adulteducationocuucorg)
•Reading /Discussion Group: “Living Our Principles”
with Karen Anderson (adulteducationocuucorg)
Meets alternate Fridays of each month at 10 am-12 pm starting in March. We will meet at a nearby restaurant for breakfast and discussion.
We will read an excerpt from a meaningful book together and work to apply the principles from the book in our lives. This will be a support group where we will share the journey of life and struggles as we work together to apply what we were learning to our own lives. For dates, location, and book title, please contact Karen Anderson (adulteducationocuucorg) . Books we are considering: The Cathedral of the World and Love & Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow by Forrest Church; Our Chosen Faith by John Buehrens and Forrest Church; and Love is Letting Go of Fear by Jerry Jampolsky.
•Sunday March 18th: All Church Potluck & Ethical Eating Discussion
All Church Potluck and Ethical Eating discussion. Join us after second service March 18th for shared meal followed by a presentation/discussion in the Social Hall at 1:00 pm.
We need 2-3 volunteers for set-up and 2-3 for clean up each time we do a potluck; to volunteer, please email Karen (adulteducationocuucorg) . Every participant is asked to wash their own dishes; this makes clean-up easier for the volunteers.
This is an opportunity to build community by sharing our food together. This is intended to be a potluck of healthy food; please use your own definition of healthy food. If your contribution is vegan, low fat, sugar free, or unique in some other way, we can put a label on it identifying this. If you can bring something to share, that is wonderful. You may also share in the lunch by making a donation of $4 if you didn’t bring food. However, remember that we are dependent upon having enough people bringing food to feed us all.
We will also have a way to share recipes of food brought to the potluck. This recipe exchange is part of the 42-42-42 Food Ethics Action Program; please let Karen know (adulteducationocuucorg) if you have recipes you want to share.
All Church Potluck and discussion of Ethical Eating Film Fest, held the weekend of Earth Week (4-20/4-21) with ten possible movies to choose from:
- Diet for New America
- Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead
- Food Fight
- Food Inc.
- Food Matters
- Forks over Knives
- Fresh
- Killer at Large
- King Corn (PBS Documentary)
- Supersize Me
The All Church Potluck will be on the 3rd Sunday after the second service each month.
Fall 2011 Adult Education Schedule
Announcing Fall/Winter 2011 Adult Education Courses:
All Church Potluck and Ethical Eating discussion
The December All Church Potluck will be on December 18th. Since we will have only one service that Sunday, the Potluck will be a Brunch* at approx. 11:15 am. Join us for shared meal followed by a presentation/discussion that starts at about noon.
We need 2-3 volunteers for set-up and 2-3 for clean up each time we do a potluck; to volunteer, please email Karen (adulteducationocuucorg) . Every participant is asked to wash their own dishes; this makes clean-up easier for the volunteers.
Ethical Eating Discussion – the Ethical Eating Discussion will start at about 12:00 pm.
The UU General Assembly selected “Ethical Eating” as a Congregational Study/Action Issue. Hunger is both a community problem and an international problem; this is part of the “interdependent web of which we are all a part” from our 7th UU principle. Through this series, we are exploring different facets of this issue. Many people in our community and even in our congregation are struggling to get food to eat that is both economical and healthy. In December, we will have an informal discussion of how OCUUC members can contribute to the solution. Please come with your ideas and energy. We will plan one or more actions that everyone at OCCUC may help with. If you have an idea you would like to present at this gathering, please email Karen (AdultEducationocuucorg) .
|
Date
|
Lunch for entire congregation
|
Presentation/Discussion in Social Hall
|
|
|
||
|
Dec 18th
|
POT LUCK BRUNCH. Bring your favorite brunch* contributions. Time: About 11:15am.
|
12:00 pm Topic: How can OCUUC members contribute to the solution?
|
|
January 7th
|
|
We hope you will want to join in to make this a great institution of our church. To do so, we will need people to bring their contributions and also volunteers to help with the set up and clean up. We need 2-3 volunteers for set-up and 2-3 for clean up each time we do a Lunch; to sign up, please email Karen (AdultEducationocuucorg) .
If there is sufficient interest, we will continue Sunday Pot Luck Lunch/Brunch on a monthly basis.
*Basic Brunch Menu Ideas
By: Alice Langholt
Brunch is a comforting kind of meal, a lazily late breakfast or early lunch (however you see it), and so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of choosing a menu. Many people like to include a bit of both kinds of foods – breakfast foods and light lunch foods – in the brunch menu. Here are some ideas for foods that work separately, or in any combination for a basic brunch. The idea here is to avoid strong flavors while enjoying choices from a range of items from each food group. Choose according to your tastes, budget, and the formality of the occasion.
Breakfast foods:
- Breads: bagels, rolls, breakfast pastry, muffins, croissants. Note: that these can be combined with lunch foods such as spreads so the breads are a good cross-over item).
- Fruits: bananas, fruit salad, oranges, seasonal, warm fruit compote
- Warm items: omelets, frittata or quiche, blintzes (crepes), pancakes, waffles, French toast
Lunch foods:
- Soups
- Light salads, such as tuna salad, egg salad, pasta salad, broccoli salad, or chopped salad
- Veggie tray
- Cheeses and luncheon meats
- Yogurt
- Smoked or poached salmon
- Cold chicken salad
- Mini sandwiches (tea sandwiches)
- Carved roast beef
The UU General Assembly selected “Ethical Eating” as a Congregational Study/Action Issue. Hunger is both a community problem and an international problem; this is part of the “interdependent web of which we are all a part” from our 7th UU principle. Through this series, we will explore different facets of this issue.
Many people in our community and even in our congregation are struggling to get food to eat that is both economical and healthy. We will explore ways to feed yourself and your family for possibly as little as $25 per week for a family.
