Kim Wade, 2025-2026 President

Dear UU folks,

Each spring our congregation holds an Annual Meeting to conduct the business of running our church. And by “business,” I really mean: the “opportunity and responsibility to reflect, choose, clarify, proclaim, and act on our shared values.”

Check out the decisions we’ll be making this year: We’ll approve the ordination of our Intern Minister, Monica Clark-Robinson. We’ll elect folks to serve on our Board of Trustees. We’ll vote to approve our FY 2026-2027 Operating Budget. And we’ll vote to authorize the Board to borrow up to $60,000, if needed, from our Endowment Fund to replace our decaying exterior siding.

I just felt like cheering! Each of these decisions is also a celebration. Each represents the culmination of so much effort. Of so many shared, sustained, and loving commitments. Witness Monica’s numerous drives between Arkansas and Columbia to be physically present with us. Witness fellow church members willing to step into Board leadership roles. Witness members of our Facilities Team who, after spotting dry rot decay, led the effort to secure a contractor to replace the building’s exterior siding. And each of those efforts have been supported and made possible by others, including folks who serve on the Intern Committee, the Investments & Endowment Committee, the Nominating Committee, and the Audit Committee.

The proposed operating budget is also the culmination of our shared and ongoing commitments to one another. For example, you’ll notice that we’ve allocated more dollars than ever before to the Sabbatical Accrual category. Here’s why: when preparing for her own upcoming sabbatical, Rev. Molly proposed to the board that we also consider making sabbaticals available to the rest of UUCC’s staff members. The board wholeheartedly agreed and wove, more deeply, the values of rest and renewal into the budget.

I took a beginning weaving class at Access Arts this winter because I adore yarn in all its varied colors and textures. I discovered that the language of weaving is equally delightful. Phrases like “sleying the reed” or “threading the heddles.” See what I mean?! Words like selvedge. Or shuttle, shed, warp, and weft. That last word, weft, means the thread that is passed crosswise, over and under the warp, to make cloth. The weft is “the part that is woven in.”

At UUCC, our shared values are the weft, the part that gets woven throughout each decision we make as a congregation. When we commit to and act upon our shared values, we are doing nothing less than creating a pocket of the world as we would like the world to be. Because our faith community is small, covenantal and self-governed, we have the power to do this. We can practice world-building. And practicing is doing.

I hope you will join us for this year’s Annual Meeting! We’ll meet on Sunday, May 3 at noon in the Sanctuary, right after service. Everyone is welcome to attend. And, as prescribed by our by-laws, anyone who joined UUCC at least 60 days prior to the meeting can vote. Oh, and perhaps most importantly, there will be snacks!

Kim Wade
2025-26 President

Rev. Dr. Molly Housh Gordon, Minister

This month’s worship theme is:
Survival is not a wasteland. It is a dance party.

“Don’t Hesitate” by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Dear UU Churchers,

This is my last newsletter column before my sabbatical, which begins May 4. I am so grateful for this tradition in Unitarian Universalism, which allows deep time for renewal and re-invigoration.

I hope to spend the next three months giving myself to joy, reading, writing,and dancing with the creative spirit who is beckoning. I can’t wait to return to you in August to see how your dancing and noticing has been going with one another and with Soon-to-Be-Rev. Monica!

You are so full of life and love! This summer I hope you will notice life’s joy, give into it, and save a dance for me…

See you in August,
Rev. Molly

Intern Minister Monica Clark-Robinson

Hello beloved, UUCC folks!

May is a month of blooming and becoming for so many of us. We’ll be celebrating our graduates during our Bridging Sunday, sharing our yearly Flower Communion, and on May 16 you’ll be ordaining me! I’m also honored to be your Sabbatical minister starting May 4. All of these upcoming milestones and events and joys are filling me with so much hope for our future. I believe in the garden we’ve been planting and seeding and tending together!

This month, please feel free to reach out to me for any questions you may have or any pastoral care or support needs. I will be super available to you, even during the weeks when I’m serving remotely! I’ll be in-person in Columbia May 9-17.

My office hours will be on Tuesdays from 1 to 3 p.m. I’ll hold them at the church when I’m in Columbia and on Zoom when I’m back home. And on Fridays when I’m in person, I’ll hold community office hours from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Nourish Café.

And of course, feel free to reach out to me any time by email if you have questions or even if you simply want to chat.

Now, since my mind is full of blooming, becoming, and the garden we are creating here at UUCC, I will leave you with a call to worship I wrote for us in one of my first services at UUCC last fall. Bloom on!

This morning, the sun shines on all of us as we gather together
In this little garden plot we call church.
My dear flowers, are you feeling bloomy this morning?
Or perhaps a bit wilted?
Or maybe you’re feeling less flower and more snail or butterfly or even tree?
Whoever you are and whatever your place is in this beloved garden,
The sun shines for you, too.
The nourishing rain of this community falls on you, too.
Here, we are both garden and gardener, each tending to each.
Here, we plant seeds of Love and Generosity
And harvest a bounty of Interdependence and Transformation.
True, grubs will come, as grubs do.
Floods and droughts will stretch us
And we will almost certainly have to lean on each other to make it.
We are all in this garden together, my dear sweetpeas and marigolds and baby carrots,
And that is no small comfort indeed.
Reach your leaves for the sun, feel the warmth of this little garden we call church,
And let us thrive together.

In faith and with love,
Monica

Jamila Batchelder, Director of Religious Education

The end of the regular church year in May is always a time of celebration, and we have much to celebrate this year!

We will be dedicating our new playground on May 3!

We will be celebrating Flower Service on May 10!

We will be celebrating the ordination of our intern minister Monica on May 16!

We will be celebrating our bridging seniors on May 17!

And we will be celebrating our wonderful R.E. volunteers on May 31! (See details below).

I so look forward to celebrating a conclusion to a wonderful year with all of you!

Jamila