https://mailchi.mp/e7ec1684a921/keystone-ucc-take-5-for-advocacy-week-of-nov-2-5197225?e=3ee5fb0ef3
Wednesday eve May 5: Green Team; Wednesday eve May 12: Uprooting Racism.
Wednesday Nights at Keystone
Pray, tell stories, study, change the world
Join us for mid-week fellowship. Meet up--at Keystone! All meetings are online.
Wednesday, May 5
6:00pm: Lectio Divina with Pastor Lauren. 25 minute reflective scripture reading practice.
6:30pm: Green Team with Rich V. Come try a meeting with Keystone’s think tank and action team. Uplifting resource sharing & strategizing to amplify Keystone’s impact!
Wednesday, May 12
6:00pm: Lectio Divina with Rita & Pastor Lauren. 25 minute reflective scripture reading practice.
6:30pm: Uprooting Racism study discussion with Pastor Lauren. Come try this thoughtful accountability group that is doing faithful searching deep work, largely grappling with whiteness, in a compassionate discussion, that is covering ground, toward practical ends.
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You can use the “About Us” and “Contact Us” page of this website, to sign up for zoom link, or newsletters, and each Wednesday you will then receive the 'Cheat Sheet' in your email. It gives the zoom link for clicking in to that evening's events. Most gatherings occur in the same Zoom space, so you can use a previous link. Let us know if you have any questions!
Uprooting Racism
Next discussion: Wednesday, May 12, 6:30 pm
Curious what Keystone members studied in January and then for the Lenten Study in February & March? Didn't get to join either of those series? (No worries, now is a stellar time to tap in. The discussions paused in April after Easter, but are about to resume.) We are always welcoming new folks, so plan to check out May 12. Grab a book or ask Lauren for a PDF to get started. And mark the June class: Wednesday June 9, 6:30 pm.
There is also a way to join our ongoing year-long course: Uprooting Racism:
3 more Monday nights: Quarterly: with Keystone folks @ Zoom with Pastor Lauren & other UCC churches, including Admiral UCC & West Seattle Unitarian Universalist. Next meeting: Monday June 28 @ 7:00-8:30pm. Email Lauren for more info (Mondays are a different zoom link than our Keystone zoom gatherings link.)
Green Team October Roundup
The Green Team met on Sunday morning before worship and updated one another on the various “get-out-the-vote” efforts members have been working on this month. They also invite Keystone members and friends to also participate in these different efforts, which include:
Text banking each Wednesday with the Environmental Voter Project. The Pacific Northwest Conference of the UCC gathers on Wednesday afternoons to text voters together to encourage them to vote. Text-banking happens from 2-4 most Wednesdays, using the app Hustle. Talk with Barbara Anderson or Connie Voget if you want to know more about sending texts with EVP, or email Rev. Roberta Rominger at roberta.rominger@ucc-ccmi.org.
Jim Little also works with the Movement Voter Project to help get out the Green vote as well. You can support MVP at the link.
Green Team members also are sending letters and phone banking with the Sierra Club. You can find out more at https://www.sierraclubindependentaction.org/#takeaction. If you want to send letters with Sierra Club, you must send letters ON Saturday (not before and not after!). Find out more at the link.
Members are also text-banking with MoveOn.org. Join them by clicking here.
We also talked about Nori.com, which is a way to offset individual carbon footprints to help mitigate your impact on the earth’s climate. Individual efforts matter, too!
The next Green Team meeting will be 6:30 p.m. Nov. 4, in the Keystone Zoom space. Because of the shortened meeting, we didn’t get a chance to talk about Jim Antel’s book Climate Church, Climate World very much, so at that November meeting, the Green Team will focus on Chapters 5 and 6 of Antel’s book.
In the wake of Pastor Yuki’s departure, Jim and Rich V. will take over leadership and agenda-setting for future Green Team meetings, with Dan. O. providing tech support.
Green Team Update: Getting Out the Vote
The Green Team met on Tuesday, Sept. 1, for our monthly meeting, the theme of the meeting was how we can make sure our neighbors and community members are voting. Do you have a plan for voting? Have you talked to your friends and family, especially friends and families in other states who might be voting by mail for the first time, about their plans for voting? We discussed the various scenarios that could prevent people's mail-in ballots from reaching their county election boards, between the efforts to slow down the US Postal Service and rules which might prevent ballots from being counted. We also worried together about the weeks after Election Day, while the ballots are being counted and the anxiety this uncertainty will create. We committed to talking with as many people as we can between now and Election Day to help people come up with their voting plans, and we'll be talking to Keystone folks as well to make sure your plans are in place!
We also talked about the Sierra Club's upcoming workshops on commenting at the upcoming hearings on the Kalama methanol refinery (see Take 5 for Advocacy article above), and the need to stay on top of strategies of disinformation that big polluters put out about plants like these.
Finally, we continued our discussion into Jim Antel's book Climate Church, Climate World, chapter 4, which centered on the action that churches can do to be a partner in the fight for climate justice. We recognize the need for lifting up in prayer the harm that human beings have done to the earth, and how those of us currently living today are leaving an unjust world for the generations who follow us. We decided to start working on connecting our efforts as a UCC Creation Justice church and a Green Team with other Creation Justice churches and Green Teams in the Pacific Northwest Conference and across the US. How can we support one another, and how can we learn from one another in the work we're doing for climate justice? And how can we join our voices and power to others so we can make real change in this work? That's what The Keystone Green Team is committed to this month.
The next Green Team meeting will be Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 6:30 p.m. on Keystone's Zoom. We'll discuss Climate Church, Climate World Chapter 5, report back on our work to help our neighbors with their voting plans, and other issues.
~ reported by Pastor Yuki
Keystone is a Creation Justice Church!
After Keystone’s Lenten study on Naomi Klein’s book On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, the members of the study (who are also part of the Keystone Green Team), pinpointed some specific actions we wanted to take on to live out our commitment to climate justice. One of those actions was to apply to become on of the United Church of Christ’s Creation Justice Churches, joining may other churches in the UCC who are committed to creation care and climate justice in the world. The Green Team spent a few months working on that application, which you can read here, and Pastor Yuki sent it to the UCC’s national offices on July 22.
In July, Pastor Yuki received an email from the UCC’s Environmental Justice Minister Rev. Brooks Berndt welcoming Keystone as one of the UCC’s Creation Justice Churches. Rev. Berndt wrote: “I was able to read Keystone’s Creation Justice Church application just now, and I am happy to share that you are now officially a Creation Justice Church! I was glad to learn about your ministries, and I am happy to connect with you.”
Rev. Berndt said in the email that usually Creation Justice Churches receive a vinyl banner that they can display outside the church to show the world that they are committed to climate justice, but because the Covid-19 pandemic has kept the UCC’s office staff working from home, the UCC won’t be able to send that banner anytime soon. Rev. Berndt also encourages members from our Green Team to write articles about our experiences for the UCC Environmental Justice Ministries blog, The Pollinator.
Thank you, Green Team, for your work on the application and your commitment to this important ministry!