Report by Sue Woolley

Lifespan Religious Education Conference 2011
Star Island, New Hampshire, 16 – 23 July 2011
Report on Social Media Workshop by Sue Woolley

Thanks to the generosity of the Manchester Academy Trust and the Hibbert Trust, I was able to attend this conference. The basic structure of our own Hucklow Summer School is based on this Unitarian Universalist conference, so many elements were familiar to me: the morning devotions, the daily theme talk, the compulsory morning workshops, optional afternoon activities, and lantern-lit procession to evening worship.

The morning workshop that I attended was led by the dynamic Peter Bowden, who is a “church growth consultant and Unitarian Universalist change agent” (to quote himself) who has dedicated his life to helping UU congregations to understand social media and to use them effectively. His blog (which is well worth looking at) is UU growth. I am writing the workshop up without much comment, as the things he was telling us are just as relevant to Unitarian congregations in the UK as to UU congregations in the US, if not more so.

Read the rest of the report →

I've just added a new worship resources page to the blog. If you have suggestions for additions to it, please post them in the comments below.

I have tried not to duplicate UALM's worship resources page too much, so if you expected to find something on the Unitarian Communications page and it's not there, have a look on UALM's page.

This blogpost is part of Ada Lovelace Day, which is an international day of blogging to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (May 10, 1900 – December 7, 1979) was an English-American astronomer who in 1925 was first to show that the Sun is mainly composed of hydrogen, contradicting accepted wisdom at the time.

Cecilia Payne wrote a doctoral dissertation, and so in 1925 she became the first person to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy from Radcliffe (now part of Harvard) for her thesis: "Stellar Atmospheres, A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars". Astronomer Otto Struve characterized it as "undoubtedly the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy". By applying the ionization theory developed by Indian physicist Megh Nad Saha she was able to accurately relate the spectral classes of stars to their actual temperatures. She showed that the great variation in stellar absorption lines was due to differing amounts of ionization that occurred at different temperatures, and not due to the different abundances of elements. She correctly suggested that silicon, carbon, and other common metals seen in the Sun were found in about the same relative amounts as on Earth, but that helium and particularly hydrogen were vastly more abundant (by about a factor of one million in the case of hydrogen). Her thesis thus established that hydrogen was the overwhelming constituent of the stars. When her dissertation was reviewed, she was dissuaded by Henry Norris Russell from concluding that the composition of the Sun is different from the Earth, which was the accepted wisdom at the time. However, Russell changed his mind four years later when other evidence emerged. After Payne-Gaposchkin was proven correct Russell was often given the credit.

She published several books including:
"Stars of High Luminosity" (1930),
"Variable Stars" (1938),
"Variable Stars and Galactic Structure" (1954),
"Introduction to Astronomy" (1956),
"The Galactic Novae" (1957)
"Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin : an autobiography and other recollections" (1984) ed. Katherine Haramundan)

She was also a Unitarian and a member of First Parish and Church in Lexington, Massachusetts. According to Owen Gingerich:

Payne-Gaposchkin was a many-sided personality known for her wit, her literary knowledge, and for her personal friendships with individual stars. She became the first woman in the history of Harvard University to receive a corporation appointment with tenure, and the first woman department chair in 1956. 

My other Finding Ada blogposts:
Lisa Barone
Hedy Lamarr

The UU Growth blog has a fantastic collection of resources to help congregations grow. There is a similar section on the GA's Unitarian website called Congregational support.

A "Knol" is apparently a unit of knowledge, and Google has a site where people can post articles and tag them by topic. There are several of these articles that might be of interest to Unitarians:

An introduction to Unitarian Universalism, by Brian Crisan
Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion that espouses no official creed.

The relationship between the Unitarians and the Brahmo Samaj, by Yvonne Aburrow
During the 1820s, Rammohun Roy made contact with Unitarians in Britain and America. He was a founding member of the Bengal Renaissance, a campaigner for women's rights and the abolition of sati, and founder of the Brahmo Samaj (a monotheistic reform movement in Hinduism). Since the 1820s, contact has been maintained between the Unitarians and the Brahmo Samaj.

Servetus & Calvin, by Standford Rives
Was It Murder by Calvin?
The trial of Servetus for alleged verbal crimes ended in October 1553 with a verdict of death. Servetus was burned alive the very next day. The question whether Calvin murdered Servetus as a judicial witness and prosecutor has dogged Calvin ever since.

Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau, Henry David (12 July 1817-6 May 1862), author and naturalist

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (25 May 1803-27 Apr. 1882), lecturer and author

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)
Unitarian author

The Unitarian Universalist Association has launched a new website.

It's a new day for UUA.org! Our new home page addresses topics of interest to newcomers to Unitarian Universalism, including a video feature and an interactive banner highlighting our principles and beliefs. A short "Find a Congregation" form makes it easier than ever to look for a local congregation. People already familiar with our faith may want to bookmark the new Resources for UUs page, which features expert-recommended resources, multimedia, and more!

Full Article

The new website works better in larger screen resolutions, and has a more modern look to it, but you can still find your way around if you are more familiar with the old style of the site.

UUA Announce 'Music in Worship'

The UUA now have a new expanded 'WorshipWeb' with a facility called "Music in Worship". Among other things, this includes a UU Composers Database.

Contributed by Rev Dr Linda Hart

MP3 files of all of the songs in Singing the Journey (STJ) can be downloaded at the STJ website. The UUA online shop has a music section with CDs, songbooks, music for children, and hymnals.

The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans now has a podcast.

The first episode of the CUUPS Podcast features basic info about CUUPS and an interview with British academic Michael York recorded at the Dec. 2009 Parliament of World Religions provided to us courtesy of the Pagan Newswire Collective.

The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans promotes networking among Pagan-identified Unitarian Universalists, and provides for the outreach of Unitarian Universalism to the broader Pagan community.

Michael York has written a book on Pagan Theology.

A podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and downloaded through web syndication.

24 ways is the advent calendar for web geeks. Each day throughout December they publish a daily dose of web design and development goodness to bring you a little Christmas cheer.

Now all they need to do is find a way of sending chocolate through the internet...

There are two interesting Unitarian and UU blogposts about Advent:

• Advent – A Humanist Adventure (1984) from The Sermons and Musings of Carl J. Westman, DD.
• Celebrating Advent without misrepresentation, sentimentalism or parody (and a couple of recommended books) by Andrew Brown

And Stephen Lingwood has posted a video: Advent: How long shall we keep God waiting? It's very good.

The International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (founded 1995) is a body devoted to fostering connections between Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist groups around the world. There are about 500,000 Unitarians and Universalists in the world today. Many belong to large church organizations while others rarely meet another Unitarian face-to-face. The oldest groups, who are Hungarian speaking, have a continuous church history of more than 400 years. Some of the English speaking groups go back over 200 years. Many of the newest member and emerging groups have a much shorter history.

The International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) (founded 1901) is a UK-based charity working for freedom of religion & belief at a global level.

European Unitarian Universalists (founded 1982) is a support network and community for Unitarian Universalists (UUs) and UU fellowships in Europe.

Unitarians in other countries
A - F
G - O
P - Z

Many Unitarian Universalists have blogs, and there is more than one blog aggregator for them. (A blog aggregator is a site that gathers content from other blogs - just a snippet of the text, the title and a link, and not the whole blog post, as that would be plagiarism.)

Unitarian Universalist blog aggregators:

• UUpdates.net: the latest content from many UU blogs and websites
• Philocrites' annotated guide to UU blogs
• UU World: weekly round-up of blog posts
• Discover UU: blogs section - imports snippets of many UU blogs

The really neat thing about the new UUA Wordpress Theme is the UUA Services Plugin.  This solves the problem I didn't even really  know I had, and does it very elegantly.

Sunday Services Plugin

The problem: how to we advertise our Sunday service topics on the website?  And how do we do it such that we don't have to update weekly?  Previously, I had looked at three options.  One was what I ended up with: create posts monthly that list the month's services.  This only has to be updated once per month, and that's the advantage.  The disadvantage is that it doesn't list them individually.  There are other disadvantages, too.  Another option would be to put posts up weekly.  The big disadvantage there is the weekly nature of this for a church with no full-time staff except myself.  Another option would be to create them as "events" with the Events plugin.  This carries with it extraneous information like location as a mandatory part of the posts. 

The UUA Services plugin gives you a new post type of services.  And it has the fields that are relevant for you (title, description, date, speaker), and not the ones that aren't (like location, or price).  Then it gives you two pages to display this on -- Upcoming Services and Past Services -- as well as the box on the Home page, and ability to put this list in any of your widget areas (footer, sidebar, Home page).  It displays nicely, and you can update them monthly, yearly, weekly, whatever, and it will store your services in date order, with this week's at the top, and then move it over to the past services after it's done.  Then you can go back in and add the podcast or the full text of the sermon, or whatever.

The other solutions to the services problem were all like putting square pegs into round holes.  This is the round peg, and it's nicely crafted. 

Ideas for the Future

Now that this solved the problem I barely knew I had, it makes me want more!  Wouldn't it be nice to have a Religious Education plugin where we could add weekly information about what's going on in religious education that would function similarly?  Well, maybe for the next version...  For right now, you could add it in with the Sunday services. 

