Have you taken the Connection Ministry’s Activity Survey yet? Please do.

We Did It! Thank You!

We are excited to announce that we reached our total pledge goal of $250,000! The final amount is $256,372! Thanks so much to our Members and Friends for helping make this achievement possible for our church and for helping to ‘Grow the Light’. If you have not yet pledged, but would like to, you may still do so by following this link:

Again, thank you so much to everyone for your participation this year.
Matt, Tim, and Alexis

House & Grounds: meeting this Saturday, April 11,  from 9-12

We’ll start in the library. Then we will be doing various jobs around the church as well as enjoying donuts and good company. All are welcome!

The Church Endowment Board meets Tuesday, April 21

The meeting is at 5:30pm in the Church library.

Join Us for Lunch Sunday, April 12

Join us for lunch in the social hall.  The menu is vegan larb (a variation of the national dish of Laos) with rice, cucumber salad, and banana pudding for dessert.  First-time visitors are our guests – otherwise, the suggested donation is $5.

This Sunday during the luncheon: Earth Issues

• Sign a note to your Metro Council representative using the prepared statements at each table. Please also call them, 502-574-11_ _ (last 2 digits are the district number of your representative, which can be found on the district map).
• If you are a “Climate Saver,” an email will be sent to you regarding action on HB 593, which requires DCs (Data Centers) to pay for all incurred costs for the utility services they require.
• We will be available this Sunday after the service and during the luncheon to answer, as best we can, your questions on this important issue. See more below.

First U Book Club: Monday, April 13 at 6pm

Our meeting is the church library (the room behind the sanctuary organ). We’ll be discussing Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and voting on the books for the next 6 meetings. Come, even if you haven’t read the book, and help us choose the future!

Holocaust Remembrance Community Event: April 13 at 6:30

The Louisville Jewish community will be gathering together for our annual Holocaust Remembrance Community Event at Congregation Adath Jeshurun Monday, April 13 from 6:30 – 8pm.

The keynote speaker will be local Holocaust survivor Ruth Kline who will share her family’s story about escaping to Shanghai, China during World War II. We will also hear from Cuban civic leader and community partner Luis Fuentes.
You can use this link to register.

NEW: CLCM Needs

We need to stock up on toilet paper!  Bring your TP donation any time in the month of April.  We are also perpetually in need of books and magazines for our waiting area (we offer them for free to folks), children’s books, and sugar and creamer for the Coffee Ministry.  Thank you!!

Opportunity to Learn CPR

Have you always wanted to learn CPR but never got to it? Is your CPR certification expiring, or has expired? First U will be hosting classes to make sure you get the certification you want and need! Fill out the form in the Midweek Update or see Kristi Drehmel to let us know what dates are best for you. We can even get your class in after church!

April is Earth Month

We place our planet and its inhabitants front and center of our social justice efforts. See below for details.

Cloth Bags Wanted

Most of the folks who walk to Central Louisville Community Ministries, housed at First U, to pick up groceries and personal care items, have to carry them long distances. Cloth bags would make them easier to carry.  If you have grocery-sized cloth bags to spare, please bring them to church and leave them in one of the baskets in the Library Lane entrance or in the Big Blue Basket in the Sanctuary. They will be greatly appreciated.

Immigrant Justice Speaker: Saturday, April 11

Standing With Our Neighbors: Immigrant Justice & Community Action
at the New Albany Public Library 2:30-4:30pm

Speaker: Rep. Nima Kulkarni, Kentucky State Representative
Founder & Director of the New Americans Initiative
Across Indiana and Kentucky, immigrant families are facing an uncertain and frightening future. Raids. Detentions. Fear in our schools and neighborhoods. But our community is not standing still. Learn what you can do – calls, letters, showing up, speaking out. Practice real advocacy skills you’ll use the same day. Find your people – and Do Something together! Leave with real knowledge, real skills, and real next steps.

Head’s Up: Annual Meeting Report Activity Coming Soon

Beginning next week, information will be sent to the heads of various ministries,
groups, and organizations with the format and other report details to help you do
your report. If you are a new head or contact person for your group, please contact
the office to let Barbara know. (Mark the date: reports will be due to the office by
Monday, May 4.)

Some religions have certainty and specificity about how and what. Others, including Unitarian Universalism, are open to the mystery. Let’s explore the concept of an afterlife using the creative, and sometimes absurd, work of David Eagleman, exploring concepts we inherited from our families or cultural heritages and how that might have shifted over our lifetimes.

For the zoom link, Click here. The Meeting ID is 4508929882 if you can’t attend in person.  You will not need a password. Contact the volunteer desk if you have trouble getting online.

Is that true, or is it that we feel more deeply the things we attend to? How can we use this idea for good? What is the relationship between attention and intention?

