​You may have noticed over the last few years that we’ve shifted the language we use to describe how we learn, grow and thrive in faith. Once called “Christian Education,” we now use the term “Christian Formation.” It moves us away from a focus on beliefs and solely cerebral activities towards an understanding of Christian growth rooted in the whole person. As the great commandment says, we come to “love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength.” Theological information is still vital, but it is not the only driver of growth; we need to feel, relate, and act. Human personhood is multifaceted, so how we are nurtured, the way we are shaped, the way we are formed into the fullness of mature faith uses many tools. Hence, Christian Formation helps our life in Christ to thrive.

At Plymouth, we also have the gift of permission to try new things. Some wag said that the “Last 7 Words of the Church” are “But we’ve always done it this way!” Familiar ways of doing something like Sunday School are actually pretty recent history. “Sunday school” as general education for children working in factories began in the 1780s. But it was only in the early 20th century that it became the primary engine of Christian education connected with Sunday morning church, dropping the reading, writing and arithmetic. So we count ourselves quite free to innovate with the hour between services we have designated for Formation, and also to extend Formation programs to other times and places. We can discover fresh ways to thrive in our faith!

All through the month of November, we will experiment with different ways of growing in faith, keyed to the theme of Thrive and informed by Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise.” These experiences are designed so you can drop into them after coming from Totenfest, enjoying the Pie Potluck, or shopping at the Alternative Giving Fair. There are different activities in each room:

•    Labyrinth:  The outdoor labyrinth is open to walk, meditate, and enjoy (bundle up if the weather is bad).
•    Forum Room:  A different video (about 15 minutes)  each week on various life-and-faith topics, by Rob Bell, followed by discussion.  Video starts at 10:20 a.m.
•    North Adult Ed Room:  A quiet place for meditation, curated by the Centering Prayer and Healing Prayer groups.
•    Club 45 Room:  Honoring the Cloud of Witnesses.  A place to consider the people who have formed your life journey, thanking God for their impact on you, by writing and drawing.
•    Fireside Room:  Poem Scrabble, playing with Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise.”  
•    Sprouts Room (starting Nov. 11):  Faith is a Growing Thing.  Plant seeds in small pots to grow in a sunny place at home, and consider the spirituality of nurturing life.
•    North Room (starting Nov. 18):  Make an Advent Box for your family to prepare for Christmas.

To help you keep track of your travels through the building and month, use the Passport we will make available at a table in the Fellowship Hall. As you complete each spiritual practice, get a stamp in your passport. Yes, this is inspired by the Pilgrim Passport of the Camino de Santiago. Get four stamps and at the end of the month, turn it in to get a fun prize! 

One of the great gifts that Church provides is the opportunity for intergenerational learning. These spiritual practices are designed for all ages, and we encourage children to go through the month accompanied by their favorite adults. Parents, grand-parents, gay uncle-recruited-for-the-occasion, all will be blessed by the chance to engage these activities together with children. Some will even lend themselves to use at home later on.

In these conflicted times, we need to tap into all sorts of different spiritual resources. I trust you will find these experiences helpful. I am writing this before going to the vigil in Old Town for the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue. And as I reviewed yet again Maya Angelou’s poem, this stanza stood out to me:   

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Peace,
Rev. Dr. Mark Lee

Thank you for Pledging
to the 2019 Plymouth Budget! We have exciting plans for ministry in the coming year and will need a budget of $900,000 to accomplish our vision. 

If you haven't had a chance to pledge, information and pledge cards are in the church entryway and/or office. Or pledge online!

Each week at Plymouth we welcome children and youth in the name of Christ. This is part of our mission and ministry, our programming, our duty and our privilege. And it is an important part of our budgeting each year. We have a highly qualified and dedicated staff of nine childcare workers who welcome and care for our youngest ones during all our worship services and certain special events during the year. They are hired and trained by the Rev. Mandy Hall, our Director of Christian Formation for Children and Youth. You may occasionally see them in their sky blue childcare team t-shirts as they come and go from the north wing to the kitchen in their cleaning duties. (After every shift all the toys used are washed as well as the rooms cleaned by these staff members.) I always find them cheerful and upbeat and I am trying to learn all their names in order to welcome them personally to their workplace. They are a hidden, but VERY important part of our community and ministry. I encourage you to greet them, learn their names, make them feel welcome because they are welcoming our children in Jesus’ name! 

