October 2026 Message from Your Board President, Kathy Harwood Long

Dear colleagues:

Conference 2026 was a large faith idea—bring the region to one of its ministries, Unity of Indianapolis. Invest in the ministry the money that would have been spent on a conference room; encourage the ministry's leaders. We cannot appreciate enough the UI community who went all out, and all in, to create a most loving and welcoming experience. And, little did the GLR Board, UI Board and minister Michael Davis, and participants know what this would do for us!

It was a coming home to Unity experience. We found out that UI, and probably their past minister Rev. Charles Roth, were the idea drivers for the Great Lakes region to come into existence. We marveled and reveled at the mighty connections to our region's past activity of seeding the other regions (see AUC article written in the 60s). And then our hearts were pierced by the messages of loving encouragement to all of us from this year's Heart of the Region recipients.

Our presenters, panelists, and dear musician friend David Roth, along with impromptu music from NGU member Landen, fed us with not only a broadening understanding of healthy churches and leaders, but the field of social justice and our opportunity.

Growing energy and involvement is obvious. Team sign-ups were robust. New teams are forming. Watch for the opportunity to get involved in the near future. We will strive also to bring more info and resources to the website.

The new board will now work to grow the large faith idea of investing in our ministries and leaders with initiatives for 2027. We've got a lot of work to do to ensure employees, teams and volunteers are in place to build on what is working well, and improve what we must.

Thank you for your large faith ideas—-keep sending them to us!

With love, Kathy