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Dear Ron,
"The Deciduous Faith"
Where I am, it's Fall and the leaves on the hill behind my house are ablaze in a way we don't see very often, and though it is a temporary beauty it is a blessing this November, especially after a year here in Turley, Oklahoma, where we have had record setting winter temperatures of 31 below zero, and have had record setting summer temperatures of the hottest July on record for any state in the union, and this week have had record-setting earthquakes. There is wonderful life in those dying leaves, a color that only death brings out, and that, too, is a blessing for me these days as I grieve my mother's recent death, and the recent deaths of two of my ministry's board members, and the recent death of a key partner with us on several projects.
This November, All Souls/All Saints has been a particular blessing and a reminder of how much I gain from being in an ecumenical universalist Christian community with all of you that asks us not just to celebrate with one another but encourages us to engage with the wider traditions and broader community of followers of Jesus in many communities. As we move in these particular months of the year, with World Communion Day in October, and All Souls, with Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas and Epiphany ahead of us, these holy days and traditions are presented to us as gifts to be with others who are not UU Christians, who are not UU, who are not Christian. The "communion of saints" is embodied and alive in so many ways in these days of the years, and the stories they present to us.
And yet, I also look forward to all the ways we as UU Christians and free followers of Jesus connect and grow with one another these days and in so doing grow our own particular manifestation of the church. And so I love to read the posting on our new Facebook page, and the thoughtful questions and responses on our various email communities, and the words of wisdom that come from many different people writing for our Virtual Monastery section of the website, and the blogs and sermons and videos that capture the spirit of our people and broadcast them to the world, and I like to hear about what small groups of you are doing and starting across the country, continent, and world, and how our UU Christian ministers gather to support one another, and how our UU Christian churches are thriving in spirit and service. And I look forward to that time every year or so when we gather face to face to have spirited Revival, a time when we don't have to be apologetic or always trying to translate our passion for the ways, the diverse, heretical, but also faithful ways we experience the Sacred and both uphold our historic witness and help shape it for those who will come after us. Be sure to come join with us in March for Revival. Read more below.
In this time of the year, when so much is changing around us in our environment, and in our religion, and in our organization, and probably in our own lives, may we see the deciduousness of our faith, the way it changes and dies and seeds new growth, and just when we think we are about to lose it, lose our communities, lose our sense of what has been, may we be able to see the brilliant colors and life and gifts God has given, and know them as signs of the ultimate trust in life and renewal itself that will sustain us now and forevermore.
Blessings of the season,
Rev. Ron Robinson
Executive Director, UUCF.
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Good News Journal
Special 2011 Advent and Christmas Issue
 This special issue is coming! Become a member, support our mission and receive it in the mail this month. Click to Join, Renew or Donate.
This month for Advent and this year's Christmas season we are again print publishing our special issue of the Good News> This provides a high quality resource publication full of insight and spirit exploring issues of the season. It has been edited by board member Rev. Tony Lorenzen and designed by board member Gil Guerrero, both of the Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas areas. Thanks to both and to the many wonderful contributors, many of whom are new voices with us, for this wonderful publication. It will help us deepen and strengthen our walk in God's love this season, and help us to show others the small but powerful voice we have within Christianity and within Liberal Religion.
Here is what Rev. Lorenzon has to say about this exciting publication from the UUCF:
"Welcome to the Advent and Christmas Issue of The Good News. As Advent begins the Christian year, this issue begins a new step in the development of The Good News. A number of things are happening. This is my first issue as editor. I've endeavored to bring you some new voices including Anna Snoeyenbos, Christian Schmidt, Crystal Marie-Lewis, and Chaplain (Captain) George Tyger. In the years ahead, as the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship and I work on The Good News, we will endeavor to grow the newsletter into a publication that participates fully in the growing ecumenical conversation among progressive Christians. This conversation know many terms and labels. It is called emergent, emerging, missional, tribal, and new monastic. Its various expressions have much in common with the Free Church tradition of Unitarian and Universalist Christianity. The Good News will begin to welcome progressive Christian voices from outside Unitarian Universalism. We hope that our stepping out into the ecumenical mission field will be able to both help spread Unitarianism and Universalism as Christian theologies, encourage more people to freely follow Jesus and his message, and introduce an increasing number of Unitarian Universalists to the exiting theological conversation that is going on in the progressive Christian world."
