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Greetings!
Advent
Resources and Holiday Wishes
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Advent
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Help center
your life on a deeper journey through the Advent weeks leading
up to Christmas. On our Christian
Year Resources web page you you can find direct Advent
related links such as liturgies, a devotional for 2010, and more.
Be a part of
an online discussion of the Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan book
"The First Christmas" by reading and commenting on posts at
our Christian
Year blog where excerpts from their book have been
posted. Each week of Advent, selections from their chapters will be
posted for discussion.
And finally you can read and reflect and respond on
special meditations for the full Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany
season at our Virtual
Monastery where each week a different UUCF member will
comment on a part of scripture from that week's selections of the
Revised Common Lectionary. Thanks to the Rev. Betsy Schuereman,
Kristen Grassel, Madelyn Campbell, the Rev. Rosemarie
Smurzynski, and the Rev. Anita Farber-Robertson.
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 Sermon Links For The Season
Here are some links to wonderful sermons during the Advent season:
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A
special Advent Good News Publication
"Mary's Yes"
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Mary's Yes
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We've launched our new, bigger, biannual Good
News that will allow us to more deeply develop commentary and
celebration of both Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter. This first new
issue, entitled "Mary's
Yes." It's 28 pages long, has
been published and is arriving in UUCF members' hands now. Thank
you's to editors The Rev. Kathleen Rolenz and Kimberly Beyer-Nelson.
Table of
Contents includes:
- CHRISTMAS PRAYER by Joel Miller
- WELCOME TO ADVENT by Ron Robinson
- THE ANGELUS AS A UU SPIRITUAL
DISCIPLINE, by Claudia Hall
- ADVENT PROMISE by Tim Powell
- PEOPLE LOOK EAST: A MEDITATION by Betsy
Scheuerman
- POEMS & PRAYERS OF THE SEASON by Kim
Beyer-Nelson
- DECEMBER MOURNINGS by Jackie
Gibbons
- TAKING FLIGHT by Jackie Gibbons
- THE MESSENGER COMES by Tom
Hoornstra
- WEAVING by Kim Beyer-Nelson
- GESTATION by Jennifer Sandberg
- AT MATTHEW'S KNEE: FOUR REFLECTIONS
by Kim Beyer-Nelson
- MARY'S YES by Kathleen Rolenz
- AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH
by Finley Campbell.
Start thinking
now of contributing for the Lent/Easter issue. Writer's
guidelines and more can be found on our Web
site.
If you haven't received your copy of Mary's Yes and
believe your membership is up to date, please contact us. If you need to
change your address or other contact information, please send the new
information to that email address as well. If you would like to take
advantage of this opportunity to receive the publication by renewing
a lapsed membership or to begin your membership
you can also do that online too. We would love to have you
back.
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Revival In Retrospect
Rediscovering Jesus and Communities of Faith
This was the theme for the recently completed UUCF
Revival and Retreat in the Dallas area, our ninth gathering since
1999 in New Orleans. Many of the resources from the Revival are
available now on our website.
These include the full Revival worship booklet, as well as the
Breviary that was used for the Daily Office of Morning and Evening
Prayer, and the prayer from the opening worship. More content will be
coming as well so keep checking back to the site. We will also be
selling Revival DVDs of the major lectures.
Rev. Eric
Posa of the UU congregation in College Station, TX, received
baptism during Revival this year. He writes about his decision:
For in
Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of
you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ
Jesus. (NRSV)
Yes, you
read that right - I got baptized today, during the Communion Worship
Service of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship's Revival
conference. If you're not a Unitarian Universalist, that
statement may well confuse you. I can hear some of you asking,
"Wait, you've been an ordained minister for over five years, and
you've never been baptized?" As Unitarian Universalism has
evolved, the tradition of baptism fell away from many of our
churches, as more churches were founded without that tradition in
place. I was raised unchurched; the first church I ever joined
was one of those UU congregations founded after we dropped the
sacrament from our tradition. So I never belonged to a
religious community that authentically could baptize me into Christian
fellowship.
On the other
hand, my UU friends, perhaps including the members of the church I
serve, may be surprised by this news for a different
reason. I have been clear with my church that I see myself as
Christian (though it's even more accurate for me to call myself a
follower of Jesus, as one who strives to live my life and ministry in
response to the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth). But
baptism may seem...extreme (for lack of a better term)...to that
majority of UUs who do not see themselves as Christian. Yet
baptism is something I have sought for myself for many years, despite
serving in ministry in a tradition where it is not common. When
I learned some weeks ago of the
opportunity
to be baptized here, I reflected pretty deeply on what the experience
meant, and at the invitation of Rev. Tom Wintle (who led worship and
performed the baptism today) and Rev. Ron Robinson (UUCF Exec. Dir.),
I articulated my theology of baptism. The best answer I can
give, to the question in the title of this post, is what I wrote in
that theological reflection:
If a
sacrament is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and
spiritual grace," then the inward grace for which I want to give
a sign, for which I want to make my commitment, is the way my life
has been transformed as I've freely followed Jesus. As I have
grown to trust - to have faith - in the way Jesus has called me to
live, I have become open to the grace of God that I never recognized
when I was trying to "go it alone" through life as a
younger man. I have come to know the radical love that does not
just preach an abstract unity of male and female, of slave and free,
but opens me to experience that unity as a living connection.