Another thing that came up in my messages with Christopher Wulff, designer of the UUA Theme is how to handle emergency notifications.  He noticed that my church website has a page for announcing emergency closures.  With a rural location in the snowy North, this is something that happens once a year or so.  He said he was thinking about creating a banner that could be turned on for the Home page that would be something we could use for things like this, and asked if we would use such a thing.  The answer for us is yes!  And if people don't want to use it, it's an extra they can ignore.

Content

The content suggestions are wonderful, and something I'm slowly working my way through.  I'd love to have the content information as a Word file, not just as something I have to be careful about uploading because it may erase my existing content.  However, I'm overjoyed at its existence.  The information provided with the theme gives not only best practices, but also sample copy, and tells you things like "Our tree tests show that a significant minority of users will look for information about the choir and about religious education programs under Connection.  Make sure your page includes links to the Choir and Learning pages."  This is extremely useful information that will help congregations a lot.  I'm incorporating all of this slowly into my page, but it's really good to know that the information is here to help me. 

This is where I think the UUA really went above and beyond with this theme.  I was looking for a theme like any other them, but geared toward congregational use.  This theme and its materials gave me SO much more that it's like Christmas for my webpage.  Thank you!!

Continuing my thoughts about the new UUA Wordpress Theme...

Header

I've already talked about my preferences with the logo, but there's more to the header than that.  The theme lets you have the logo and title, social media icons, your Sunday service time (or other text), and a small header menu.  The organization of the header area is aesthetically pleasing, and it's well-sized so that it doesn't take up too much of the screen.  Overall: bravo!

Footer

The footer has four areas.  In one area, the UUA logo will appear, and if you set it to, you can also have the Welcoming Congregation logo and the Green Sanctuary logo.  These balance nicely to form a block if you have all three.  We're not a certified Green Sanctuary church, so my footer has a bit of a hole there.  It'd be nice to include things like the AIM logo, but you have three other areas that can go in.
Some other choices that congregations might wish to include are a Standing on the Side of Love logo or a Black Lives Matters logo, particularly as more congregations have formal votes to support Black Lives Matters.  But, again, there are three other areas in the footer you could put these things in yourself, it's just that if you have a hole in the one block, it might be nice to fit them together.

So in the other three areas, I had some questions as to what to put.  Obviously one needed to be the address, as in the demo site, because it's not anywhere else prominent on the Home page.  The second, the demo site has a little description of the minister.  I didn't want that.  And the third has a little newsletter sign-up form.  I don't have a way to do that yet.  So I opted for links for the newsletter (this will change monthly, the way I have it set up) and some other information that wasn't elsewhere -- that we are wheelchair-accessible, have listening devices available, and support breastfeeding.

So, overall review of header and footer: lots of nice options, everything you need. 

Well, it's been two days since the UUA's Wordpress Theme debuted, and in that time I've learned a LOT about it.  It took me one day of frustration, wherein I finally reached out to Christopher Wulff, who created the UUA Theme, about my problems downloading and installing, and he quickly figured out that my PHP version on my website was too old and that my upload size specified by my php.ini file was too small.  I was able to call my hosting provider who quickly fixed those things, and minutes later the UUA theme was installed and operational on my webpage.

It took me about half a day yesterday to get the theme to the point where it all looks nice and proper on my site and many of the new items are functioning nicely.  You can take a look at http://www.liberyuu.org.  What I have NOT done yet is taken all the content they offer and add and change my existing pages.  I've done this on a small handful of key pages, particularly in the "About" section, but overall I've left my existing content in place, intending to change it over time, but this will take time.  And it's wonderful that the UUA Theme has so much to offer than I can do this.  It's not a downside at all that I could take weeks looking at and understanding it all.  There's so much material here to go deep with, and what I've done is implement the showy face-value stuff at this point.

Look and Aesthetics:

If you'll remember from my last post, I had a few things I was looking for in a theme's look:

1.  A theme that let me use my own custom logo along with a title to the site.  
2. A theme that did not need a large picture in the header. 
3. A theme that allows for some sort of slider on the first page. 
4. A theme that includes links for social media like Facebook and Twitter in its header. 
5. A theme with a top menu bar. 
6. A top menu bar that was aesthetically pleasing to me -- a thin stripe with links on it, and not something that looked like tabs. 
7. A theme with a presentation page for the home page that's different from other pages. 
8. A theme that was accessible on multiple different platforms and responded nicely on mobile devices. 
9. A theme that gave me some choice about color scheme.  

So how did the UUA Theme do on my checklist?  The only disappointment thus far is #1.  The site allows me to put in a custom logo, but when I do this my title for my church disappears.  This is something I've noticed on a lot of themes.  The answer Christopher Wulff gives to this question is, "We encourage congregations to use a logo/wordmark that includes their name."  That would not be my preference, but I can understand why they went with it, because for many churches that might be the preference, because their logo includes their name.  For example,  
Since my logo is just a little icon, I'd prefer to just put it in the box and let my header play out as usual, especially as I don't have Helvetica on my computer, nor on the webpage that I use to design images, and I'd like to use the same font as the rest of the site.  But you can't please everybody.  If that's my biggest gripe, I'd say that it's pretty good.  For now, I'm using the UUA logo.

#2, #3, #5, #7, #8 are all unequivocal yeses.  The UUA Theme does nicely on all of those.  For #4, there are a few social media links that are easy to add to the header:  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, GooglePlus, and Instagram.  That pretty much covers the basics, so is an acceptable array of choices.  For #9, the Theme gives you three color schemes to choose from, but then also lets you choose a custom background color and/or background image, so you don't have to stick with the UUA Brand wallpaper.  Beyond that, you have to get it CSS stuff, which I don't do.  I'll add a note here about fonts, which is that the fonts on the UUA Theme are chosen for accessibility and for my church I had switched to the UUA's font choices already.

Overall, I'll say I'm not a big fan of the UUA branding color scheme, but on the "dark blue" option of the UUA Theme, I don't mind it.  I like the yellow contrasting color you get on the homepage with the dark blue, and the overall color scheme in this version of the webpage is relatively pleasant.  The Grey Red choice the theme offers is also pretty nice.  I'm not a fan of the Aqua Green choice, but maybe somebody else is. 

The overall look of the webpage, though, that is something I am a big fan of when it comes to this theme.  I really love it -- it feels modern and clean.

Home Page

The Home page with the UUA Theme works differently than I've encountered elsewhere.  You create an empty page called "Home" and place it at the top of your menu, and then the content on it is all driven by widgets that come with the plugins that come with the them and that the theme recommends.  Previously, I've seen the homepage created on a separate tab within the "appearances" section, so this took a little getting used to, and I had to play around with it a bit to get it working right.  At first, despite a Home page at the top of my menu, the page was still pointing to another page that I had previously set up, and I had to find this setting and change it.  That was particular to the way I had done things on my site in the past, so it took relearning what I had done before to undo it.  Once I did that, however, setting up the widgets to appear on my Home page was easy, except the Carousel.  I put a static picture into that spot while I worked out how to use the Carousel, which was very non-intuitive for me.  I just couldn't figure out where you put the images in the Carousel, actually.  It turns out that if I scroll down on the right, there's the "Feature Image" box, and that's where it goes.  I wasn't sure if that image was what generated the image, or the image link box further down, so it took a while to get that straightened out.  I also had problems in that the text the information page about the theme told me to put in a box in the widget wasn't working.  A quick message to Christopher Wulff got this straightened out -- the text he says to put in the box is "[image-carousel category=”Homepage”]" but this only works if you've put your Carousel images into categories (useful if you want carousels in more than one location).  I had not, so I needed to type "[image-carousel]" instead.  The rest of the Home page was very easy to set up.  I like the three picture and link boxes that appear on the second row.  They're easy to change and implement, too.  On the third row, I had a little more figuring out what to put.  I don't have enough users generating content for me to really keep a "News" section going yet, and our Newsletter provided for a pretty short column.  So I opted for two columns that will generate new content -- an Events list and a blurb about our monthly Forum -- and one that'll remain pretty static, into which I put the Common Read book.

The best feature of the Home Page, however, is the second widget in the top row, generated by the Services Plugin.  This takes your Sunday service for the week and automatically puts it up front each week.  The Services Plugin is the really outstanding part of the theme, and I'll talk about it more in my next post. 

Today the UUA launches its new Wordpress theme.  The official title seems to be "UUA Wordpress Theme for Congregations," but I'm referring to it here as "UUA Theme."  This is something I've been waiting for, and vocally advocating for and blogging about , for some time, so I was anxiously awaiting the debut.  So here are some first impressions based on the demo site and what I've read in the materials, as I wait for the launch to happen.  Overall, I think it's really a fantastic job, and just exactly what I was hoping for.  

