Saturday, Feb 3 at 10:00AM. Take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in your home by replacing your aging air conditioner and furnace with an air source heat pump! Get the facts about heat pumps at an educational event sponsored by the Green Sanctuary Committee and other local environmental organizations on Saturday, February 3, 10:00 - 11:30 AM at the Unitarian Church of Lincoln, 6300 A Street.
 
Resilient Electric Analytics estimates that the average cost difference between installing a traditional AC/gas furnace or an air source heat pump in a 2,400 square foot home in Lincoln is $1,700, and using a heat pump will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 43 tons over its lifetime. The City of Lincoln and LES are offering a combo rebate of $1,800 with the purchase of a 15.2 SEER2 air source heat pump, so now is a good time to install one in your home. (SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio.)

Speakers at the event will explain the basics of how a heat pump works, why it is important not to wait until your unit is broken to replace it, economic costs and environmental benefits of air source heat pumps, and rebates and tax credits available for installing heat pumps. Speakers include City Council Representative Bennie Shobe, former City Council Representative and State Senator Ken Haar, former City Council Representative Curt Donaldson, Lincoln’s Chief Sustainability Officer Kim Morrow, and Lincoln Electric System Manager of Energy Services Marc Shkolnick.

Sunday, Feb 18 after Service in the Gallery, 6300 A Street, Lincoln, NE 

This first potluck of 2024 is in advance of the annual Justice in Action Network meeting. Think of your best winter comfort food and consider bringing that to share with your fellow Unitarian Universalists (UUs). Even if you forget to bring a dish, you may join the group for some nourishment for your body before we feed our justice appetites.

"LOVE WITHOUT ACTION IS A HALLMARK CARD",

so preached the Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair in his Martin Luther King Day sermon. He further said that Justice in Action provides a focused and strategic opportunity for Unitarian Church of Lincoln (UCL) congregants to demonstrate our love for our Lincoln community. What Oscar didn't say, exactly, is:

LOVE WITH ACTION IS SERVED WITH A POTLUCK.

Across the globe we see many countries displaying some version of liberal democracy but then gradually yielding to strongman rule. We ask how and why this can occur in genuine democracies. We want to know about any successful recovery.  We look at four countries that can be discussed within this framework: Brazil, Hungary, India, and Turkey.

Global Perspectives: The Winter Lecture Series 2024
Can Democracy Be Saved? The Global Trend Toward Strongman Rule

The Winter Lecture Series (WLS) will consist of four ZOOM sessions presented on four successive Sundays beginning 2/18/2024. Each will begin at 7:00PM and end around 8:30PM, with a 45-minute lecture followed by an audience-driven Q&A. (Sign up for our WLS mailing list to receive zoom links.)

• Sunday, February 18, 2024, 7:00 PM. Professor Barany on Orban in Hungary 
• Sunday, February 25, 2024, 7:00 PM. Professor Varshney on Modi in India
• Sunday, March 3, 2024, 7:00 PM. Professor Hunter on Bolsonaro in Brazil 
• Sunday, March 10, 2024, 7:00 PM. Professor Arat on Erdogan in Turkey

Learn more about these four distinguished expert lecturers:

Zoltan Barany, Erwin Centennial Professor of Government, University of Texas-Austin.  A native of Hungary and with a MA from UNL, he is an internationally recognized expert on civilian-military relations and other key aspects of the struggle for civilian democratic rule.  He has personal as well as professional reasons to focus on the leadership of Viktor Orban in Hungary.
 
Ashutosh Varshney, Goldman Professor of International Studies, Watson Institute, Brown University.  He also directs the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia and is Professor of Political Science.  A distinguished scholar with a long list of scholarly publications, he knows well the political record of Narendra Modi in India.
 
Wendy Hunter, Professor of Government, University of Texas-Austin.  She is a much-decorated expert on Brazilian politics.  Her impressive scholarship has led to numerous awards, research grants, and visiting positions.  She is fully up to date on the rise and fall of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

Zehra Arat, Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut-Storrs.  A native of Turkey, she has published many studies on Turkish politics, human rights, and women’s rights.  She has followed closely the long rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Turkish Republic.

IMPORTANT! READ ABOUT HOW TO GET THE ZOOM LINKS FOR THE LECTURES
If you are not already on the list to receive Winter Lecture Series (WLS) reminders, CLICK HERE to sign up for that email list to receive reminders. We will be sending emails 24 - 48 hours before each lecture with the Zoom link. The Zoom link will be the same for each lecture. 
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Availability:  Recorded lectures and Q & A sessions will be posted by the end of March 2024 on the Unitarian Church YouTube WINTER LECTURE SERIES PLAYLIST which lists all the available videos, past and present, for the Winter Lecture Series. 



Photo by Matteo Di Iorio on Unsplash

Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) General Assembly (GA) will be completely virtual this year, June 20 - 23. We have four members interested in being GA delegates. We can have up to six delegates. Our delegates participate and vote in the UUA business meetings. If you are interested in representing the Unitarian Church of Lincoln at General Assembly, please reach out to our Board President Kim Ziemann soon at
[email protected].

To learn more about General Assembly: Uua.org/ga

​The UCL Women's Book Group meets every third Saturday at 10:00AM in the church gallery.

Here are our upcoming dates and books:

January 6: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride
January 27: The Wager: a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
February 17: King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig
March 9: Swamp Story by Dave Barry
March 30: The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector's Story by David John and Lee Hyeon-seo

Tuesday nights Jan. 23-Feb. 27 • Gathering Place • 7:00PM • Leader: Rev. Dr. Oscar Sinclair (Five sessions, skipping February 13.)

We recommend that those interested in this course attend ALL sessions as they build on one another. If you have any questions, reach out to Oscar at [email protected].

The majority of Unitarian Universalists come into the denomination from other religions; often there have been several stops along the path into our congregations. Some bring with them angry and unresolved feelings about experiences in other religious institutions, others have warm memories. Some move easily into an identity as a Unitarian Universalist; others experience a traumatic estrangement from family and from the center of their culture.

We can be most fully and completely present in our religious identity when we see our path as a continuum rather than a series of unrelated episodes. Because we are usually more certain of what we left in another religion than what we bring forward from it, some tools are needed by which people may establish connections, bridges, and resonances between past and present. Such activity also provides clues about the possible future direction of those paths.

This workshop is not just for “converts.” Longtime and life-long Unitarian Universalists also experience change, sometimes profoundly, in their religious identity. This workshop is enriched by the participation of people of varying tenure as Unitarian Universalists.