Author: Katie Watkins (Page 4 of 87)

Katie believes the best things in life are the result of collaboration and diverse perspectives coming together to produce something greater than any individual could. She is passionate about systems, efficiency and collaboration for better community outcomes. She loves dreaming up the big picture and drafting the roadmap to make it happen. She has a background in operations, fundraising, communications and program development, as well as over a decade of nonprofit management experience in Northern Colorado.

Her greatest joy in life comes from her family. Her husband, Steven, a principal at Wellington Middle School, and daughters Emmaline and Esmae are the lights of her life. Together they love mountains, music and all kinds of food. She is passionate about women supporting other women in all stages of life and especially through the critical moments that make or break us. She believes that one of the most important things in life is to be kind.

Being outdoors makes her soul come alive. It always roots her in gratitude and is one of the reasons she loves living in Fort Collins.

$60K Match! Help us meet the goal!

August 22, 2024 /

This past Sunday, over 500 people participated in Foothills’ Sunday services. In his sermon, Rev. Sean reminded us that in Universalism, there is no “them”—we are all in this life together. His words resonated deeply, inviting us into a practice of love that goes beyond divisions and brings us together in a shared journey.

Together, we create a community where belonging is at the center of everything we do, a place where everyone is seen, valued, and loved. Right now, we need your help to keep this work alive, as we’re facing a shortfall in our budgeted income. Thanks to a generous match, every dollar you give will be doubled, helping us continue to build a space where love, justice, and belonging endure. While political donation requests are everywhere, we hope you’ll also consider the profound impact your gift can have right here in Northern Colorado. 

We’ve already seen the power of this message in action. More than 190 households have generously responded to our call, contributing over $53K to our matching campaign. With the generous match from the estate of Brian Woodruff, we have raised $113K of our $120K goal!

Your gift can help us close the final gap. By contributing, you are ensuring that our work of love, justice, and belonging continues to thrive—not just for today, but for generations to come. This is more than just filling an operating gap; it’s about investing in a future where everyone belongs, and where love leads the way. Give between now and Sunday, August 25th to double your impact!

Make a gift now and DOUBLE your impact!

Your support will help us reach our goal and continue to share and grow Universalism in our community and beyond. Every contribution, no matter the size, brings us closer to making this vision a reality.

Will you join us in this work? Together, we can ensure that Foothills remains a beacon of hope, courage, and love in a world that needs it more than ever.

Transform Our Community, Fund the Future
Capacity-Building Opportunities:

If you’re interested in helping us fund game-changing, capacity-building opportunities to deeply invest Foothills’ impact, please reach out to Katie Watkins, our Director of Finance and Operations at katie@foothillsuu.org. We have opportunities ranging from $150K to $4M that would have immediate and long lasting impact.

Invitation to the Grove & Town Hall

August 22, 2024 /

We’ve recently been intrigued by the science behind mycelium, or what some refer to as the “woodwide web.” It’s an intricate connection among the roots of trees and fungi in healthy forests that allows them to share resources, communicate and extends the life of the connected plants. 

It made us think – what’s the mycelium of our church? How are we connected at a level that energizes and sustains our work? We’d like to invite you to join us as part of a new team and communication channel that we’re calling The Grove, inspired by this idea. 

As some of Foothills most engaged members, you are already invested in the health of our community. Members of the Grove will receive timely updates on church business news and help us shape the information that is shared with the entire congregation by providing input and feedback. Content will be shared in real time through our church center app, blogs and emails. We’ll summarize the important points approximately four times a year at congregational and town hall meetings.

We’ll host our first Grove Town Hall on August 27th from 6-7:30 PM in the sanctuary and online. Below is a link to an extensive packet with lots of organizational updates and news for you to review ahead of the meeting. 

We hope you’ll join us and help us continue to grow our grove, so we can keep stewarding Foothills together. We auto-opted you into this group, and if you are not interested in being a part, please let us know. Stay tuned for more details on how we’ll continue to share information and tie into the Church Center app. 

Register to attend The Grove Town Hall on August 27
Review The Grove: Town Hall Packet

What the World Needs Now: Universalism in a Polarized Age

August 16, 2024 /

Every Sunday, when I say that we are here to remind ourselves and each other that every person is worthy of love and that we are all in this life together, I’m also reminding myself.  Universalism – our theology behind these declarations – turns out to be a remarkably difficult thing to remember while also trying to live in this world.


When I say this I know that maybe it’ll bring up some of the more extreme examples. And of course I mean to include them too. But often, it’s in the everyday challenges—like rushing through town at 5:45 pm to make it somewhere by 6, or sitting through another long meeting where nothing seems to change, or dealing with someone who has hurt someone I love—that I find it hardest to remember that everyone is truly worthy of love.

In all of these cases, and in so many regular, everyday ways, Universalism takes a serious backseat to other things like, irritation, indignation, self-protection, and loyalty to a few specific people rather than a commitment to a bigger whole.

 

Learn More About This Series

And it’s no wonder. We live in a world that constantly feeds us outrage, as if division is our only hope for survival.

 

And yet every Sunday when I look out at all of you, and we say those words “We gather together to remind ourselves that every single person is worthy of love, and that we are all in this life together,” I know that this is what our world actually needs. We need to remember, and we need to live from this understanding, especially in the midst of all this outrage.  

 

From August 18th through the middle of September, we invite you to join us in a series grounded in our good news of Universalism, boldly titled, What Our World Needs Now. This series doesn’t stop with reminders. It will help us wrestle with the complexities of living these truths in real life. Together, we’ll build our muscles of joyful resilience and collective courage so that when life gets irritating, disappointing, or even devastating, we can turn to the real life-saving tools that help us widen the circle and love more and more of the world.

