So, in order to try out the new UUA WordPress theme, I installed it onto one of the domains I’m not currently using. I’m sticking to defaults mainly, because that (to my mind) is one of the benefits of a template.

I’ll critique the experience of installing and configuring it later, and UU minister and blogger Cynthia Landrum (Rev. Cyn) has already reviewed the features.

But so far, I’m not sold and suspect the value of the theme will be the lessons shared in the theme’s documentation; that really sets it apart.

Perhaps it’s because Daylight Saving Time has ended, and the local businesses have their lights on as I come home, but for some reason, I noticed the travel agency in the ground floor retail space in my apartment building this evening.

And why wouldn’t I notice it other days? Because the business is confined to a small office at the back the retail space it formerly occupied alone. Most of that space is a dry cleaner, a shirt laundry, and an alterer. It’s what has the lit signs. When Hubby and I moved to our building, it was a quiet, somewhat old-fashioned neighborhood amenity — quiet, and a little sad. Even in an internet age, there’s a place for travel agents, especially in a city like Washington with such a large and varied international community. But surely, one or two desk’s worth of specialized travel agent is enough.

There’s another former travel agency near church — no, former isn’t fair. Again, there’s a desk in the back of the retail space, and it specializes in Japanese travel. The owners, reading the writing on the wall, contracted the one business and filled in the rest of the space with a Japanese grocery. So most Sundays after services, I’ll get bean sprouts, tofu, packaged curry, mochi and the like. I had never gone by when it was just a travel agency.

The stories are quite alike, so why “a tale of two travel agents”? Shouldn’t these be different, contrasting stories? Sure, but I can’t find another travel agent around here to compare or contrast…

I’m thinking of churches, of course. And I’m not sure churches are the travel agencies yielding space to stay in (smaller) business, or are the new enterprises making the most of the new situation. Perhaps both. But it’s easy to look at a church contracting in its space, or “rooming” with another entity and see it as regression. But it might just be the future, and future worth having.

Oasis’s “Wonderwall” was released twenty years ago today. And your back hurts.

But this is the version I prefer.

I saw a notice today that a WordPress theme — the engine that powers this site and surely millions of others — particularly for Unitarian Universalist congregations. You can see the release notes and download the theme at uuatheme.org.

I downloaded it and intend to test it. In addition to ease of installation and customization, I’ll look at its license and consider whether the use of the support documentation apart from the theme.

Even before reviewing it, I’m of two minds. A shared resource can be helpful, but one customized for a small user base might never earn an economy of scale. Perhaps a non-denominational church site tempate would be more useful — but first, an examination of the work..

Well, thank you to all those on Facebook who welcomed the move of web domain so warmly. I hope you enjoy what you see; now, on to the content.

What is Universalism? I make a point of taking about my work in terms of Universalist Christianity, not just because non-Christian versions of Universalism emerged a few generations ago, but because as a theological term it has multiple meaning, both inside and outside of the institutional Universalist Church. Further, the term “universalist” can have secular, even commercial uses.

So when I talk about Universalist Christianity, I mean that belief system that proclaims, at a minimum, the eventual, joyous reunion of all human beings with God, and that this action takes place though the interaction of God and Jesus Christ.

Is that all I believe? No, of course not, but I take the traditional Universalist big-tent approach to heart: past this, particular views are tolerable and understandable. (Will there be punishment after death? More than human beings? What did Jesus do?) But without this much, there’s not an adequate basis of union. (That, and not a free-for-all is the right way to read the Universalist liberty clause, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

A lack of clarity has made it possible to make contradictory statements about what Universalism is — including definitions from those who are no friend. So for the purpose of this blog, Universalism is not

1. multi-religious pluralism
2. the product of human accomplishment, singly or as a group
3. the destruction of the wicked
4. the divine, but fruitless, offer of salvation to all persons or all nations
5. other teachings that often travel with Universalists, including Unitarianism

Others are free to believe those, but that’s not what I’m doing here. And there’s plenty of room in the prior description, and the adopted professions of faith, for broad and varied discussion.

From here on, the focus of my writing ministry will be at RevScottWells.com, and that is

1. interpreting Universalist Christianity for today, particularly in practical and popular ways, and
2. identifying and developing methods to operate churches and other ministries more efficiently and economically, including worship and leadership development,

plus short notices and news as appropriate.

An archive of my writing, to date, will be mirrored at BoyintheBands.com, which will continue with miscellaneous religion news, pop culture and opinion. UniversalistChristian.org will continue as a documents archive, and will grow slowly to support my work at RevScottWells.com.

The name “Boy in the bands” started as wordplay on the stage play and film The Boys in the Band, and the Geneva bands I wear when preaching. The play doesn’t match my experience as a gay man (and never has), I’m hardly a boy, and I only preach occasionally (though I do still wear bands) so even if the name ever made sence as a public persona, it doesn’t now.

Changing domains means a hit to readership, but in time that heals. That said, I’d appreciate you reading my blog here, and sharing the word.

Thanks.

Crossposted at RevScottWells.com

From here on, the focus of my writing ministry will be at RevScottWells.com, and that is

1. interpreting Universalist Christianity for today, particularly in practical and popular ways, and
2. identifying and developing methods to operate churches and other ministries more efficiently and economically, including worship and leadership development,

plus short notices and news as appropriate.

An archive of my writing, to date, will be mirrored at BoyintheBands.com, which will continue with miscellaneous religion news, pop culture and opinion. UniversalistChristian.org will continue as a documents archive, and will grow slowly to support my work at RevScottWells.com.

The name “Boy in the bands” started as wordplay on the stage play and film The Boys in the Band, and the Geneva bands I wear when preaching. The play doesn’t match my experience as a gay man (and never has), I’m hardly a boy, and I only preach occasionally (though I do still wear bands) so even if the name ever made sence as a public persona, it doesn’t now.

Changing domains means a hit to readership, but in time that heals. That said, I’d appreciate you reading my blog here, and sharing the word.

Thanks.

Crossposted at BoyintheBands.com

I’m glad to share the news that went public yesterday: that Jake Morrill, the minister of the Oak Ridge (Tennessee) Unitarian Universalist Congregation has been named the new Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship. I couldn’t be more pleased.

He follows Ron Robinson in the role, who for many years to his retirement admirably held the position.

Thanks to Ron, and the UUCF Board, lead by Kim Hampton. And congratulations to Jake.

The Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association is in the middle of its October meeting.

No great thought on my part, but I did note that there is a net loss of two congregations, per the Changes in Congregational Status (PDF) report.

The First Universalist Society of Salem (MA) has merged with First Parish in Beverly (MA).
All Souls Church UU (Durham, NC) has dissolved.

Does anyone know how true the musings I’ve heard that All Souls, while not paricularly Christian itself, came out of the aftermath of discussions in the early 1990s to start a Christian church there?

Sobering news in any case, and my best wishes to the parishoners in their new settings. (The All Souls website resolves to the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship site.)

The Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association is in the middle of its October meeting.

No great thought on my part, but I did note that there is a net loss of two congregations, per the Changes in Congregational Status (PDF) report.

The First Universalist Society of Salem (MA) has merged with First Parish in Beverly (MA).
All Souls Church UU (Durham, NC) has dissolved.

Does anyone know how true the musings I’ve heard that All Souls, while not paricularly Christian itself, came out of the aftermath of discussions in the early 1990s to start a Christian church there?

Sobering news in any case, and my best wishes to the parishoners in their new settings. (The All Souls website resolves to the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship site.)

I’ll not hide the lede: Unitarian Universalism is not heresy, even when it’s not right.

It’s hurtful and vexing that it’s a common assertion that Unitarian Universalism is a heresy, and that it is built on heresies. [Here’s a link to a Google search for “unitarian universalist heresy” to underscore my point.] At worst, this claim demonstrates an adolescent rebellion against ghosts of authority. At best, it’s an assertion of choice in religion, with faulty etymology that overlooks the possibility of bad and harmful choices. Somewhere in between, proud heretics radiate the message “doesn’t play well with others” and “is impressed with own self.” Little wonder we’re the butt of jokes: we don’t even know when we’re insulted, or insult ourselves.

And you can see, off to one side, the more shark-like of opponents nodding in agreement. Unitarian Universalism is a heresy, and surely a damnable one, and their own opinions are — of course — true and edifying. That’s some deflective cover for their own shortcomings.

I don’t think it’s too controversial — though I’ve been wrong before — to say that people do make choices, so far as they are capable, and intend to choose the right. Praising heresy isn’t about valuing good choices, but devaluing the possibility of making the right choice, sticking to it and building from it. And I think that’s why so many people who enter Unitarian Universalism by the front door leave by the back. If one choice is as good as another, there’s a better chance the right answer is out there. Because if one choice is as good as another, then Unitarian Universalists — collectively — won’t work to cultivate it among ourselves. And if a spirit of heresy is true, why is there such little high-level discussion about theology, or indeed any serious disagreements?

Harsh words, perhaps, but look around our general fellowship. What do we have to show for ourselves? Are you satisfied with that?

I’ll not hide the lede: Unitarian Universalism is not heresy, even when it’s not right.

It’s hurtful and vexing that it’s a common assertion that Unitarian Universalism is a heresy, and that it is built on heresies. [Here’s a link to a Google search for “unitarian universalist heresy” to underscore my point.] At worst, this claim demonstrates an adolescent rebellion against ghosts of authority. At best, it’s an assertion of choice in religion, with faulty etymology that overlooks the possibility of bad and harmful choices. Somewhere in between, proud heretics radiate the message “doesn’t play well with others” and “is impressed with own self.” Little wonder we’re the butt of jokes: we don’t even know when we’re insulted, or insult ourselves.

And you can see, off to one side, the more shark-like of opponents nodding in agreement. Unitarian Universalism is a heresy, and surely a damnable one, and their own opinions are — of course — true and edifying. That’s some deflective cover for their own shortcomings.

I don’t think it’s too controversial — though I’ve been wrong before — to say that people do make choices, so far as they are capable, and intend to choose the right. Praising heresy isn’t about valuing good choices, but devaluing the possibility of making the right choice, sticking to it and building from it. And I think that’s why so many people who enter Unitarian Universalism by the front door leave by the back. If one choice is as good as another, there’s a better chance the right answer is out there. Because if one choice is as good as another, then Unitarian Universalists — collectively — won’t work to cultivate it among ourselves. And if a spirit of heresy is true, why is there such little high-level discussion about theology, or indeed any serious disagreements?

Harsh words, perhaps, but look around our general fellowship. What do we have to show for ourselves? Are you satisfied with that?

A nice chat with other member of Universalist National Memorial Church after services today, over coffee. As sometimes happens, the matter of books came up, which merged with another comment about Hosea Ballou, and from there to books about Universalism.

I recommended two smallish, straight-forward books and a documentary history, if with reservations. Both are institutional histories, and both are irenic towards Unitarianism, positing Universalism as a close relation rather than a religious tradition on its own terms. Fine as denominational works, but also a bit unsatisfying for informing a faith, particularly a Christian faith. Of course, theological universalism is hot now — in evangelical circles, and so many of the faith-forward works are better for evangelicals. And the academic works are good for academics.

There’s room for a primer. In the mean time, here are those three books.

• The Larger Faith by Charles A. Howe
• American Universalism by George Huntston Williams
• Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith, ed. by Ernest Cassara

All three are from Skinner House, but only the first two are available at the UUA Bookstore.

A nice chat with other member of Universalist National Memorial Church after services today, over coffee. As sometimes happens, the matter of books came up, which merged with another comment about Hosea Ballou, and from there to books about Universalism.

I recommended two smallish, straight-forward books and a documentary history, if with reservations. Both are institutional histories, and both are irenic towards Unitarianism, positing Universalism as a close relation rather than a religious tradition on its own terms. Fine as denominational works, but also a bit unsatisfying for informing a faith, particularly a Christian faith. Of course, theological universalism is hot now — in evangelical circles, and so many of the faith-forward works are better for evangelicals. And the academic works are good for academics.