In baptism I
seek to commit myself to a life of breaking bread with the outcast,
healing the broken, and doing for the least of these, my brothers and
sisters, in the light of the God-who-is-love, whom I have come to
know most fully through the life and ministry of Jesus. I have
longed for this day for many years, and anticipate it with great
joy. Thank you for granting me the opportunity to make this
commitment to my Christian faith in the fellowship of my fellow
Unitarian Universalists.
Also, here
is a sermon delivered after Revival by Rev. Lillie Mae
Henley of Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington, D.C.,
the site of our next Revival March 22-25, 2012. Her sermon,
inspired by Brandon Scott's Revival lecture and workshop in
Dallas on Paul and other disciples on reimagining the resurrrection,
is titled "A New
Look At Paul the Apostle" and is about the
enlightenment of much of the new scholarship on the Apostle Paul.
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Giving
Back This Season
Remember the UUCF, our Movement and our Mission at
this End of The Year Opportunity For Giving
We hope this season
of hope brings you rest and wholeness. We thank you for sharing your
walk with us and with one another wherever you are and whether you
are a new or a long time member. You are the UUCF and you are a gift
to the world.
As you consider your special holiday donations and
your end-of-the-year deductible contributions, I hope you will pause
to think about what
an incredible year 2010 has been in our movement
to keep both Jesus and Freedom alive and integrated and growing in
lives and communities. We can't do it without everyone's help.
...Just holding the special new Good News publication for
Advent and Christmas, Mary's Yes, in your hands, and in
your heart and mind. What an accomplishment for the UUCF in 2010. And
more like it are on the way, with your help.
...In connection with beginning the expanded Good
News publications for Christmas and Easter resources, we
also began in 2010 high quality monthly, and sometimes several in a
month, online
and email Good News versions, such as the one you are
reading now, and other contacts with members.
...Go pick up and read through again the 2010 UU Christian
Journal, a stellar book published this year called
"Hear, Pray, Affirm: Three Essentials for Liberal Christian
Formation" by the Rev. Thomas D. Wintle. This was a highlight of
not only this year, but of the 62 volumes we have published in our 65
year history. While you are at it, go visit our bookstore to
and easily order an extra copy of the book to give to someone or a
church library as a Christmas gift.
...2010 saw
us hold our ninth
national gathering in Revival in the Dallas area,
nurturing the spirit of our movement, deepening our connections with
one another, introducing us to new regions, and growing in worship
and in scholarship as a vital part of the progressive Christian
sphere.
...2010 saw
us at General
Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association in
Minneapolis, sponsoring more programs than ever before, and holding
one of our largest UU Christian communion services there, and working
in connection with other UU theological source organizations.
...2010 saw
us advertise
more than ever before.
...And
throughout 2010 our website
continued to add resources, especially in our weekly Virtual
Monastery, and with our growing Christian year worship and study and
discussion resources...and we continued to add new UUCF small groups
around the country.
Most
importantly of all, I think, we grew our prison outreach ministry,
and we were there for the one to one contacts...to talk with the
person who was seeking a new home because his Christian church
wouldn't welcome who he was as a gay man... and with the
Christian minister looking for a new home because of his new
theological leanings... and for the lonely UU Christian in the UU
church who borrowed from our free DVD lending library and
was transported to where top scholars and
preachers uplifted her spirit... and for the seminarian raised a
UU and who was discovering the Bible and its power for the first time
and was hungry to find a wealth or resources in our archives that
made her feel good about her faith tradition...and for the UU
ministers seeking resources to help their church better
understand new liberal thinking on the Trinity, or the ways
of communion and baptism... All of it was behind the scenes, but
all possible only by your help.
And we know
so well that there is so much more we need to do and to become.
Please
support one another and our larger movement at this end
of the year by writing a check today to the UUCF sent to P.O.
Box 6702 Turley, OK 74156, or Donate
Online today! If you have moved, be sure to let
us know your new address and any other contact information.
In thanks,
Ron Robinson
UUCF Executive Director
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New
MNY-UUCF Small Group Formed
In Metro New York
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New York
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See below for information on a new UUCF small group
formed in Metro New York. Consider joining one or helping form one in
your church or in your area. Check out our Small
Group Resources for developing small groups of
those who freely follow Jesus and our interested in our conversations
and gatherings. And please send us news and updates
about what your UUCF group is doing so we can help promote you and
the UUCF.
