As school begins, we enter another cycle of Fellowship activity, starting the first year of our Fellowship’s new strategic plan. It calls us to grow into the liberal religious community we aspire to become and it challenges us to develop more fully into the individuals we hope to be! I look forward to the adventures of this year to come, and I hope that you do, too! Speaking personally, I am glad to know that we will face the opportunities and challenges to come in each other’s company, for each one of us brings something unique and valuable to our Fellowship community!

Believe it or not, we’ve already begun to implement several aspects of our new plan. Our Student Minister, Paul Kent Oakley, is working with a team of dedicated Fellowship members to create a vibrant campus ministry at SIUC. Jerry Molumby has agreed to lead our Membership Committee, and he is working to develop a new approach to welcoming those who arrive at our front door. We’re exploring new ways to be visible on the internet, and to help those who visit our webpage learn about us. We’re looking into exciting ways to be more visible in our community and throughout the region. And as part of our strategy to develop the financial resources we need to accomplish these purposes, we’re working with Chalice Lighters!

Each Sunday morning, in recognition that we have gathered as a Unitarian Universalist community, we begin our service by lighting the flame in our chalice. We think of the person who lights the chalice – often one of our children, or sometimes one of our newer members – as our “chalice lighter.” But there is also another sense in which many of us are “chalice lighters.” Our regional UU organization, the Central Midwest District (CMwD), coordinates a program called “Chalice Lighters.” Its purpose is to help us light the chalice of liberal religion for more people throughout the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, and (a bit of) Indiana. Chalice Lighters helps by raising funds in support of “growth-oriented” projects proposed by UU congregations within the area. Individual UUs become part of the Chalice Lighters program by signing up at the CMwD website. It’s as easy as (1) going to http://www.cmwd-uua.org, then (2) clicking on the “Chalice Lighters Resources” option, and then (3) selecting “sign-up online.” In signing up, one commits oneself to contribute at least $10 three times over the course of a year, in support of congregational grant applications considered most worthy by CMwD reviewers.

Our Fellowship has been fortunate to receive three Chalice Lighters grants in the past twelve years. In Spring, 1999, we received a $7,700 grant award in support of our decision to support professional ministry. Five years later, in 2004, we received a $9,800 grant to assist us with the expenses of moving into (and paying for) our new facility. And in late 2006, we received a third grant from the program in support of the new UU congregations then forming in Cape Girardeau and Mt. Vernon. And now, Board members Jess Jobe and Karen Gallegly are working we me to develop an application for another Chalice Lighters grant.

I hope that you understand how important it is for us, as individuals, to support the growth of Unitarian Universalism in this region. If you are already a CMwD Chalice Lighter, I thank you! If not, I encourage you to consider how significant the Chalice Lighters grants have been here in Carbondale. Please join me in supporting this very valuable program!

In the words of Dag Hammerskjold, “ Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and to give back.” Chalice Lighters is a very meaningful way that we can “give back” to the larger movement that has supported us! And thank you for the continued generosity with which you participate here, and support our larger movement!

In gratitude, Bill S.