Look and Aesthetics:

When I was looking for a Wordpress theme for my site when I converted to Wordpress a year or two ago, I was looking for several things in my theme:

•  A theme that let me use my own custom logo along with a title to the site.  This is surprisingly rare -- lots of pages allow only for one or the other, or you have to hack the code, which I don't do.  The UUA theme clearly lets you use the UUA logo along with a church title, and I'm betting allows churches to put their own chalice logo in.  
• A theme that did not need a large picture in the header.  The UUA Theme does not.
• A theme that allows for some sort of slider on the first page.  The UUA Theme does.
• A theme that includes links for social media like Facebook and Twitter in its header.  The UUA Theme does.
• A theme with a top menu bar.  The UUA Theme has top navigation. 
• A top menu bar that was aesthetically pleasing to me -- a thin stripe with links on it, and not something that looked like tabs.  The UUA Theme has this as well.
• A theme with a presentation page for the home page that's different from other pages.  The UUA Theme has this.
• A theme that was accessible on multiple different platforms and responded nicely on mobile devices.  The UUA Theme is.  
• A theme that gave me some choice about color scheme.  The UUA Theme does.  From the materials and demo site, I can't tell how much flexibility is here, but I can tell that there is some.

In other words, the UUA theme hit every single point that I was looking for.  When I created my church's website, I demoed dozens of different themes, trying to find one that did all this, and couldn't.  I eventually settled for one that met most of theses points but not all. 

UUA Services Plugin:

One thing I've never adequately solved to my satisfaction was how to manage Sunday services on a webpage.  Ideally, you want every Sunday's service information to be posted separately, to be the top one people see, but to be able to see other upcoming services easily as well.  And you want to do this without having to update your webpage every single week, because volunteers aren't always available every single week to do the update.  If you create posts, they'll post in the order you create them, unless you use some sort of plugin application to withhold publication, but I didn't really know how to easily do this, amateur as I am.  Well, the UUA Services Plugin solved my problem entirely.  The good folks who created the Theme recognized that this is the one area pretty essential to congregations that no other plugin did very nicely, and so was one that was important for them to create themselves.  And it works very nicely, even taking each service from "Upcoming Services" to "Past Services" automatically each week.  Bravo!  A great recognition on the UUA's part that this is exactly the plugin we needed, where nothing else did the job easily.

Other Bonuses:

In configuring my menus to match the UUA Theme's suggestions, I learned how to make a null link at the top level of menu items.  That was something I didn't know before, and had really wondered about when I converted to Wordpress.  It was obvious to me that there was some confusion within myself about whether the top of the menu should be a page itself, or just pull down the menu, but I didn't know how to do that.  The UUA Theme materials explained the best practice, and how to accomplish it.  Problem solved.

Content: 

Something I wasn't expected, and am overjoyed about, is the demo content.  I haven't gotten a chance to look at it yet, but it's so wonderful to have sample content provided -- not all of us are great writers, and even if we are may not understand the best way to write for webpages.  The demo content, as well as the list of suggested images, are exactly what our congregations need.

Well, my ancient computer may have downloaded the theme by now, so that's all for my "First Look."  I'll be back with more after I've tried it out. 

I wrote the following piece right after General Assembly this year, but left it unpublished for a few months to reflect on it.  Reading the UU World piece on "Fired Up: General Assembly Energized Unitarian Universalists with New Models of Ministry and Outreach" fired me up to finally publish it. 

At General Assembly this year, I was using a scooter. It’s not the first time I’ve been on wheels – I was using a wheel chair for a semester in college, due to broken bones. As for scooters, I’ve been using them there for the last several years, because it helps me with pain management. This year, newly diagnosed with various foot and ankle problems, it was more of a necessity than ever. As someone who is usually about on legs rather than wheels, every time I’ve been in this situation I’ve learned a lot. And I’m aware enough at this point to know there is still a lot more that I’m not aware of about how people on wheels experience the world.

This General Assembly was the most difficult one I’ve experienced in terms of accessibility. The problems included the facility, the planning, and even the theology. But one event stands out as the most painful for me because it went beyond facility and planning problems and became an event where the participation of other GA attendees made the situation worse and worse.

This year at GA, the big witness event was Providence’s “Waterfire.” The plan was for everyone to gather for worship, and then process to the Waterfire location, a couple of blocks away. I knew enough about how difficult the witness events on wheels can be to check in with the accessibility table, where they gave me a map of where was accessible and where was not, and told me the plan was for all the scooters and wheelchairs to exit worship first, directly behind Peter Morales and some other dignitaries and people on stage, and for everybody else to wait and let those on wheels go first. This sounded workable, so I decided to go.

At the “Dunk” – the Dunkin’ Donuts Center where worship was held – there were only two elevators that we had access to. While the lower level is at ground level, the main entrance is up a huge flight of stairs to the second level. With the dozens of scooters and wheelchairs in use at GA, this can cause quite a backlog when everyone tries to exit the lower level at once. We can stay on the upper level, but there’s a limited number of spots (I got the very last one for Sunday worship), and if you wish to participate in plenary (now called “General Session”), you need to go to the lower level to reach the microphones. After opening worship, they held everybody in for a few songs so the people on scooters and wheelchairs could exit first. Of course, some people had exited at the same time anyway, making the request moot, but then people were waiting for elevators for nearly an hour before the last ones were out. It was a nice gesture, but completely inadequate to the problem, to sing an extra few songs so that we could exit before the throng.

For the Waterfire event, therefore, they had planned another exit. We were to follow our President (along with our family or companions) out the zamboni entrance into the alley and then zip around to the front, which we did. That part went smoothly. I was about three scooters behind Pres. Morales, and the chaplains were keeping pace with me for a while, and then moved ahead and joined the people on foot at the front, as the scooters spread themselves out a bit, to get onto the single-file sidewalk, and give ourselves enough space between each scooter or wheelchair to see terrain and obstacles, and to stop if we needed to stop suddenly. The scooters have no breaks.

When we got to the front, some of the gathered UUs had filled up the sidewalk. We had to carve a path through, following President Morales, but the walkers who were escorting us called out for people to move to let us through, and most did. A few inserted themselves into the procession, taking up our spaces that let us see the uneven sidewalks and the curbs. We navigated through the crowd at the front of the Dunk, and got to the next curb. The crowd behind us started walking.

As we processed up the next block, dozens of UUs started walking around us toward the front of the procession. Our walking companions called out to them to tell them they were requested to let the scooters go first. Most ignored the calls to let us do so. As they would get in front of a set of scooters, they would start filling in the gap we were leaving so that we could see terrain and curbs. We got pushed farther and farther back.

On the next block, a steady stream of UUs started to pass me on the curb. We were held up by the crowd in front of us, having to stick to the sidewalk.  Sticking to the sidewalk, you can only go as fast as the person in front of you.  However, those who wanted to truck on by on the curb could do so easily and get up to the front. It’s much the same phenomenon of when a lane closes on the highway, and some cars have merged over and are going slow in the one lane that’s open, but other cars zip by on the shoulder, and then squeeze in the lane farther ahead.  I called out to some folks passing by to try to explain the situation, but was rebuffed or ignored. Admittedly, I may have sounded a bit frustrated by that point.

Why does it matter? Why should the scooters go first? First, it was an act of grace, an act of inclusion, a recognition that we’re often forced to the back of the line, the back of the bus. Second, it’s a necessity for us to have the space to see in front of us. In a crowd, that means you relegate us to the back, or you allow us to go first. The third reason has to do with getting us to a place where we can see the event, as I will get to shortly.

By the time we got to the Waterfire location, I was a full block behind Peter Morales and the chaplains,  despite staying dangerously close to the scooters in front of me. He held the crowd of UUs who had gotten ahead of us at the corner, while the scooters were all directed around to the ramp to get down to the water. The staff at the Waterfire location directed us over to a ramp that was full of UUs watching the water.

They had us wait for a few minutes, and at first were suggesting we park on the ramp. The woman who had been escorting us asked a fellow standing on the ramp railing videotaping if he could move for us. “No, I can’t,” he replied. Then we were told another woman had an idea of how to handle things. She escorted one scooter at a time down the ramp, and over to the area that had been roped off, presumably for us, full of standing people in Standing on the Side of Love t-shirts. She carved a spot out in the people for one scooter at a time, getting us each all the way up to the railing. And so I was carved out a spot by the railing, with clumps of UUs standing on each side of me, and could see absolutely nothing for quite a while, since with the nose of the scooter in front of me I was effectively a row behind, and seated, with people standing virtually in front of me.  I could see whatever happened directly in front, but no more. The women to my left and right, though, were gracious – more gracious than I, muttering under my breath – in helping me to eventually see when they understood the nature of the problem, and, of course, it was crowded and they wanted to see, as well. Another woman on a scooter told me later that she had one couple between her and the rail that refused to move to the left or the right, despite there being space to do so, and so she saw next to nothing.

It’s a different feeling of hopelessness for me being on a scooter in a crowd where you’re completely pinned in. On foot, you can always force your way out. On a scooter, I feel trapped, like I couldn’t get out if I wanted to. I remember feeling that way at the social witness event at Tent City at the Phoenix GA. But there, there was a feeling of such goodwill and generosity from my fellow UUs. Our bus chaplain, who is a friend of mine, stuck with me all night. She left her cases of water to distribute by me, and her backpack, so that she would know where they were, and I was her touchstone and she was mine for the evening.  When I needed to move around, the crowd helped. They lined a path and kept it clear. The UUs on duty made sure we were safe, and all was kept orderly. 

Waterfire was the opposite feeling. I felt isolated and abandoned in the midst of a crowd of people Standing on the Side of Love.

