ISSUE 112

October 2025

As promised, we begin exploring our UUA values this month beginning with Love at the Center. We define that as the practice of centering something larger.

Love is such an overused word that its meaning is elusive. When rooted in practice, though, it becomes so much more real.

One example of this practice is found in the guidance: “You can want to be right or you can want to be in relationship.” While some of us may bristle at this, as therapists have pointed out for years, its wisdom is hard to miss. In other words, while it is our choice to center our need to be right, we do so often at the peril of our relationships.

This does not mean that one person in a relationship should always give in. Not at all. Instead it invites those in the relationship to center the health and well being of the relationship ahead of investing in the egoic power struggle that often grows out of prioritizing the need to be right.

Another example is one with which parents are well familiar: living with the end in mind. I witness parents doing this routinely. There is little question that in any given moment, it would be easier to do the homework or the assigned chores for the reluctant child. It would be easier to say yes to the extra sugar or delay the bed-time or whatever is desired. However, I watch our parents center the bigger picture which is about launching a kind, responsible, and loving human into adulthood.

Living into love at the center is about practicing, throughout the breadth of our lives, centering something larger. Sometimes discerning what that something larger is requires deep reflection and accountability. Indeed, love at the center is in the center of all of our values because all of our values are in relationship to each other, and in their practice require centering something larger. In short, we need one another.

Vespers Begins Wednesday, October 15

Do you long for a mid-week opportunity to nourish your spirit and tend to your inner world? Do you wish we had more opportunities to sing together or chant or be in silence? Is there a part in you that would love a ritual in which you could place a stone or light a candle for all the burdens and blessings of your heart?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, plan on coming to Vespers on Wednesday, October 15. Dr. Baker and Rev. Wendy are collaborating on a time to be together that centers music, silence, poetry, and ritual on the first and third Wednesday of each month at 6:00pm in the Chapel.

Board of Trustees Meeting Summary

The September Board of Trustees meeting began with a reflection on the Gifts of the Spirit member reflections we heard over the summer. Many of the messages resonated strongly with all Trustees, including the importance of leaning into community, being open to the unknown, and embracing our religion as Unitarian Universalists. The primary focus of the board's discussion was in preparation for the Board Retreat that was held later in the month. Trustees are committed to continuing through The Power of Our Name initiative with continued intentionality, while also preparing ourselves and our congregation for the year to come.

Love at the Center: A Legacy of Generosity

At JUC, planned giving is more than financial foresight—it’s a spiritual practice of centering love in something larger than ourselves. When you include JUC in your legacy plans, you affirm that compassion, justice, and community will thrive beyond your lifetime. This is love at the center: a quiet, enduring gift that nurtures

future generations and deepens our shared commitment to a more just and caring world. Whether through a bequest, beneficiary designation, or charitable trust, your gift becomes part of a living tradition—one rooted in hope, sustained by generosity, and guided by the belief that what we center shapes what we become.

Let your legacy reflect your deepest values. Let love lead. For more information, please contact Bud & BJ Meadows or Carol Wilsey.

Learn More About Planned Giving

The church year is off to a rollicking start! (How does one ‘rollick,’ anyway?) We started with an exploration of covenant: the practice of staying and restoring. Staying in conversation, in relationship, is hard. The work of covenant is hard. But I truly believe that putting love at the center of our communities is what makes staying and restoring possible, and what is foundational to our building a world built on justice. Putting love and relationship at the center of our interactions means centering connection. It means centering what we know to be true as Unitarian Universalists: that we are already part of a larger whole. Aristotle wrote, “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” He was of course talking about romantic love. But we can extrapolate…or we can let our own Unitarian ancestor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, elucidate:

“Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole of life, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul.”

In order to truly be a “we,” we must center something that is bigger than any of our individual selves because to do otherwise is to harm the organism of which we are all already a part.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a Black woman, a suffragist and abolitionist, and one of my favorite Unitarian ancestors, put it this way: “We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul.”

With apologies for the 1800s language, Harper understood that a community cannot thrive, cannot grow, cannot claim to be just without putting love at the center. And for Harper (who was nearly 40 when slavery finally came to an end in this country, who wouldn’t live to see white women get the vote, let alone Black women), that meant centering the most marginalized. Harper was born free, but she knew what it was to be Black, and a woman, and a widow, and an orphan in the US before the Civil War. And she knew that the only way that everyone would achieve the world she foresaw, was to center the needs of the people who needed the most.

