Be a Chalice Lighter
Chalice Lighters donate $10 or more up to four times a year to a fund that helps congregations that need a little assistance for one reason or another.
In 2007, Mountain Desert District Chalice Lighters funded approximately $37.5 thousand to three churches and the district.
2007
Billings, MT (Building) $9,301
High Plains (CO Springs) (Building) $7,977
Taos, NM (new congregation) $9,361
District $10,905
In 2008 the Chalice Lighters gave more than $35,000 to three individual congregations and to district projects that help small congregations such as the Small Congregation Conference: Zeal Appeal, and the small congregation grants program that helps small congregations with grants of $500 or less to “make something happen.” We have over 6,000 Unitarian Universalists in MDD. Imagine what we could do if even half of them were contributing Chalice Lighters!
2008
Open Circle (Boulder) (RE) $8,377
Logan, UT (Building) $9,015
Bozeman, MT (RE) $9,082
District $10,905
Calls for 2009 funds closed on November 15, 2009, and were made for the following reasons:
CONGREGATION, LOCATION, REASON, DATES OF CHALICE LIGHTER REQUEST
UU Church of Cheyenne Cheyenne WY, Growth Projects, February – April
Prairie UU Church Parker CO, Paid RE, May – July
South Valley Church Salt Lake City UT, Building Project, August – October
District Denver CO, Small Congregation Grants etc, November – January
Haney Pearson is the Chalice Lighter coordinator for our church. Please contact him if you would like to participate in this worthy project that helps so many churches. Generally, there are four requests a year from the Mountain Desert District for funds to support a year’s designated projects. As you can see in the above list of 2009 funding requests, calls are mailed out four times a year to fund a specific project; for example, there will be a request sometime during May, June or July for financial support for the Prairie Church’s paid Religious Education staff member. You can respond to each call separately or annually, whichever you choose. Here is how you can make a Chalice Lighter pledge annually:
This is how you can make a yearly donation:
- Decide on the amount you would like to donate to all four calls
- Write, “2009 Chalice Lighter calls yearly donation” in the memo section of your check
- Your donation will be evenly divided among the 4 calls, unless requested otherwise
Remember, you must first sign up to be a Chalice Lighter. See Haney Pearson after a Sunday service, call him or contact him by email. He will see that you are registered with MDD as a Chalice Lighter.
Chalice Lighters History
The idea Alan Egly had in the early 1980s, that many Unitarian Universalists (UUs) might be willing to contribute $10 occasionally to help a congregation that needed a boost, was a good one.
Egly’s idea, implemented in 1984 in the Prairie Star District through the district’s Extension Committee, of which Egly was a part, became known as the Chalice Lighters program and has spread to other Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) districts. In the past five years it has raised more than $2 million.
The idea is simple. Ask individual UUs if they’d be willing to contribute $10 or more up to three times a year to help a congregation in their district complete a special project linked to growth. Egly adapted the concept from another denomination. “It’s not a completely original idea, but I’m proud to claim it.”
In the Prairie Star district, Chalice Lighter calls raised about $17,500 last year from five hundred UUs. The Joseph Priestly District raises the most money, $100,000 annually from 3,500 Chalice Lighters. The district has a Chalice Lighter Sunday every other year, gaining 500 to 1,000 new participants each time. Also, a team from the Main Line Unitarian Church, Devon, PA (695), personally solicits members of each congregation.
Chalice Lighter projects generally consist of helping congregations call a minister or construct a building or addition. Other purposes are to establish a new congregation or support campus ministry. Rules vary by district. Participants may, of course, contribute more than $10 each time if they wish, and many do. More than 10,000 UUs are Chalice Lighters.
The UU Community Church of Glen Allen, VA (225 members), in the Thomas Jefferson District, has received three Chalice Lighter grants since 1994 totaling $44,000. The first grant enabled it to call its first minister. The second helped it purchase land. The third helped pay for its first building.
“Without a doubt those grants made our congregation and our building possible,” says Leslie Trew, a former moderator of the congregation. “It put us over the top in our own efforts to call a minister, buy land, and build a building. We knew what we wanted to do, and these grants helped make it possible.”
The UU Fellowship of Transylvania (County), Brevard, NC, also benefited from a Chalice Lighter grant. A group of twenty or so retirees formed a fellowship in 1999 in the mostly Baptist area, says Margaret Baucus. Today it has fifty members. “That’s more than the UUA thought we could do,” says Baucus.
The growth was helped by a Thomas Jefferson District Chalice Lighter call that raised $16,688 in 2000. The congregation used part of the money for advertising, to send someone to General Assembly, and to send many others to regional leadership workshops.
“Those workshops gave us a lot of ideas and pumped us up,” says Baucus. The fellowship just called a part-time minister and is hoping to move out of its rented room into a building with room for a religious education program.
