RevCyn

The UUA President, the Rev. Peter Morales published a working paper titled "Congregations and Beyond" last week.  It's available in its entirety here .  In it he says, "I am realizing in a profound way that congregations cannot be the only way we
 connect with people." and "We have long defined ourselves as an association of congregations. We need to think
 of ourselves as a religious movement."  The Rev. Morales says, "
Congregations as local parishes arose in a different era. They arose in a time of limited
 mobility and communication. Most members lived within a couple of miles of their
 church."  This is something that I've been thinking about recently, as well.  The time that the church is where you go to in order to hear the latest ideas or even the latest gossip is a time that's behind us.  The church is no longer the central, or even a central, hub for how people get and exchange information and ideas.  There are still thi...

I have eight relatives who at one time or another attended a Unitarian Universalist church and who are on Facebook.  A quick polling of what their info pages say about their "religious views" gives the following answers: 2 list Unitarian Universalist (or some combination of those two words). 2 have the field blank or not viewable to me, which would be understandable given that I do things like this. 1 says "atheistic jew." 1 says "loving kindness." 1 says "Peace and Social Justice." 1 says "Aid to and support of the widows, the children, and the outcast." Of these eight, I think two are members of Unitarian Universalist churches--one who lists UU and one who doesn't.  Most of the others attend from time to time, but not regularly enough to consider themselves members, and mostly when visiting a relative who is church-going.  So this shows that not everyone who calls themselves a Unitarian Universalist is a member of a churc...

The Standing on the Side of Love campaign did a great job of getting a consistent message out through UU churches and ministers this week.  I saw numerous blog posts, newspaper editorials, and other writings on the subject this week.  Here's a sampling: The Rev. Cecilia Kingman said in the Wenatchee World : As for us, though, we proclaim God’s love for all people — that great, redeeming love which has no limit. And we invite everyone who places compassion, justice and love at the center of your faith to join us in standing on the side of love. In Potsdam, Austin Kenyon said on " News 10 ": This weekend is a symbol, it's done purposefully, to reimagine Valentine's Day as a holiday. To reimagine it not as just a holiday of candy and Hallmark cards. But as a day of love and acceptance for everyone. In Maryland, on the Beltway, the Rev. Diane Teichert told dcagenda.com that she would no longer sign marriage licenses, saying: Valentine’s Day is about more than r...

Here at the Heartland Unitarian Universalist Ministers' Association winter conference, we're discussing 13 trends in congregational life from LifelongFaith.com .  Recognizing, as one minister pointed out, that trends are not necessarily the same as best practices, how do we adapt our congregations to respond to the changing realities?  These include the increasing racial and ethnic diversity in our country (while UUism remains at an enormously high percentage white; that people increasingly describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious," increasing use of internet, the aging population and the shifting reality of the young adult population as embodying a new stage of life that is "emerging adulthood" where marriage and children are postponed during a period of high freedom of choice and experimentation. Some of these trends work naturally with Unitarian Universalism.  Some of them we may be well-placed to respond to.  Others we will struggle with mor...

Like every small church, we spend a fair amount of time talking about growth, and have for years... and have not grown. We've gone to growth workshops, brought in growth consultants, sermonized and read on growth... and have not grown. We are not, at the moment, a breakthrough congregation. And yet... and yet... There is still hope, there is still trying, there is still desire for growth. We have our obstacles. We are at a natural plateau in size, where to grow we would have to move out of family style church and into the next size group: pastoral. We have a small sanctuary, small parking lot, and small religious education spaces, each of which is a limiting factor on growth. We're in a rural location in a community that may not have much potential for growth. The Rev. Peter Morales , one of the candidates for president of the UUA, once said this : Why does a movement that says it wants to grow and that has hundreds of thousands of people ready to join it stay so small? W...

Jim David Adkisson pleaded guilty last week for the crime of shooting and killing two people during the Sunday worship service at the Tennessee Valley UU Church last July. The letter/manifesto he wrote and left in his car prior to the shooting has been released by the press. Before you read it or read further here, be aware that it is has strong negative and prejudicial langugage, as well as profanity. It can be read in full here . On the first page, he talks about his inability to get a job, and his hatred of liberals. He says, "The worst problem America faces today is Liberalism. They have dumbed down education, they have defined deviancy down. Liberals have attacked every major institution that made America great. From the Boy Scouts to the military, from education to Religion." On the second page, Adkisson attacks Unitarian Universalists in particular, under a heading "The Unitarian Universalist Church," saying: It isn't a church, it's a cult. T...

I just returned from a minister's retreat. While we were there, we broke into small groups, and I met with a group of other ministers of small churches. This was an "appreciative inquiry" retreat, so we focused on what the positive things about being ministers of small churches are, and what skills and resources we bring to our larger group. We came up with a wonderful, appreciative list. I don't want to share it with you, because I'm not sure of the confidentiality rules around that, but I want to ask any readers out there to respond with the strengths, as they see them, of small churches. It's time to appreciate ourselves!

At the Heartland UU Minister's Association meeting, a few of us met in a small group to talk about being ministers in small churches. We developed a list of what strengths we bring to the larger group of UU ministers. This same list could also be a list of the strengths that small UU churches bring to the UUA. As my memory serves, these are some things we mentioned: We know how to work collaboratively, because we've had to. We know about We have a proportionally huge impact in our communities, for those small UU churches in small towns.

We spent a rainy weekend here in Michigan this weekend. It was a reminder, every time we stepped outdoors, of what was happening on the other side of the country from us, down in Texas. Some may remember that I served a congregation in Houston briefly before heading North again. I checked that church's webpage and other church's webpage as we anxiously awaited news of how our fellow UUs were surviving the storm. The Southwestern Unitarian Universalist Conference now has more information posted here . No news of my old congregation, the Northwest UU Community Church, has been posted, but there's a lot to learn about other UU congregations, especially, the UU Fellowship of Galveston, which is presumed flooded. The UU world is a small one, and the interconnection easy to observe, from the fact that I served a church in this area and a former minister of our church, the Rev. Susan Smith, is now district executive of the Southwestern Conference. Our thoughts and prayers go out t...

The first draft of an editorial I’ve submitted to the Jackson Citizen Patriot. An edited version is scheduled to appear on Sunday, August 10. By now most people have heard about the shootings that occurred on Sunday, July 27 in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Knoxville, Tennessee. Two people were killed and seven other wounded or injured when a gunman began shooting during an intergenerational service featuring a production of “Annie.” People responded immediately with shock, grief, and anger. That was news. But what people often don’t hear about is what happens afterwards—the small gestures, the work of a church community to pull itself together, the reaching out of the larger community. The responses we have as time goes on are of healing, love, and hope. These things are not news. But they are the important pieces of our lives as we respond to tragedy. The next day after the tragedy, members of the Tennessee Valley congregation gathered at the nearby Pres...