By Diane Weible
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Let’s Talk: About Administration

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I want to share a few things I’ve been thinking about throughout this past week about the work of Administration. What do I mean by Administration? I’m talking about our Bylaws, our HR and Insurance policies, our Financial statements, our Safe Conduct Policies—and anything else that we put in place as a matter of course to make sure God’s work can happen. While it may seem odd for this newsletter format, I decided to lay it out in bullet points just because the points may or may not be related to one another. I’ll let you decide. Administration is the…
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By Diane Weible
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Let’s Talk: About Gratitude

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I visited one of our local churches last Sunday, only the second time since before Pandemic and the first time that I shared the morning message. Before I launched into my sermon, I took a minute to bring greetings on behalf of our siblings in the churches of the Northern California Nevada Conference and offer a word of gratitude for their partnership in the work we do together in the wider church. Many of you have heard me say something similar in the past as I have joined you in worship. This time, after 18 months of not being able…
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By Diane Weible
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Let’s Talk: About Revolutionary Love

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In the wake of the collapse of Afghanistan, we have learned that many of the 50,000 Afghan refugees relocating to the US are headed to or already in the Bay Area and Sacramento. The reason for this is, in part, due to the fact that these areas of our Conference have some of the largest Afghan communities in the US. On Monday, I was part of an ecumenical conversation hosted by Pacific School of Religion and included my ecumenical counterparts in other denominations as well as leaders from Church World Service and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. We learned about…
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By Diane Weible
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Let’s Talk: About the Tough Questions We Have to Ask Ourselves

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Last week Ms. Ruby Nell Sales offered our Conference an amazing keynote address for our 2021 Annual Gathering theme, “The Elephant in the Room: Listen. Reflect. Learn”. Her words touched many of us in just the way we needed in this time of high anxiety, stress and pain as we deal with racism (and all the other “isms” people are confronted with every day), wildfires, and continued pandemic, to name just a few. A question that she asks that has provided some deep conversations in the “Let’s Talk About Race” group is, “Where does it hurt?” I was thinking of…
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By Diane Weible
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Let’s Talk: About Wildfires

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As I write this, I can see smoke out my window and I am reminded of the places in our Conference where the smoke is much worse and where it is accompanied by very dangerous fire. I think about those places where our siblings in other churches and their neighbors and friends are evacuating from their beloved homes. I think of how they must be feeling—the fear, the exhaustion. Fire season gets longer and more dangerous every year. There is nothing we can do to stop it. We cannot even predict where the next fire will erupt. What has brought…
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By Diane Weible
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Let’s Talk: About Black Homeownership Reparations Fund

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by Rev. Barry Cammer I was listening to an NPR story yesterday afternoon and the reporter used the term “racial reckoning moment”.  Yes, after the murder of George Floyd we had quite an interesting period in our country, coming to terms with the deeply embedded racism that existed and still exists in our country.  Many of us took the issue seriously. We did a lot of introspection, learned about the need to proactively become anti-racists, and collectively devoted a lot of time and energy to the issue of ongoing racial inequity.  We faced head-on the lingering legacy of slavery in…
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By Diane Weible
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Walking…Together

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Walking… Together by Rev. Kathryn Shreiber (This is an excerpt from an adaptation of Rev. Kathryn Schreiber’s weekly email message to her congregation, Berkeley Chinese Community Church, UCC. Published July 16, 2021)   I hope you and yours are staying strong and enjoying fun summertime activities. One of the summertime activities many UCC folks do every other year is attend General Synod. UCC members from across the USA gather to worship and build relationships, to learn together and make decisions. We do so by listening to the Still Speaking God… together. Usually, we really are physically together. This year, we’re…
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By Diane Weible
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Fall Support Session Series

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Listening to the needs of our Authorized Ministers and Church Leaders, we offer the following support sessions: November 5, 3-4:30 p.m. (for Authorized Ministers): How to know when it's ready to re-open and how to support your congregation in making that decision. Resources to view ahead of time. If you are an Authorized Minister and would like to listen to this recording, please email Diane Weible (dweible@ncncucc.org) to receive the link and passcode. November 12, 3-4:30 p.m. (open to all): How are we doing worship seven months into pandemic? Listen to this recording. You may join any of the sessions by clicking HERE.
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By Diane Weible
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Information for Budget and Camp Revision Task Force Proposals

Annual Gathering, Uncategorized
A Letter from Conference Leaders Conference leaders have written a letter to the churches and authorized ministers of the United Church of Christ, appealing for your support in entering into a faithful discernment process for determining the Conference's ministry and the budget for 2021. For the past five years, despite a Conference-wide discernment to call two full-time Associate Conference Ministers, we have finished each year with a deficit and have relied on reserves to make up the difference. In 2017, Annual Gathering approved a $5/per member giving request to offset some of our deficit, especially around our line items involving…
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By Diane Weible
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Co-Creating a New Way of Being

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Co-creating a new way of being is an invitation to use the experience of this pandemic to shape the way we live in covenant and community and the way we move into the future. Each week (maybe even twice a week), I am going to pose a question. Then, after a few days of my own contemplation about the question, I will post a short video here with a few of my thoughts. I invite you to add your own reflections to the comment section below. May 7: What has surprised you the most about the past eight weeks?  …
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