After the fires were all lit and some singing had happened, and the crowd thinned a little, it seemed like a good time to leave and try to explore some of the rest of the Waterfire event. My scooter got stuck on the cobblestones, and the friendly crowd of UUs did help me to get started and get out of the space. Trying to explore the rest of Waterfire, however, was a disaster on wheels, but I was on my own with my family and not with anyone from GA at that point – which was part of the problem. My little map was helpful, but getting anywhere on the wheels was nearly impossible. I accidentally took the sidewalk instead of the street at one point, and had to ask about a hundred people to move so I could get down it, as they were still watching from there down to the water. I forced my way miserably down to the love tent, my voice hoarse from asking people to get out of the way, found the tent and got a carnation, and tried to move beyond it to see what the tents beyond were. The crowd was so thick at that point that I couldn’t really maneuver at all, much less really see what was there. My family and I turned around in frustration and headed back to the convention center where I was let in to park my scooter for the night.

In the end, it just really wasn’t an accessible event. I got further than anyone else on wheels I spoke with did, and that wasn’t far, and didn’t encompass most all of the UU-sponsored spots. I think it would be more honest for the GA planners to say, “This big cornerstone event of GA just isn’t accessible,” and then for our gathered assembly to wrestle with the honest emotions of what it means to have a major part of GA that all of us don’t have access to. I think we could learn something from that exercise. What I’m hoping for the future is for the GA attendees to learn and understand why the scooters are being allowed to go first and why it’s not okay to just hop around us. I’m hoping for the GA Planning Committee to learn that choosing a location and events so inaccessible isn’t simply “a necessary trade-off,” it’s an act of oppression. And I’m hoping that for future GAs, we can show real improvement both through stronger planning and through educating our attendees further.

After GA, one of my colleagues posted on Facebook the question of whether we should change the name “Standing on the Side of Love,” because it’s not inclusive of those on wheels. People quickly responded that it’s a metaphor, not to be taken literally. I used to feel that way, too.  After this Standing on the Side of Love event, it felt like in Providence it was meant to be taken literally, after all. We can do better than this as a faith. We can do better than this for social witness. I’m hoping we will, and that I can feel included in "Standing on the Side of Love" again.

Tom Schade has dubbed the rebranding effort of the UUA a #thanklesstask. Yeah, he's right. And I don't want to heap on the criticism.  I believe the UUA is working hard to turn our ship in the right direction, and this is the work that they ought to be doing, and they're getting a lot of flack about it, much of which is unfair.

But...

You know how I've been saying that the UUA has been telling us "more is coming" and the logo was just the "tip of the iceberg" with regards to the branding?  And, at the same time, nobody has published the roadmap of where they're going, and even when you're asking, they won't tell you what it is? And how Dawn Cooley said, "surprised people react poorly"? 

Well...

As reported in Boston Magazine:

Proverb also worked with the UUs to shorten their seven core principles, making them easier to remember, and has suggested putting them into “some sort of acronym form so that they’re easier to pull up quickly in your brain,” Needham says. “We don’t know if that will fly.”

Let me say briefly, that I'm SURE what they meant was not "we've shortened the principles" but "we've created a shorter version of the principles...for marketing purposes."  That's OF COURSE what was meant.  They know that the principles are important and core to you, and they're not really just mucking with them.   

Now...

Um, let me just guess that people are going to be surprised.  And if the UUA logo was conflated with the sacred symbol of the flaming chalice, well then the Principles in the UUA Bylaws are conflated with scripture or creed, even though we'll quickly tell you they aren't a creed.

I hope the reaction will be love, support, excitement, and thanks to the UUA.  They deserve it, because this is really a good idea.  This week I was trying to envision what seven principle banners could look like in our sanctuary, and the wordiness was a big problem, but the kid's version was too simplistic.  An acronymn seems like a good idea, as long as it doesn't spell out something like FRACKER.  (Free and responsible, Respect for the interdependent, Acceptance of one another, Compassion, ummm.... Karmic inherent worth and dignity?, Equity, Right of conscience.)  The other mnemonic devices people have come up with -- pairing them with rainbow colors, using the image of an arch -- have been good, but UUs do love our acronyms. 

What I'm afraid of is that they're going to get a lot of people upset that they took on this #thanklesstask.  And that the stakeholders are going to be very, well, surprised.  Be prepared -- my prediction is a lot of acting poorly will ensue.

Do you remember the hubbub when a former UUA president said something about how the word "God" should be in the principles?  Or at least that's what people heard.  What was said was more like:

"We have in our Principles an affirmation of our faith which uses not one single piece of religious language. Not one. Not even one word that would be considered traditionally religious. And that is a wonderment to me; I wonder whether this kind of language can adequately capture who we are and what we're about."

People were surprised.  Much debate followed.  Many people said upset things about the UUA.  Humanists felt like they were being pushed out and unwanted.  People felt like the UUA was trying to change the principles, and that wasn't okay with them. 

Some of this was good.  We had a lively conversation in our tradition about "the language of reverence."  But there was no Twitter or Facebook back then.  The conversation happened in individual clusters of people, by e-mail, in our seminaries and other institutions, and on the fledgling blogosphere. And so the whole discussion was more subdued than it might be now. 

UUA, I love you and I think you're doing the right thing -- but when we're asking for the roadmap, even scouring the UUA webpage, the UUA board meeting minutes, the UUA world, and the VUU and blogosphere looking for the signposts (yeah, I have), as well as asking in independent conversations, give it to the stakeholders before Boston Magazine sometimes?  Mmkay?  That's all.  No feelings hurt.  Enough said.  Love ya. 

And don't be surprised that not everybody will love this.  Hopefully I'm wrong and we'll all go, "Wow!  Awesome!" and abandon, for a brief moment, our culture of critique.

Heck, that could happen.  Let's give it a shot, everyone. 

My dear friend and colleague Dawn Cooley wrote a great article, "Surprised People React Poorly" back in February.  She's responding to the new UUA logo and the following critique of the logo that swept through social media.  In her post she says that people who are surprised react poorly, as the title states, and because of that she suggests a plan:

Towards a 2-part solution: Trust is a 2-way street.  I encourage those of us on the sidelines to recognize our own reactivity, our own distrust of authority, and remember that we are the UUA.  The people we tend to point fingers at care very, very deeply about our faith tradition and are hard at work trying to ensure our future.   We do a thorough job of holding them accountable, but can we practice occasionally cutting them some slack? Apparently, this new logo wasn’t a whim and wasn’t created out of thin air, but has been a year-long process of dialogue with 50 different UU stakeholders (according to the recent VUU episode available here, particularly at 30:49).

And, for the UUA Administration, it would be much easier to cut some slack if we had confidence in where we are going.  I am reminded of a GPS I use which won’t ever give me the whole map of where I am going, but only shares one turn at a time. I hate it because I never really know if it is directing me to my desired destination.  Give me the whole map at once (rather than just pieces at a time) and then I will be more likely to trust each individual turn. I want the same from my UUA Administration. You seem to have been working from a plan – please share it in more detail.

This week, another dear friend and colleague, Erika Hewitt, writes (here and again on Tom Shade's blog here) about being engaged in a "Very Large Project" for Unitarian Universalism, and finding herself "armoring up."  She says:

We find ourselves bracing for criticism not because our Very Large Project is controversial nor because we have paranoid temperaments, but rather because of the cultural patterns that we witness in the larger UU world (much of it online):

Often, our people respond to brave risk-taking by shaming the risk-takers.

Too often, our people respond to the vulnerable expression of creativity or vision by criticizing the creation or vision, and naming the ways it failed to suit their personal taste.

Erika and Dawn point to a very real problem of a lot of criticism that the people who lead in our movement are faced with.  We do need to give them more of a a measure of goodwill. 

But I agree more with Dawn's prescription for dealing with it, recognizing that it's a two-way street.  In the 2/13/14 UU World article on the logo, it says, "And the UUA is developing other resources for congregations, regional groups, and the national association to use. This effort is about much more than a new logo and a new look for the website, Cooley said." And on my 2/13/14 blog article, Deborah Neisel-Sanders from UUA youth/young adults comments, "I can say that the new logo is just the tip of the iceberg; a good number of wishes that the logo reveal has generated are already in development or scheduled to be."  Three months after Dawn's request for the "whole map," the fuller picture about the UUA Brand has not been released.  The answer may be that there is not a whole map yet -- but then tell us so, and tell us the points you know along the way.  Instead of providing more information, my sense is that people have "armored up" instead.  Information-seeking is not critique--but it's difficult to tell tell the difference when you're on the defensive.  And the defensive posture is understandable when you've been heavily critiqued.  It's a vicious cycle, but Dawn points the way out of the cycle. 

To Erika, then, I would say, you're right.  But at the same time, you need to tell us more about your Very Large Project rather than armoring up.  Surprised people react poorly, and wishing they wouldn't and telling them they shouldn't isn't going to change everyone.  Rather than preparing for the fight, avoid the fight by bringing people along with you on your journey.  You begin by showing us your map, and engaging us in the Very Big Questions that your Very Large Project is addressing.  Share the vision.  As you say, "Creativity and courage are contagious." 

You're so right to point us to a path towards trust -- but trust is something created between us.  Trust is a two-way street. 