There’s room for a primer. In the mean time, here are those three books.

• The Larger Faith by Charles A. Howe
• American Universalism by George Huntston Williams
• Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith, ed. by Ernest Cassara

All three are from Skinner House, but only the first two are available at the UUA Bookstore.

I was happy to find this archive, created and hosted by the
Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, of Unitarianism and Universalism in Atlanta, plus the congregation’s own archives.

I’d love others to do likewise

UU Digital Archive

I was happy to find this archive, created and hosted by the
Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, of Unitarianism and Universalism in Atlanta, plus the congregation’s own archives.

I’d love others to do likewise

UU Digital Archive

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, but I’ve not been inactive. And since I have the day off today, I thought I’d catch you up. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be putting up two chapters from the 1946 Parish Practice in Universalist Churches as text; I’ve previously posted it as a scanned PDF.

I want to discuss my workflow. I can do the odd report, but I’d like to see more Universalist and other documents transcribed, and to have typographic errors discovered and corrected. I shouldn’t be the bottleneck.

In the past — going back twenty years or so — I would photocopy a book, carefully crop it into a single column, rephotocopy these onto letter size and take them to a central computer center where they would be processed by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). I’d get a file back, and then edit it.  Later, I would use a flatbed scanner at home and OCR software at home, but some documents required the images being edited to one column. These processes were very time consuming. Sometimes, transcribing by keyboard was more efficient!

Image capture and OCR software have improved markedly. Today, instead of scanning, I take a picture with my phone, and use a graphical front-end to powerful OCR software to process the text. It’s not always clean — a second snap and process is sometimes necessary — but the improvement over twenty years ago is striking.

In particular, on my Ubuntu Linux (14.04 LTR) machine, I use YAGF — “Yet Another Graphical Front-end for cuneiform and tesseract OCR engines” with the tesseract engine.

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, but I’ve not been inactive. And since I have the day off today, I thought I’d catch you up. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be putting up two chapters from the 1946 Parish Practice in Universalist Churches as text; I’ve previously posted it as a scanned PDF.

I want to discuss my workflow. I can do the odd report, but I’d like to see more Universalist and other documents transcribed, and to have typographic errors discovered and corrected. I shouldn’t be the bottleneck.

In the past — going back twenty years or so — I would photocopy a book, carefully crop it into a single column, rephotocopy these onto letter size and take them to a central computer center where they would be processed by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). I’d get a file back, and then edit it.  Later, I would use a flatbed scanner at home and OCR software at home, but some documents required the images being edited to one column. These processes were very time consuming. Sometimes, transcribing by keyboard was more efficient!

Image capture and OCR software have improved markedly. Today, instead of scanning, I take a picture with my phone, and use a graphical front-end to powerful OCR software to process the text. It’s not always clean — a second snap and process is sometimes necessary — but the improvement over twenty years ago is striking.

In particular, on my Ubuntu Linux (14.04 LTR) machine, I use YAGF — “Yet Another Graphical Front-end for cuneiform and tesseract OCR engines” with the tesseract engine.

Since I earlier opined that some of our conflicted Unitarian Universalist polity is the product of Universalist and Unitarian inheritances, I thought it best to “show my work” — or rather, some original documents.

1951 Universalist Laws of Fellowship, Government and Discipline

Some carryovers are obvious, and some fixes necessary. I recall a senior minister telling me of how a General Convention in the 1950s ground to a halt, as it was the final court of review. Can you imagine a General Assembly stopping in its tracks over a MFC matter? Well, I can, but I wouldn’t want to… But I also think there are protections lost from over-correction. What other continuations do you see? Things you’d like to see come back?

I’m also reorganizing and cleaning up the my documents site — UniversalistChurch.net — a bit, and will add more documents as time allows.

One day later: I’ve edited and put up the set from 1946. http://universalistchristian.net/…/1946-universalist…/

Noteworthy changes 1946 to 1951: higher standards for parishes and the education of ministers; easier to deactivate or sidestep under/dysfunctional state conventions. Note sure it’s germaine, but the 1946 set was job printed and bound, and the 1951 set was mimeographed and stapled. But the laws would go through three more revisions, until 1958, which should be seen less as Universalist than as pre-UUA.

Since I earlier opined that some of our conflicted Unitarian Universalist polity is the product of Universalist and Unitarian inheritances, I thought it best to “show my work” — or rather, some original documents.

1951 Universalist Laws of Fellowship, Government and Discipline

Some carryovers are obvious, and some fixes necessary. I recall a senior minister telling me of how a General Convention in the 1950s ground to a halt, as it was the final court of review. Can you imagine a General Assembly stopping in its tracks over a MFC matter? Well, I can, but I wouldn’t want to… But I also think there are protections lost from over-correction. What other continuations do you see? Things you’d like to see come back?

I’m also reorganizing and cleaning up the my documents site — UniversalistChurch.net — a bit, and will add more documents as time allows.

One day later: I’ve edited and put up the set from 1946. http://universalistchristian.net/…/1946-universalist…/

Noteworthy changes 1946 to 1951: higher standards for parishes and the education of ministers; easier to deactivate or sidestep under/dysfunctional state conventions. Note sure it’s germaine, but the 1946 set was job printed and bound, and the 1951 set was mimeographed and stapled. But the laws would go through three more revisions, until 1958, which should be seen less as Universalist than as pre-UUA.

A couple of weeks ago, I was batting back and forth with an informed Unitarian Universalist friend about our polity, when at one point he zeroed in at the settled clergy vote at General Assembly, at which point I had to stand up for the Universalist contribution to our polity.

This is my side of the discussion, which I admit was a bit of a monologue at that point. I don’t have his permission to share his side, but if commenters want to continue the conversation, I would consider it an honor.

I was wondering what the future holds…

With the one-way push to regions, will there be an opening for devolution of connection authority? — congregational membership, mission planning, ministerial fellowship [at the regional level] — now that there aren’t 19-22 districts.

[After all,] There’s a lot more embedded Universalism in our system than we sometimes credit.

[And then the push about General Assembly votes.]

It’s about fellowship, not credentials per se. Makes more sense in the Universalist sense if the other piece was still in place.

That is, the fellowship of the parishes.

That’s because, from a Universalist frame, the UUA acts (imperfectly) as a national church, something the Unitarians would never have.

[My friend opined that this result is sub-optimal.]

[Today’s system is]neither-nor.

The names tell you all. The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America.

And why scant resources went to build a Universalist National Memorial Church, but the Unitarians never did.

To finish my thought, the churches were (supposed) to have a parallel relationship to their conventions that the ministers did, supervised by the same committee.

And both ministers and lay persons served on them. Not that I’m all rah-rah retro Universalist.

The half-time service requirement for fellowship renewals — a thorn in my side — is a re-write of a pre-consolidation Universalist rule.

A couple of weeks ago, I was batting back and forth with an informed Unitarian Universalist friend about our polity, when at one point he zeroed in at the settled clergy vote at General Assembly, at which point I had to stand up for the Universalist contribution to our polity.

This is my side of the discussion, which I admit was a bit of a monologue at that point. I don’t have his permission to share his side, but if commenters want to continue the conversation, I would consider it an honor.

I was wondering what the future holds…

With the one-way push to regions, will there be an opening for devolution of connection authority? — congregational membership, mission planning, ministerial fellowship [at the regional level] — now that there aren’t 19-22 districts.

[After all,] There’s a lot more embedded Universalism in our system than we sometimes credit.

[And then the push about General Assembly votes.]

It’s about fellowship, not credentials per se. Makes more sense in the Universalist sense if the other piece was still in place.

That is, the fellowship of the parishes.

That’s because, from a Universalist frame, the UUA acts (imperfectly) as a national church, something the Unitarians would never have.

[My friend opined that this result is sub-optimal.]

[Today’s system is]neither-nor.

The names tell you all. The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America.

And why scant resources went to build a Universalist National Memorial Church, but the Unitarians never did.

To finish my thought, the churches were (supposed) to have a parallel relationship to their conventions that the ministers did, supervised by the same committee.

And both ministers and lay persons served on them. Not that I’m all rah-rah retro Universalist.

The half-time service requirement for fellowship renewals — a thorn in my side — is a re-write of a pre-consolidation Universalist rule.

The Dutch Remonstrants — a liberal Protestant church that have often worked with Unitarians — have new website, with the hallmarks of the very familiar Bootstrap framework.

How new? Not sure, but it’s an improvement over their last one.

The Dutch Remonstrants — a liberal Protestant church that have often worked with Unitarians — have new website, with the hallmarks of the very familiar Bootstrap framework.

How new? Not sure, but it’s an improvement over their last one.

I stumbled across the webpage of the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly, which talks about — in broad terms — next year’s convention.

It’s in Columbus, Ohio.

It’ll certainly be less expensive for more people than last year’s (Portland, Oregon) and possibly than 2017 GA in New Orleans, as Columbus is a lower cost city for hotels and nearer the population centroid for Unitarian Universalists, which is in Illinois.

I hope to be there. So what great plans can we make with the opportunity?

I stumbled across the webpage of the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly, which talks about — in broad terms — next year’s convention.

It’s in Columbus, Ohio.

It’ll certainly be less expensive for more people than last year’s (Portland, Oregon) and possibly than 2017 GA in New Orleans, as Columbus is a lower cost city for hotels and nearer the population centroid for Unitarian Universalists, which is in Illinois.

I hope to be there. So what great plans can we make with the opportunity?

It’s been a hard day, and seeking solace, turned to prayer. I pulled this book off my shelf because the title — Light and Peace — spoke to me. It’s a collection of prayers by Charles Hall Leonard, published by the Murray Press, a Universalist publisher, in 1915.

Leonard (1822-1918) was an outsized figure in Universalist history, was a professor and later dean of the theological school at Tufts, and remembered today I’d guess for creating Children’s Sunday, though readers of this blog may be more interested to know that he was the unacknowledged author of A Book of Prayer for the Church and the Home, or what I call usually “the Universalist prayerbook.”

Prayers for deceased ministers have a special place in my heart, and particularly  as Terry Burke, the long-time and much-loved minister of First Parish in Jamaica Plain was laid to rest today, and with whom some day we shall each share glory.

A Fruitful Life

O God, our heavenly Father: To whom can we go, but to Thee, who art our strength in weakness, our light in darkness, and our comfort in sorrow? To-day, we know not how to speak to each other, nor how to interpret to ourselves. We turn to Thee, and, first of all, beseech Thee to awaken within us the memory of all that has been precious in the life of our great friend and leader: his wise devotion to the college into which he built his life; his intelligent administration of its affairs in a manifold range of usefulness bearing upon its progress and growing facilities, and in that loving care and interest which reached the endeavor and the struggle of the humblest student. Help us to recall the calmness of his thought, his unselfish regard for others, his generous approval of all that is right and good, and his Christ-like pity and forgiveness toward all the weak and sinful. We remember the words, spoken in private and in public, which move us to-day with new power, because of this mystic silence.

We desire also to remember all that he was and is, and will be to us, as a part of permanent influence in all the relations which distinguished his life: in the privacy of his home, in the maintenance of a loyal service to the church, in all his efforts as an educator, and in the ampler calls of citizenship.

Help us, O God, in our sense of gratitude for all that this full life has been to us now that we read it anew, know anew its noble witness to learning, to charity, to religion, and get its larger message as from open skies.

