A message from Matt...

A New Lease on UCP Purpose and Direction

As the new President of UCP, I ask you to join me in a heartfelt thank you to Martie Quistberg who has served as our President over the past three years. Her commitment and leadership has kept us shining brightly. Martie will stay on as our Past President for another year, continuing to advise our Leadership Council. Her experience will be much appreciated.

The Council recently reassessed the vision and purpose of UCP. The process of this reassessment was affectionately entitled "Defining Our Purpose, Setting Our Course." The Council took a long hard look at UCP's vision, mission, core values, and bylaws. The result: a renewed, reinvigorated, and united commitment to serving the spiritual needs of all who come through our doors seeking a spiritual home. For the first time, UCP has defined its own core values that incorporate the spiritual principals taught by Unity as a whole into the specific direction in which God has been leading UCP for the last four years. The foundational element of our vision is our united purpose within Spirit's One power.

The Council adopted new bylaws that uniquely support our values and mission. The new bylaws outline an unusual concept known as "prayerful consensus," which means that the entire Council must agree unanimously on any item that requires a vote, thus inserting our united purpose into the very governance of UCP. The "prayerful" part of this term affirms the Council's reliance on God's guidance in its decisions.

Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing with you our renewed vision, mission, and core values in various ways, beginning on February 25th, when we will conduct our "Installation of Officers" service. At this service we will recognize those individuals who will lead our church and the positions to which they have committed. I will speak in more detail about our vision, mission, and core values at this service. We are looking for three more individuals interested in joining UCP leadership in areas of hospitality, outreach, and landscaping to round out the Leadership Council. We will begin actively recruiting to fill these positions also in the coming weeks.

As the new year gets underway, I recognize a growing congregation supporting a thriving church that symbolizes our spiritual home. God leads us down the path of peace, together. With every step, God guides our way, as one. In this understanding do we move as one. Nothing more than our willingness that this be so is needed to ensure that our efforts, supported together, will bring about a church in which we all find the truth that sets us free.

Peace to you

Matt Quistberg