As the UUA has rolled out it's new logo, I've seen a number of places where folks have asked if we should consider changing our name.  Unitarian Universalism is a mouthful.  And it refers to old theological arguments that don't have a lot of relevance to some of our members.  For example, Tom Schade asks the question: "The biggest question of our public presence is should we try to build new congregations and liberal religious communities under the name 'Unitarian Universalism' or under more post-denominational language?"

When I was in my first year of ministry, I arrived at a church that was in the midst of a discussion about name change.  It was a new church that had started with a name that many understood to be a temporary one, but others understood to be the permanent one.  The congregation met and discussed and polled and came up with some top choices that were names like "Harmony Church."  After much discussion, it was time for a vote.  And by a narrow margin, they kept their original name.

My own church has members who every so often remark upon the idea that "Universalist Unitarian Church of East Liberty" is a mouthful.  There are other problems with the name. "East Liberty" refers to a school district that no longer exists; our mailing address is Clarklake, and the nearest city is Jackson.  (Our former minister, the late Rev. Ruth Smith used to say "East Liberty is a state of mind.")  "Church" is a problematic term for some, and may turn away people from non-Christian backgrounds -- a reason why "Society" and "Congregation" are used by so many other UU congregations.  "Universalist Unitarian" is designed to highlight our Universalist heritage, but it confuses many people who are familiar with our denomination. 

I think it's highly unlikely that Unitarian Universalism will change it's name as a faith or that the UUA will change it's name as an association.  {And thinking about the term as both a faith and a denomination/association needs to be unpacked more than I'm doing here.  For many "Unitarian Universalism" doesn't describe their faith, only their association.  For me, it does both.  It's as complicated is untangling whether the flaming chalice is a religious symbol or a logo, or both, when used by the UUA and our churches.)

Back in 2012 Chris Walton did an analysis of UU congregations' names in the UU World.  At that time 756/1054 congregations used "Unitarian Universalist" in their name, and that wasn't counting the "Unitarian Universalists," Universalist Unitarian," just "Unitarian" or "Universalist" or other combinations.  These added more than 150 more.  So changing "Unitarian Universalist Association" to something else would create a lot of work for the individual churches, not unlike what we went through at merger. 

That being said, it's not impossible.  It could be done.  And I think it's the right thing to be asking the question about our denomination's name.  What does "Unitarian Universalism" mean to you?  Can you imagine a name that would be a better fit?  What would be your choice to name your faith?  How do we capture this free-thinking non-creedal inherent-worth-proclaiming love-affirming historically-rooted faith of ours in a phrase shorter than "Unitarian Universalism"?  The Standing on the Side of Love movement has captured our attention in a few short years -- are we morphing to identify more as "the Love people" than as Unitarian Universalists?  Does SSL mean more to some of us than UUA?  Back in that analysis by Chris Walton, the most common theological term in our church names was "All Souls," which was used then by 22 churches including three of our ten largest.  Is "All Souls" something that is meaningful to you? 

As someone born after merger and raised UU, I've been a Unitarian Universalist most of my life.  The term does carry meaning and relevance to me.  But UUism by any other name would still be my faith. 

I read the UU World article on the new logo, branding, and outreach effort with great interest.  The article tapped into some things I've been frustrated about and some things I've been excited about.  A couple of points in the article really resonated with me (the italics are mine):

The Rev. Dr. Terasa Cooley, the UUA’s Program and Strategy Officer, said the new initiative developed out of a growing realization that the UUA and its congregations have been sending “inconsistent” messages about Unitarian Universalism into the larger world.

and

“We want congregations to think about the messages their congregations are sending out to the world that doesn’t know anything about them,” she added. “That includes thinking about how their building looks to guests, the structure of their services, their programs, whether they’re inward-oriented or serving the community, and what their online presence is like.”

and

And the UUA is developing other resources for congregations, regional groups, and the national association to use. This effort is about much more than a new logo and a new look for the website, Cooley said. “We have to figure out how we live out this faith of ours, not just how to sell it. We need to get clearer about the ways the culture is changing and the ways we serve that culture.” 

Bravo.  Thank you for your vision.  Here's what I need to start.

I'm a minister who has been out in the field for over a decade, and is relatively technologically proficient for someone in the ministry with a liberal arts degree preceding that, but there are ways in which I was unprepared for the way ministry and church would change during my ministry.  And as a minister of a relatively small church, I see ways in which my church is unable to respond.  There are concrete things that the UUA could do that would make things easier.

In my situation, I'm a minister who is the person who creates our church webpage (and created our UUMA chapter webpage and the Ohio River Group webpage).  Nobody else in my church for a long period of time had the know-how (although this is starting to change).  A small, rural congregation, we had no money to pay a professional website developer.  The end result?  A webpage that is serviceable, but not a strong online presence.  It's been my opinion that there are a lot of small churches and even some larger ones with poor websites.  I can see two solutions to this.  One is churches grouping together.  But with our tendency to not collaborate well -- something I hope will change -- this kind of thing is hard to get going.  A simpler solution is for the UUA to provide a basic webpage template for congregations that is in keeping with UUA branding and customizable to some extent for our local congregation information, or for the UUA to create strong pieces -- graphics and videos, etc. -- that can be incorporated into our websites.

When you add to that the need to create church Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Google + pages, and more, this becomes even more impossible for many congregations -- small, rural, and aging ones, in particular -- to do well.  There's been a lot of good work from the UU Media Collaborative and UU Media Works and others online, but good-quality professional images that we can post and tweet are always needed.

When we were doing newspaper advertising, the UUA created professional advertisements, and congregations could buy the packet for customizing and using in our local newspapers. We still use print materials, and it would be easy to create all sorts of them to customize to a local setting and get printed.  I struggled this week with finding "Standing on the Side of Love" brochures that I could bring to a local event.  I had the choice of buying ones from the UUA Bookstore, which would leave anyone picking it up with no clue how to connect locally, or making my own from scratch.  SSL does have images that we can cut and paste, and thankfully tells us the hex code for the color and the font name (but not where to find Scala Sans for free), but whole brochures, business cards, etc., that we could then customize would be so easy to make available to us.  (By the way, could you provide the font name and color values for that new brand?  I also hope it's a font easily available.  I'm not finding what looks like an exact match.)  With no administrative staff in my small church, if I want to have a special SSL handout for our event Friday, it's up to me to make one, with hours that could be spent elsewhere if something was more grab-and-go online.  The end result will also likely be less professional.

Lastly, the biggest and most important issue I've struggled with.  To bring my 158-year-old congregation into the ability to podcast and post videos, we've encountered many barriers, from willing Sunday morning volunteers to people with the technological know-how to purchasing equipment.  We've been painstakingly putting the pieces in place -- ability to digitally record, a video camera -- but another barrier from the Association remains: our hymnal.  I know that I'm hearing that exciting, dynamic worship isn't always sermon-based, but the sermon is practically the only thing we have the copyright to.  The idea that we could at a local level track down the copyright permissions for any hymns we use is an obstacle we will never overcome.  I hear from my local Lutheran colleagues that they pay an annual fee to their denomination which covers use of anything in their hymnal for use in worship and using for videos, podcasts, etc.  What I hear from my UU colleagues is that they either ignore copyright or post only the sermon, or make the videos or audios only available to their members.  Having a hymnal where we know we can use anything in our worship service and still make that worship service accessible technologically is a must for our congregations going forward.  If we want to think about reaching out beyond our four walls, it would be great to be able to do so with music and worship.

In a nutshell, there are four technological obstacles that I see small congregations unable to conquer that our larger Association could help with:

• Professional webpage templates
• Professional graphics and videos
• Professional downloads for customizable print materials
• Copyrights for electronic transmission of worship

Conquer these, and you'll free us up to do that reaching out to our larger community and to the "nones." 

Thank you again for your vision.  I look forward to having the tools to address it.

The new UUA Common Read book for the year is The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, and I, for one, could not be happier with the choice.  I read this book and preached on it last year after reading a Leonard Pitts article about the book.  The book was revelatory, even for someone who thought she was pretty liberal on this issue.  Two other people who I encouraged to read the book have had the same response.  I was so pleased to have the opportunity to hear her speak this year at General Assembly, and the experience in the room was electric.  She didn't have to say it out loud, even, but the thought that the New Jim Crow applies to the immigration system as well was surely at the front of everyone's mind. I'm looking forward to the Discussion Guide that the UUA will put online in October.  There is a discussion guide written by a UU, but it's the discussion guide to a discussion guide written for Christian churches--a guide of a guide, and, as such, I think is more limited in its usefulness than what the UUA will hopefully provide. 

As someone whose church is in a "prison town," I look forward to the conversations that may occur as a result of this Common Read choice.  This is an issue that would be good for UUs nationally to turn our attention to.  If you haven't read the book, go read it, even if you think you know what it says.  It will still open your eyes even further.

In the last two years, I've known some ministers who attend GA without attending GA.  That is, they come to the city of the General Assembly, but don't register for General Assembly.  In doing so, they save registration costs, but are still able to have lunch and dinner meetings with colleagues, or churches, if they're in search, or meet with denominational committees if necessary.  There are a few GA events that are open to the public, as well -- Sunday morning worship, and the Service of the Living Tradition, and the exhibit hall on Sunday.  This year there are even more, since any person can attend the witness events that are held outside of the convention center, and that includes more events this year.