How will we here at church center the most marginalized in the coming months and years, here and in the wider community? This month, we have opportunities to explore this question in depth; our social justice challenge activities invite you to choose which ones call to you and try them out. The challenge will end with another opportunity for joy and justice, the Guatemala Fiesta, on October 26! Come eat, dance, and learn how we support our Guatemalan partners at ADIVIMA. How will you practice putting love - and people in marginalized communities - at the center this month?

Derek Bassett

Every Sunday, our voices join together in these familiar words: “Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law; this is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another” (James Vila Blake 1894). We say them week after week, but they are not just words. They are promises. In the language of our tradition, they are covenant: commitments we freely make to one another, and return to again and again.

As we have been learning in the previous month, ours is not a faith bound by creed, but by covenant. We are held together not by unanimity of belief, but by the shared practice of living into our promises. To covenant is to acknowledge that we will fail one another, and still choose to come back. To covenant is to affirm that what matters most is not uniformity, but how we walk together through difference, grief, and joy.

This month, we reflect on “Love at the Center,” one of the six new values now named in our faith. Love here is not simply a feeling but a practice, a compass, and a call. To place love at the center is to remember that service, truth-seeking, and peace are not abstract ideals but daily work. And it is work we need. Our world is heavy with grief: headlines tell of violence that steals lives and leaves families shattered. Voices of division grow louder, feeding on fear and suspicion. Even when we differ in how we interpret events, we cannot escape the truth that our shared life is fragile. Love at the center means we respond not with despair or hatred, but with compassion, service, and courage. History reminds us this work has never been static. As “How the UU Principles and Purposes Were Adopted,” by Warren Ross in the UU World recounts, our values have always been shaped by the cries of the present. The women’s movement of the 1970s and ’80s demanded fuller recognition of dignity and equality, and our principles evolved. The language of covenant has shifted and expanded to meet new realities. So too today: our turn toward “Love at the Center” is part of that living tradition, insisting that our values respond to the needs of this moment. To place love at the center is to keep choosing peace, truth, and one another, even when the world would tell us otherwise.

Our theme this month calls us to return, again and again, to love. Our next Sing Out Love: The UUA Virtual Hymnal new hymn, Emily Joy Goldberg’s Love Is At the Center, reminds us that love is not something we reach for only in our best moments. It is what grounds us, guides us, and holds us when everything else feels uncertain. One of our choral offerings this month, Dan Forrest’s In All Things Love, echoes this, inviting us to imagine what it means to let compassion and care shape every word, every action, every note of music we sing.

As a community, we know that love is not always simple, nor is it always kind. It asks us to listen more deeply, to stay present even when it is hard, and to trust that in returning to love we find our way back to one another. Love is not a destination we arrive at once, but a practice we renew day by day. It's a choice we make in how we speak, how we serve, and how we forgive.

So as we move through this month, I invite us to carry love as both anchor and compass: steady enough to hold us when we falter, and spacious enough to lead us into new possibilities. May

our music remind us, again and again, that in all things, love is the center.

JUC uses a fairly unusual pledge process we call Year Round Pledging (YRP). Most churches have an annual campaign during which they make a big push for pledges over a limited (but intense) period of time. We switched from that traditional method to YRP in 2012, over a decade ago!!! YRP can be a bit confusing until you get used to it, so here are the basics:

Your pledge tells us how much you plan to give over a twelve month period based on your pledge month.
Pledging is not the same as paying. You will pledge ahead of time and pay over the course of the following twelve months.
You can pay in one lump sum, monthly, or in any way you like over that twelve month period.
Our accounting is easier if you do complete your pledge payments during the pledge period.
We have twelve pledge months corresponding to the calendar months.
Here is an example:
Your pledge month is June.
We ask you in May to let us know what you plan to pay for the period June 1 through the following May 31.
If you pledge $150 per month the total amount paid over that time would be $1,800.
You might pay that by automatic transfer every month or one time using a Required Minimum Distribution from an IRA or another source, or periodically by check.
You can also pay your pledge using appreciated stock for added tax benefits (let me know if you want more information on that method).
Disadvantages of YRP (these are outweighed by the advantages listed below)
As I mentioned, it can be confusing for those who are used to a different method.
There is no big cheerleading time to campaign for pledge increases. AKA, no sermon about the pledge campaign.
The accounting is more complex than for a traditional campaign.
Advantages of YRP
There is no special pledge time. It is part of the normal work of the church.
It is routine and much less labor intensive and expensive than an annual campaign.
We can spend more time following up with those who do not remember to return their pledge form because it is a smaller number of households.
We have a much better handle on our members and pledge income than with the traditional pledge campaign.