After a resolution by our 2017 UCC General Synod on equity in pay and minimum wage requirements, Plymouth’s Leadership Council and Budget and Finance Committee made a commitment to raise our pay for contract workers at Plymouth to the national minimum wage goal of $15/hr by 2019. This goes into effect in January. This is right and just to do. It also ensures that we get and keep the best caregivers for our children. Your pledge to Plymouth will empower this justice action of fair pay and this ministry action of welcoming and caring for our youngest children.

Please bring your pledge card to church this coming Sunday to celebrate Consecration Sunday! (You can also send it in the mail, or pledge online with a form here, or pledge using the F1Go app right on your smartphone or tablet!)

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” says Jesus. Having children is one of the most humbling experiences in this life. You are suddenly responsible for these ones who are so fragile and yet so resilient. Who soak up love and learning, yet teach us so much about ourselves.

May we remember that we are all children of God. May we treat each other as beloved children in need of love, respect and care even as we humble ourselves to receive love, respect and care from one another. May we remember to humble ourselves before God, giving back to God from the abundance we have been given. May we remember that whoever welcomes one such child in Jesus’ name welcomes Jesus who came to reveal to us the face of God.
 
Blessings on the journey, 
Jane Anne

​In her book, The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources, author Lynne Twist, writes, “The word wealthy has its roots in well-being and is meant to connote not only large amounts of money but also a rich and satisfying life.” With this in mind, we do not have to be financially rich by the definition of our consumer culture to be wealthy. With basic needs met, we can be wealthy in friendship, in the beauty of nature, in the smells from a home-cooked meal. With basic needs met, we can be wealthy in sharing what we have with our neighbors. Our lives can be rich and satisfying. Those of us who have more than our basic needs met are wealthy as we remember that well-being is not all about money. In our sharing we discover again and again that we are part of God’s beloved people to whom God has given all creation and all manner of grace, abundance, love and forgiveness. 
 
It is easy to talk about the wealth we have been given in sunsets, in friends and loved ones, in the joy of community. It is tough to talk about the wealth we have been given in money. When we introduce the word “money,” along comes the emotions of competition, scarcity thinking, shame, not being enough. I urge you this stewardship campaign season to let these emotions go as quickly as you can when you consider money and your generosity. Let them simply drain away, knowing that is you really need them they will always return. 
 
Instead think of your money as soul power. Let it stand for who you are, what you believe, and what you hold most dear. Money, like water, has the power to create, sustain, and nourish when it flows freely from one to another. It stagnates when it is hoarded. As Lynne Twist writes, “Money becomes a currency of love and commitment , expressing the best of who you are, rather than a currency of consumption driven by emptiness and lack and the allure of external messages.” Money grounds us and puts power behind our commitments. It can be the great translator of intention to reality, vision to fulfillment. Jesus said it and it is still true, “Our hearts follow our money: where your treasure is there is your heart also.” 
 
No matter whether your bank account covers basic needs, just a bit more, or a whole lot more, you are wealthy in the love of God in Christ, in the beauty of creation, in the sustenance of this church community. As you consider your pledge to the 2019 budget that will fund our ministry for God in the coming year, let your money be a source of soul power for you. Give the few pennies, dollars that you can as a way to join with God in making God’s intentions reality in the world through Plymouth. Jesus treasured the widow’s mite. If you are so blessed, give the many dollars that you can to join with God and your fellow Christians in making God’s intentions reality in the world through Plymouth.

May our money not be a source of anxiety, may it be a source joyful power through which we give thanks to God by living the most generous lives of well-being possible.
 
Blessings on the journey,
Jane Anne

P.S If you missed "Grateful: A Love Song to the World" (the video Stewardship showed during worship on Sunday, October 14), or if you just want to dance to it again, you can view it here.

So today we gather, riding the wave of this spiritual movement, with two pictures. One is the specific, local, personal picture of Matthew, as we remember his life and death. But in this movement of God’s Spirit, Matthew has become a window into something far larger: the quest of our communities for safety, peace and justice. Do not be trapped into false dichotomies between the personal and the political; for God, justice is both personal and political. We are not faced with a choice today between celebrating Matthew’s personal life and celebrating the struggle for liberation; one leads quite naturally into the other.
 