There are always good UU events to be found outside of the General Assembly programming, too, and this year I find myself, although registered for GA, interested in attending more of it.  One high-profile example is an event hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee at the Hyatt tomorrow: a conversation with Bill Schulz (UUSC president, and former UUA president, and former Amnesty International president or director or whatever the top title is there) and Anita Hill (yes, that Anita Hill!). (3:30-5:00, Hyatt Ballroom AB)

Another interesting opportunity is the ability to see The Minister's War tonight, tomorrow, or Sunday evening, or screenings of the shorter version throughout the days. (Full screenings at 6, 8, and 10pm at 222 E. Monroe St.)  There's a suggested donation of $5 for this.

All this means is it's a good year to be even around GA, and there's plenty to do without registering.  But that opportunity to hear Michelle Alexander alone was worth the registration, in my opinion.  And, of course, I get to vote in the plenaries, which is important, although you can do that as an off-site delegate, but there was still a $100 fee for that. 

Still, I can see the possibility of saving money in future years by coming to the GA city, attending some events electronically and some events off-site, and just making the most of what's available.  I might actually get to see something of the city, too, if I did that.  Many years at GA there are suggested sight-seeing things to do in these interesting locations, and I've never taken the time off or added time on to do those things.  To take one day off in a full day of meetings is reasonable by work standards, but it's harder to justify when I've paid money to be at the things that are offered that day.  So, this is definitely something to think about more for future years as a viable option.

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 things that churches do better than other institutions, but those things are fewer and far between.  We're no longer the best source of therapy--the psychological profession, as it emerged, has taken over that role.  We're no longer where you might hear the best, most engaging lectures--you tube gives you access to the best in the world, and it's a rare church with a minister of that level of academic excellence.  We're no longer the place where you hear first what is going on in your community -- our newspapers and even our friendships are available 24/7 on the computer.  We are, still, the best form for worship, I think, although much of that is available in electronic form, as well, except for the communal aspect.  We do retain the role of being one primary way that brings together groups of people for personal connection -- the social role of face-to-face regular gathering is filled less and less by other groups in this society, while we're still going strong.  But the point is, congregations are less needed in many people's minds, and, accordingly, we're not growing.

The two-part strategy the Rev. Morales outlines is:

1. Congregations remain the base

   
2. Focus energy on creating a movement beyond the congregation

Honestly, it looks pretty much like a one-part strategy to me, as part 1 is basically just reassuring us that this congregational thing that we're already doing will still be important.  So what does part 2 entail?  Looks like his answer is social media, re-engaging the identity organizations formerly known as "affiliates," small groups of other undefined sorts, and social action. 

It is, well, vague.  And not clear exactly what it would entail that's not being done currently. 

But the question that he points to, well, that's intriguing.  Morales points out the there are, as we've known, bunches of people who identify as UU and who don't attend UU churches.  And there are bunches of people who were raised UU who don't attend UU churches.  Some of them are fairly well connected to UUism in other ways -- he points to the fact that a significant number of people who attend SUUSI don't attend any UU congregation.

I'm sure any parish minister can name dozens of potential, former, or raised-UUs in that minister's geographic area who are not church members.  And, like Morales who says we need "A great deal more research about those who identify as UUs but are not members of
 a congregation," most of us don't know why these UU-types are not UU-affiliated in our towns. 

But what I think is new about "Congregations and Beyond" is that Peter Morales is not suggesting we find out why they're not in churches, but, rather, find out what they are interested in doing that would connect them to our movement in other ways.  Some people will never be church-goers, he's saying, but that doesn't mean that they can't be part of the UU religious movement.

It's a radical concept and one we ministers often argue against, saying such things as, "You aren't a Unitarian Universalist if you're not a church member, because the Unitarian Universalist Association is an association of congregations."

But I also know that there were a few years for me -- four of them, to be exact, the college years -- where I was not in a congregation but very much considered my religion to be Unitarian Universalism.  I didn't attend church in my college town, which didn't have a vital campus ministry in those years, and I would occasionally attend when I was home from school, but not often, because my church didn't have any specific get-together for those of us home on holidays or summers from college, and so I wandered off from us as an association of congregations, but not from my UU identity. 

I have trouble envisioning the way we strengthen these sorts of connections and grow this "movement" Morales speaks of, but I hope we'll keep talking about these ideas and exploring the potential.

Almost two weeks ago, a blogger going by "Wondertwisted" wrote a blog post titled A 'Dear John' Letter to Unitarian Universalism.  (Her real name appears to be "Cindy" based on the responses to the post, but since I'm a Cindy, that's confusing, so we'll call her "WT.")  In her post, WT outlines the reasons why she's leaving Unitarian Universalism.  The blog post immediately got a lot of my colleagues talking about it, mostly on Facebook as they posted up the piece.  I've been thinking about WT's post since then, and am still not really ready to put out a full response, but here goes for a bit anyway.

I understand what it is my colleagues are saying when they are sympathizing with Wondertwisted.  They see in her post a desire for a deeper spiritual experience in Unitarian Universalism.  It's connected to the "Language of Reverence" discussions that went around a few years ago and the "Whose Are We" discussions the UUMA has started.  The recent UU World piece by David Bumbaugh articulated this neatly, as well. 

I also understand the yearning for a Unitarian Universalism that is more embracing of its Christian past.  I serve a church with a high percentage of UU Christians, and I'm the child of UU Christians, and I think it's very important to create a religious atmosphere in UU churches that is welcoming and embracing of UU Christians.  And I know that there are UU churches where UU Christians have felt the atmosphere to be hostile to their beliefs.  I've heard this from a family member, for one thing.  I've worked hard to discourage this kind of attitude whenever I've seen it.  And I know some see in WT an articulating of how hostile our churches can sometimes be.

I read Wondertwisted a little differently, however.  First of all, I'd like to say that while I want Unitarian Universalism to grow, I don't envision a world wherein everyone becomes Unitarian Universalist.  It's well and good that people are different religions--I like religious diversity in the world.  So I don't mourn that UCC members are members of the UCC and not the UUA.  That's great that the UCC is there and that we have so much in common with them.  And I think UU churches are sometimes a stopping point for religious wanderers on their way to somewhere else.  That's okay with me, too.  Not everybody who walks through our doors is really going to find that Unitarian Universalism is what that person is looking for.  And a lot of what people are looking for and not finding in our church is something a lot more Christian than what we are. 

So there are UU Christians and there are UUs who are not Christian and there are Christians who are not UU.  And it's good that there are all these categories.

I think Wondertwisted may be, as she describes herself, a "Unitarian Christian," but she's not a UU Christian, and it's great that she's figured that out and gone off to somewhere where they are more Christian and maybe less Unitarian, but more what she's looking for.  Let me explain.

It's comes down to this passage:

I was at a UU leadership function. I met a really smart, really energetic and sweet guy. The kind of guy that any church elder or pastor would love to recruit onto the board. He volunteered his path to me: “I’m a Buddhist-Humanist,” he said. Then he took a swig of fair trade coffee while I told every particle of my being that, no, I would NOT roll my eyes.

You can’t be a Buddhist-Humanist. You just can’t.

Here's the thing: Yes, you can.  And that's part of what Unitarian Universalism is about.  She says, "Be a Buddhist or a Humanist and do the work, because I suspect that claiming a hybrid philosophy might have something to do with wanting to be “spiritual” without the messy work of transformation."  But sometimes "doing the work" of theology is in studying and understanding multiple religious traditions and understanding that each of them have to be adapted in some way to fit with one's own spiritual beliefs.  I know there are critics of Building Your Own Theology out there, but I think it had a lot of things right.  In Unitarian Universalism we do pick and choose and create hybrid theologies.  And in many cases this is because we have "done the work" -- a lot more so than your average non-hybrid-believer.  By way of example, a recent Pew study showed that atheists know a lot more about religion than the average believer. 

It's frankly very easy to see how a UU can be a Buddhist-Humanist.  Those two faith traditions have a lot in common.  And neither Buddhism nor Humanism is a dead, unchanging, ungrowing thing.  They both have flexibility in them.  But one who sees the definitions of Humanism or Buddhism as so rigid that one can't find a home in both?  Well, it's not surprising to me to hear that person doesn't feel at home in Unitarian Universalism.

Not everyone is comfortable with ambiguity, with gray areas, with the lack of rigid definitions, of course.  I often say that what makes UU Christians and UU Buddhists and UU Pagans and UU Humanists all UU is that we all believe we don't have all of the answers, and that we can learn from one another.  We believe in the value of coming together in religious diversity and sharing our religious journeys. 

So blessings on your journey, Wondertwisted.  I'm glad you've figured out where your religious home is.  And it's okay that it's not us. 

For the record, I'm not really opinionated about what is being called the "hot mess" -- the resignation of two members of the GA Planning Committee. I don't know enough about the internal politics of the GAPC or the UUA Board to really weigh in on the issue.  Kim Hampton's post about the roll of worship and the SLT in the Justice GA is informed and informative.  And I think Tom Schade is right on point to say, "It's always useful to remember that the future hasn't happened yet."

