Announcements

Children and Youth Religious Education Updates

We will continue to watch the local COVID numbers.  We feel encouraged by the cooling weather and the possibility of comfortable outdoor activities.

We are not resuming regular classes for children and youth at this time because our classrooms are too small to be safe for unvaccinated children, and because we want some time to be together and nurture each other before we start recruiting people to do stuff.

We will have “busy bags” for kids sitting in the pews with their parents and our services will be welcoming to all ages.

We have already heard from one of you who wants to get back to teaching and we are so grateful for your interest in this.

If others of you are out there, email Susan Caldwell.

We will probably schedule a teacher training in January 2022 and plan to start back with classes in late January or February 2022.

Thanks to all for your patience and flexibility.

Share

Volunteers for Youth Justice — January 2022 Give-Away-The-Plate Recipient

Our monthly Give Away the Plate contributions go to a local organization that best exemplifies our Unitarian Universalist principles and values through their work in our community.

Our January 2022 Give Away the Plate recipient is Volunteers for Youth Justice and will go toward our sponsorship of their annual Gumbo Gladiators fundraiser.

Volunteers for Youth Justice annually recruits, trains and supports hundreds of volunteers to provide services for at-risk children.

This includes Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) volunteers as well as mentors for their Gems and Gents program.

Other programs include Truancy Assessment Service Center and the Trust-Based Relational Intervention for children who have experienced trauma. These are just a few of the programs offered by Volunteers for Youth Justice to serve community youth in crisis.

Two ways to donate:

OnlineGo to our donation site using this link.  If you are paying your pledge, select “2022 Pledges” and enter that amount for your pledge contribution.  Then select “Collection Plate” to give the amount you would like to give to the Volunteers for Youth Justice.  All online collection plate contributions for the month of January 2022 will go to Volunteers for Youth Justice.

Offline — Please send your give away the plate contribution checks to All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, 9449 Ellerbe Road, Shreveport LA  71106.  Please put “Volunteers for Youth Justice” on the memo line of the check if  you want to have 100% of this check go to the Volunteers for Youth Justice.  If you want less than 100% of the check to go to the Volunteers for Youth Justice, please put the amount you want going to the Volunteers for  Youth Justice on the memo line.

Share

No Meditation Group on 1 January 2022 — Meditation Resumes 8 January 2022

The meditation group led by Larry Androes will not be meeting on New Years Day (Saturday, 1 January 2022).

This meditation group will resume meeting on Saturday, 8 January 2022.

This group is a sitting Buddhist meditation including a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation, 20 minutes of sitting, and followed by a weekly teaching.

The group is free and open to all.

For more information, contact Larry via email or phone using (318) 272-0014.

Share

Online All-Ages Worship (26 December 2021)

Please join us on Sunday (26 December 2021) at 11:00 AM for ‘A 2022 Poetry Survival Kit:  Poems to Get You Through the Year” with Rev. Barbara Jarrell, Susan Caldwell (All Souls Director of Religious Education), and poetry contributions from our members and friends.

Our service will be livestreamed on Facebook Live here.

For this Sunday (26 December 2021) and next Sunday (2 January 2022), we are not meeting for worship in person.  The entire worship service will be online only.

Our December 2021 give-away-the-plate recipient is Highland Center Ministries.

While we are remaining physically distant, we want to know how you are doing, what you need, and what you are interested in.  You can let us know using these online surveys.

And you can contribute to All Souls using this online resource.

Share

No Online Adult Religious Education on 26 December 2021 and 2 January 2022 — Class Resumes 9 January 2022

For this Sunday (26 December 2021) and next Sunday (2 January 2022), our adult religious education class is taking a holiday break.

On 9 January 2022, we will resume our discussion of the podcast episodes Learning How to See with Rev. Brian McLaren, Father Richard Rohr, and Rev. Jacqui Lewis.

They are discussing the 13 kinds of bias that Rev. Barbara mentioned recently in a sermon.

The group felt that this series would keep us in the realm of our anti-racism work while also being topically relevant to our pillar on Jewish and Christian heritage as these three Christian leaders discuss our tendency toward these biases from a faith-based perspective.

Although we may play short excerpts during class, we are encouraging people to listen on their own between sessions.

For 9 January 2022 — Season 2, Episode 4 — “Boxes Within Boxes”

You can find all episodes of the podcast here.

If you have a smart speaker or other smart device from Google or Amazon, you can ask it to “play the podcast Learning How to See, Season 2, Episode 4.”

Be sure to use those specific words — if you just say the name of the podcast, you might get the latest episode from Season 2 instead.

If you are using an Apple device with Siri, you can ask Siri to “search for podcast Learning How to See” to find this episode and all other episodes released so far in Learning How to See.

Share

Children and Youth Religious Education Updates

We will continue to watch the local COVID numbers.  We feel encouraged by the cooling weather and the possibility of comfortable outdoor activities.

We are not resuming regular classes for children and youth at this time because our classrooms are too small to be safe for unvaccinated children, and because we want some time to be together and nurture each other before we start recruiting people to do stuff.

We will have “busy bags” for kids sitting in the pews with their parents and our services will be welcoming to all ages.

We have already heard from one of you who wants to get back to teaching and we are so grateful for your interest in this.

If others of you are out there, email Susan Caldwell.

If the virus continues on the downward trajectory, we will probably schedule a teacher training in December 2021 and plan to start back with classes in January 2022.

If we experience another holiday surge, we may slip that to the right for a January-February 2022 time frame for teacher training followed by a resumption of classes.

Thanks to all for your patience and flexibility.

Share

No Meditation Group on 25 December 2021 or 1 January 2022 — Meditation Resumes 8 January 2022

The meditation group led by Larry Androes will not be meeting on Christmas (Saturday, 25 December 2021) or New Years Day (Saturday, 1 January 2022).

This meditation group will resume meeting on Saturday, 8 January 2022.

This group is a sitting Buddhist meditation including a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation, 20 minutes of sitting, and followed by a weekly teaching.

The group is free and open to all.

For more information, contact Larry via email or phone using (318) 272-0014.

Share

In-Person and Online All-Ages Worship (19 December 2021)

Please join us on Sunday (19 December 2021) at 11:00 AM for Peace on Earth with Susan Caldwell (All Souls Director of Religious Education) with members and friends of All Souls.

On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we light the candle for peace in our world, in our homes, and in our hearts (and have a bit of fun in the process).

Our service will be livestreamed on Facebook Live here.

This will be our seventh consecutive in-person worship service in the sanctuary since March 2020.

We have some special rules to keep all of us safe as we resume in-person worship services:

  • Masks required for all attendees ages 4 and up (those younger than age 4 are encouraged to mask)
  • All adults and youth ages 12 and up are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID and must bring proof of vaccination.
  • Vaccinations are not yet required for children ages 5-11 although we do encourage them

You can find out more about these restrictions here — we recommend that you read everything carefully before attending worship in person.

Please join us online via Zoom after today’s worship at 3:00 PM for our annual congregational meeting.

Our December 2021 give-away-the-plate recipient is Highland Center Ministries.

While we are remaining physically distant, we want to know how you are doing, what you need, and what you are interested in.  You can let us know using these online surveys.

And you can contribute to All Souls using this online resource.

 

Share