Good news!
Early in 2011, a local chapter of the national UU Christian
Fellowship will be forming in the Metro New York district. Led by the
Rev. Kelly Murphy Mason, a community minister and former
Vice-President of the UUCF, the chapter will meet on a monthly basis
for evenings of fellowship and discussion, religious education and
spiritual deepening. The Metro NY UU Christian Fellowship (MNY-UUCF)
will meet the first Wednesday of every month beginning on February 2,
2011, at the Community Church of New York in Manhattan.
The first
several meetings of MNY-UUCF will be devoted to discussion of the
Skinner House Books volume, Christian Voices in Unitarian
Universalism. While the book is available online from the UUA
Bookstore, prior purchase is not necessary. The lines of inquiry will
be kept open-ended, so people can explore personal concerns as well
as religious questions. How can Christian spirituality and
Unitarian Universalist identity become more mutually enriching?
That's something people are bound to discover together in these
ongoing conversations.
The MNY-UUCF
meetings will start at 7:30 pm and end at 9:00 pm every first
Wednesday, with meetings already set for February 2nd, March 2nd,
April 6th, May 4th, and June 1st at Community Church, conveniently
located in midtwown Manhattan between the Metro North lines at Grand
Central and the NJ Transit and LIRR trains at Penn Station and near
to subways from outer boroughs. MNY-UUCF attendees are also
encouraged to join in the numerous national UUCF activities held at
General Assembly from June 22-26 in Charlotte, NC. While the UUA will
be celebrating its 50th year in 2011, the UUCF will be marking its
66th in existence!
Since the
first inaugural meeting of MNY-UUCF falls on the festival of
Candlemas, all attendees are encouraged to bring candles with them on
February 2nd for blessing from a shared chalice lighting. Unitarian
Universalists throughout the Metro NY District are warmly invited to
attend: clergy members, religious educators, and lay leaders, cradle
UUs and Christian "come-outers", recovering Catholics and
fundamentalists, the theologically committed and the relatively
uninformed, true believers and the merely Christian-curious. Anyone
in the region with any degree of interest in the Jesus event, gospel
stories or Christian traditions is most welcome.
Please feel
free to contact the Rev. Mason via e-mail for further details
-- and please be sure to pass the word along! Attached you will find
a flier announcing the start of the MNY-UUCF in 2011; it can easily
be printed as a Word document. If you could kindly post it in your
congregations, publish it in your newsletter, or distribute it to
your religious leadership, that would go far in spreading the word to
Unitarian Universalists seeking just such a group in this region.
Pulpit announcements are always appreciated, especially during the
holiday seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany!
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President's Column by Mr. Dean A
Drake
Jesus - My Star
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Dean Drake
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Most historians
believe that Jesus was born in the spring of 7 BCE somewhere in the
Roman province of Palestine. The Roman world of that time was
in chaos: constant civil war between liberal and conservative
factions over the previous 50 years had weakened and eventually
destroyed the republic. Oppression, poverty and cruelty were so
prevalent that it was assumed to be the norm. But into that
world a child was born.
Jesus himself was a
victim of the cruelty of this world, crucified at the age of 33 for
his radical teachings of love and tolerance. Yet his words
lived on, inspiring his followers to spread his message throughout
the Roman world. For the poor, oppressed and subjugated, his
words were an antidote to the evils around them, a guiding star that
pointed to a better way and a better world.
For 2,000 years, Jesus has been that guiding star for
billions of people. Today, over ¼ of the world's inhabitants
consider themselves followers of Jesus. As Christians, we are
part of that great multitude. But as Unitarian Universalists,
we stand a bit apart from the rest by also seeking guidance and
direction from reason and logic as well as faith. But we also
understand that reason and logic have limits, and without faith,
reason and logic can lead the world back to poverty, cruelty and
oppression.
For me, the story of Jesus, like the ideas of justice,
compassion and mercy, is a truth that transcends reason. Jesus
is my teacher, my comforter and my guide along the way. While
reason and logic can explain the how of something, only the
transcendental truths like the life and teachings of Jesus can
provide the where and the why of life.
As a Unitarian Universalist Christian, I am doubly blessed.
My reason and logic give me tools to move forward, and my faith
provides a star to steer my life by. With the rest of the
Christian world, at this darkest time of year, may you join with me
and the rest of the Christian world in celebrating the birth of the
certain star called Jesus.
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Executive
Director Column
Advent's Relocation of Lives
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Rev. Ron Robinson
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This Advent and Christmas Season I have been thinking about where we
locate our lives, and whose lives do we follow? My companion in this
thinking, and a new companion of liturgy I will be using, is the new
book "Common Prayer: A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals" by
Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and others who are part of
the new monastic movement.