 

Let’s keep remembering together. See you on Sundays at 9 (in person or on zoom) or 11 (in person or on the website). 

With love,

Rev. Gretchen

Two Services, One Vision: Multi-Generational Community

August 9, 2024 /

Like a lot of churches, over the course of the pandemic, a large number of our kids and their families stopped attending. Online church just wasn’t enough, especially after long days of online school.

Returning to in-person community, our numbers of kids and youth meant that we only needed to offer programming at one of our services. It was one of the driving reasons for our choice in service times (8:30/10:30); if you’re only going to offer one option for kids, it needs to be at a time that works for all ages of kids.

Over the last year, however, we have been thrilled to see the numbers of kids and youth joining us on Sundays grow steadily! So much so that we need to offer our kids’ groups at both of our services, which will also allow us to return to the service times this church offered since originally going to two services (I think that was in the 1990s!).

Starting August 18th, we will gather at 9 am and 11 am, with programming for kids up to 5th grade offered at the first service, and all ages through high school at the second.

In making this change, we have thought a lot about whether or not we would have the kids with us at the start of both services, before we sing them to their classrooms.

On the one hand, taking this multi-generational time often means a service is about 70-75 minutes, which would put a big strain on any potential between-services programming. We also know that for many who attend our first service, the presence of younger kids with their amazing wiggles and sounds can sometimes cause distraction that makes it harder to hear.

On the other hand, we also know what a big difference this practice has made since we started it in our 10:30 service.

First, some background. For a long time, kids who have been raised UU later report that they never became adult members because they never felt like they belonged in the adult community – their church was a small group of kids their same age, and in rituals meant for 8 or 10, not 200.

We also know that spiritual values and practices are more effectively caught than taught; in other words, the act of being in full inter-generational religious community alongside others who are also in that community, saying the covenant, singing hymns, listening to the stories and reflections together is a more effective way of teaching our children Unitarian Universalism than when they rarely have the chance to have that time in full community.

Since we started this practice, we see that our kids now have a familiarity with songs and with the covenant, and with our ministers. They also have made relationships with adults who they sit near, and have a sense of belonging in the whole church. They also get to see how adults handle themselves when they are distracted, or bored, or when they are in the presence of kids. They get to see in practice what matters to our community.

Our adults are in turn blessed with greater connections with younger people, and have the chance to feel the vibrancy of what it means to be in a truly inter-generational community – which is such a rarity in life today. They also get to make that arch sending our kids on their way, connecting us more deeply with our deeper purpose and responbility to generations to come.

For all of these reasons, we ultimately decided that it is most true to our mission, vision, and values, to maintain the multi-generational time at the start of the service at the top of both services. We are finding ways to scale back other elements at the top to help with the time concerns – it will take us some practice, so we appreciate your patience!

If you are someone who struggles to hear or pay attention when there are extra wiggles or noises in the congregation (which let’s be honest, aren’t always from our kids!), in those moments, I find it’s good to remember that ultimately the point of religious community is not hearing the words, or having our individual preferred spiritual experience – it is about the whole experience of being human, alongside other humans. It is about learning together, and being challenged, and uncomfortable – so that we can grow.

I also feel really lucky that we are a church that has so many sounds of kids present! Which means it can be another opportunity to practice gratitude.

We really do need each other to make sense of anything in this life – across the whole of our life. I look forward to being in church with you, learning with you, and growing together, across all of life’s stages and ages.

-Rev. Gretchen Haley, Senior Minister 

Introducing Cheyenne – Ministry Intern!

June 5, 2024 /

We are delighted to announce Cheyenne Boon as our Ministry Intern, who will join us in September and serve with Foothills through May. 

Cheyenne (she/her) is a candidate for ministry with the UUA who currently serves as a chaplain resident at University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora. Before moving to Denver in 2023, Cheyenne completed a Master of Divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School. She has lived many places in the US, but she is originally from Orange, California. Her ministry is most often interested in the local, the everyday, and wisdom of the ordinary. She views social justice through the lens of collective responsibility and the question of what we owe to one another. Cheyenne also loves any kind of craft (especially spinning yarn, knitting, and sewing), she considers herself an honorary member of the Cloud Appreciation Society, and her favorite spiritual practice is walking through her neighborhood. She’s looking forward to a year at Foothills getting to know a new place and building community with this growing congregation.

Cheyenne will be looking for housing in Fort Collins. She prefers to live with others but is open to living alone. She is hopeful to adopt a dog sometime while here, and would enjoy a living situation that makes that possible. If you have any leads or connections, email katie@foothillsuu.org.

What Is A Ministry Intern?

What Will They Do? The intern will be involved in various aspects of church life, under the guidance of a supervising minister. Their activities will include:

  • Worship Services: They’ll help in planning and leading worship, and might occasionally deliver sermons.
  • Pastoral Care: They will be available to offer support and care to community members, learning the delicate balance of providing spiritual and emotional comfort.
  • Educational Programs: Expect them to be involved in teaching or facilitating classes and discussions, ranging from adult religious education to youth programs.
  • Community Engagement: They will participate in social justice initiatives and community outreach efforts, helping to connect the teachings of our faith with actions that support our community and beyond.

Why Is This Important? This internship is not just a learning experience for the intern but also a vital part of their journey to becoming a full-fledged minister. It allows them to integrate theoretical knowledge from their religious studies with practical experience in a supportive setting. For our community, it brings fresh ideas and perspectives into our practices.

What Can You Expect? You can look forward to new energy and insights, as well as different styles of leadership and interaction. It’s a mutual learning process where the intern gains from real-world experiences, and we benefit from their contributions and new perspectives.

We encourage you to engage with them, offer feedback, and participate in the programs they develop. This interaction is invaluable for their growth and enriches our community life.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how you can support our intern, please feel free to reach out to our ministry team.
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