First Congregational to Participate in Leadership Transformation Program with KO Conference4/19/2021
 The Kansas-Oklahoma Conference of the UCC is honored to be one of the recipients of a 2021 Leadership Transformation Grant from the Kansas Leadership Center. The KLC is a non-profit founded by the Kansas Health Foundation. KLC provides training to foster leadership for stronger, healthier and more prosperous Kansas communities. Through the Leadership Transformation Grant, KLC partners with organizations to help them create a culture of leadership that embraces change, tackles problems and seizes opportunities.
As a part of this grant, the KO Conference is sending 50 participants to participate in a two-day training with KLC. Our congregation was invited to put together our own delegation and we welcome your prayers as we prepare to learn and grow this summer. Janet George and Cassidy Moreau will participate in the KLC leadership training on May 5-6. Deane Lehmann, Jeff Watson, Craig Weston, and Pastor Caela will be attending the same training on June 2-3. You can learn more about the training here.  Beginning May 2, we will begin using Zoom every week for worship. Pastor Caela will be joined in the sanctuary by other worship leaders and a tech crew....and, eventually, by all of us once we regather in our building. How exciting! You can read updates about our regathering plans on our website here.
After May 2, our worship services will NOT be on Facebook or YouTube. We will continue to use the same link each week for worship and you'll find that at uccmanhattan.org/online. If you are unable to access Zoom, please contact the church office so we can help make alternative arrangements. It’s important to us that we find a way for you to attend worship. HOW CAN I HELP DURING THIS TIME OF TRANSITION? Thanks for asking! There are several things you can do:
WHY HAVE WE CHOSEN ZOOM FOR WORSHIP? We've made the decision to use Zoom as our platform moving forward because we believe it provides the best opportunity for us to help those worshiping at home feel more like a part of our worship service each week. Those who worship at a distance will be able to see other faces, interact with people in the chat, and stay for Fellowship Hour. Eventually, we hope to have the technology that will make it possible for people at home to read scripture, share their prayers aloud, and more. Being together on Zoom also means greater ease in our weekly worship creation workflow as we won't be pre-recording elements of the service and paying a video editor to piece it all together for us. We want to say a HUGE thank you to Companion Projects Media, who have been working with us for almost a year now and have been indispensable partners for our staff and volunteers. Worshiping together "in real time" also means we can ensure our service meets the moment, rather than being recorded earlier in the week. WHY AREN'T WE USING FACEBOOK OR YOUTUBE ANY MORE? You may be wondering why the service isn't simultaneously live-streamed to other platforms like YouTube or Facebook. While it's true this can be done, we've decided not to do so for two primary reasons: 1) copyright differences with streaming vs Zoom, and 2) privacy. When we worship on Zoom we are not streaming the service and, therefore, have more options for using music/words in our service without worrying about copyright concerns that come up when broadcasting our service. When we lift our prayers or invite the children forward for the Word for Children, we can do so in our Zoom room much like we did in the Sanctuary. It's still a public place, of course, but it's not live-streamed to the internet, which gives us a better balance of privacy and outreach. WHY IS THE ZOOM SERVICE BEING RECORDED? We currently have a couple of folks who have difficulty accessing Zoom and are preparing DVDs for them. In the future, we may make recordings available to those who were unable to attend worship. The recordings show the"speaker view," not the “gallery view.” Each week's sermon will continue to be uploaded to our YouTube and Facebook pages for those who would like to view or share them. We are still very much in a "liminal space" of experimentation and we anticipate that our online worship will continue to evolve and shift over the coming months. The staff and Deacons welcome your input on how things are going and what new things we might try as we learn and grow together.  Pastor Caela will be on study leave from April 12-18. On April 18th we will be worshiping via Zoom and our guest preacher is Lynaya Morris.
Originally from Pocomoke on Maryland's Eastern Shore Lynaya holds a Master's degree in Higher Education Administration from George Washington University, and a bachelors in biology from Syracuse University. This semester she is wrapping up her Master of Divinity degree at Wesley Theological Seminary. Lynaya served and lived among students as part of GWU for the past 8 years, as an Area Coordinator, Residence Director, and later a Career Coach. Lynaya currently works at Catholic University as an Academic & Career Advisor. Lynaya enjoys not just the science disciplines and theology, but also creative endeavors such as baking, painting, knitting, and listening to music. Lynaya is excited to meet and worship with you! We will open the Zoom room at 10:40 so you can get settled in and enjoy some pre-service music. Please note we are ONLY on Zoom - NOT Facebook Live or YouTube. You'll find the link at http://www.uccmanhattan.org/online The bulletin for the worship service is available here http://bit.ly/bulletinapr18 Fellowship Hour will begin immediately after the postlude in the SAME ZOOM ROOM (not the regular Fellowship room). So just hang tight after worship to stay for Fellowship Hour. |