I am opinionated about the "Justice GA," on the other hand.  And I know for every person who was sitting in the Plenary Hall when we voted for a "Justice GA" there was a separate opinion, and not all of our expectations can be met.  Half of us probably think that there should be a Service of the Living Tradition, and half of us don't.  Half of us think there should be an exhibit hall, and half of us don't.  And the half that do and the half that don't for each item are a mix of those interested in the idea of the Justice GA and those that aren't. But I know this: there are a lot of people who've never gone to at GA before who are considering going to this one, because they understand that this year our denomination is doing something important and meaningful and different.  There are people who can only go a GA once in a while who are making a special point to be at this one.  The energy and excitement about the possibilities are high.

What we voted on was, to my mind, instead of doing business and usual and in lieu of cancelling or moving the 2012 General Assembly, to have a Justice GA where business as usual was minimized.  My fear is that "business as usual" will be taken to mean only the actual business of the General Assembly -- the business resolutions, Actions of Immediate Witness, and other such business of the plenary. 

On the other hand, I am also concerned that for people with mobility issues there will be nothing that they can attend if more and more is focused on off-site justice work.  I'm personally dedicating myself to starting to learn Spanish this year in preparation for the Justice GA, as suggested to us in one of this year's Responsive Resolution--this represents a real investment of both time and money, neither of which I have a lot to spare. 

And at the same time, I'm worried that I won't be able to even attend GA because I don't handle a lot of heat well, nor a lot of walking and standing, and if everything involves a combination of the two, it will be extremely difficult for me.  This year and past years have been a "hot mess" for me when it comes to how we handle accessibility.  During one GA (Ft. Worth), I very badly sprained my ankle -- it dislocated and then popped back into place in the process.  I needed help with mobility.  The planning for GA didn't include extra scooters; I was very lucky that one person who had ordered one had never shown up.  This year, when our Standing on the Side of Love rally was a bit of a hike in the hot weather, I heard the announcement that if we needed to take a cab, we could get reimbursed later (already not the best system), and that cabs would be waiting outside the conference center.  I didn't hear that it was at a different door, so I followed the crowd out the side door -- no cabs.  I went back in and found out where I was supposed to go, and went out -- no cabs were waiting.  This was not a particularly well-orchestrated initiative, from my point of view.  It's very important for the Justice GA to remember that what is a "short walk" for one person in a huge obstacle for another, particularly in heat that many are not used to dealing with.

So, with all that said, here's what I, personally, would love to see:

• No exhibit hall.  It's become more and more pointless anyway.  All of these agencies can be found online.  We can shop online, and we can see their justice issues online.  Instead, create a virtual exhibit hall that people can visit from anywhere.
• A Justice Hall instead.  If people need downtime and a place to wander or socialize, give them small tasks to do, like letters to write to elected officials. 
• One or two workshop slots only.  There may be some workshops that are essential to hold, or exiting lecturers that we really want to feature, and there can be a some large justice-oriented workshops on how to build a movement, how to do social justice, how to engage cooperatively with other organizations, ARAOM work, etc.  
• Instead of workshop slots, we have justice slots.  As for the all-justice slots, I would like to see not just large social justice rallies in these spots, but places where small groups go off into different parts of the area to work with local organizations on different projects.  There needs to be great variety.  And this probably means a sort of schedule where we commit to what we're doing in advance.  And it means buses. 
• I would like to see the following cornerstone elements of GA: the Ware Lecture, the Service of the Living Tradition, and the Sunday morning worship service (which I would love to be the SLT again, but that's a whole other argument).  I think all can be themed around this justice work, and all are important to what makes up a General Assembly.  For the newcomers to GA, they would give the important taste of what GA is usually about.
• All Reports -- all reports -- given in written and video ahead of time and no reports -- no reports -- presented verbally during plenaries.  We can do our homework ahead of time.  
• A single plenary session to deal with all remaining business that we haven't been able to put off or voted this year to do next year.
• Yes, more worship.  When we can't be doing justice work, we should be praying, singing, and celebrating.
• I would like to see Ministry Days themed around the Justice GA in the following ways: a Berry Street Address that's on theme; minimal business; a group action project; drop the "collegial conversations" element in favor of group social action; drop the usual conversation with the UUA President in favor of having him lead us in justice work as well.

Most of all, I want this experience to be meaningful and transformative for me and for our movement.

Obviously I'm not going to get all my wishes.  Nor is anybody else.  Meanwhile, let's have patience and understanding with the Board and Planning Committee as they do the hard work of creating a GA experience unlike any other.

Just FYI, the UUA is in the process of designing a UU app.  A couple of weeks ago they put out a page where you can submit ideas.  As is often the case, however, I can't find it easily by searching for it through the UUA's page.  Problem number one is that "phone" and "app" are too common.  "Submit ideas for mobile phone app" doesn't turn it up, either.  Fortunately, I have found it for you.  It's at http://www.uua.org/about/184350.shtml. 

But, if you can't wait to see what the UUA will turn out, the Church of the Larger Fellowship just put out a very nice app, "Quest for Meaning."  The Android version is available; the iPhone version may still be "coming soon."  It was free when I downloaded it during GA, and features four options -- reading joys and sorrows, posting a joy or sorrow, lighting a chalice (along with a reading), and podcasts.  It's a nifty little thing.  I found it hard to located.  In my apps store, I searched under "Quest" and then under "Unitarian" and then finally found it by searching for either "Quest Unitarian" or "Quest Church of the Larger Fellowship" -- I can't remember which. 

Okay, so I've now figured out what was unclear to me before.  Here's what we've voted in that is now in our "Standards of Professional Practice" (our unenforced part of the document, or "best practices):

G. Personal or Romantic Relationships
1. A minister of a congregation, or a community minister affiliated with a congregation, who engages in personal friendship or pursues a romantic attraction with a member or participant of that congregation, or whose family members or existing friends join or participate in that congregation, must take into account the following considerations:
 a. Such relationships will change the dynamics of the congregation as well as of the ministry, potentially in negative ways that may persist beyond that minister’s tenure.
 b. Members of the congregation who have special relationships with the minister must often refrain from positions of visible leadership or systemic influence for which they might otherwise be eligible.
c. It may be advisable for a potential romantic partner to refrain from visible leadership or systemic influence for which they might otherwise be eligible in the congregation, agency or enterprise, at least until the nature of the relationship with the minister is clearly established and can be made public.
 2. Ministers who pursue such relationships should seek and heed the advice of colleagues as to how the conduct of that relationship may affect their ministries and their congregations.
 3. It is unfair and destructive to congregations for the minister to ask them publicly to accept a succession of several romantic partners, whether or not these partners have been previously connected to the congregation.
4. Community ministers should be guided additionally by the expectations of the agencies or enterprises where they work, and by the standards of professional organizations to which they may belong, regarding the establishment of personal friendships or romantic relationships with those they serve.
 5. In all cases, ministers must be careful not to take advantage of those they serve, or damage the integrity of the congregation, agency or enterprise in which they serve.

And here's the stronger language under review (with the agreement that the final language would avoid he/she language in preference to the use of "they" as a non-gendered third person single pronoun.  The justice advocate in me agrees.  The grammarian still has problems with the singular use of "they" and would prefer other work-arounds such as consistent use of a full noun or pluralizing of the entire sentence):

1. A minister who initiates or responds to sexual contact, sexualized behavior, or a sexual relationship with any person he/she serves or serves with professionally must take into account that such relationships will change the dynamics of the congregation/work site as well as of the ministry, potentially in negative ways that may persist beyond that minister’s tenure.
2. A minister who initiates or responds to sexual contact, sexualized behavior, or a sexual relationship with any person he/she serves or serves with professionally agrees to:
 a. Either the minister or the other person will leave the congregation/site of ministry for 6 months before the relationship can be pursued
 b. Fully disclose to the potential romantic partner the implications for that person of a relationship with the minister, including the change that the person could lose his/her congregation or work site regardless of the success of the relationship.
 c. Fully disclose such decision to the chapter Good Officer of the UUMA.
d. Fully disclose such decision to the congregation/work site if at the end of 6 months the relationship is pursued
 3. It is unfair and destructive to congregations for the minister to ask them publicly to accept a succession of several romantic partners, whether or not these partners have been previously connected to the congregation.
4. Community ministers are guided additionally by the expectations of the agencies or enterprises where they work, and by the standards of professional organizations to which they may belong, regarding the establishment of sexual contact, sexualized behavior, or a sexual relationship with any person served professionally.
5. In all cases, ministers must be careful not to take advantage of those they serve, or damage the integrity of the congregation, agency or enterprise in which they serve.

It may also be under review for the "Code of Professional Conduct" (the enforceable part of our document) to read: "I will not engage in sexual contact, sexualized behavior, or a sexual relationship with any person I serve professionally."  That piece of it was still confusing.  We didn't vote on this, I believe, but it seems like adding this is the goal that we're still working towards.

At any rate, what is clearly the difference between what was voted in and what is under review is that what was voted in has much more to do with the role of the minister's partner in 1.a-1.c., and the review version is very explicitly laying out steps that should be followed if a minister is to date a member of the congregation in 2.a.-2.d.  While we'll take this year to review it, I think the proposed version is very good, and these steps of contacting good offices, ending the pastoral relationship, and disclosing to the congregation, are important and necessary.  People might argue over the six month period, I suppose. And I can certainly see that if one was dealing with a very new member to the congregation that this might be excessive, but this is also "best practices" and, as such, in consultation with good offices, it seems that sort of case-by-case situation could be negotiated. 