And now, what wait we for but for grace and power, both for mind and heart; new motive in view of a great example; new ability to take up the tasks which a great leader has laid down; and new light, also, for comfort to those whose sorrow to-day is deepest, that there may be to them one fixed and tranquil object of thought and affection; and help us all to see that it is no fractional life that we are called to contemplate, but a life, forecast and fashioned in accomplishment, opening more and more into its own power and beauty, and, at the last, opening forth towards the realities of a world from which all veils were taken away. O God, most merciful and gracious, open our eyes to that grateful vision, that so we may be enabled to go on, to bear up, and to find our highest joy and peace in the field of duty to which now Thou dost send us back, and in the entrusted daily care to which Thou hast appointed us. Grant that, from the trembling moments of our human life, and from the mourner’s watch, we may go forth with uplifted heart, and a diviner purpose, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

It’s been a hard day, and seeking solace, turned to prayer. I pulled this book off my shelf because the title — Light and Peace — spoke to me. It’s a collection of prayers by Charles Hall Leonard, published by the Murray Press, a Universalist publisher, in 1915.

Leonard (1822-1918) was an outsized figure in Universalist history, was a professor and later dean of the theological school at Tufts, and remembered today I’d guess for creating Children’s Sunday, though readers of this blog may be more interested to know that he was the unacknowledged author of A Book of Prayer for the Church and the Home, or what I call usually “the Universalist prayerbook.”

Prayers for deceased ministers have a special place in my heart, and particularly  as Terry Burke, the long-time and much-loved minister of First Parish in Jamaica Plain was laid to rest today, and with whom some day we shall each share glory.

A Fruitful Life

O God, our heavenly Father: To whom can we go, but to Thee, who art our strength in weakness, our light in darkness, and our comfort in sorrow? To-day, we know not how to speak to each other, nor how to interpret to ourselves. We turn to Thee, and, first of all, beseech Thee to awaken within us the memory of all that has been precious in the life of our great friend and leader: his wise devotion to the college into which he built his life; his intelligent administration of its affairs in a manifold range of usefulness bearing upon its progress and growing facilities, and in that loving care and interest which reached the endeavor and the struggle of the humblest student. Help us to recall the calmness of his thought, his unselfish regard for others, his generous approval of all that is right and good, and his Christ-like pity and forgiveness toward all the weak and sinful. We remember the words, spoken in private and in public, which move us to-day with new power, because of this mystic silence.

We desire also to remember all that he was and is, and will be to us, as a part of permanent influence in all the relations which distinguished his life: in the privacy of his home, in the maintenance of a loyal service to the church, in all his efforts as an educator, and in the ampler calls of citizenship.

Help us, O God, in our sense of gratitude for all that this full life has been to us now that we read it anew, know anew its noble witness to learning, to charity, to religion, and get its larger message as from open skies.

And now, what wait we for but for grace and power, both for mind and heart; new motive in view of a great example; new ability to take up the tasks which a great leader has laid down; and new light, also, for comfort to those whose sorrow to-day is deepest, that there may be to them one fixed and tranquil object of thought and affection; and help us all to see that it is no fractional life that we are called to contemplate, but a life, forecast and fashioned in accomplishment, opening more and more into its own power and beauty, and, at the last, opening forth towards the realities of a world from which all veils were taken away. O God, most merciful and gracious, open our eyes to that grateful vision, that so we may be enabled to go on, to bear up, and to find our highest joy and peace in the field of duty to which now Thou dost send us back, and in the entrusted daily care to which Thou hast appointed us. Grant that, from the trembling moments of our human life, and from the mourner’s watch, we may go forth with uplifted heart, and a diviner purpose, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

After much trial and error, I have come up with this method of printing a service or sermon text to be put in a small binder for use in worsip, using free and open source software. And I thought it was worth sharing with you.

First you will need to download the LibreOffice office suite; a version 5.0 has just been released but I use 4.2.8.2, so I’m just hoping there’s not much of an apparent difference.

Also, ideally the Linux Libertine Graphite type face. (That typeface is free to use and share, and has features  that I will describe later.)

You will also need a half sized binder (like this one) and page protectors.

The trick is composing half-sized pages and then letting the office suite compose those pages on to full size pieces of paper.

Here’s a sample of the service typed out.

When you go to print, click the Properties box on the General tab, and then set the paper to print Landscape. This is what it looks like with my printer.

Here’s the trick: check “Use only paper size from paper preferences.”

Then change the layout to print two pages side by side. Extra points to those who can figure out how to print a booklet or brochure, in which case a saddle stapler is a help.

Then print, fold, slip into the protectors and then into the binder.

Download the file I used in this lesson here, or click here for a Google Doc that does essentially the same thing (with the Gentium font) for you to copy and modify as you will.

I would appreciate feedback if you use either source.

After much trial and error, I have come up with this method of printing a service or sermon text to be put in a small binder for use in worsip, using free and open source software. And I thought it was worth sharing with you.

First you will need to download the LibreOffice office suite; a version 5.0 has just been released but I use 4.2.8.2, so I’m just hoping there’s not much of an apparent difference.

Also, ideally the Linux Libertine Graphite type face. (That typeface is free to use and share, and has features  that I will describe later.)

You will also need a half sized binder (like this one) and page protectors.

The trick is composing half-sized pages and then letting the office suite compose those pages on to full size pieces of paper.

Here’s a sample of the service typed out.

When you go to print, click the Properties box on the General tab, and then set the paper to print Landscape. This is what it looks like with my printer.

Here’s the trick: check “Use only paper size from paper preferences.”

Then change the layout to print two pages side by side. Extra points to those who can figure out how to print a booklet or brochure, in which case a saddle stapler is a help.

Then print, fold, slip into the protectors and then into the binder.

Download the file I used in this lesson here, or click here for a Google Doc that does essentially the same thing (with the Gentium font) for you to copy and modify as you will.

I would appreciate feedback if you use either source.

File this under “not working on tomorrow’s sermon.”

So, when was that midcentury Universalist pamphlet published. It’s helpful to know when a clear pivot away from Christianity was made from a central authority, in this case, the “Department of Public Relations, U.C.A.”

It’s clearly post-World War Two, and presumably before the 1959 convention that ratified consolidation with the Unitarians. Any more internal evidence?

• The reference to the “four year advance.” Possibly after 1956. Can’t find dates online with associated files at the archives.
• The quotation from Harry Overstreet citing The Mature Mind.
  The book was first published in 1949.
• The Universalist Circle program, a parallel to the Unitarian fellowship movement, that lasted through to consolidation.
• The 16 Beacon Street address. Offices there from 1933, per Miller, The Larger Hope, 2: 630.
• Possibly the quotation from the Brainard Gibbons, who championed this approach. Probably from his 1949 Convention sermon, or related to it. The Larger Hope, 2: 634; Spoerl, in Universalist Heritage, 4.

But the most evidence isn’t of date, but of kind. Long-time readers of this blog know I’m not fond of this kind of Universalism. (I think it’s naive; it also cultivates self-centeredness and — perversely — sectarianism.)

But I’m not unsympathic to why they wanted a religion that they though would be expansive and more optimistic. The fires of war had just died down, and a thermonuclear fire might have destroyed everything. It was a time of growth and unexpected prosperity. Why wouldn’t they respond to the times?

File this under “not working on tomorrow’s sermon.”

So, when was that midcentury Universalist pamphlet published. It’s helpful to know when a clear pivot away from Christianity was made from a central authority, in this case, the “Department of Public Relations, U.C.A.”

It’s clearly post-World War Two, and presumably before the 1959 convention that ratified consolidation with the Unitarians. Any more internal evidence?

• The reference to the “four year advance.” Possibly after 1956. Can’t find dates online with associated files at the archives.
• The quotation from Harry Overstreet citing The Mature Mind.
  The book was first published in 1949.
• The Universalist Circle program, a parallel to the Unitarian fellowship movement, that lasted through to consolidation.
• The 16 Beacon Street address. Offices there from 1933, per Miller, The Larger Hope, 2: 630.
• Possibly the quotation from the Brainard Gibbons, who championed this approach. Probably from his 1949 Convention sermon, or related to it. The Larger Hope, 2: 634; Spoerl, in Universalist Heritage, 4.

But the most evidence isn’t of date, but of kind. Long-time readers of this blog know I’m not fond of this kind of Universalism. (I think it’s naive; it also cultivates self-centeredness and — perversely — sectarianism.)

But I’m not unsympathic to why they wanted a religion that they though would be expansive and more optimistic. The fires of war had just died down, and a thermonuclear fire might have destroyed everything. It was a time of growth and unexpected prosperity. Why wouldn’t they respond to the times?

This is a follow up to my blog post about a mid-century Universalist Church logo. I’m guessing it’s from the 1950s, but I don’t have any details about it. Got it years ago, and realized that it would be unfamiliar to many of my readers.

This is a follow up to my blog post about a mid-century Universalist Church logo. I’m guessing it’s from the 1950s, but I don’t have any details about it. Got it years ago, and realized that it would be unfamiliar to many of my readers.

I wouldn’t make a habit of it.

Picked up, with other Japanese groceries, at Hana, after services at Universalist National Memorial Church.

I wouldn’t make a habit of it.

Picked up, with other Japanese groceries, at Hana, after services at Universalist National Memorial Church.

When minister and friend Derek Parker mentioned that he was in a study group, and that they were reading a book about people who were once devoted church members but have left the church without giving up what they believed … well, that piqued my interest. And it’s a sociological study, not just an opinion piece.

I even ordered a copy. And you can also download a sample chapter at the link.

Church Refugees, by Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope. (Group, 2015)

But I read slowly, so you’ll have a change to catch up.

When minister and friend Derek Parker mentioned that he was in a study group, and that they were reading a book about people who were once devoted church members but have left the church without giving up what they believed … well, that piqued my interest. And it’s a sociological study, not just an opinion piece.

I even ordered a copy. And you can also download a sample chapter at the link.

Church Refugees, by Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope. (Group, 2015)

But I read slowly, so you’ll have a change to catch up.

So, I’ve heard through the grapevine that ministerial candidates are being charged $250 to see the Ministerial Fellowship Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Said grapevine is not happy about that.

I would love some commentary about that, but first I would like confirmation and (better still) a statement of reasoning. Or perhaps this is old news — I met the MFC a very long time ago — but if the story’s making the rounds, then it’s worth discussing it plainly and in the open.

Does anyone know?

The World Congress of Esperanto (Universala Kongreso, or UK) started its meeting this evening in Lille, France.

I’m not there; perhaps next year in Slovakia. But to mark the occasion, I looked up the official World Esperanto Association (Universala Esperanto-Asocio, or UEA) and found this page, incongruously written in English, and thus the title of this blog post. It’s meant to explain the UK to “partners” presumably to include local government and tourism authorities, who are more likely to read English than Esperanto.

Now, I’ve found Esperantists to be thrifty in their arrangements, and this passage sums up the reasoning in a dignifed way:

As a non-profit NGO, UEA is a very budget-conscious organization and so is the Congress of the Association. This congress has many special charms, but sober treatment of the financial matter is required. The delegates pay expenses from their own funds and usually are price conscious. Many of the delegates come from developing countries, and there are significant proportions of retired people and students among the participants. This is a people’s congress for ordinary people, not an elaborate meeting of executives financed by corporate funds.

I think you could say much the same about General Assemblies. Ours, and from the #CampbellCon plaints, others, too. Just because you’re clergy doesn’t mean that our basic meetings are affordable, or paid from expense accounts.

In case you wonder about the costs of going to the UK, see this registration cost page. Early registration for a typical member from a rich country is 180 euros; a member with a disability from a poor country would pay 60 euros; and a person under 21 would pay nothing. For some hotel options, see the Dua Bulteno (Second Bulletin; the First is the invitation with registration info) with lodging info, from page 9, including student accomodation, much like the Unitarian Universalist use of college dorms. Or here. I also like the meal ticket (see page 12), for example six dinners — two courses, cheese, dessert and tap water for 54 euros, but this may be an opportunity of meeting in a French college town. (Another Esperantist custom — the amasloĝejo; “mass-dwelling” — is often only BYO sleeping bag crash space; a hard sell for most people. But the Lille local committee did try to find a place, without success. I did have an attendee crash on my apartment floor the one year I lived in a GA town.)

You may also note excursions (from page 13) and a banquet that show that some Esperantists have the means and will to spend more.