They write: "Everything in our society
teaches us to move away from suffering, to move out of neighborhoods
where there is high crime, to move away from people who don't look
like us. But the gospel calls us to something altogether different.
We are to laugh at fear, to lean into suffering, to open ourselves to
the stranger. Advent is the season when we remember how Jesus put on
flesh and moved into the neighborhood. God getting born in a barn
reminds us that God shows up in the most forsaken corners of the
earth.
"Wherever we come from, Jesus teaches us that
good can happen where we are, even if real-estate agents and
politicians aren't interested in our neighborhoods. Jesus comes from
Nazareth, a town from which folks said nothing good can come. He knew
suffering from the moment he entered the world as a baby refugee born
in the middle of a genocide. Jesus knew poverty and pain until he was
tortured and executed on a Roman cross. This is the Jesus we are
called to follow. With his coming we learn that the most dangerous
place for a Christian to be is in comfort and safety, detached from
the suffering of others. Places that are physically safe can be spiritually
deadly."
In part we may be motivated to relocate our lives, or
return our lives, to places of great need because of the lives we
lift up to guide our own. Especially during the season, with so many
competing visions and values, what lives are our guides? We
know so much of our consumer society wants us to follow some perfect
fake person that doesn't exist....able to buy what they want, look
like what they want, have perfectly obedient and happy children, and
they can make us that way if we will just buy what they are selling.
Or our celebrity culture wants us to spend time following the ins and
outs and ups and downs of those who have become famous or infamous.
But God always dwelled with nobodies, at least nobodies in the eyes
of those in power, with those who are seen as numbers and statistics,
who learn that in God they are always somebody, always full of worth
and potential.
So, what lives will we follow this season, as the Magi
followed the star to Bethlehem in Matthew's Christmas story? Or
another way to put it is who will sit with us at our welcome table in
these days ahead? Both literally, physically, and also spiritually,
including those who have left us a presence of being with the poor.
In their new book, Shane Claiborne and others add in
little stories about ordinary people across the ages doing
extraordinary things, often at great cost to themselves. Each day
there is someone to think about and remember, especially on the days
of their deaths. Just a few of the lives lifted up during this season
include Dorothy Day, Charles de Foucauld, Maura Clarke, Ita
Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan, Justin Martyr,
Sojourner Truth, Wendell Berry, St. Nicholas, Ambrose of
Milan, Jean Vanier, Martin de Porres, Thomas
Merton, and all those who were in the El Mozote massacre
in El Salvador. For those of these you may not know, it is a
good Advent exercise to look them up and study what they have to
offer us today.
In Advent, when we
are journeying with a pregnant, unmarried young woman through occupied land where the
Roman military could do anything it wanted to the most vulnerable, we
are dwelling and waiting for the new life to be born into the world.
But at the same time Advent calls us to remember the world of much
violence and death and injustice that new life comes into, and many
of the lives highlighted above for these days in December remind us
of that. So, in our preparation for Christmas we should do all
we can to prepare our world as a place of more peace and more joy and
more hope and more love for those being born. In doing so we will
become born again in the ways it most counts.
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January Good News
Call for Reviews for This Issue
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Good News Newsletter
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For our
January online Good News, we would like to focus on the ways our
faith intersects with popular culture, and with starting the new year
off with recommended books and movies and music and more that would
be particularly connected to our mission. Write a review of that book
on religion or spirituality you have read recently, or about the
movie that made you think deeply about faith and issues of life, or
the music that you find yourself returning to over and over again to
lift your spirits and move you to action. Maybe it is a television
series, or a video game. Help us fill in the blank in a surprising
way, The Gospel and .....Send them to Rev. Ron Robinson.
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 Join * Renew * Pledge
You can change the world by keeping alive the free and
radical spirit of Jesus in the world, especially in our historic home
of Unitarian Universalism and through our UUCF life. Here you can join with
us for the first time, renew
or upgrade your membership, answer the call to contribute to
specific projects or make special donations.
The UUCF is a self-supporting and self-sustaining
institution. The first and most important reason to stay connected to
the UUCF is because we represent a liberal religious Christian
presence in the Unitarian Universalist Association. We believe that
Unitarian Universalism is broadened and deepened by our active presence
and our faithful witness. We represent one of the few organization in
the UUA that can claim an authentic theological position, and the
only one that can claim a historical tradition that dates back to the
beginning of our movement.
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Address: P.O. Box 6702, Turley, OK 74156-0702
Phone: (918) 794-4637
www.uuchristian.org
info@uuchristian.org
We are non-creedal followers of Jesus rooted in the
history and tradition of Unitarian Universalism. All who wish
to freely follow Jesus are welcome to be members of the UUCF.
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Ron Robinson
Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship
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