ANNOUNCING: THE BIG READ!

What is a "Big Read," you ask? It's one giant congregational book group - think "Oprah's Book Club" for literary Methodists! We hope you will join us in our Big Read for Spring 2011.

Here's how it works: All who would like to participate in the Big Read are asked to purchase or borrow a copy of Living into Hope- A Call to Spiritual Action for Such a Time as This, by the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, and read it during the coming weeks. During the month of April we will have opportunities to meet in small groups for fellowship, discussion and reflection on the book we've read together. On Sunday, May 1st, we will welcome Joan Brown Campbell to University Circle United Methodist Church. She will lead a forum at 9:30am, preach during our 11am service and then join us for a potluck lunch and book signing after worship.

Joan Brown Campbell was born in Youngstown, Ohio, received her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and was a married housewife raising three children in Shaker Heights during the 1960's. She writes, "My story veered off its expected course when I was thirty-two and a minister entered my life who challenged my unexplored commitment to a life of faith…. With dizzying speed, my neatly comfortable, predictable life changed." Joan became involved in the civil rights movement, meeting Martin Luther King Jr. and working for the election of Carl Stokes, the first African American mayor of Cleveland. At the age of 50, she became an ordained minister and began ecumenical and interfaith work that continues to this day. Dr. Campbell is the former Executive Director of the U.S. Office of the World Council of Churches, former General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA and currently serves as Director of Religion at the historic Chautauqua Institution in New York. (By the way, she is also the mother of Jane Campbell, the first woman elected mayor of Cleveland!)

In Living into Hope, Joan Brown Campbell relates personal and biblical stories to our own challenges as people and as a nation, and helps us envision a world without boundaries in which expressions of faith have visible results. Addressing politics, international relations, war, science and prayer, she explores how faith can guide us in making the pivotal decisions in life, as well as the everyday ones.
The "Big Read" promises to enlighten and challenge us while providing opportunities for fellowship and reflection during the season of Lent. All are welcome! Please join us! Living into Hope is available for purchase from bookstores and online at Amazon.com. Copies of the book are also available for sale ($15) or loan from the church. Stop by the church office to buy or borrow a copy! For more information about the Big Read, please contact Amy Wheatley, Director of Education, at 4wheatleys@sbcglobal.net.

Living into Hope- A Call to Spiritual Action for Such a Time as This
by the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell

Posted via email from OneCoolGod at UCUMC