And you may also note that the flight from North America would double all of these costs. But there’s something to learn here if we try.

I was talking to a friend tonight about management — church management in particular — and once again turned back to a favorite resource, the Management Center.

I can recommend their courses, but if you live too far from where they offer them (or it filled up) then be sure to get the companion book,

Managing to Change the World: The Nonprofit Manager’s Guide to Getting Results, a snip at less than $20. And their on-line resources have a lot to teach.

Just a brief post to point out a great help

This is less blog post and more notepad, to record on-the-ground observations from attendees of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly. They’re meeting in Columbus, Ohio now, and the Unitarian Universalist Association will meet there next June.

1. Convention Center seating leaves something to be desired.

Still recovering from the no-recline chairs… #CampbellCon #DisciplesSore

— Rob Bernard (@RobBernard) July 19, 2015

Comfort is choosing the floor over the chairs in this convention center. #CampbellCon

— Debra Todd (@debjoy21) July 19, 2015

The size of the chairs < the average Disciples of Christ posterior. #CampbellCon

— Justin Floyd (@gofrogs2010) July 19, 2015

In the spirit of ecumenism, I suspect the same will be true of Unitarian Universalists.

2. And the AC is too cold

I bought a sweatshirt at the Disciples Peace Fellowship booth, which I'm wearing IN JULY. #CampbellCon https://t.co/ibc4HsGcju

— Wende (@YesWende) July 20, 2015

@DoCBatman I think Mr Freeze is here in this hall with us. #CampbellCon

— Ryan Collins (@RPatrickCollins) July 20, 2015

Who decided to make it Hoth in here? #CampbellCon

— Disciples Vader (@DisciplesVader) July 20, 2015

Jealous of everyone who has blankets in the plenary hall #campbellcon

— Sarah Kingsbery (@skingsbery) July 20, 2015

3. Yes, there are watering holes. Some less obvious.

@JennieStoddart1 @GADrinkers North High Brewing is great too if you’re willing to hike a little farther north on High St.

— Dave Bernard (@dbernard82) July 18, 2015

Taking names:

• Bernards
• Pint House
• House Beer
• North High Brewing

Good southern style food @Double_Comfort across from the Convention Center #GA2015 #campbellcon

— J Kale (@je_kale) July 19, 2015

Did you know that Columbus has the most melted cheese-themed restaurants in the U.S.? #DisciplesSoar #ColumbusFacts

— Bluetooth Todd (@BluetoothTodd) July 19, 2015

(@BluetoothTodd is a parody account, so some cheese humor may be in play.)

• Double Comfort

As some of you know, I trained for the ministry and received the degree of Master of Divinity at Brite Divinity School, a theological seminary of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly began today in Columbus, Ohio under the theme “Soar!” I noticed a bunch of my classmates flying cross country, and then I noticed they were going to the city the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly will be next year: Columbus, Ohio.

And so the Twitter hashtag for the CC(DOC) GA is #DisciplesSoar.

But what keeps my attention is a playful and cheerful parallel hashtag. If #DisciplesSoar is for the serious business, the #CampbellCon is for the fun stuff, for the relationship building and a knowing recognition that our awkward, wonky church conventions bear more that a passing resemblance to comics and sci-fi fandom.  (The hashtag is a reference to Alexander Campbell, a wild-haired founder. It would be as if we had a hashtag #BallouBoatHome. But I’m sure we could do better that that.)

I mean, I wish we could be so playful. There are a few of us, but we’re on the magins.  If we Unitarian Universalists, who suffer from debilitating earnestness, could put up with Twitter accounts like

• @DisciplesLeslie (Knope) — a pop-culture reference not about NPR
• @BobHeadSharon — their president, in bobble-head form
• @ZombieACampbell — a founder again, now eating brains

Dedicated to Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Mozart – “Leck mich im Arsch” #CampbellCon http://t.co/3pzGcrY3nR

— Zombie A. Campbell (@ZombieACampbell) July 19, 2015

We have @UUHulk, but rely rather too much on it. (Him?)

So put a pin in it: we could have more fun at General Assembly. It might even make the hard parts more bearable.

And best wishes to the Disciples in convention.

So, it’s the eleven o’clock hour, and I’m at home. Late rising, some work around the house and — dang! after ten o’clock and unshowered, so I decided to stay home from church. And I wanted to go and intended to go. I feel bad because, for a number of reasons including travel, I’ve not been able to attend worship for the last few weeks. But I also don’t want to rush, and I have more work around the house I’d have to put off until two o’clock or so.

Not Attending Worship is high on the classic Bad Church Member list, so perhaps that’s what I’m feeling. But rather than ignoring the feeling, I’d rather own up to the feeling as a (probably) misplaced expectation.

Church life requires a measure of discipine, but using old rules and expectations will stifle those who haven’t committed to the discipline of “just knowing how to behave” in church, including attending, volunteering, giving and all the rest.

I’m thinking through “what is” and “what must be.” And how I’ll make it to church next Sunday.

Still not quite ready to resume blogging, so combing through my “I should post this” pile.

This is the Universalist denominational logo, undated here, but probably from the 1950s. Not used for many years, but I’ve seen it on signs, pamphlets and here on letterhead — always this shade of blue, too.

I rely on two indicators for weather: my sinuses and Forecast.io.

When I’m already congested, a strong weather front will give me a blinding headache. (Like today.) But that’s not helpful for you, or Daisy, our bichon frise, who hates having a potty walk in the rain.

I recommend Forecast.io for amazingly accurate hyper-local, minute-by-minute weather forecasts, which sometimes (alas, not quite, today) gives the dog enough time outside to do what she must.

I’ve only written one blog post since before General Assembly, and is was of a “what do you think” format. It’s been for a number of reasons:

1. There’s been lots of work at work, and sometimes writing this blog seems like added work.
2. This is my family’s season for birthday and anniversary celebrations, plus a family wedding this year. That’s more fun that blogging.
3. I’ve spent the last month “conquering” (their term) the Duolingo Esperanto course. Mi skribas kaj legas Esperante pli bona ol unu monato antaŭ, and the gamified process was quite fun and rewarding. I even got a certificate.
4. I didn’t have much to add to the discussion of the vital issues of the day, except that, at some points, I thought that writers were lost in delusional or self-serving arguments. And I decided to keep my own counsel.
5. Oh, and I think that Unitarian Universalism has a grim future — as bad or worse as the mainline — and that forward progress is likely to look like a salvage and reconstruction exercise.

So it’s a bit hard to get back into blogging.

Even though I didn’t go to General Assembly this year — there was a very nice family wedding the same time — I tried to keep up with the news as best I can.

And saying that, I’m glad I didn’t go. There seemed to be a lot of feeling there — and camaraderie — but (as I’ve suggested elsewhere) I can meet my friends elsewhere (online included) and the amount of forward motion the UUA generates doesn’t seem to justify the effort of GA. (Indeed, a lot of the work of the UUA seems to be solving problems of our own creation.) That and there seemed to be a good bit of grievance cultivating there. Enough.

But if you were there, perhaps you have other experiences. Better ones, worse ones. And perhaps you have a special way of actually participating in General Assembly. (I think the attend-every-possible-session approach is certain death.)

Feel free to share your thoughts.

And as of now, I do plan on attending the General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio next year.

I just got a pseudonymous email, informing me of the publication of a new edition of the satirical magazine, The Beacon. A magazine that proves that just because something’s not factual doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Here’s the link. (PDF)

The grief and horror Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church must now be facing is hard to get my head around, but the killings are not themselves inconceivable.

Brother Roger, Oscar Romero, and the “troublesome priest” Thomas Becket were each murdered in worship. When I was in seminary (and just after) there was a spate of church killings. And we can’t forget the shootings at a Unitarian Universalist church in Tennessee, with one fatality two fatalities. Each one was a bit different, all devastating. I remembered not feeling personally safe when alone at church in my last pastorate. But Emanuel lost four ministers, including the senior pastor…

Churches are supposed to be welcoming and outward-facing, but that feeling makes them vulnerable, sometimes to malicious people, sometimes to predators, sometimes to the violent and murderous. It’s a tough balance between mission and safety. For nine people to die… I’ll just have to leave it there for the moment.

What then can we do? First, this is assumes there can do. I’m avoiding online commentaries that suggests that these murders can be addressed by study, or progressive action or better ideas. And I’m double-avoiding any notion that adds a burden to that church, Charleston or the increasingly beleaguered African American community. If you can’t help, take a pass. Words are nice, but contact is better and (since a casserole is impractical) a gift of money is better still. It adds heft to those nice ideas. Lots of gifts big and small reminds us — us Southerners particularly — of the outpouring of gifts to The Temple in Atlanta when it was bombed. (That was a plot point in the film Driving Miss Daisy, in case it sounds familiar.) Gifts of money will cover costs the church will have. Maybe help the survivors. But that’s for the church to decide; I have faith in them.

I got a little, unexpected windfall today. I thought it right to tithe it to Emanuel AME. You can give at their church website; it’s easy to do so.

If you don’t have the money to spare, that’s fine, too. But if all you have are ideas that make things harder, just keep them to yourself.

Just a check in. And a roll call.

So, who’s going to General Assembly in Portland, Ore.? Who’s following from home? I’ll not be there in person, and I’m not sure how much I can watch: I may need to rely on bloggers and twitterers using #uuaga.

And a request for those who will be on-site: more photos. On Flickr, posted to Twitter or what-have-you. It helps those who can’t be there get a better sense of General Assembly.

There has been some buzz, both associated with the #sustainministry theme and the fear of shortages in the ministry, that there should be some intermediate ministerial status. To which I noted to those within earshot that the Universalists once licensed ministers, and that we could consider doing so again.

There were licensed ministers — holdovers from before consolidation — within my time as a Unitarian Universalist. They even had their own section in the UUA directory, but year by year their numbers declined by death.

In time they were all gone; I don’t know who was the last. The right the UUA reserved (or at least claimed) to recognize such licensed ministers seem equally a dead letter, so it was cleaned out of the bylaws at a General Assembly.

When? More recently than you might think. The year 2000.

I was present at that GA and was both sad at the moment passing and thought that without a prior claim, any church was free to so license ministers. And I still feel this way.

Here’s how the bylaws read, just before the provision was removed, for those who want the details.

effective June 28, 1999
[…]
Section 11.4b
[…]
The Ministerial Fellowship Committee may also with the approval of the Board of Trustees make rules pertaining to the status of, and recognition by the Association of, lay preachers and the granting of licenses to them.

A year later, that was gone. The bylaws effective July 1, 2000.

So, I was reading through the Unitarian Universalist Association Board packet for the June meeting — as one does — and see that All Souls Miami is (alone) scheduled to be voted upon for admission to the UUA.

I’ve never never seen an application go this far and not be accepted, so I’ll offer my confident (if premature) congratulations. I welcome all new members to the UUA of course, but All Souls Miami is special to me because it’s Christian: the first Christian church admitted since Epiphany Church, Fenton, Michigan, joined many years ago and has since disbanded.

So, again, congratulations to All Souls Miami. You can read their application packet here. (PDF)

Also thanks to the formerly emerging Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Austin, Texas, which has dissolved, as reported in the packet.

Before the #sustainmininstry thread fades (presumably to revive at General Assembly) I wanted to meditate on how our ancestors coped. In my last blog post, I opined that ministerial shortages were practically a tradition. So is coping with meagre funds. This theme cropped up continuously when I worked on my never-finished master’s thesis — golly — about a quarter century ago. But those lessons learned over microfilmed antebellum newspapers made an impression.

