The Ascending Spirit of Unitarian Universalism
UUism on CBS News CBS News spoke with UUA President Peter Morales, the Rev. Fred Small of First Parish Cambridge, and Boston area UUs about Unitarian Universalism for “Religion and Spirituality in a Changing Society“. The program airs on CBS affiliates at various dates and times across the country. It can also be streamed here. Morales and Small share their experience of the growth of UUism in the face of the decline of other organized religions. From the CBS press release: While we live in the most religiously diverse country in the world, attitudes towards religion and spirituality are in the midst of great change. A newly released survey by researchers at the University of…
Moving Into Our Future
Sometime in the next year the Headquarters of the Unitarian Universalist Association will move from its historic address at 25 Beacon Street, on Beacon Hill, to 24 Farnsworth Street, in the heart of the “Innovation District” of Boston, and into its future. Unitarian Universalism and the UUA have a long and storied history in Boston and New England, which won’t change; the goal of the move is to improve the UUA’s ability to provide services and programming for Unitarian Universalism. – Ed. UUA to purchase new Boston headquarters The Unitarian Universalist Association will be moving to a new headquarters. The UUA Board of Trustees voted unanimously Thursday night, March 14, to purchase 24 Farnsworth Street…
January Call: Working the System
Our first campus ministry community call of 2013 is this Sunday, January 6th at 9pm Eastern time. We will discuss how our campus ministry groups can most effectively operate within the academic institutions and Unitarian Universalist communities they operate within. Whether you have been doing this work for years, have just begun, or are overwhelmed by the idea of beginning, we welcome you. We are student leaders, lay leaders, and religious professionals and all others involved in UU campus ministry. All calls of the 2012-2013 academic year are on the first Sunday of every month at 9pm Eastern time. Call Content Details: We will have brief introductions and then begin the discussion of how our campus ministry groups can most effectively operate within the academic institutions and Unitarian…
Get on the Young Adult Roadshow!
Ohio-Meadville District Gets Young Adult Ministry on the Road (Watch the full version here) By Jeremy Holmes On the last weekend of March, the Ohio-Meadville District’s Young Adult Ministry Team held the first of what we hope will be several workshops on how to more deeply engage younger people in Unitarian Universalist congregations. Over a year of brainstorming and planning went into putting this workshop, or “Roadshow”, as we called it, together. Our goal was to get people from different congregations together with our Young Adult Ministry team to discuss and develop ways in which we could improve our ministry to, with, and for young adults in our congregations. Due to the large number of…
Growing in Faith
This article by Bob Smietana originally appeared the October 2 issue of USA Today. –Ed. Unitarian Faith Growing Nationwide 1:29AM EST October 2. 2012 – For Nathan De Lee, going to church as a kid was an ordeal. De Lee, a Unitarian Universalist, grew up in rural Kansas, where members of his faith were few and far between. Attending services meant an overnight trip to Kansas City, where the nearest Unitarian Universalist congregation was. Today, getting to church is easy for De Lee, an astronomer at Vanderbilt. He’s a regular in the choir on Sundays at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Nashville, which has a congregation of about 500. De Lee is one of a…
Congregation 24/7
This article by Mark Oppenheimer originally appeared the August 17, 2012 edition of the New York Times. – Ed. Unitarians Break With Tradition of Extended Time Off in Summer “If you phone a Unitarian Church between the middle of June and Labor Day in September, the most you are apt to get is a recorded message,” Charles S. Slap said in his sermon at the First Unitarian Society of Schenectady, N.Y., on Sept. 8, 1985. “Our more orthodox friends never cease to be astounded by the contents of the message: ‘This church is closed for the summer. If you are one of those people who actually need a church during the summer, try the Presbyterians.’…
Spotlight On: Buckman Bridge
Buckman Bridge Unitarian Universalist Church in Jacksonville, FL is one of the two congregations awarded Anchor Congregation status in 2012. The other is the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, CA. The only adjective that I can find to properly describe Buckman Bridge Unitarian Universalist Church’s young adult movement is swarming. Now for some reason that word has some negative associations. Probably because bees can be scary. But I’m not talking about a scary swarm here. I’m talking about an amazing swarm that swiftly created a highly functioning hive of its own and is now busy going to its neighbors and helping them build. You also might notice that I called them a young adult movement, not…
Spotlight On: UU Church of Davis
The Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, CA is one of the two congregations awarded Anchor Congregation status in 2012. The other is Buckman Bridge Unitarian Universalist Church in Jacksonville, FL.-Ed. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, CA simply does young adult and campus ministry right. And they have for a long time. They are a model I cite often, would like to be able to clone. Perhaps the most successful part of their program is their internship program for those seeking ministerial fellowship. Young adult and campus ministry is half of the intern’s position. Now, putting campus ministry in the portfolio of an intern is a model commonly used by many. And most are. Unsuccessful because the…
All We Kindred Pilgrim Souls
I wrote a longer blog post, explaining the clear linkage that I saw between two important decisions that were made at this year’s General Assembly: repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery and expanding the definition of a congregation. I was then searching for a way to explain this in a liturgical and motivational manner. This sermon-esque response is in written form as well as video blog, both below. For the longer explanatory post, go here. Video Blog (If not appearing on page, please press your refresh button.) Written Blog The answer to my search for a motivational way to share this message was in the name of our Offices’ blog the whole time. The answers to…
The Ship is Sinking
3,174 individuals came together this June for the Unitarian Universalist Association’s first ever Justice General Assembly in Phoenix, AZ. After Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070 law was passed, the 2010 General Assembly delegates were given the option to boycott or answer the call of our partners in AZ to come, witness, and work for justice. As you have probably guessed, they voted to put the Justice in this year’s Justice General Assembly (GA). Standing on the Side of Love with our partners in AZ, we attended a witness event at Tent City, participated in a citizenship fair, attended workshops on anti-racism, the prison industrial complex and immigration, and voted to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery. The…