Changing for Good
A course presented through a Monthly Blog sharing the secrets of effective and successful change programs.
Most of us have resolved to make changes in ourselves only to fail miserably. And undoubtedly you know someone who is addicted, should make changes for health reasons, or struggling with other changes – but finding it hard to accomplish the goal. You will learn about amazing discoveries about how people successfully make changes. Also, we will have an opportunity to discuss this process through the blog. We will look at a remarkable model of change that understands both why people fail and helps us understand what to do differently to succeed. Look for new posts each month on the Adult Education pages of the OCUUC website.
“Successful self-changing individuals follow a powerful and, perhaps most important, controllable and predictable course. Along this course are various stages, each calling for particular and different approaches to change. The action stage is simple one of six stages – following precontemplation, contemplation, and preparation and preceding maintenance and termination.”(p15)
From Prochaska, J., et al. (1995) Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward. NY, NY: Avon Books.
Spring 2011 Course: Things You THINK Are In the Bible…
… but they AREN’T!
What's actually in here?
So you think you’re pretty familiar with stories in the Bible? You know all about Jonah being swallowed by a whale, the three kings that visited Jesus, and that Noah gathered two of every kind of animal to place on the Ark? Good for you…but you are WRONG!! None of those stories reflect what the Bible actually says! Come join us for a fun and informative time with “Things you THINK are in the Bible…But they AREN’T!! The classes will explore a number of popular stories, topics and situations that through culture and literature most of us have come to believe are in the Bible. This is an adult class, so themes will include violence and sexuality (Think you know what the sin of Onan was? Bet you don’t!). The course will be in three classes at 7:00 pm Wednesday, May 18th, and continue on May 25th and June 1st. As a bonus, we will also cover how the Bible was created and compiled. If you think it’s one book written at one point in time…you better come join us in the Social Hall at OCUUC! Course will be led by Keith Jenkins and Randy Kokal.
Green Theology Course Starting March 16
Our Green Theology course starts Wednesday, March 16 at 7 PM.
The course syllabus has been posted.
From the syllabus: This adult religious education course in ecological theology is designed to facilitate new habits of perceiving and analyzing our social and natural environments and to embolden the moral judgments and political acts to which liberal religious people are called in a time of environmental crisis.
The Classes (and potlucks!) will be held on March 16, 23, 30, and April 6, 13, 20. This course will also have a weekend seminar on April 29 and 30. Mark your calendars now! These dates are set!
Regarding the potlucks, all are invited that evening, whether you’re taking the course or not. Please bring a dish with enough servings to share. Drinks will be provided. The potluck will run from 5 PM to 6:45 PM and have no “formal” program, but we will discuss important social justice topics in UULM, UUSC, and throughout Orange County.
OCUUC is working to increase commitment to this faith tradition and to the congregation by creating a replicable adult education curriculum on the topic theology and ecology, “Green Theology.” Our goal will be to deepen theological understanding particularly as it relates to a current day issue for our society. This course will be more intensive than a “Building Your Own Theology” course, but not as rigorous as a class at a seminary.
The project will be under the direction of Dr. Michael Hogue, Professor at Meadville Lombard Theological School and the Reverend Doctor Karen Stoyanoff, minister at Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church, Costa Mesa, CA.
Contact Reverend Karen (ministerocuucorg) or Mike Harmanos (greenocuucorg) for details.
New Course: What’s Unitarian Universalism About? On Mondays – March 7, 14, and 21
Come join the fun as we learn how to “articulate our faith” from 7 – 9pm on Monday, March 7, 14, 21. We’ll be in the Social Hall. What should we say when someone asks, “What’s Unitarian Universalism About?” Everyone is welcome and we’ll each craft our own response to the question! The meetings will be facilitated by Rev. Karen.
Thoughts about the Complexities of Forgiveness
By Karen Anderson, AdultEducationocuucorg (AdultEducationocuucorg)
We have just had an adult education series about forgiveness. We watched the film, “Amish Grace,” based on a true story in which a gunman took the lives of five Amish girls in a schoolhouse and then turned the gun on himself. The response of the Amish community was unconditional forgiveness of the shooter and they even offered comfort and support to his widow. Why did they do this?
Would you have been able to forgive this gunman? Would you have considered this a desirable thing to do? The Amish believe “if you forgive, peace will follow.” Gideon, the father of one daughter who was murdered, said, “This hate that is inside you, how does it feel? Hate will eat up your whole heart and then there is no room left for love.”
It has been said, “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” Does this make sense to you? Do you think it makes sense to forgive “all trespasses”? Are there some offenses that are harder to forgive than others? Are there some that you should not forgive?
Can you [should you] forgive someone who has not even expressed regret for their action and the harm they have caused? Perhaps forgiveness is not really about the other who has caused the harm; perhaps instead it is about the damage caused by the act of hating. The person who committed the offense has harmed you. And now, each day you hate you are causing more harm to yourself. The perpetrator’s ability to harm you ended when he committed the crime. Now, any harm that comes from your hatred is happening today and is under your control.
If the perpetrator asks you to forgive him, should you give it? Can you offer forgiveness to him? Perhaps your forgiveness is not about him and cannot help him. Instead it is about opening your heart. So, if he wants forgiveness, he needs to forgive himself. If he believes in God, he needs to ask his God for forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not about forgetting; it is important to learn from the incident. It is also not about inviting the perpetrator to cause further damage. It is still important to protect yourself.
This does not mean forgiveness is easy. The mother of one of the murdered girls said, “I am filled with anger, but I offer my anger up to God and I forgive. Sometimes I have to do that every hour.” What helps you to let go of anger?
What are your thoughts about the questions about forgiveness?