I really think the biggest advantage is that first one: this is just part of the work of the church. We don't have to have a giant gala consuming the energy of volunteers and staff to know that we need to support the ministries of the church. If you have questions about YRP, or about your pledge specifically, please let me know. I am happy to talk it through with you.

We have started a new session of classes in our Youth Faith Exploration programming. Children have met and made covenants together, holding each other in community as we grow our hearts in this beloved community. We are able to come together, again and again, in this faith, knowing that ALL voices matter and that all are welcome.

In October, we celebrate Love at the Center: the practice of centering something larger. How will we do that? In our children’s classes, we will create the center, Love. Upon that foundation, we will grow and expand what it means to do the necessary things beyond the walls of our church.

Our children and youth will understand what it means to help others by participating in our Social Justice Challenge, which involves creating care packages for our unhoused neighbors who receive emergency housing vouchers due to inclement weather. We will ask our families to help Habitat for Humanity with their pumpkin patch fundraisers. Through these activities, we work for and towards something greater than ourselves.

We also welcome our new Faith Exploration Coordinator, Paula Garner! Paula has been working in our PreK and Nursery program since the spring of 2024. She is a delight to have on our team, and I am so grateful to have her by my side to help nurture our Faith Exploration program! You can find her working with the children on Sunday mornings, or holding the rainbow banner for the children and youth as they proceed to their classes after the Time for All Ages. Please give her a warm welcome when you see her!

Jeffco Interfaith Partners (JIP) Update

Cathy and Bruce Martin

Fall is in the air. And if it’s October, it is time for the JIP pumpkin patch fundraisers. You can help by unloading the pumpkin trucks, by taking a sales shift, or by coming out to buy your Halloween/fall pumpkins at one of the JIP patches.

The Lakewood pumpkin patch will, as usual, be held at the Mile Hi Church at Alameda and Garrison. There will be two pumpkin truck unloads on Friday, October 3 from 4-8 pm and again on Sunday, October 12 from 10 am-3 pm. Sign up here for a shift unloading pumpkins in Lakewood. Sales shifts are from 10 am-2 pm and 2-6 pm each day from Saturday, October 4 through October 31. Sign up here for a shift selling pumpkins in Lakewood.

The second pumpkin patch is at the Community of Grace Church, 7755 Vance St (near 78th and Wadsworth) in Arvada. The pumpkin truck unloading there will be on Friday, October 10 from 4-8 pm. The daily sales shifts will also be 10 am-2 pm and 2-6 pm starting on Saturday, October 11 and running through Friday, October 31. Sign up here if you wish to volunteer for truck unloading or daily sales shifts in Arvada.

Because the patches overlap with the JUC Social Justice Challenge, and JIP is our JUC door to support Habitat for Humanity, your service hours can be reported toward the Social Justice Challenge total. We look forward to seeing you out at the pumpkin patch this month. As the fall changes occur, so too do our life focuses and time commitments. This will be the last JIP update from Cathy and me. We are turning over our position as JUC representatives to JIP to the capable and enthusiastic care of Julie and Ken Andrus. Please welcome them to this position.

JUC CAN Update

SOCIAL JUSTICE CHALLENGE: The State of Homelessness in Jeffco

Jill Armstrong

Once a year, groups across the U.S. participate in a Point in Time count. During one 24-hour period, usually in January, they count the number of sheltered and unsheltered homeless individuals in their area to create a report. Unfortunately, those numbers have continued to rise in many parts of the country, including the Denver Metro Region. And this year, Jefferson County saw a 27% increase in unhoused individuals from 2024 to 2025. This was the largest increase within the Denver metro area. Jefferson County’s response to this issue has also lagged behind Denver metro. Until this year, Jefferson County had no 24-7 year-round shelter. The first shelter of that kind is scheduled to open in Lakewood, on the corner of W Colfax Avenue and Allison Street, hopefully in December. And for the first time, the county and municipalities have entered into an Intergovernmental Agreement to respond to Severe and Extreme weather.