1. Have a sideline. Perhaps seasonal. Perhaps not farming.
2. Your sideline? Call it media production. There was a reason why there were so many Universalist newspapers. (Which inspired me to create my first websites.)
3. But don’t expect to get paid. Those minister-editors had a terrible time getting their subscribers to pay.
4. Seminary may not be in reach, but an apprenticeship may be.
5. If you can’t get a minister full time, perhaps you can be in a circuit. Some little societies only saw the minister every few months. But it was consistent. Ish.
6. Be ready to pool your resources to memorialize a dead minister, or to support surviving dependents. But people may still mumble and grumble about the expense…
7. Plant churches to make better use of public transportation. Who can afford a carriage, horsed or horseless?
8. And follow migration patterns. When church members move, start a church where they go.
9. Inactivate churches when there’s no minister, leadership or money. Call them dormant, but don’t lose contact with with a would-be reorganizer: it may be re-started.
10. Use home hospitality at conventions. Well, I guess that one never really went away.

It’s hard for me to get too wound up about the prospect of a perceived ministerial shortage in the parishes, as reported in the UUWorld. (“Demand for interim ministers outruns supply“)

Until a generation or so ago, ministerial shortages were common. Low pay, poor prospects and frequently harrowing conditions meant that ministerial supply has been less than demand, often leading churches to do without a minister, or share one. A broader view of ministry means you can’t limit faithful service to the parish, and the whims of those who dwell therein.

What’s different today is that there are more ministers, but evidently no more who are willing to face the parish. And with so many churches reputed to be “clergy killers” or otherwise dysfunctional, who can blame them? And even if the church is even-keeled, the pay may be far less than what one’s skills would fetch in another field. Is it the minister’s duty to bear the time and cost of preparation, and then effectively subsidize the church through lost income?

Ideally, the burden should be (at least) shared. And since I don’t recall the same measure of concern in that relatively brief period when there was an oversupply of ministers, I have to wonder if the ministerial college isn’t expected to sacrifice too much again. Having a rich pool of ministers for parishes to choose presents huge costs for those preparing for the ministry and a huge financial and professional cost for those who have to necessarily “sit out” this year or that, and take whatever other employment is available.

Good people have left parish ministry, but not the ministry itself. The ecosystem will have to adjust, and congregations seeking ministers will have step up, or adjust.

Judith Sargent Murray, Universalist author and catechist, died this day in 1820. Married to “Father” John Murray, Mother Murray was esteemed among the founders of Universalism, and — with the rediscovery of her letter books in the 1980s  — the subject of study in her own right.

A quick #sustainministry follow-on. Is it little wonder that there’s so much wishful and whistful thinking about having monasteries “somewhere”? It’s easy to picture some small, leafy town. Easier certainly that imagining the same in a leafy stretch of Greenwich Village.

Considering the high cost of living and property — purchased or rental — and the cultural and community alternatives found in the large coastal cities, and the high rates of practical secularism, what kind of future is there for churches?

I once read (not long ago) that once a church or synagogue is demolished in New York it is almost impossible to replace it elsewhere. That is, the peak number of houses of worship has past. I would believe the same is true for the District of Columbia. Perhaps that’s fine. But does it imply that we have as many churches as we will ever have in these same coastal cities. And that’s remembering that much of the denominational growth was in the post-WWII housing boom outside those cities. Even with alternative modes of ministry, it’s not hard to imagine that cities will be a special challenge.

Just getting that off my chest.

I normally write blog posts in the evening for morning publication, but I wanted to sleep another night before writing about the Economics of Ministry Summit, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association, and hosted this week in St. Louis. So far as I know, its only live presence was by Twitter, with the hashtag #sustainministry, so you should revisit those tweets for context.

This isn’t about that meeting’s outcomes, but how I want to approach the enterprise. I’m not going to start by being appreciative, by saying how wonderful the opportunity is and how talented and dedicated the participants. This has been a norm of communication among Unitarian Universalists, often repeated, for several years now and a response to our long-cultivated habit of minute criticism. An over-correction, I think, because it telegraphs an unwholesome cheeriness, softball responses and lowered expectations. That’s hardly respectful, or useful. It’s as if adults can’t be trusted with the truth. So I won’t question the sincerity, intelligence or diligence of the parties of this or any similar conference, but you can have all of these and still end poorly.

At root, the would-be leadership of the UUA has a trust problem with the would-be follower-ship. With each passing year, the UUA does less to justify its existence. What are the high marks for the last few years? Board governance? A property shift? These are internal matters, not missional ones. Are we building or redeveloping churches? No. But worse, we still have a model of ministerial formation that treats people like expensive, yet disposable, liabilities. And a raft of churches — and few will speak of this — that chew up and ruin the ministers they get with impunity. As for our external, missional successes, these come in the form of partnerships, formal and informal. Easy enough to ask, “why not affiliate with whomever’s leading?” If there are successes, they’re in local settings and perhaps informal networks. Again, a challenge to a national body. Unitarian Universalist structures have historically been hard to use, with little money offered. Sluggish, a bit haughty. You learn not to ask for much, and expect less.

At the risk of being cheerful, let me hold out some hope. When you look at the summit in tandem with the emerging communities pilot, I do see a willingness to entertain options and lower the opportunity costs of working within the UUA, and that’s good.

No: it’s better than good. It’s essential, because this work will take place somewhere, and without some structural change it will take place elsewhere.

Universalist minister Hosea Ballou died this day in 1852.

(Well, this Universalist saints feature I planned isn’t going as I hoped. Think about Hosea anyway.)

I got an aside from a Well-Respected Minister who liked “that little book video insert piece” in my last blog post. It’s the BookReader of Internet Archive, the source of the book.

I think it’s the best desktop or laptop interface for reading books, and since the Internet Archives has a large number of public-domain Universalist and other works, I will sometimes read books this way, even if I have the actual book. But you can’t just drop other books into it.

Now, here’s how to share the books they do have on your site. First, of course you find one, like this 2003 Massachusetts Conference of the UCC directory.

When you click on the page, not only does it become larger, but you get added controls. I’ve pointed out the “share” link, which looks a bit like a sideways V. Click that.

Now you have links for sharing and embedding. The fault imbed is one page at a time, and the first page. I usually want it to look like a book open to the title page, so I select that, as in this example.

Now you might say, surely that directory isn’t it the public domain? True. Some libraries and collections have contributed their own works with permission. And many of them are religious. (And Boston-based for that matter.)

Wouldn’t it be helpful and useful if the Unitarian Universalist Association could host its old Commission on Appraisal reports, Board minutes, classic guides, and pre-consolidation AUA and UCA directories the same way. Our twentieth-century history is hard to access first hand, unless you’re old enough or well-connected enough — or close enough to Boston — to get paper copies of what you want.

How could we make that happen?

The prospect of job automation is more than a bit scary. Everyone likes a bit of help, provided that bit doesn’t help them out of a job. NPR ran a feature (“Will Your Job Be Done by a Machine?,” May 21)

While some professions will almost certainly be automated to some degree, there’s only a 0.8% chance that the clergy will be automated.

This made me think of a particularly odd episode in Universalist history where it wasn’t the clergy that was to be automated, but the works of divinity.

To be fair, John Murray Spear had left the Universalist ministry in 1852 for Spiritualism, which was intensely popular (and controversial) among Universalists.

In Lynn, Massachusetts, he gathered a group of followers to “[create] the ‘New Motive Power’, a mechanical Messiah which was intended to herald a new era of Utopia.” [citation] Like made of machinery.

It didn’t work. But it is an intensely weird and wonderful episode that deserves a read. (One version of the story.) But in re-reading the story today I discovered that Spear channelled Universalist founder (and namesake) John Murray, and published his revelations in Messages from the superior state: communicated by John Murray.

“Important instruction to the inhabitants of the earth”? That’s something I’ll have to read!

I just published the 1925 “A Joint Statement on Interchurch Relations from the Commissions of the Congregational and Universalist Churches” but didn’t want to clutter that document with thoughts. Indeed, I’ll want to review some of the standard denomination histories to see why the Universalists aren’t a part of the United Church of Christ today. Partnering with the Unitarians wasn’t the foregone conclusion so described today.

Union was in the air, then. Indeed, contemporaneously, the Congregationalists were making overtures to the Christian Church, leading to a merger. Most of the Congregational Christians then merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church (itself merged) to create the United Church of Christ. The Universalists were also talking to the Unitarians; years ago I published a Universalist report from the same commission in 1927. And now I want to see what else they reported out.

Some loose thoughts:

1. I’ve heard it suggested that the relative size of the Congregationalists would have made organic union an absorption, rather than a merger.
2. It makes the later, if minor, Universalist participation with the “continuing” Congregationalists make more sense.
3. There are words the joint statement that echo in the 1935 Universalist Washington Declaration, namely in the second paragraph. “The kingdom for which he lived and died” for instance.

I hope this sparks interest in the history of Universalist polity…

Printed in Christian Union Quarterly (1925), p. 431ff.

A Joint Statement on Interchurch Relations from the Commissions of the Congregational and Universalist Churches

The National Council of Congregational Churches and the Universalist General Convention, at their sessions held in October, 1925, referred to the Congregational Commission on Interchurch Relations and to the Universalist Commission on Christian Comity and Unity certain proposals looking toward closer fellowship. The members of these commissions, after fraternal conference and discussion, join in issuing the following statement:

We believe that the basis of vital Christian unity is a common acceptance of Christianity as primarily a way of life. It is faith in Christ expressed in a supreme purpose to do the will of God as revealed in Him and to co-operate as servants of the Kingdom for which He lived and died. Assent to an official creed is not essential. Within the circle of fellowship created by loyalty to the common Master, there may exist differences of theological opinion. With that primary loyalty affirmed, such differences need not separate; rather, indeed, if the mind of the Master controls, they may enrich the content of faith and experience; and if it does not control, theological agreements will not advance the Christian cause. “Religion to-day does not grow in the soil of creeds.”

The unity of a common loyalty to the Christian way of life is already a fact, to which the high task in which we are now engaged is witness. Not only Congregationalists and Universalists, but multitudes of other forward-looking Christians, share this unity of faith and endeavour. It is not something to be artificially formed, but a growing relationship to be recognized and afforded ways of practical expression. None of us would advocate, as none of us could enter, a fellowship that would compromise loyalty to the truth as any one of us may see it, or would stifle freedom to bear testimony to its worth and power. What appeals to us is the challenge of a great adventure to prove that a common purpose to share the faith of Christ is a power strong enough to break the fetters of custom and timidity and sectarian jealousy that hitherto have put asunder Christian brethren who at heart are one, and who can better serve the Kingdom of God together than apart.

The Protestant churches of America are learning to work together. By so doing they honour their heritage and fulfil their mission. The Congregational and Universalist Churches are branches of the same parent stock. They grew out of the same soil and are bearing the same kind of fruit. The historic reasons for their separation have practically disappeared and new and stronger reasons for union have arisen. In statement of faith, in form of worship, in organization for work, and in standards of life, these two branches of Protestantism differ now in no essential respects. They can accordingly begin at once to co-operate in the heartiest way. If the prayer of our Lord is ever to be fulfilled, the beginning will be made by the mutual approach of denominations between which there is no longer any reason for separation.

In the judgment of the commissions, the time has arrived for the Congregational and Universalist Churches to seek the closest practicable fellowship. Their activities are proceeding already along lines closely parallel. They can do many things together to advantage which they are now doing separately. Each church will be quickened through this free fellowship.

We therefore recommend:

First: That the ministers and representatives of each denomination be invited to sit as corresponding members in the local, state, and national associations of the other denomination and to participate in their deliberations.

Second: That the agencies of each denomination in the realms of religious education, social service, evangelism, rural church development, and similar problems, be urged to arrange for joint programmes for promotion as far as practicable.

Third: That in each community where churches of both denominations are found they be urged to study what they can do together with mutual profit by way of union services, the interchange of pulpits, and the promotion of common enterprises.

Fourth: That there be a mutual interchange of representative speakers at national, state, and local gatherings.

Fifth: That the denominational journals be urged to make the largest practicable interchange of editorials and of printed matter of common interest, in order that each constituency may be kept fully informed regarding the other and of the progress made in the direction of closer fellowship.