As I look back, I feel the crisis erupted so rapidly that it was difficult to grasp the magnitude of what was going on from its midst. When I heard what happened, I got a candle and went down to PVH and joined many of you at the vigil. At first, I did not understand the epochal nature of the event for the gay community. Lots of gay people had been murdered -– I thought of Steve Heyman, the psychology professor who was the sponsor of the gay group at the University of Wyoming who was suspiciously murdered in Denver in 1993, which still remains unsolved -– so thought this would be a flash in the pan as well. And then, before long, I felt that there was a lot of grand-standing going on by the national, “coastal,” GLBT organizations who had no understanding of the realities faced by GLBT communities in small and rural communities.  This included even the national office of my own church; the main statement they issued following the event (still online), while its heart was in the right place, is riddled with factual errors. So other than one press event in Laramie, where I was the first to talk about how the community ought respond to the promised visit by Fred Phelps (who was familiar sight at MCC events and with whom I’d been having online flame wars for years), I kept my distance from the center of the storm in Laramie. However, Cheyenne, being the state capital and primary media center, was hardly immune from the firestorm.
 
The interfaith community quickly realized we needed to do something local for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t go over to the events in Laramie. St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church offered their hospitality. There ended up being two events there: first, an interfaith vigil, and later a community memorial service the day after the family’s funeral in Casper. We had a variety of faith communities involved, from Unitarian to Southern Baptist to Jewish. The church was full, good news proclaimed, songs sung, hugs shared, tears flowed.
 
The TV stations are based out of Cheyenne, and covered our events sensitively, taking care to only photograph silhouettes of people who might not have wanted their faces on the evening news. But concerning national media, it was a struggle for the local community to keep control over our narrative, rather than being co-opted by narratives imposed from the outside. “Gay boy killed by rednecks in hate state” may have been what it looked like from New York, but that was not how we understood either our home nor what happened. I could tell you painful stories about interviews by Nightline and The Advocate.
 
What did I learn?
 
The near aftermath included a period of retrenchment. At first, lots of people all over Wyoming were energized, took risks, came out. There was a huge push to pass a hate crimes bill. But a few months later, when Wyoming’s legislature refused to pass a hate crimes bill -– and it still hasn’t! –- that sent shockwaves through the community. Many people felt over-extended, and pulled back. Gay community dances that had 150 people now had 30. Attendance at my church plummeted, people told me that they were scared to have their car seen in the church parking lot. As the UGLW president put it, “You could hear closet doors slamming all over the state.”  
 
As part of my doctoral work five years later, I reviewed my preaching for the year following Matthew’s death. I was quite surprised by what I found. Very quickly, Matthew didn’t appear in my preaching! My fellow students challenged me about this; “It was the biggest story in your community, why were you avoiding it?” But I was preaching to a community that was saturated up to its ears with the story, and the story about the story, and the stories built around the stories about the story. They didn’t need a sermon to remind them about the events of the day.  Every newspaper, every TV newscast, every conversation was filled with it. We wanted to go back to normal, whatever that was.
 
People were coming to church for a word that went beyond the crisis, beyond the political fight about the hate crimes law, beyond the nagging fear that the community some of them had known their whole lives wasn’t really safe. They were coming to church for eternal truths. That, contrary to Fred Phelps, they were not divine mistakes or accidents, not unworthy perverted sinners condemned to hellfire. That they were beautiful, fabulous, beloved creations of a good God, who wants nothing more than for them to fulfill their potential for making a community marked by love and care and justice and play and goofiness and compassion. 
 
Know that you are good, you are worthy, you are amazing and wonderful and beloved beyond all words.  That the creator of the universe made a universe with a place for you in it.  That is what I want you to take away from me today: that whatever the political strife and pain of the moment may be, you have the sure hope and knowledge that you are divinely loved forever.
​ 
Thank you.

“If the only prayer you ever say is ‘Thank you!’ it will be enough.” ­
– Meister Eckhart, 13th c

This congregation never ceases to amaze me.

