 Greetings, friends! Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for February 6, 2014, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from the Reverend Davida McAllister and the Reverend Dr. Michael Seba. Day was inspired by a recent blog post of Michael's and also by this quote from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There was a time when the church was very powerful. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion, it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Our meditation this week is read by your podcast host. Black History Month is an opportunity to hear the witness of those who have often been rendered silent. This week's spirit calendar reflection was inspired by an article written by the Reverend Dr. Michael Seba. We're sharing it in an abbreviated form here and I hope you will take the time to read his article in its entirety in the staff blog section of CTUCC.org. His words are a wonderful chorus to the words of Dr. King. I was first introduced to the secret life of Walter Middy in about age 12 when I watched the 1947 Danny Cave film. I later read James Thurber's short story in high school. Walter Middy is a mild-mannered timid man who is powerless in the face of stronger people and forces around him. He escapes into daydreams in which he is an adventurous hero who faces down danger and acts courageously. There is a significant difference between both of the films and Thurber's original short story. In the short story, Walter's daydreams are fantasies. He is always rudely jolted back to the depressing reality of daily life. In the films, however, Walter Middy has a real adventure. The Apostle Paul describes the believers in Corinth with words that could easily describe Walter Middy. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were powerful. Our communities of faith increasingly find themselves at the mercy of social and economic forces that seem beyond control. Like Walter Middy, we withdraw into ourselves and escape into fantasies that are not so much products of imagination as they are of memories of what was a full sanctuaries of hundreds of children in Sunday school of stewardship campaigns that went over the top. But even though these fantasies were once able to be realized, they are every bit as imaginary in our time as were the fantasies of Walter Middy. So, we need to ask ourselves, are we going to be the Walter Middy of the story? Or the Walter Middy of the films? Are we going to retreat into our own fantasies which will become less and less significant in the eyes of the world? Or are we going to boldly say yes to the adventurous challenge that God places before us? To participate in God's mission in the world through courageous action in the face of overwhelming odds. The time for the secret life of the United Church of Christ is over. It's time to make God's fantasy our reality. Here is a prayer for this week. God grant us courage. Amen. In the news this week, for 12 years Simply Smiles has worked to assist the coffee farmers of Santa Maria to Pexipana in Oaxaca, Mexico. One way to do that according to founder and president Brian Nernberger is to help those farmers get a market for their product. So three years ago they began distributing coffee grown there here in Connecticut. Their new church coffee program gives congregations an opportunity to support Simply Smiles programs in Mexico and at the Cheyenne River Sioux Travel Reservation in South Dakota by becoming coffee retailers or by purchasing it for coffee hour. Each retail bag of coffee provides three meals to a child in need. Each case of percolator coffee provides 100 meals. And by returning one dollar for every bag ordered by a church, Simply Smiles also hopes to assist churches in making impact on local ministries. In addition to providing meals and local ministry funds Simply Smiles uses any profits beyond those meals to help with community projects including building homes, providing medical clinics and building schools. Every quarter the organization provides each coffee church with an impact report showing how their dollars have helped the people of Mexico and South Dakota. Brian Nernberger says you simply adopt Simply Smiles coffee and you see the difference it's making in the world. It's a really powerful and visual mission program for the churches. Last Friday the Connecticut conference launched a new regular video program, Vantage Point, a visit with conference minister the Reverend Kent J. Salati. In the premiere he talked about an emerging vision for the Connecticut conference, a vision of interdependence. I think what we do need to do is begin to be in conversation about what holds us together, what connects us. Connecticut's churches have a strong sense of how to work separately, Salati said. We do need to talk about ways to work together. What would it look like for us as first as the staff to know what the assets and challenges of our churches are and then to find ways to put churches together to pair churches up or groups of churches together that might be struggling with stewardship or they might be struggling with how to be relevant in the community and what if we began to help foster conversations among those churches to share best practices with each other to begin to experiment together. Vantage Point is published to our website and YouTube channel. We currently aim for new episodes roughly every three weeks. One of the things Kent Salati highlighted in this Vantage Point as an example of interdependence between conferences is the upcoming Super Saturday event on March 1st in Ludlow, Massachusetts. Author Diana Butler Bass is the keynote speaker and there are 45 workshops available on a wide variety of topics. The day's theme is Risking Vision, a reference to God's direction to the Prophet Habakkuk, telling him to write a bold vision of the future in the middle of difficult times. You'll also find on our website a reflection from the Reverend Sidot Balgobin, a retired pastor of the Connecticut Conference in which he considers the unique direction of his career. A former engineer, he found his life changed by a single line of poetry from Rumi. You must ask for what you really want. Make sure to read his essay toward an authentic life on our website. You'll find it along with all the current stories at ctucc.org slash news. Learn about this spring's Mission for One Earth initiative on February 11th in Hartford. The meeting, a place centered around a conversation between civil rights leaders the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nation of Islam founder Malcolm X will be performed on February 16th in Wilton. Registration is open until February 14th for Super Saturday, our day of workshops, fellowship and celebration for church members and leaders. You'll definitely want to be there to hear from Diana Butler Bass. That will be March 1st in Ludlow, Massachusetts. A workshop on community and church gardens will be held on March 8th in Vernon. Take advantage of a series of webinars on the new resource, Children's Ministry in the Way of Jesus, which will begin on March 10th. Stepping Stones takes up the challenges of the pastoral care of youth on March 19th in Southington. Silver Lake's maple sugaring weekend for young people in grade six through eight will be March 21st to 23rd, tapping trees, boiling sap and renewing a sense of the sweetness of God's creation. Stepping Stones holds a workshop on sacred dance on March 25th in Southington. Registration is ongoing for the New England Women's Celebration to be held March 28th through 30th in Portland, Maine. Learn more and register at uccwomencelebration.org. The Farmington Valley Association and Simply Smiles are teaming up for a mission trip to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Reservation in South Dakota beginning May 3rd. Silver Lake will host an open house for those interested in learning more about its summer program on May 4th. And you can always learn more about what's coming up in the Connecticut Conference by visiting us at ctucc.org slash events. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to Day McAllister and Michael Sieba for our reflection and to GarageBand for our music. Primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission of basic support, changing lives through the United Church of Christ. This is Eric Anderson, the Minister of Communications and Technology for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, praying that your days this week may be filled with the presence, the guidance, and the grace of God.