Our JUC CAN (Community Action Network) has been advocating for many years for a more robust response to the unhoused in Jefferson County, along with navigation resources to help people access services (such as getting IDs, food, employment and supportive housing) to help them get out of homelessness. One in two people are homeless for the first time and those services could help them regain housing much more quickly.

But more needs to happen. Want to learn about the reality of homelessness and what you can do to help? Luke Campbell, Homeless Response Coordinator for Jefferson County, and Kory Kolar, Housing Navigator for Wheatridge, will be presenting “The State of Homelessness in Jefferson County” in the JUC sanctuary from 12:30-1:30 pm on Sunday, October 12 as part of our Social Justice Challenge. We’ll provide a light lunch. This is an excellent opportunity to get your questions answered. Please save the date and sign up here if you'd like to join us.

Racial Justice Team Update

Katie Bradford

Wait, JUC has a Racial Justice Team?

Yep. When JUC was adopting the 8th principle ("We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions"), several volunteer members of the congregation gathered at the request of church leadership to form the JUC Racial Justice team.

Cool, but why do we need a JUC racial justice team?

The mission of racial justice team of JUC exists to live into our UU values by transforming our congregation into a more anti-racist, anti-oppressive, inclusive and welcoming community, and to equip our congregants to support BIPOC-led anti-racism work in our wider community.

So, OK, so what does this Racial Justice team DO?

Well, the work of racial justice can often seem overwhelming. Where to start? The team is focusing on three main purposes as we continue to move forward through racial justice issues.

Education: The racial justice team supports educational efforts fostering open minds and hearts as we look at the world through different lenses. We support the JUC social justice library, workshops, speaker series and educational training through the UU hub, The Mosaic. The RJT believes active learning and curiosity provide tools to further our exploration of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging as a cornerstone of our community.
History: The team is committed to publicly illustrating a shared story of who we are as a church. And ask the questions: What is the real history of this church and the hard things that have formed us... and who are we now?
Community Outreach: Racial justice stretches beyond church walls. The team is committed to identifying spaces, organizations and colleagues with whom to collaborate on meaningful projects that grow racial justice beyond the JUC congregation.

Whew. The topic of Racial Justice can seem BIG. Overwhelming. Too much. But as this small team of church members continue to support JUC on this journey, the shared responsibility of becoming an inclusive community seems doable. And personally, as a member of this amazing team, I am grateful and proud for the work all of us are doing to make racial justice a reality.

UUSC Update: Guatemala Fiesta!

Gretchen May

Another Fiesta? Why do we have one every year? Is it really for Everyone of all ages ?

Our annual Fiesta celebrates the Scholarship students who we support in Rabinal, Guatemala, and the generous donors from JUC who have made this program possible since 2007. Each year the JUC Guatemala Partners and our partners from the Arlington Virginia UU church support approximately 60 Mayan students for the five to six years of their Middle School and High School education. These are students, two-thirds of them girls, who are descendants of families directly impacted by the massacres in the 1980s. These families do not have the financial means to keep their children in school after primary school. To attend school they must pay for supplies, uniforms, tuition and other expenses. Our commitment to support each individual student from the time they enter the program until they graduate provides stability for the students and their families and ensures they graduate ready to take advantage of any opportunities. We have built relationships with the community beyond financial support, through the cultural exchange trips that travel from JUC to Rabinal almost every year, including in 2025. The trip is hosted by ADIVIMA, the local human rights organization that administers the scholarship program. Visits to students’ schools and to their homes are highlights of the trip. This year’s travelers will speak about their experiences during the services on Sunday, October 26, and share their pictures. Following the second service at 12:30 pm. they will join you at the Fiesta in celebrating the Scholarship program and our relationship with the students’ community. Expect good food, Guatemalan music and more. The Fiesta is a wonderful opportunity to find out about the program, the amazing students who we support, and the unique and special experience that the travelers have when they are hosted by ADIVIMA, the students, the families, and the schools. Sign up here to attend or volunteer at the Fiesta!