By Heather Melton, (she/her) UTO Staff Officer
This summer has been incredibly busy at UTO, so I want to start off by expressing my thankfulness and gratitude to all of you for your patience while I try to manage all the moving parts. With that said, this newsletter is packed with information about UTO things, so I wanted to start off not with a reflection but with a quick rundown of the things we’ve been working on this summer and when you can expect to see them during the 2026-2027 program year.
Gratitude Rocks! Year Two of the UTO Vacation Bible Camp Curriculum
This summer I was able to spend a week attending Gratitude Rocks in Tennessee to see the materials used in a half-day program, and then a week in Rhode Island, where I got to see them used for a full-day program. With each trip, I learned a lot about the materials and was able to make changes and updates to make the program even better for the final release. I am finishing up the last revision, and all the materials will be available by the end of the year for use next summer. I’m also hard at work at getting these materials ready for use at the Children’s Program at General Convention, where it will include the release of new Godly Play stories for use by all congregations, but more on that in the spring.
2027-2030 UTO Book of Prayers
First off, thank you to everyone who submitted a prayer for the ninth edition of the UTO Book of Prayers! We have just over 300 prayers in the booklet this triennium. The first volume of the prayer booklet only had 40 prayers, so this shows how this has grown in popularity over the years. The Prayer Booklet Subcommittee is hard at work getting the book together for release at General Convention. In the meantime, you’ll likely notice that we are completely out of the 2024-2027 edition, but you can download it, as well as all previous versions of the prayer booklet, here: https://unitedthankoffering.com/pray/ A big thank-you to Lucy Melton, who scanned in three volumes over the summer. We are still looking for Volume 2 of the prayer booklet, so if you have one that you can send to us (either digitally or otherwise)—please be in touch!
Formation Resources
You’ll read more about this in the rest of the newsletter, but this summer, we’ve been working hard at creating resources for fall and thinking through a more cohesive system for materials. This year, our fall materials are intended to get “back to basics” or to support new congregations in starting UTO. Then in Lent, we’ll continue our gratitude challenge materials, where we invite people to journey alongside us each day with our calendar, book group, and webinar. We’ve decided to no longer create a new set of spring/summer resources but will move those into an evergreen rotation. We also started working on kits for the 2026-2027 diocesan conventions that will feature past grant sites in your diocese.
2027 UTO Grant Process
This summer we spent a lot of time updating the grant process to include feedback from applicants, dioceses, and recipients. More information follows in this newsletter, but you can see the updated process here: https://unitedthankoffering.com/apply/ With these updates, we also updated our support for those who have received a grant in 2026. More about their projects will be part of our Giving Tuesday campaign in November, so be on the lookout for those stories.
As you can see, it has been busy with new things in addition to keeping all the other things going. We also experienced some changes “behind the scenes” which should improve your experience of donations and acknowledgements, but we’re still working out the bugs. Thank you to everyone who has been patient about financial reports, material shipments, and email response times this summer. While I wasn’t able to get a vacation over the summer, I’m feeling energized about all the ways we are growing and changing at UTO as we head toward General Convention, and I can’t wait to share with you all the awesome things we worked on over the past few months (some not included on this list to keep the surprise) as we all continue to grow gratitude in our own lives and in the communities around us.
