UU Christian Fellowship for 2014-15

from CUC Community Minister, Rev. Kelly Murphy Mason:

Happy summer, everyone! In just a couple of months, starting in September 2014, we’ll resume our monthly meetings of the Metro NY Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship for the 2014-15 program year. Our new theme is:

Desert Spirituality: Contemplation in the Christian Wisdom Tradition.

On Thu Sep 18, we’ll gather at:
The Community Church of New York
40 E 35th St
Manhattan, NY 10016
7:30pm - 9:00pm

Through the church year, we'll gather every 3rd Thursday evening of each month following, for fellowship and conversation.

See these three PDFs:
1) Flyer highlighting the new Metro NY UUCF theme this coming year, Desert Spirituality (CLICK HERE).
2) The customary agenda for our chapter meetings, with our regular chalice lighting (CLICK HERE).
3) A comprehensive UUCF program calendar and detailed outline of our upcoming discussion topics (CLICK HERE).

One cornerstone of our conversations will be Dr. Christine Valters Paintners award-winning text, Desert Fathers and Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings, published by SkyLight Press.

Companion volumes this year will include:
Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert
Mary C. Earle, The Desert Mothers: Spiritual Practices from the Women of the Wilderness.

All of these books are available for purchase online. Together the books will help introduce us to the ‘Desert Spirituality’ at the heart of some of the earliest Christian contemplative movements. Note that our reading list – while quite illuminating – is only recommended, not required. Paintner’s book should be especially useful in our ongoing conversations, but certainly, people are welcome to join the group at any time with any degree of familiarity with the material.

Do let me know about any questions, concerns, or comments you might have regarding our Metro NY UUCF chapter meeting. Folks from various congregations throughout the tri-state area have attended in recent years, so thank you all for your generous support of UUCF within this Metro NY district. You are heartily encouraged to pass on word of our regular UUCF meetings to those in your UU congregations or to other Christian-curious friends who might be intrigued by what UU Christianity, in particular, has to offer. A number of you attended the recent UUA General Assembly in Providence. It was great to see you there with thousands of other UUs and also members of the national UUCF organization. Many thanks to UUCF Executive Director the Rev. Ron Robinson for helping us publicize and promote our program here in Metro NY. At the national level, UUCF has its own rich store of resources available at its website and invites lively dialogue about alternative Christian communities and various “heresies” within the larger church, all online at www.uuchristian.org.

Suggestions about future programming for Metro NY UUCF will be gratefully taken into advisement. We also respond to invitations from area congregations, either for communion services or occasional adult religious education offerings. Feel free to copy, post, forward or otherwise distribute any & all of the attached PDFs to anyone anywhere who might be interested in our local UUCF programs. I do hope to see some of you at Community Church this coming fall. Please remember that this UUCF chapter is always kept open; the invitation to join us at the Metro NY fellowship remains a standing one, month after month, year after year.

Thu Apr 17: UU Christian Fellowship

On Thu Apr 17, the MNY (Metro New York) chapter of the UUCF (Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship) will have its April meeting.

In recognition of Holy Week and the end of the Lenten season, there will be a small communion service at the start of the meeting to commemorate Maundy Thursday.

The meeting is in the downstairs chapel of the Community Church of New York (40 E 35th St, Manhattan) at 7:30 pm.
This communion service is open to all, not only UUCF members.
Afterward, we’ll return to our regular programming.

From Rev. Kelly Mason:

This church year, our theme has been Moving Beyond Doubting Thomas. We’re continuing our discussions of The Gospel of Thomas, that notorious extracanonical sayings gospel. We’ve been looking closely at this occasionally scandalous scripture and also the exciting new scholarship that has been done about it in recent decades. This has been a fascinating point of discussion for both old and new attendees of our local UUCF chapter. On Thu Apr 17, we'll be gathering at the Community Church of NY from 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm, just as we will on the 3rd Thursday evening of each month through Thu Jun 19.

At the very end of June, the 2014 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly will be held in Providence, RI. At GA, the national organization of UUCF will be sponsoring a UU communion service called “The Meal for Others” on Fri Jun 27 evening. In addition, UUCF members from across the country will be attending a Sunday morning service at the First Universalist Church of Providence, where communion will be included in the 9:30 service on Sun Jun 29. More information about both those services can be found on the UUCF Facebook page.

Early in May, I will be speaking as part of a panel at the 2014 Metro NY district meeting, talking about the Christian perspective in a highly diverse UU theology. Recently, Skinner House books has published a series of books on the Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist perspectives in our faith movement. The panel will be held in Morristown, NJ on the evening of Fri May 2. Anyone interested in attending should be sure to register for the event; further information about that is available online at http://www.uumetrony.org/am14/index.htm.

Note that our reading list – while quite illuminating – is only recommended, not required. People are welcome to join the group at any time with any degree of familiarity with the material. A treasure trove of background information is online at the Gospel of Thomas website, http://users.misericordia.edu/davies/thomas/Thomas.html. At the national level, UUCF has its own rich store of resources available at its website and invites lively dialogue about alternative Christian communities and various “heresies” within the larger church at www.uuchristian.org.

Do let me know about any questions, concerns, comments, or suggestions you might have regarding our Metro NY UUCF chapter meeting. Folks from various congregations throughout the tri-state area have attended in recent years, so thank you all for your generous support of UUCF within our wider Metro New York district. You are warmly encouraged to pass on word of our regular UUCF meetings to those in your UU congregations or other Christian-curious friends who might be intrigued by what UU Christianity has to offer. During this coming Holy Week and Eastertide, people may be especially inclined to connect with our perspective on the Christian tradition.

Links for the MNY chapter of UUCF for 2013-14:

"Metro NY UUCF Flyer"
"Monthly Schedule"
"Scholars' Version of Gospel of Thomas"
"Order of Service and Resources"

For more info, contact UU minister, Rev. Dr. Kelly Murphy Mason: Rev.KMMason@Gmail.com