Sunday worship is the heart of our community. We all want our worship time together to be an important and meaningful part of each week. To get input for service planning for the 2023-2024 church year, the WUUC Worship Team provided a survey for congregants in April/May, 2023. This was an opportunity for all in our community to share ideas about worship topics, approaches, music, and guest speakers (both internal and external). We received 34 responses to the survey, with a wide range and variety of comments. Your responses are valuable and important feedback that will guide Rev. Dan and the Worship Team as we begin our service planning at the upcoming Worship Team Retreat on July 22, 2023.
We will use your answers to help tailor worship services that over the course of the coming church year, meet the needs of the congregation. While we value and will consider all replies, we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to put together all the services that are suggested. We as individuals have differing needs and expectations of worship, so some services will work better for some people, but we hope over the church year, most people will feel well served by the worship services offered. Rev. Dan and the Worship Team welcome ongoing feedback on any aspect of worship at WUUC. We also invite any congregation members interested in joining the Worship Team to contact either Donna Johnson, Worship Team Lead or Rev. Dan Lillie.
Tony and Katie moved to Washington in 2015 after meeting in college at Boston University. Katie is originally from Virginia Beach, VA and Tony is originally from Colorado. Katie is a first-grade teacher in the Renton school district and Tony is a software engineer at Microsoft. Aside from raising newly-born Gemma, they enjoy musicals, ice hockey, and hiking.
Kate Smith
Kate is serving at WUUC as the chair of the Membership committee, and when she’s not hard at work as a Project Manager at Microsoft where she “makes SQL Queries go fast.”, or hard at work on the Membership team, she’s busy doing exciting things with her kiddos like sailing, hiking, or biking. When she has time for an activity without the kids, she turns to hiking, quilting, or lifting weights.
In our July Newsletter we will have bios and pictures for our other new members: Jeff and Ann Lu, and Jane and Tevina Flood so stay tuned!
Two community-wide discussions about the proposed revision of Article II of the UUA Bylaws finished this past week. The Board invites your written feedback about the Article II proposal via a congregational survey. Attached are two documents: the original Article II followed by the rewritten Article II in one document (from the Article II Study Report to the Board of Trustees) and a side-by-side comparison of the two versions. It may be helpful to review these before completing the survey.
Responses are due, and the survey will close on May 17th, two weeks from the posting date. If you have difficulty accessing the form, please email Terry at TASantmann@gmail.com.
The survey will guide WUUC delegates to GA 2023 about whether to support or oppose moving the Article II proposed language forward for further discernment within the UUA in the coming year. Results will be shared with the congregation without attribution to individual respondents. Your name and email address will be held in strict confidence by Terry Santmann and Carol Taylor solely to determine participation eligibility. The survey is open to members, friends, and regulars of WUUC (definitions are in the survey). A survey format has been chosen instead of a formal congregational vote because the final form of the Article II proposal will not be determined until the review and revision process occurs just before the vote at the General Assembly. The survey results will provide general guidance to the delegates. Delegates will be expected to notify the Board and congregation how they each voted on this measure.
The Board and Rev. Dan encourage WUUC members and friends to take advantage of this opportunity to share information, thoughts, and feelings regarding the UUA Bylaws Article II proposal. If you have additional suggestions/ideas, please contact any of the Board members or Rev. Dan by email at Board@wuuc.org or via individual email addresses.
Our director of Religious Education, Skylar Hopkins, who aspires to be a professional educator, will be pursuing her own education in support of that vocational goal. She has been accepted at Western Washington University, where she will work toward a degree in Education.
Congratulations Skylar!
However, Skylar’s move to Bellingham to attend school means that her time as our Director of Religious Education is coming to an end. Her last day with us here at Woodinville UU Church will be July 31, 2023.
Skylar writes:
Dear Community,
I am saddened to say that my time serving WUUC will be shorter than I anticipated. It has been a pleasure and an honor working with you and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to make a difference in your children’s lives. This has felt like the perfect start to my future career as a teacher and solidified for me just how much I love working with children. WUUC has been a home to me for the past twenty years and I hope that I have fostered that same sense of community in your kids. I hope they continue to enjoy church and that it continues to be a safe space for them for many years. I thank you again for this opportunity, and I’ll leave you with the words of one of my favorite camp songs sung at our UU youth cons, “this is goodnight and not goodbye.”
As someone who grew up at WUUC, and now having served as our DRE, Skylar will always have a special place here in our community. We are grateful for her efforts this year to begin rebuilding a new RE program in our first year back in person after going virtual during the pandemic. That’s not an easy thing to do, and we were lucky to have someone who brought so much ingenuity, dedication, and enthusiasm to her role during her time here as DRE. We are sorry to see Skylar go, and we will miss her!
We will formally honor and thank Skylar at a future Sunday service (date TBD). In the meantime, Skylar will be working with me (Rev. Dan) and church leadership and volunteers to help us set up our RE program so that it can continue into the future. So in the next three months, please feel free to express your gratitude and wish Skylar well when you see her at church!