Resolution on the Climate Crisis:

First Unitarian Church of Louisville acknowledges the imminent threat of the climate crisis to both human civilization and the other species with which we share the planet. We join with All Peoples and other UU churches to call on all members of our community to take action to reduce the threat and mitigate the consequences of the climate crisis.

Adopted by the congregation of the First Unitarian Church of Louisville
at the Annual Meeting, June 2022.

Check with the Seventh Principle Team for activities and ways you can participate.

Earth Month Activities
April is Earth Month at First Unitarian Church and a time we put our planet and its inhabitants front and center of our social justice efforts. The 7th Principle Team invites all to join in support of three Earth Centered action-oriented Sundays this April and a Sunday service in May.

• April 12 – Hyper-scale Data Centers and their impacts on community and our planet* 
• April 19 –Water Step – Provides water to communities impacted by a warming Earth
• April 26 – UUA Green Sanctuary – Aligning our church with UUA environmental stretch goals
• May 4 – Honoring Earth and all species

Data Center Action

We need your help to get responsible hyper-scale data center (DC) regulations approved for Jefferson County! It has been close to a year since state legislators finalized a 50-year sales tax free incentive for DC developers. A developer’s efforts to purchase land and get approval for the 400MW, Campground Rd. DC (CG DC) somehow came much earlier in the year. Metro Council requested Office of Planning to develop regulations for DCs, but in the interim Council did not establish a requested DC moratorium. Without any change to zoning regulations, the first CG DC approval came in the summer of 2025.

Even though the Office of Planning went to great efforts to meet with and listen to the public outcry in October and November of 2025, a second approval was granted on March 5, 2026, still without any change in regulations. During this public comment period, the Planners received a copy of a Model Ordinance written by retired KRC founder, attorney Tom Fitzgerald. This 21-page document offered a set of guidelines to minimize the harm from each hazard associated with data centers. It also recommended the use of a Conditional Use Permit to establish site specific requirements.

Concerns
Most DCs are being used for AI, a technology that can be beneficial, but provides great opportunity for manipulation of voice and facial imaging, among other misuses, while eliminating jobs. The CG DC will require a 35% increase in the total electricity used in Jefferson County (LGE/KU is building a new natural gas power plant in Jefferson County to provide that electricity). This will increase electricity and potentially water/sewer rates, light, high and low frequency noise, air, water, and climate related pollutions. A recent study out of University of Cambridge, UK, warns of an average 3.6F increase in the urban heat islandeffect. Fifty acres of mature trees on the CG DC property, that helped lessen Louisville’s worst in the nation rating for heat island effect, were clear cut and ground to mulch.

Even though permission to build the Campground Road data center has been given, there is still time to press for the use of best practices in its construction. Although we cannot force the developers of the CG DC to adopt pollution reduction measures, with new regulations in place we can advocate for their use. Furthermore, the new standards, once adopted, will apply to any new data center construction.

Action
The Seventh Principle Team asks that you support these actions.

• This Sunday during the luncheon, sign a note to your Metro Council representative using the prepared statements at each table. Please also call them, 502-574-11_ _ (last 2 digits are the district number of your representative).
• If you are a “Climate Saver”, an email will be sent to you regarding action on HB 593, that requires DCs to pay for all incurred costs for the utility services they require.
• Roger will be available this Sunday after the service and during the luncheon to answer, as best he can, your questions on this important issue.

Children’s RE Contact: Loren Crawford 

This begins in the sanctuary at 11:00 with the Moment for Ages. They leave during the Song for the Children.

The Nursery: Tadpoles will be open for babies and pre-k  from 9:30am-12:15pm on Sundays. Registration Forms. Registration information is required for each child, including those in the nursery.

Adult (RE) Contact: Adult Religious Exploration

All are Welcome: Members, friends, visitors, curious people, and people lost in the building are all welcome.
Check-in begins at 9:45. Class meets in the Church Library at 10am.
Click here (or see above) for information about  Adult RE.

UU the Vote

will rise again in 2026, a very important election year. We will be writing postcards to get out the vote among traditionally under-represented voters in swing states, reminding folx of the important issues and values at stake. We hope that our first postcard campaign will be to get out the vote for the Virginia constitutional amendment to adopt a fair congressional district map — a vote that is currently being blocked by yet another court challenge! Once the Virginia Supreme Court rules (favorably, we expect), we will be writing postcards in the Social Hall after the service. You can also take cards home to write. Come check us out! Questions? Send us an email.

Save Haven for Transgender Ordinance

Councilman JP Lyninger and Louisville DSA are working hard to pass an ordinance making Louisville a Safe Haven for the transgender community. This has been in development for over a year, with input coming directly from our trans neighbors and other socialists and community members who are heavily invested in public dignity and safety. One of the steps to making this happen is having individuals and organizations sign on to our demand letter.