Sixth: That, in order to secure more thoroughly co-ordinated movements, no actual steps toward the organization of local Congregational and Universalist churches be made without consulting their respective commissions.

Seventh: Wherever the problem of an adequate church constituency presses for solution, and in any community where denominational divisions work for wastefulness, those responsible are urged to co-operate in organizing for more effective service.

We believe that from these and similar joint undertakings increased effectiveness in common tasks and even more will result. Comradeship in a common faith and loyalty will be its finest and most prophetic grace. That quickened sense of comradeship will fashion its own ecclesiastical instrumentalities. None of us can yet foresee clearly what sort of organized fellowship will arise to give form and coherence to the spiritual unity that Christians of the open mind gladly confess. We are convinced that it will be something larger and more inclusive than anything that now exists. What we do see, with a profound feeling of gratitude and responsibility, is that, in the providence of God, these communions which we represent have been led by their respective historic traditions and spiritual development to a common faith in the Christian way of life as their supreme concern. They would travel it not only as friends but as allies, with a spirit as inclusive as the mind of the Master.

In such a larger fellowship Congregationalists and Universalists alike, both as churches and individuals, may find fresh incentive to service and sacrifice. The Kingdom of God requires the uttermost loyalty and devotion of both and the mutual recognition of what each may contribute to the common endeavour. The stirring challenge to forward-looking Christians of whatever name to-day is to make their churches vitalizing centers of the Christianity that is in Christ, and so to promote the broader fellowship through which alone the mighty task of winning the world by the Master shall be accomplished. To that we commit ourselves. The event is in the hand of God.

[From The Congregationalist, Boston, Mass.]

One set of people suggests liberal religion, and Unitarian Universalism particularly, is easy, insincere and a mental or spiritual plaything because of its inherent looseness and high regard for personal autonomy.

Another set of people — that’s us — seems to take that that as a challenge, rather than opportunity to correct our behavior or refute the premise. (Or not care about the challenge.) The conventional answer is that Unitarian Universalism is the most difficult religion (because of all the decisions and so forth) and thus very sincere and serious and so forth. There’s a mountain of sermons like that. Cue the rueful laughter in the background.

This approach should die a quick death. It makes our religion look like a crashing bore, and without the payoff of grand institutions, a mass movement or a corps of spiritually exhalted leaders. It’s all the burden of our Puritan heritage with none of the value.

One of the things that makes religion appealing is its capacity for joy — sometimes spiritual, sometimes material, often unseen or unappreciated by outsiders.  The grinding, scolding earnestness that you so commonly find when two or three Unitarian Universalists are gathered makes me want to hide. Usually hide with friends at General Assembly.

Last night, reading the program guide for this month’s General Assembly was the proximate cause of this blog post. Reading it to stay informed, as I’ll not be there. (For the reduced number of workshop slots, don’t some people show up over and over?) Family comes first; see you in Columbus in 2016. I’m sure there will be good parts, but the earnestness leaps off the page. Even the fun doesn’t sound so fun.

I spent the rest of my evening improving my Esperanto skills. Now, Esperantists are a people who have the earnest-fun balance down pat. A group created well-game-ified lessons on the Duolingo site. I spent the evening taking little game-like tests, tracking my progress, and earning immaterial rewards. The subtext was “this is fun, this is possible, you can do it.” And so I kept doing it.

There’s a lesson in that.

Follow my progress in my Esperanto studies on Duolingo, if you like. And join in.

I only had time to scan a ton of Universalist polity documents when I was at the Harvard-Andover archive last year, and I’ve still not transcribed them. And it would be nice to have in an easy to read and search format some of the rules and procedures of how Universalists operated — hints of which, and sometimes more — are still in use today. Here’s a taste.

I’m no Tom Sawyer, but Universalist polity documents aren’t whitewash, either. Can anyone commit to typing or editing for an hour? Seminarians, especially, who might find a tidbit for unexplored research.

So, I was talking with a couple of people: what would we do if the Unitarian Universalist Association ceased to exist? Not a death wish, but contingency planning. And a way of identifying what’s a must-have and not just a might-want.

Someone mulled, “what does the NACCC do?” That’s the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, made up of churches that did not join the United Church of Christ on polity grounds. I’ve been long interested in them, as some of the Universalist churches that didn’t join the UUA “went NA”. Also, First Parish, Plymouth, and Universalist National Memorial Church, both members of the UUA have honorary membership. And the Council of Christian Churches in the UUA has — I believe — “fraternal relations.” In short, they’re close to us. Sorta.

And famous (or infamous) for having a lean administration. The kind that the UUA might back into, or be replaced-by.

So I was just browsing their site and noticed they have a single easy-to-find page with helpful handbooks ready to download.

That just made my day. Something to emulate.

Source: Handbooks (NACCC)

So, my dear Unitarian Universalist Christians, see if this sounds familiar. You let your Christian faith be known at church or fellowship or what-have-you and someone asks “how does that work?” or “have you considered the United Church of Christ?” — or something actively negative, suggesting that you shouldn’t be there at all, as if Unitarian Universalism was a refuge for a mix of non-Christians. I thought about all of these after reading “More than just a starter church” at The Widow’s Mite-y Blog. Like her, I became a Christian when a Unitarian Universalist.

Anecdotally. there’s less of the overt hostility out there than there once was. Whether that’s true or not, and if so, whether that’s due to fewer hostile non-Christians, fewer Christians to be hostile to, or a real change of attitude is for others to discern. Plus, I’m a member of one of a handful of Christian churches in the Unitarian Universalist Association, so it’s not really a problem anymore.

But what remains isn’t acceptable. And it starts with the questions that together can but put under the heading, “Demonstrate that you really exist.” Unitarian Universalist Christians are a small part of a small denomination, and particularly outside New England you may not meet one in person. And there is decades of preaching and identity formation — again, especially outside of New England — that liberal religion was becoming something greater than Christianity, first incorporating it, and later transcending it. The actual reference to Christianity in the UUA Principles and Purposes was a political process — and a bit before my time — and not a given. Some people really, honestly believe that Christianity is beyond the pale.

Mix this with a “question everything (that’s convenient)” ethos and it’s no wonder that that people, both the kind and unkind, can ask some terribly corrosive questions.

When I was younger, I felt a responsibility to spread the word and be a patient, agreeable, non-threatening, cheerful ambassador.  When this did nothing than embolden the passive-aggressive, I stopped being apologetic, and started to enjoy my faith, stopping only to challenge side-lining, red-lining comments however made. (Unitarian Universalist rhetoric still distinguishes between good and bad Christians in a way that other religions aren’t.)

About ten or fifteen years ago, the zeitgeist turned from defense and apology to joy, communication and personal representation. My friends and I chuckled about rueful complaints — overheard at General Assembly and online — about “the Christians taking over” and “the Christians being everywhere.”

This change of self-conception means that  I won’t be told I’m welcome, but only if I act in a way others aren’t expected to keep. Or if I tone it down. Or if it means answering petty, barb-filled, conspiracy-seeking questions.

I won’t leave. I just won’t comply. And, my dear Unitarian Universalist Christian friends, you need not comply — or leave — either.

Having non-biblical readings has become such a canon among mainline Unitarian Universalists that Unitarian Universalist Christians face a crisis on the subject of readings. Is it proper to have non-biblical readings in worship?

The question of authority isn’t clear-cut. My home library has several works of daily readings: selected sections meant to be read regularly to enrich one’s faith, and not just in private reflection. Robert Atwell, the compiler of one such work (Celebrating the Seasons) notes in the introduction (page iii.) that

In monastic custom… the Scriptural reading at Vigils was supplemented by a non-Biblical lection. In the words of St. Benedict’s Rule: ‘In addition to the inspired words of the Old and New Testaments, the works read at Vigils should include explanations of Scripture by reputable and orthodox writers.’ The reading of commentaries (presumably on what had just been read) enabled the monk not only to engage with Scripture more intelligently, but also to place his personal meditation within the context of those of other Christians from different ages and traditions.

We’re not monks praying Vigils, but in our liberal-Reformed tradition we insist on the considered and thoughtful expounding on the lessons in the sermon. The lesson does not disclose itself, and we rely on the preacher to unfold its meaning.

In this sense, the non-biblical reading acts — or could act — as a replacement for the sermon, not the revealed word. But current Unitarian Universalist practice is far removed from this. When — about a century ago — Unitarian and (to a lesser degree) Universalist ministers cast abroad for non-biblical preaching texts, they drew from weighty stuff: often the classics, or a work of philosophy, or — as a standby — a bit of Shakespeare.

But today, it’s not uncommon for a liturgical element from the back of the gray hymnal, or a segment from a ministerial contemporary to be pressed into the role of scripture. It an odd thought that a minister might visit a church and hear her or his words — not unjustly quoted within the sermon — elevated to the role scripture once held. It’s hard to shake off our flippant and shallow reputation if that’s the norm.

So, there may be a place for non-biblical readings in Christian worship, but to help us hear and understand the word of God: not to become it.

A cautionary tale. I’ve worshipped with Micah here in D.C. so I sawa little of what he described but I’m certainly no Quaker, and (happily) have since gone back to my old church. But the critical mass issue is one that Unitarian and Universalist Christians are going to have to grapple with, in part because we’re probably too radioactive to attract ecumenical partners. Which is its own shame.

If Quakers don’t have the strength or inclination to seed new congregations, perhaps it’s time to partner with those who do.

Source: Are Quakers Capable of Planting Churches?

At the risk of austerity-mongering,  it’s worth asking what a small, or new, or fragile church can do without in its worship to make worship sustainable, and to free up money and energy for other parts of church life.

Some things come to mind; here I’m thinking of middle-of-the-road mainline Protestantism. You could have worship

• without a meeting-place you own
• even without a fixed meeting-place
• without a full-time or resident minister
• without a sermon, or at least a long, originally-composed sermon every week
• without an organ, and probably without a piano
• without a choir
• without hymns

The list goes on, but you may already have experienced one or more of these “deprivations” in your own church. You might not even consider it a deprivation.

I’ll be looking at some of these options on and off for the next few weeks under the banner of “doing what you can, but doing it well.”

Burnout is a real risk under diminishing resources and opportunities. Burning out the leadership, leaving them hopeless, is not an option. Or else you’ll be

• without a church

This is a blog-beg for preachers and ministers of any denomination who preach or have preached in churches that meet less than weekly, and who use a lectionary or observe a traditional church calendar. I appreciate your sharing this with anyone who has experience.

In short, how do you make it work? Do you use the lessons or propers of the day however it may fall? Do you pick from one of the Sunday lessons since the last worship service? Or before the next? And what about major holidays?

For a church that meets once a month or so, do you transfer Easter and Christmas (and Pentecost, today) to the nearest service, or rely on members worshipping with another congregation at the proper time? And if you do transfer the holiday, is it a kind of Lent-Easter/Advent-Christmas service? And how does that work?

Churches that meet infrequently probably aren’t high on anyone’s list, so it would be a great help to share ideas and resources. I’d appreciate details in the comments.

Submitted without comment. An unlikely circumstance, given the fact there are far more ministers in Unitarian Universalist Association fellowship than settlements. But there you are.

We are in an unprecedented situation with regards to the interim ministerial search this year, one that has not occurred in the recent history of Unitarian Universalism.  In the broadest description, the issue is that there are significantly more congregations this year looking for interim ministries than there are ministers available to fulfill those interim ministries.  Not Interim Ministers… ministers.

Source: Important Information about Interim Minister Searches This Year

A little lunchtime Googling led me to this page, which has a large selection of United Methodist worship resources.

Welcome to the collection of resources from The United Methodist Book of Worship (1992) owned by The United Methodist Publishing House.  These are offered on our website by written agreement between The United Methodist Publishing House and Discipleship Ministries.  Congregations and other worshiping or church-related educational communities are free…

Source: Book of Worship – umcdiscipleship.org

I’ve written about the option of organizing churches as unincorporated nonprofit associations in states that provided for them by law. That provides structure and protections more like what you have in a nonprofit corporation but with fewer complications. Unfortunately, that’s not too many states. Last month, Kentucky joined the club.

