ITLOTC
(In The Life Of The Church)
Pentecost
Self-care (confessions of a 3 in touch with his emotions for half a day)
I finally lost. The pandemic has caught up to me. No I don’t have COVID 19, but all the other things - the loneliness, the stress, the feeling of worthlessness and confusion. I did pretty good. 6 months. But the game is over.
This has been interesting for me to admit. I know some of you hate the enneagram, so ignore this if you do, but what I have discovered about myself is that I’m future oriented, and unconnected to my emotional self. What that usually means is that I don’t have to deal with emotions. That's good and bad. Aggressive numbers (3, 7, & 8) can maintain focus on things without a perceived cost for a long time. A few years ago Donald Miller wrote an article about his diminishing need for church and his sense of satisfaction with work. I decided to hate the article when it came out for a few reasons. 1. I’m a pastor and could use the good PR 2. it seemed so american to replace church with … “the satisfaction of work,” of all things. Well truth is, I can relate to what Donald Miller says. On Saturday, my day off, I get the most satisfaction from doing yard work or working on my house. Work is how I relax. I sometimes wonder if that’s an aggressive number condition.
But it catches up. COVID finally caught up.
This does not mean I’ve been in crisis or even crying, but I felt it enough to finally realize … “well crap, this sucks. I would like for this to be over now.” Because I’m finally in a state of feeling, I've been better able to understand why people talk about some things so frequently. An example would be self care. I’ve not often felt like I’ve needed selfcare. Don’t get me wrong, I love spoiling myself and am pretty good at being selfish, but rarely have I felt like I needed that care to maintain emotional health. For the longest time my therapist has been doing selfcare things with me like meditating, noticing my surroundings, working on identifying feelings with thoughts and backing them into feelings. All of a sudden those practices are working in a way that they haven’t before.
Because I’m in a rare mode of feeling, I’m taking advantage of my surroundings. And so I want to tell you about a TV show that has been a form of selfcare. It is called Ted Lasso. I can’t recommend it without caution, because there is volatile language and suggestive sexual moments, but on the whole it’s a pretty wholesome show by 2020 standards. The protagonist, Ted Lasso, feels like a good guy in the tradition of Mr. Rogers. I was talking to my sister about Ted Lasso yesterday morning and she noted that he represents a character that has long fallen out of favor with viewers who’ve come to prefer anti heroes like Walter White from Breaking Bad. Toph has described Ted Lasso as the show we all needed. It’s true and Ted Lasso is the human we all needed. We needed a picture of someone who is good for goodness sake. Someone who believes the very best about humanity. We needed someone to remind us what we can be. And that notion - that idea - of being that kind of person is soothing my soul.
Staff Favorites
Because our newsletter has grown thin of late, i’ve added a new feature called, “staff favorites.” The instructions are as follows. Draw a line, either on a piece of paper that you printed this on or in your mind, connecting the correct individual with the corresponding category. After you venture your guesses, you can view the solution here.
UBC Movie Night - 10/16
We are hosting another Drive-In movie at UBC, and we would love for you to come. On Friday, October 16, at 7pm, we will be showing the wonderful movie CoCo! We will have some refreshments for purchase, but also feel free to bring your own. Masks will be required when you are not in your vehicle watching the movie. If you have any questions, please contact toph@ubcwaco.org.
Women’s Book Club
"Hello! We will soon be starting our Women's Book Club for the Fall Semester! If you like reading and friends and talking about books then you should definitely join! If you are interested please email Taylor at taylor@ubcwaco.org. We'll be starting next Monday, September 28th, at 7pm."
Parishioner of the Week
Ryan Higgs & Nathaniel Mosher for coming up big in the tech and music departments. Grateful.
Work is Worship
Greeters: No Greeters this week
Coffee Makers: no coffee makers this week
Mug Cleaners: no mug cleaners this week
Money Counter: no money counters this week
Leadership Team
If you have a concern or an idea for UBC that you’d like to share with someone that is not on staff, feel free to contact one of our leadership team members.
Chair: Kerri Fisher: Kerri_Fisher@baylor.edu
Luci Hoppe: lhoppe@gmail.com
Jeremy Nance: Jeremy.J.Nance@L3T.com
Joanna Sowards: jo.sowards@gmail.com
Kathy Krey: kathykrey@gmail.com
Jose Zuniga: jzgrphix2002@yahoo.com
Taylor Torregrossa: Taylordtorregrossa@gmail.com
Student Position: Davis Misloski
Student Position: Maddy O’Shaughnessy
UBC Finance Team
Do you have a question about UBC’s financial affairs? Please feel free to contact any of your finance team members.
Catherine Ballas: catherine@refitrev.com
Jen Carron: jen.carron78@gmail.com
Mike Dodson: financeteammike@gmail.com
George Thornton: GeorgecCT1982@gmail.com
UBC HR Team
If you have concerns about staff and would like contact our human resources team, please feel free to email any of the following members.
Erin Albin: erin.albin1@gmail.com
Sam Goff: samuelgoff92@gmail.com
Rebekah Powell: rpowell671@gmail.com
Kristen Richardson: wacorichardsons@gmail.com
Craig Nash: Craig_Nash@baylor.edu