Special thanks to James Kubal-Komoto whose comment on my last post prompted me to go back and read through it all to understand it.  Balancing my laptop on my knee and trying to see where the differences in the two versions were proved not to be the most effective way for me to do business.  Now that I can look side-by-side, the situation is more clear.  That one sentence deal in the whole explanation threw me off and was, I think, unnecessarily confusing, but perhaps only to me. 

Today was "Ministry Days" (a misnomer, because it's one day and one evening, really).  The two highlights for me of Ministry Days are the 25/50 worship service and the Ministerial Conference at Berry Street.  The 25/50 worship service features a speaker from that group of ministers who have been in the ministry 25 years, and also one from that group who have been in the ministry 50 years.  It's always a delight to hear their stories of their experiences and how things have changed and yet been the same.  We have a similar thing at the Meadville Lombard Theological School alumni dinner, which will be later in the week.  Can you imagine about 800 Unitarian Universalism ministers singing "Turn the World Around"?  (We were some fewer than that, I think, but I can't remember the number.  The total number of UU ministers is now in the 1700s.)

The Berry Street lecture is, we were informed, the oldest running lecture in the United States.  It was started by William Ellery Channing in 1820.  I can't explain the exact words shared of what the purpose of the Berry Street lecture is, but my understanding is that the person giving it is called to bring a new understanding around an issue of their choice to the UU ministers assembled.  For example, Mark Morrison-Reed in 2000 talked about how we leave congregations.  His discussion was fresh and informative, and I know congregations that have used his Berry Street words as study when their minister is leaving.  Today the Rev Dr. Deborah J. Pope-Lance took us to task on an issue that's been plaguing our ministry for decades--clergy misconduct.  It was incredibly timely.  The UUMA has been wrestling with what language to have in their code of conduct for, well, a very long time.  We had voted in some new language this morning, in fact, with an immediate amendment of stronger language following right on its heels.  The tension is our ministry is between those who believe it is always wrong for a minister to get involved with a member of his or her congregation, and those who say that if done carefully and openly, ministers can and have built successful marriages with members of their congregations, and for single ministers in isolated locations, it's unreasonable for them not to be able to pursue romantic relationships within their congregation.  Pope-Lance made it very clear that we need to take a hard line here.  And in an increasing number of states in the U.S. it's already illegal for a minister to get sexually involved with a congregation member.

The votes this morning that we took were very confusing--it seemed like we voted to put certain language into place and then voted to study that exact same language for a year.  I'm still sorting that out.  But whichever it is, what seems to be in place for UU ministers starting now or soon is a best practices recommendation (not enforceable) that says that before ministers get sexually involved with someone in the congregation, that person must leave the congregation, or the minister must leave the congregation, for a period of six months.  The minister must inform the UUMA Good Offices person.  And then after six months, the relationship can be pursued, but the congregation must also be informed.  There are a lot of further details, but that's the heart of it.  And there's less detailed language in the enforceable part of our code, but that's where, I think, we're still also working on strengthening up the language. 

I got into Charlotte, NC yesterday afternoon for the 50th annual UUA General Assembly, which begins tomorrow evening.  Before GA begins, however, there are "Ministry Days," and before Ministry Days this year there is Chapter Leader Training, which began yesterday evening and continued through the day today.  As Heartland Chapter President, and still feeling my way around the job, it was a welcome opportunity to hear what other chapters were doing well and where we all were struggling -- mostly around membership questions, welcoming, and technology.  It's become clear to me that something we need is a Chapter Connections/Technology officer in the Heartland.  Luckily, I seem to have found someone for the job, and it's not me.  Members of our chapter will not be surprised at the wonderful techie colleague who has indicated her willingness to step forward.

Don Southworth, the UUMA Director, started us off in worship today at Chapter Leader Training by talking about those moments when we feel really blessed to be able to do the work we do.  It was a feeling echoed in our opening worship for Ministry Days when our Charlotte Colleagues reminded us how blessed we are in this work.  And, yes, when we get together at this time of year we like to tell stories of how busy we were and how tired we are.  But it's an amazing gift to get to do this work.  And what a joy, really, to be together here with all these wonderful UUs engaged in the work of faith and love and justice.

The merger of the Unitarian and the Universalist denominations took place 50 years ago -- the official date was May 15, 1961.  So, of course, I started thinking about my experiences at the merger.  But, wait!  I wasn't born yet!

That's right, one of the neat things that we can celebrate is that there are generations now of people who are Unitarian Universalists from childhood on, some even with ten years or more in the ministry, who were raised in, influenced by, and in turn influenced themselves this new association that was created 50 years ago.

Many argued then that without this merger, Universalism would die.  I look around me here, and I really believe that.  At the time of merger, there were three little rural Universalist churches between ten and fifteen miles from Jackson.  My church, a small rural Universalist church, joined the new UUA, and it's still going strong.  The Universalist church in Horton, MI did not join the UUA, but eventually became Congregationalist.  There's a church and a congregation thriving there, but no Universalist church.  The Concord, Michigan church, the furthest from Jackson at 14 miles, floundered for a while and then went out of existence.  They still have special programs there every year, such as a Christmas concert or service, but there is no longer a worshipping Universalist body.  There is no church there, even though there's a church building there. 

Without the merger, we might have died.  With it, we have generations of Unitarian Universalists to spread our saving message -- our Universalist message of love and acceptance.  All that, and Unitarianism, too.  What a deal we got.  Happy Birthday, UUA!

Like many of us, the temptation is to help those poor wrong souls who write all those things on the internet. It's doubly important when those poor misguided souls are UUs! Horrors that we don't help them see their folly..... why they might be embarrassed by their comments when they become as smart as us....
I say sometimes the best way to stay UU is to never talk to another UU - that way you will only be offended by what you hear in the pulpit....
this is of course exaggeration for comic effect, but only slight exaggeration..
while all groups and organizations have their conflicts, they usually can agree on the foundations of the group. UUs can't do that, as we cant agree on a core....
What brings this up to day are the usual shouting matches on a couple of UU mailing lists, with the usual response by some that they will just pick their ball up and go home. A blog response by someone very upset who wants the UUs to do something (I cant really tell what - other than we dont need to criticize what they like) -
I am resisting the UU tradition and jumping in a discussing / arguing back.... by looking at the b below cartoon - a new classic --
One does have to pick and chose what is important, not just spend one's life throwing water on someone who is trying to do the same to you....
Another reason to be thinking this way is all the UU websites Ive looked at this week because of the UU discussion that the spouse and myself had over which UU congregation to visit this weekend - we will be driving near 6 congregations having services (which is pretty good for the south) - the two sermon topics I liked best are congregations that we've already visited (the spouse thinks we need to spread our greatness around to all UUs) - of the remaining 4, one service is very local oriented, one has a speaker who specializes in spirituality of wealth building and two are on paleontology! Hard to chose -
So we suspect that we will be wealthier when we come back home ---
(in all honesty, that is the speakers specialty, not what they will be speaking on).
So, how many wrong statements are in today's UU-ing? You need to write in and correct me - after all we can't have anybody wrong on the internet, can we?

ADDED LATER: The current issue (July 15th 2008) of THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY has a short editorial on "Family Squabbles" or denominational squabbles. "Sometimes we think of denominations as families"; to which the late Jack Stotts, theologian and seminary president - pointed out that the families in the Bible tended to be dysfunctional. So all as it ever was!

I got a copy of the Abingdon Press Fall and Winter 2007/8 Trade Catalog ("Trade" in this case means for retailers and librarians). Abingdon is an United Methodist imprint. And they have Study Bibles, books on theology, hymnals, children's books, sunday school books (including "One Room Sunday School") books for youth - including theology, DVDs for youth, Adult Sunday School Material including DVDs,
Some of this looks very good: such as Adult studies on Hospitality, Forgiveness, Discernment, and Intimacy,and death and dying. "How to act like a Christian". Some look disappointing: The "Christianity Family Tree" mentions many of the current Christian traditions, but liberal Christians arent mentioned in the title of the sessions. There is even "Preaching Annual 2008" which sermons to print out - apparently one for every week of 2008!
Now the UUA catalog is fine, but it's small, and lacks many of these type resources and themes (hard to believe the UUA is that far behind in DVDs....) And as I was looking at these books, I wondered ... what would be right for UU or other liberal Christians?
So, I thought this would be a good starting place to ask:
What books are good for UU Christians? and by that I mean those who are mostly unitarian and universalist - who spent more time with the words in red in the middle, and less with the stuff at the begining and end....(knowing that there are UUs Christians who arent unitarian or universalist or even thiest). These books must be "in print"!

Please add or link by including the book and why, dont just say "Books by Borg" - say which ones and why.... write like you're trying to sell the book to other UUs.


Let me start by adding:
Christian Voices In Unitarian Universalism (2006) Editor: Katleen Kolenz
15 personal stories by those who heard Jesus while being UUs, and their joys and sorrows while doing so....