Gov. Steve Beshear signed into law new regulations making the governance of nonprofits and the management of small associations easier.

Source: Kentucky Updates Rules Governing Nonprofits—For the Better – NPQ – Nonprofit Quarterly

Saw this today. Will examine later and hope to come up with creative ways to make use of this new UUA status.

Emerging Ministries are any new group or project that is grounded in Unitarian Universalism and brings people together in covenanted and intentional ways.

Source: Announcing (new and improved!) UUA Support for Emerging Ministries

I’m moving through my copy of Elbridge Gerry Brooks’s 1874 Our New Departure: or, The Methods and Work of the Universalist Church of America — his manifesto for the Universalist church — to his chapter on prayer. It’s a goldmine of Universalist attitudes, so I’m lifting out quotations; this is the first of two parts.

He starts on prayer in his overview (p. 43)

How many [Universalists] there are who pray in the voiceless secrecy of their communion with God, it is for no human pen to assume to say. But the custom of family, social, or stated private prayer does not, to any considerable extent, prevail among us, because there is no prevailing sense of duty in these directions; and how rare it is to find those in our congregations who can be called to lead in public prayer, we all know. We have opinion rather than faith; more nominal assent than spiritual impulse or purpose.

from page 176

Since I entered the ministry, it was not usual to find family prayer even in the homes of our ministers, while a family altar in a Universalist layman’s home was a thing almost unheard of. The home in which I was reared — reared most tenderly and carefully — was a fair type of the best Universalist homes in this respect, my mother being a church-member, of devout mind and heart, and my father, though not a church-member, a most upright and scrupulously conscientious man, whom, to the last, nothing but serious illness could keep from his place at church, so long as he could get there. The children were trained to revere and read the Bible, to honor the Sabbath, to love and practise goodness, and to ‘go to meeting’ with punctilious regularity. But — saving that we children, in our earliest days, were taught to ‘say our prayers’ every night on going to our pillows — the voice of prayer was never heard in our home, except when the minister was with us to ‘say grace’ at table. And this, so far as my knowledge extended, was the universal rule among us as a people.

from pages 176-177

The propriety of prayer — at least to some extent — is not open to debate. They would not see it dispensed with in our Sabbath services, at the marriage altar, in the chamber of the sick, or at the burial of the dead. They not only recognize, but, if need be, would insist upon, its fitness on these and various special occasions.… For if we should pray at all, it can only be because there is, for some reason, use and power in prayer. What mummery all praying is if so much as this be not true? And if there be use or power in praying at all, then the more we have of prayer of the right sort, under suitable circumstances, the larger the measure of use it will serve, — the greater the degree of power it will impart. Public prayer being well, then why not private prayer? If prayer in the church, why not in the home? if prayer in the pulpit, why not in the closet? if prayer on special occasions, why not as the habit of life?

There is a view of the subject which seeks to avoid the difficulty of this question, How? presents, by affecting to affirm the use of prayer, and at the same time alleging that it avails nothing with God, — only does us good on the same principle that religious meditation serves to strengthen, soothe and uplift us. This theory has found some advocates among us. But it seems to me — and I think I may say, to nearly all of us — a theory most unsatisfactory, and every way open to objection. No really devout mind can fail instinctively to shrink from it, and protest against it. Not only does it deny the Psalmist’s statement that God heareth prayer, — i.e. hears in some sympathizing and responsive sense, — and equally deny Christ’s repeated assurances to the same effect, but it makes prayer a travesty of devotion as actually as though there were no God.

From page 179, a bit of humor

Or, still more like perhaps, it is as if one, desiring to scale a mountain, should stand in a basket, trying to lift himself by going through the motions of pulling at a rope which he knows does not exist, but which he plays is dangling from the sky and fastened to the basket, all the while invoking the aid of some deaf or helpless friend!

From page 180

It is important that we should duly keep in mind the fact of man’s freedom; but it is even more important that we should take care not to overlook or compromise the grander fact of God’s freedom. Because this fact fails to be properly taken into account, there is, in the habits of thinking quite too widely prevalent touching this whole matter of God’s connection with us, not a little virtual Atheism. We hear a great deal about the laws of nature, and the established chain of causation, and the inviolable order of things; and there are those who never weary in insisting that it is not at all probable that this machine-like fixity and succession of events ever has been, or ever will be, intermitted in answer to anybody’s prayers.

So, then, what might future worship look like? And what will it accomplish?

Peacebang, that is, blogger, Unitarian Universalist minister and friend Victoria Weinstein asked, and I replied

.@peacebang Whatever they are, they'll need to be participatory, sensory-rich and laity-driven. And not over-wrought. #futureworship

— Scott Wells ن (@bitb) May 16, 2015

One concern I have is the cultural norm, among Unitarian Universalists, for creating and finding the right words for every service: weddings, funerals, dedications, Sunday services, the lot. The right words, and lots of them.

This tendency comes from the laudable standard of speaking to the context of the ministry you’re in, and the liturgical tradition of the centerpiece sermon and the long prayer, composed by the minister.

I’m not saying we should abandon either, but we should count the cost, not only in the salaries of those who draft them, but on the dependence the words create. And this has spread to new compositions to open worship, close worship, kindling flames, talking to children — even reaching to preaching texts.

Dependence? We like to think of ourselves as a laity-driven religious movement, but that’s only true in certain constrained ways. If our religious experience relies on an endless stream of original composition, or at least curated selection, then someone has to produce it or find it. And that speaks of specialized skills — or haphazard results. Is this creative output our most pressing need?

While traditions with liturgical textual traditions seem restrictive, the access to a reliable, common language of faith can also be very liberating.

While I was cleaning off my bedside table, to change out my reading, I came across my copy of Elbridge Gerry Brooks’s Our New Departure: or,The Methods and Work of the Universalist Church of America… (1874) This was his manifesto for the Universalist church, near the end of his life.

Brooks’s writing style was rather stilted, making his habilitation as theological influence unlikely. But I thought a few edited quotes might help — here, from his chapter “Experimental Religion” — largely made readable by unknotting the negatives and restating (in square brackets) some of his unwieldly dependent clauses.

[The Universalist] conception of religion… still prevalent among us, is that it is a good conscious towards man, rather than a pious heart towards God.

Protesting against Catholicism and Episcopacy, and reacting from them and their abuses, the Puritans renounced many things which are now seen to have been not only desirable, but, in a sense, essential. The result was a most austere religious life and a singularly barren worship, fitly symbolized in the bleak and rocky coast and the inhospitable soil to which the Plymouth pilgrims.

Moral faithfulness is indispensable. But nothing is farther from the truth than the idea, however or by whomsoever held, that we are religious enough when we are morally faithful. It virtually ignores God. It fails to take a whole half of our nature into account.

Made to be religious, we can never wholly rid ourselves of this tendency, and are sure at some time to come back to the recognition of God, however we may have lapsed from it.

Recognizing in us needs and capacities which crave something deeper than any intellectual solution of the universe, and something more interior and vital than any mould for our outward life, it comes to us a Religion, seeking not only to inform the understanding and instruct the conscience, but to take possession of every faculty, pervading it with the required sense of God, and so putting our whole being into time and tune with Him.

Opinions will change. Forms will perish. Interpretations will pass away. But man will never outgrow God. Religion there will always be the necessity of souls; the support and handmaid of the intellectual and moral elements of our being, whatever the progress possible to them.

It is one of the chief misfortunes of Universalism that it is so widely supposed to be fatally wanting in religious efficacy. This impression it is our duty immediately to correct; but it can be corrected only as we bear in mind the Master’s test, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” One life demonstrating that Universalism has power to infuse a sense of God into souls, and to make His life theirs, will do more than whole libraries of books, or any amount of argument.

I’d love some feedback from my readers — anonymous with a legitimate email address is fine in this case — to find out what supply preachers are getting paid, if anything. A denominational identification and a general sense of the area (region and relative cost of living) would also be very helpful.

Why? Because supply preachers — paid per service or sermon — is likely to continue as a solution for churches, particularly as the decline of the influence of churches in the United States escalates. But I worry that the rate is too low. And if it’s too low, the people who will preach supply will be students, retirees, plus perhaps those who have well-paying work (and may not have much opportunity to preach) or who are desperate for every penny. Too low for what? Putting together a living with part-item gig. That itself isn’t ideal, but is probably going to become more common as the United States economy also changes. Supply preaching will have to pay as well as other casual opportunities. This is all the more complicated since prospective mission churches are the ones more likely to need supply services, and they’re less able to afford them.

No answers now, but something worth flagging.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to understand the Oriental Orthodox churches and the Church of the East: Christian churches that have an early history of divergence from the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic and Protestant churches in the West. The Coptic Christians I’ve recently written about are in this group. So were the Eritrean Orthodox who worshipped downstairs at Universalist National Memorial Church so many years ago. Also the British Orthodox I’ve cited on this blog. Originally, I was interested in them because some nineteenth-century Universalists saw a kind of pro-universalist apostolic purity in them; a history ripe for the reclaiming. But lately I’ve been more interested in their approach to mission.

For one thing, they’re not bashful about missions, and why should they be? Most come from parts of the world where Christianity isn’t a majority faith. To survive you have to have a strong sense of identity that corresponds well with missions. But you’ll forgive me if I suggest that their approach to the faith isn’t Mod or particularly attuned to contemporary culture. But, as they say in the software world, “that’s a feature, not a bug.” They work, or seem to work on a different timeline than your garden-variety mainline Protestant (Overstatements follow, but follow me.)

So I was a bit shocked to see that so many of the mission churches meet only once or twice a month. And many, perhaps most, of those — with English-language websites anyway — meet on Saturday morning.

The reason is pretty obvious. It allows the priests to serve more congregations. Some of the Copts travel several hours from their home parishes to serve missions, something that wouldn’t be practical if the mission had a Sunday evening liturgy following a liturgy at home.

This, too, is something those nineteenth-century Universalists would have understood, and also I’ve done my rounds of supply and circuit preaching. But their usual appointments (and mine) were on Sundays, which is also the tight time for church buildings. Few edifices are as well suited for worship as a church building, so why not gather for worship on Saturday mornings.

Another friend, minister and blogger Adam Tierney-Eliot continues the discussion about a graceful adaptation to how we do church and ministry.

Source: Burbania Posts!: Think Broadly About Bi-Vocational

PeaceBang, the nom de blog of friend and minister Victoria Weinstein, opines at length about the foundational changes shaking our United States church experience.

Because everything is changing so fast, even those of us in the profession can’t keep up with the framework, the lingo or the expectations.  The fancy name for all of this is adaptive leadership, which is a nice way of saying that we’re all running like Indiana Jones a few yards ahead of the boulder of cultural change that threatens to flatten us at any moment.

She was speaking from her own observation, but a report that came out this week from Pew Research Center — quantifying the numerical shrinkage of American Christians and a comparably increase of the unaffiliated — alerted people that might otherwise not care so much.

She suggests that I might know how the remaining worshippers of the future will act, and so I’m adjusting some of my previously planned writing to address the question that’s the title of her blog post: “What Happens to Worshipers When The Traditional Church Closes Its Doors”?

The adjustment will come in phases, so let me address what won’t work; that is, doing church more cheaply. This won’t save us. So keep the champagne flowing? No. A cheaper, simpler approach won’t save us, but neither will we have an option. In time, even a deep endowment can dry up.