• Last week I saw a CSU University Distinguished Professor (a member of Plymouth) cleaning the bathrooms at church while our sextons are on vacation.
• This morning I read an online post of gratitude from one of our members who is nearing the end of life.
• Yesterday I learned that there are about a million cookies being baked for Geri Stutheit’s memorial service on Friday.
• Last week our Trustees Chair negotiated a contract on our behalf that will bring in $15,000 in the next year for 17 parking spaces rented during the week.
• We have a “trinity of treasurers:” three people who give more than 20 hours each week keeping Plymouth’s books.
• This week I saw a big team of deacons (and former deacons!) who took the initiative to use a creative litany for World Communion Sunday, bought different types of breads…joyfully led by the chair of the deacons who volunteered at all three services.
• Today, I’ll see a wonderfully warm and welcoming Plymouth member volunteering at our front desk to answer phones, help out, and provide hugs to staff, members, and friends.
• And at last night’s Leadership Council meeting, I saw ten people (who work assiduously to set the course for our congregation) have a really creative discussion about how we can say thanks to the enormous range of people who volunteer at Plymouth.
• This is love in action! And that’s just the beginning! There are literally hundreds of other ways –- big and small -– that our members’ generosity of time shapes lives every day…and I wish I could thank each one!
  
  

As I was musing about all the gifts given at Plymouth, it occurred to that even a small group of us could never make all of this loving ministry happen alone, and every member of this congregation is the recipient of others’ love, time, and ministry. That is what gives me pause…to be in awe…to say “Thanks be to God…and thank you!”

This coming Sunday, we are taking a page out of NPR’s book and putting our stewardship campaign into overdrive: taking just two weeks to raise the $900,000 that will help make mission and ministry possible at Plymouth in 2019. It culminates on October 28 with Baroque and Burritos…stay tuned!
​
The sermon on Sunday is on one of my favorite texts when Jesus asks us to “Behold the lilies of the field…how they grow!” Have you ever marveled at the beauty of nature? How could you live in Colorado and miss that?! How can we fail to miss that wonder and awe? How can we fail to say “thanks!” to God for the glories of creation? We did nothing to deserve the beauty of the lily, to deserve a relationship with God, to be the generation that lives in such material and spiritual abundance. And so we respond…by saying “Thanks!”
 
Deep peace,

​Dear Plymouth, 

October is a liminal time between summer heat and winter cold, between rain and snow, between one year transitioning to the next, and for some of us from summer sports to winter sports. I love October. Sweaters come down from the attic. The skies get waxed and edged. Apple Cider and pumpkins abound. Corn and squash are on most menus! There is so much to celebrate! 

While all of that is good and well, for clergy it is a particularly exciting month. Best of all for ministers, for one month of the year, we aren’t the only ones willing to talk about death, transitions, and bereavement! For this one month, conversations about death and dying are all around us in nature, in life, and even (while often distorted) in popular culture. 

While All Saints or Totenfest in early November is a formal Christian Holiday of recognizing our departed loved ones, Halloween is traditionally not part of the liturgical year. This is largely for good reason, but perhaps there is still something we can learn from it. While I love October, I mostly just hold my breath for Halloween to be over. I hate the constant gore, violence, and especially the candy corn in the supermarket and on TV. Additionally, I have to confess to never having sat through an entire horror movie in my life with my eyes open or without covering my ears. I am that person who won’t sleep well for weeks after. 

What I like about Halloween, however, is that it is the one time of the year, while exaggerated, when most Americans of all religions and no religion think collectively about death and life. It is a time when we all have the opportunity to claim, in contrast to all of the gore and violence, how we want to live life and to be remembered. 

October is a beautiful, liminal month of the changing of the seasons, falling of summer leaves, and the coming of winter winds. It is also a time when we have the chance, whether we want to or not, to reflect on the meaning of our lives. What will be left when we are gone? How will we be remembered? Do I have a living will? How am I honoring my ancestors and dearly departed? When is the last time I visited or tended my grandfather’s grave? Tending graves or sacred places of memory is a deeply important and forgotten Christian ritual that I advocate reclaiming. 

While there is much gore, violence, and bad food to ignore (especially candy corn) in October and in Halloween, there is also the chance to claim the good parts of this cultural holiday. As we look for Halloween costumes and decorations, let us also reflect on what costumes we are already wearing in our daily lives. As we share candy and apple cider with friends and strangers, may we also think of ways to feed the world with nutrition (not just sugar) and hope throughout the year. Most of all, while we are inundated with the cultural fear of death—may we also claim our Christian hope that there is yet more beauty to come. 

Happy Halloween, 
Just Jake (or The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph)