ISSUE 9                                                                                                                                                                                           MARCH 2017
member2member Google Group Replacing juceALERT

JUC recently transferred our email and document sharing services to Google for Nonprofits. 

Because of this change, we now have the ability to host large-scale Google Group email lists. Starting this week, the old juceALERT Yahoo group used for church-related announcements from JUC members and friends will be replaced by the member2member Google Group.

If you were already subscribed to the Yahoo group, you will automatically be subscribed to the new group and will receive a notification email in the next few days. New users can  subscribe online

Send announcements to member2member@jeffersonunitarian.org. The list is restricted to announcements that are directly related to JUC and JUC-sponsored events. All messages are moderated (reviewed for accuracy and appropriateness before posting).
Important and Meaningful Survey Coming Soon
Help JUC discover strengths and opportunities for equipping people to live lives with a deeper sense of peace, compassion and joy. Watch for more information next month. 

The survey launch is  Sunday, April 23 .


Identity and Planned Giving
Identity and Planned Giving
My identity is a mix of my body, mind, personality, relationships, culture, time, place and possessions. With so many variables determining my identity I am a unique person. We all have a unique identity. My humanness links me to other people through communities of similar interests.

JUC is such a community and I feel more whole by allying with the mission and values of JUC and Unitarian Universalism. BJ and I ally with JUC now and intend to continue this alliance beyond our days on this planet by including JUC in our estate plans.  

We invite you to join us and over 50 other members by including JUC in your estate plans to keep JUC a strong church were future generations of unique individuals can Deepen, Connect and Engage.

Contact JUC's Planned Giving Coordinators: Bud Meadows, Mike Kramer, or Carol Wilsey .
Endowment and Memorial Gift Trust (EMGT) call for grant proposals for 2017-2018
EMGT directors are pleased to announce that $10,000 will be available for special projects in 2017-2018.
 
Since its inception in 1996, the EMGT has distributed more than $450,000 to fund capital improvements, scholarships, internships, conferences, and community outreach. We encourage you to submit your ideas to advance the strategic objectives of JUC.
Please remember that all grant proposals must originate from a standing committee or recognized JUC group.
 
The guidelines and application form may be found on the JUC website.

Submit proposals to:
emgt@jeffersonunitarian.org.
 
The deadline for submission of grant proposals is Friday, March 31, 5 p.m.
 
Projects approved for funding will be announced in IGNITE in late April.
Call for General Assembly Delegates
The UUA General Assembly 2017 will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana June 21-25.

JUC can send up to 16 delegates. If you are interested in attending as a delegate, please complete this form or contact the office.
Gathered Here Menu
Every Wednesday a fellowship dinner is served from 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. for $5 per person, with food for omnivores and vegetarians. Folks are also welcome to bring their own dinners if they wish. After a shared meal, there will be 6:30 p.m. chapel service that will re-energize, relax, and refresh us as we take a mid-week opportunity to deepen to our true selves and connect with one another.

This month's menu:
March 1: Cheese and Pepperoni pizza
March 8: White Chili Chicken
March 15:  Irish food
March 22: Baked Potato bar with Salad
March 29: TBA
Save the Date!
Mark your calendar for Sunday, April 23 for an incredible afternoon in the history of JUC. At 4 p.m. Eric Banner will be installed as our Associate Minister. There will be an installation service followed by a reception. 

On October 2, at our fall Congregational Meeting, we voted to call Eric as our Associate Minister. On Sunday, April 23, the formal installation and celebration will take place. Don't miss this important event.
Western Unitarian Universalist Life Festival
WUULF (Western Unitarian Universalist Life Festival) is a week-long camp for Unitarian Universalists from June 19th-25th in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. This year, we will "Find Our Fiesta" with explorations of local culture, discussions on our role as UU's in today's world, and plenty of fellowship and fun! We would love to see you there for our relaxing, rejuvenating, and above all, welcoming, week in the New Mexico sun! More information can be found at www.WUULF.org.

WUULF summer camp needs teachers!  Enjoy fun, community and beautiful scenery in New Mexico. We need two or three more teachers for the youth programs that meet on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday during morning and afternoon hours.  Teachers get their expenses covered by WUULF. Prospective teachers can contact Di Mapes.

Our 9th Graders Thank You!
Thank you for your support of the Front Range UU Ninth Grade Trip. The bake sale raised $1,156.20! Thank you to everyone who baked goodies, bought goodies, and made donations to the trip. Donations are welcome year-round. Contact Melinda McGann  for information. JUC is fabulous!




14350 W 32nd Avenue
Golden, CO 80401
303-279-5282
www.jeffersonunitarian.org
We Listened!! Now . . . It's Time to Talk.
Remember all of the one-to-one conversations our Together Colorado Organizing Ministry had with many of you last year? We visited, live, with 150 JUC'ers, and we learned a lot!

A topic that rose to the top of your lists, repeatedly, was mental health. Specifically, our research led us to focus on social-emotional support, resiliency, and upstream suicide prevention in Jeffco's secondary schools. For the past six months we've been working diligently to gather and study data, observe high school classrooms, listen to students  and experts, meet with administrators, write letters, and, ultimately, plan a public meeting.
 
Join us when we will fill the JUC sanctuary with parents, teachers, counselors, students, administrators, and community members for:
 
It's Time to Talk: Mental Health and Emotional Wellness at School
Monday, March 13, 6:45 - 8:30 p.m.
Jefferson Unitarian Church & Together Colorado
  • Testimony from students, parents, and counselors
  • Perspectives from experts in mental health and district administrators
  • Opportunities to support mental health resiliency in our schools and our congregation
  • Open mic
  • Music: The Skeleton Dolls.
  • Childcare available
Come and get a glimpse of life for our youth and the school district that supports them...because school is so much more than academics. It's social. It's emotional. And sometimes, well, that's just too much. 
 