So the four directions in downsizing the church are taking creative alternatives to

• staffing the church work with trained and ordained ministers, in new configurations
• staffing the church work with new groupings of people with differing professional interests and accomplishments
• making use of space other than conventional church buildings
• making different use of the church buildings that exist

So what’s the solution? It’s making the experience of the church more desirable than the cost. The financial cost, true, but also of time, patience, labor, expertise and reputation. This last may be the hardest. Like climate change that melts the permafrost, releasing methane accelerating the warming — mull on that simile for a moment — if someone feels like a sucker for participating in a church, no cost savings, no special programming, no reasoned (or emotional) appeal will make it seem like a good idea.

And overcoming that dilemma is more than the subject of a blog post.

Like so many people, I have an enormous pile of books on my bedside table, and the ones on the bottom will be compressed into diamonds before I get to them. There a Japanese word — tsundoku –to describe the habit of acquiring books without reading them, and I’m guilty of that, too. Being a slow reader doesn’t help. Nor does the vast variety of good books, now in the public domain, that can be had electronically from Archive.org or other places.

But a book list has inspired me to declare tsundoku bankruptcy, restoring the unread books to a shelf, and pulling out those I own. I might even end up buying a book or two. But only after I finish the rest.

Join along with “Essential Readings on Universalism” from the Eclectic Orthodoxy blog.

Over the last few days, I’ve chatted with some minister friends about the appeal of the Coptic church, particularly with respect to its antiquity, perseverance under genuine persecution (particularly lately) and the beauty of its liturgy.

And I almost decided not to mention these attributes in blog post, and I wondered why I felt that way. Which means that I should write about my hesitance.

I’ve been around Unitarian Universalists long enough to know that we add practices and make decisions without appealing to reasons or traditions. We devalue our internal logic and traditions, and then wonder why we agree on so few things and tend to follow each passing fad. Tired of hearing that Black Lives Matter or about Nepalese relief or even about regionalism of seminarian in-care programs? Wait a while. Is that right? No. Is there a better way we can reply? Perhaps.

Over all, our tendency is to look wide and abroad for answers, resources and solutions. The Copts could easily — well, perhaps not so easily, but you get the paint — join a river of borrowed influences. What we could learn from them is that a church’s history, theology and customs create systems of thought, preferred methods and particular choices. This is what we do, and how we do it. At its best, it provides a matrix to know what’s essential, and what’s not. A recently announced Coptic initiative to plant churches relies on this ability to make choices. It’s anticipating the transition from immigrant Copts to their American-born children, and possible converts. The faith, liturgy and music would stay the same, but the name (Coptic means Egyptian) and language of worship (to English) will change. The essential gifts of their church will remain the same, or at least that’s the concept.

As Universalists and Unitarian Universalists, we need a better grasp of the gifts God gives us a church, so that we can apply these to our decision-making and contribute them to others who may benefit from our experience.

I can think of a few.

1. While most Unitarian Universalist churches are non-Christian, they do somehow create and nurture a small (but not negligible) number of Christians.
2. We have long histories of women’s ordination, and LGBT* ordination. We have worked out some (not all) of the cultural and professional details that churches that have made this decision more recently have not.
3. We take cues from nature, time and seasons more seriously in our worship than many. This is not my original opinion, but that of an Episcopalian musician I met who had strong opinions on the subject.
4. Yes, well, congregational polity, which is not the sell it once was. But it’s easy to underestimate it when there’s no bishop trying to shutter your church. And with it come some skills and resources for self-reliance.

And there are surely other gifts we should own up to.

I look forward to reading this.

The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the share of Americans who do not identify with any organized religion is growing. These changes affect all regions in the country and many demographic groups.

Source: America’s Changing Religious Landscape | Pew Research Center

So, tomorrow is Mother’s Day. And I’m glad I’m not preaching. It’s an impossible gig. I’m really glad I’m not preaching.

• You need to talk about Mother’s Day, as if it were traditional for churches and not a civil and cultural observance, so lacking many of the liturgical hooks that makes worship manageable.
• You need to show how important motherhood is, particularly for those who have dedicated large parts of their lives to it, without minimizing those who did not or could not have children, or suggesting that this is the main end of womanhood.
• You need to extol maternal love, but also recognize that some mothers are or were hurtful, abusive, or otherwise harmful.
• You need to acknowledge the deathlessness of the love that often did exist without hurting those still mourning their mothers.
• You may need to talk about the fact that we are all someone’s child, without harming those who lost their children.
• You may recognize that some people grow up with no mother, but perhaps not without one or more fathers, at the risk of making motherhood a vague concept.
• You can point out that Mother’s Day began as a peace action, but not without addressing the other points.
• And you need to balance all these conflicts, and pray that this careful act isn’t undercut by some well meaning custom, like rose corsages. A custom that may be very well-loved by some.

So good luck, preachers.

And remember: Father’s Day is only a month away.

Next up on my reading list: The Social Implications of Universalism, by Clarence Russell Skinner

A hundred years old, but some of what I’ve already read seems familiar, if not particularly current.

I got an email from Doug Drown yesterday:

Several years ago I sent you a link informing you of the sad demise of the Gardiner, Maine Congregational Church (UCC), formerly the First Universalist Church — one of the handful of congregations that elected to affiliate elsewhere rather than be part of the UUA merger.   This article, from [the May 2] Augusta Kennebec Journal, tells  of what is about to become of the lovely old meetinghouse.

I appreciate the news. I hate to see churches die, but since the conversion by a cider maker will preserve the attractive building, I can’t complain.

Source: Hard cider company buys Gardiner church, hopes to sell cider by July – Central Maine

A few days ago I experimented with my Facebook and Twitter feeds. This was about when the crisis in Baltimore was getting hot, and I could already see the signs. Unitarian Universalists — I’m thinking of ministers particularly, because that’s who I know mostly, but I see lay persons do this, too — would bring a particular intensity to, well, I can’t rightly call it a discussion.

It’s more like a frantic, often doctrinaire, echo chamber.

So I started muting people, leaving ministers who are close personal friends, old college mates, former co-workers and the like. Rather than falling into an insulated world of cat videos, the quality of discourse about Baltimore’s situation improved. Deep analysis and more varied voices, particularly from people who live or have lived there. (I do live an hour away by train, so this is also a regional story.)

What vanished was the anxiousness, the agita and the dubious logic of borrowed framing.

There’s a bad lesson in that. And I’m not sure I’m going to unmute the anxious presence. More importantly, who would seek it out?

By request, I transformed the 9-year old file I made of James Relly’s 1759 Union: or, a Treatise of the Consanguinity and Affinity between Christ and his Church to the ePub format for book readers. This is the work that would later encourage a group of believers in Gloucester, Massachusetts to gather, which John Murray would subsequently pastor as the first Universalist church in America.

No guarantees about the beauty of the ePub; it’s a pure software transmogrification, but perhaps useful to you.

Union (ePub fromat)

Universalist pioneer and minister James Relly died this day in 1778.

I  re-published his most influential work, Union, (PDF) a few years ago and wrote about the church building he preached in, long a landmark synagogue, in London’s East End.

I’m glad to be invited back to preach at Universalist National Memorial Church this Sunday.

Using images of the Good Shepherd, I will (try to) explore what it mean to be a Christian in a pluralistic age, with readings from the Gospel of John and the Acts of the Apostles.

Twenty years ago today, Timothy McVeigh blew up a truck bomb in front of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

I was in the middle of my ministerial internship not so far away in Tulsa, and I was getting ready to go to church when the news came over the television. What I remember more than anything else that day was

1. How quickly one of the national news anchors suspected Arab terrorists. That made no sense to me. In Oklahoma? I guessed it was a revenge act by someone who felt hurt by the government, like a bankrupted farmer, which was closer to the truth.
2. I shaved my beard immediately. Tulsa had a decent Muslim population, in part from its petrochemical industry and training, and the mosque wasn’t far from where I lived. I feared for them — if that’s how the news went — and feared for me, since (for reasons I’ve never understood) I read Arab. And, indeed, had to escape a mob of drunk sailors, a couple of years prior. (Perhaps after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.)  But I don’t recall any violence in Tulsa that night.
3. I do recall the sadness. Particularly at a gay bar I went to that night. Many of the patrons were EMTs and ER nurses. But the devastation was so complete that they weren’t needed in Oklahoma City.

Universalist minister Elhanan Winchester died this day in 1797.

Though less well known than “the father of Universalism” John Murray, Winchester deserves a place in our consciousness because he risked — and lost — a position of privilege and authority to follow a true sense of mission. That is, losing the pastorate of the First Baptist Church, Philadelphia and taking a rump congregation (the Society of Universal Baptists) into exile.

A word about his theology. It was based on God’s promises and so George Williams, when creating a typology of Universalist theology in 1970, described his as “future-oriented Universalism” with a particular focus on future punishment, a focus that would crop up as a deep controversy from time to time for more than a century following.

• Webpage about his grave in Hartford, Connecticut.
• Past blog posts on Elhanan Winchester
  1. Three Prophets of Universalism?
  2. Online article about Elhanan Winchester
  3. Winchester’s first sermon

Universalist National Memorial Church — that’s the church I’m a member of — has announced a part-time (12 hours a week) Office Assistant position.

The church is on the east side of the Dupont Circle neighborhood, close to the Metro. The S2 and S4 bus stops in front of the church.

Details here.

The Unitarian Universalist way of running congregations has a built-in contradiction.

On the one hand, we’re supposed to give money to support them; they are self-governing and self-supporting. And on the other hand, church members supposed to be a covenant people with a common ultimate interest, or mission. The two ideas do not necessarily go together, particularly if there are people of different incomes and conflicting interests about what is the proper level of giving and spending in a church.

The old parish-church distinction could remedy the contradiction with a parish serving the former role and the church serving the latter. Some would be members of one and not the other, but the conflicts between the two entities aren’t hard to imagine. The remedy might be worse that the disease.

I think that part of the subtext about how awful the Fellowship Movement depends on your view of church finances. Do you want a “full service church” and a budget to match? Can you personally afford it? And if you can’t? Well, I’d fight for my little group in a rented room with everyone pitching in, too. But I’ve never heard the conflicts put in such basic terms. It makes the membership allowances for those unable to give as richly as others seem down-right Edwardian.

The bigger problem is our heritage of territorial parishes, and the idea that in most places there’s only “room” for one Unitarian Universalist congregation. That’s a pretty limiting view. Can you imagine Methodists stopping at one? Little wonder were about 8 in 10,000 in the United States. And falling.

In just about every other private endeavor you can think of, there’s market segmentation. It seems to me that if there’s a desire to grow and reach out there needs to be a willingness to allow churches to prosper at different levels of spending.

I usually write about Universalist polity, but some chat a few weeks ago about “Beyond Congregations” reminded me about the English “Unitarian van mission” of more than a century ago, and interest that stirred up here in the United States.

I’ve found references as far back as 1908, with its evident zenith in the 1910s. According to Georges Salim Kukhi, himself a London Unitarian preacher in 1919, there was more than one van, indeed, four that roved Britain. The vans have not only a pulpit, but sleeping quarters and room for print material. They were fitted with technically-advanced acetylene lamps!

Preachers, sometimes lay preachers, would address the crowds from the van; sometimes they’d be harangued. But it seems there was also a desire for information:

The Unitarian Van Mission in England allows its out of doors audiences to ask questions and finds frequent anxiety for information concerning the talking serpent in the Garden of Eden the veracity of Balaam’s ass the truth of the whale and Jonah incident and other Old Testament marvels.

They would also distribute publications.

I’ve not been able to find evidence of a Unitarian van in the United States, though there was a stated desire and a bit of embarrassment that that the gung-ho Americans didn’t do it first! (In fact, there was something called a van mission in Kansas in 1896. That’s something to research.)

But there is this charming report about an initial, and similar measure, in Massachusetts around 1903 that relied on camping in outpost towns, with audiovisual equipment (a stereopticon).

I’m a slow reader. If I can learn something from a video in a few minutes or an hour, rather than reading, I will…

The Bible’s Buried Secrets — an episode of Nova —  is a great example, if you want to learn the documentary hypothesis and the development of the Torah and ancient Israel.