See you there.
The Family Ministry Team - A New Team at JUC

Greetings out there!

Did you attend the Halloween party in October? Perhaps you iced cookies with our littlest JUCers in December. Maybe you're acting as a "welcoming" or "welcomed" family in a program called  Embrace this spring?

If you've done any of these (or a whole host of other things) then you've been touched by the Family Ministry Team or the FMT.

JUC is one of the largest UU churches in the country. Our membership is over 800 people and we have nearly 400 returning visitors. Our religious education program regularly hosts upwards of 200 children and youth (ages 0 through 18) on Sundays. Our size contributes to our strength (we are better together, especially when working for social justice), but it can also be our Achilles heel. It can be easy to get lost in such a big crowd.

Our work as the FMT is all designed to make this large church feel smaller. Because it is within the smaller groups that we're able to create lifelong connections. Smaller groups make it easy to see one-another's needs. Smaller groups make it easier to find support. And smaller groups make it easier to provide opportunities for leadership and service. The FMT works toward this through differentiated events and programs all focused on connecting families to JUC, and to each other.

These events and programs include regularly scheduled things like:

Parent Conversations - Likened to a small group experience without the commitment, these events bring families together to discuss relevant topics. Attendees are invited to bring something to share (wine, beer, juice, snacks). Childcare is provided.
3rd Saturday of each month
4 p.m.

We are Family - A time for connecting with ourselves and our values during the week, these short services are designed to be experienced by the whole family!
1 st Wednesday of each month
5:30 p.m. dinner ($5 donation per diner), 6:30 p.m. service

Are you someone who believes that this kind of programming happens with you and not to you ? Well we agree! Consider joining us (yep, you can just drop in) for an FMT meeting to see how you can get involved.

FMT Meetings -
1st  Thursday of each month
6:30 p.m.
Childcare provided

Here's to a lifetime of good times with like-minded people!
Being Mortal Film Screening and Discussion
"Hope is not a plan." - Dr. Atul Gawande

You're invited to a screening and discussion of the PBS program "Being Mortal" on  Saturday, March 25, 2 - 4 p.m., hosted by the Pastoral Care Group.

Based on the bestselling book by surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande, this film explores the hopes of patients and families facing terminal illness and their relationships with the doctors, nurses and family members who care for them. It follows Dr. Gawande, as he shares stories from the people and families he encounters. When his own father gets cancer, his search for answers about how to best care for the dying becomes a personal quest.

You will be part of a national dialogue taking place in our community that asks "Have you and your family had the tough conversations and planned ahead?"  

After the screening, you can participate in a guided conversation on how to take concrete steps to identify and communicate wishes about end-of-life goals and preferences.

See this moving documentary, join the conversation, and explore what matters to you.  All are welcome. We hope to see you there!  

This event is a program of Kindred Hospice, ComForCare Homecare and Jefferson Unitarian Church.
Gov. Bill Ritter addresses a full house at JUC on Why Changing Political Winds Can't Stop the Clean Energy Revolution
Martin Voelker, co-chair, JUC Green Task Force

Former Colorado Governor made good on his reputation for a sense of humor right from the start when he revealed he had considered starting with a Unitarian joke but instead offered an Irish-Catholic joke that made fun both of his own heritage, religion and Democratic Party loyalty.

Religion, in a presentation on clean energy, doesn't initially appear relevant unless one considers the ethical ramifications of how we power our fragile world. But Bill and his wife Jeannie experienced that fragility up close in the 90s, living as missionaries among Zambian subsistence farmers in arid sub-Saharan Africa. It is farmers like these, he argues, who are first affected by changing climate driven by our excessive burning of fossil fuels.

For Ritter there is no debate about manmade Climate Change - except in the United States Senate (not a hotbed of scientific expertise). Which is why his efforts, both as Governor where he advanced 57 clean energy bills, and now as a center director at CSU, are focused at the state level.

After leaving his post in 2011 he founded the Center for a New Energy Economy which is researching paths that speed up the transition away from fossil fuels toward renewables. Key among the tools they developed is a website that allows states to do their own 'gap analysis' by comparing themselves with states who are further, so they, too, can benefits from the lower cost and much lower pollution that solar, wind, and energy efficiency measures deliver.

How we figure out to decarbonize our lives by producing energy domestically and build economic development around it remains the key question for Ritter. He is especially mindful that it's also an equity question, because how the necessary energy transition will play out must not impact poor people in a disproportionate way.

But in the face of ominous threats against the EPA, the Clean Power Plan, and the illusory promises to boost coal mining by the Trump administration, Ritter remains optimistic.

Primarily he argues that wind and solar are now simply cheaper than fossil fuels, so that the market itself is driving out coal.  But he also points to new majorities of people across the political spectrum who understand that climate change requires action, and who favor renewable energy. And he reminds us that there's a growing network of cities and businesses around the US and around the world who have committed to their own version of a climate action plan.

Judging from the crowd in the almost full sanctuary at JUC, energy and climate are certainly on people's minds.

To learn more about Ritter's efforts you can find the video at the Colorado Renewable Energy Society Youtube channel or check out Ritter's recent book: Powering Forward: What Everyone Should Know About America's Energy Revolution.

The next event by CRES and JUC's Green Task will feature futurist and former chair of Colorado Public Radio Rutt Bridges on Autonomous Cars and the Environment, Thurs. March 23 at 7pm at JUC. More info.