The table of contents for the publication also includes:
- Advent Prayer by the Rev. Kristen Grassel Schmidt
- "Little Holies" a sermon for the season by The Rev. Ellen Cooper-Davis
- "Meaning In the Midst of War: A Christmas Message, from Kandahar, Afghanistan by Captain (Chaplain) George Tyger
- A Renewed Perspective on the Incarnation of Jesus, by Crystal Marie-Lewis
- Praising God For Slippery Slopes, by Anna Snoeyenbos
- White Christmas, by The Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot
- Prepare Ye The Way, Christian Schmidt
- Welcome by UUCF President Dean Drake
- Commentary by UUCF Executive Director The Rev. Ron Robinson
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| Revival 2011
Many Voices, Many Verses: Welcoming The Feminine in Christianity
Washington, D.C. area
March 22-25, 2012
Online registration for this important gathering of the Spirit of Freedom and Jesus will begin on Dec. 15th, through www.uuchristian.org/revival. Go to Revival section of our web site to see all the information on the exciting event.
There will be three main speakers:
- Author, Professor and Activists Dr. Amy Oden,
- Dr. Mary Hunt, and
- Author Margaret Starbird
See the schedule of the many UU Christian worship services including:
- an opening worship,
- morning and evening prayer services each day,
- communion, baptism,
- prayer and healing service,
- Taize worship with the host church, and
- closing circle
The scope of programs and workshops include:
- Centering Prayer,
- Women in the Bible,
- Women and the Universalist Hope,
- Celtic Christianity,
- Sacred Feminine,
- Missional Church,
- UU Christianity 101,
- Praying the Psalms,
- Nurturing Small Groups,
- racial reconciliation, and
- more to be announced.
Also the Small Group ministry we will have during Revival this year will allow participants to share their own journeys, struggles, and to connect with others on ultimate topics in intimate community as they deepen their spiritual walk.
Come make connections and learn how to keep the spirit of Revival going in your life and in your community no matter where you are throughout the year.
Scholarships are available, especially for young adults, seminarians, and others. Plan now to come and bring others with you.
Remember that Revival is not just for those identifying as UU Christians, or as UU, or as Christian. But all who seek to experience the free spirit of our conversation and community. But it is also the time when we make our presence known throughout the land.
And finally here is a related sermon on Christology by the Rev. Thom Belote, delivered after our Revival last year in Dallas. It's based on a workshop and conversation by colleague, Rev. Naomi King, which she presented at Revival. Go to this link to read " Queer Pirate Jesus Wheels Into Port," and come to Revival...
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A Preview of Revival 2012 Presenters Publications
See a glimpse from the writings of our presenters From Dr. Amy Oden, dean of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., and from her book "God's Welcome: Hospitality For a Gospel-Hungry World" ..."As Christians we have a theological word for this ongoing welcome of God: salvation. Salvation is the continual presence and activity of God in our lives, welcoming us deeper into the divine life through being a disciple of Jesus Christ...Everything we do, every conversation we have, every task we pursue, every meal we cook, God's saving work is in it all. God's salving/saving fills our congregational lives too: in Sunday worship and youth lock-ins, in committee meetings and mission trips, in mowing the lawn and tending the nursery. But it doesn't stop there. God's expansive, welcoming work is going on outside our own congregations as well. God's saving work--salvation--is bigger than us, bigger than our church, bigger than our denomination. Salvation cannot be contained. This is especially good news when we despair of the foibles of our all-too-human congregations. Click for more >>  From Dr. Mary E. Hunt, director of Women's Alliance For Theology, Ethics, and Ritual, author of "Fierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Tenderness", from which comes this excerpt:
"Perhaps the most suggestive image for the divine that emerges out of women's friendships is not one divinity but many. Just as friends do not exist in the singular, neither is it feasible to imagine that something as complex and comprehensive as divinity could be singular either. There may even be a hint of this insight in the Christian trinitarian theologies, though I avoid the language of the hypostatic union. The point is that thinking of the divine as one friend reinforces a relationless content and minimizes the extent to which the divine, for all of its glory, is still more available through human imaginings.
From Margaret Starbird author of The Woman With The Alabaster Jar, and other works, here is an excerpt from an article titled "Imaging God As Partner":
One late autumn Sunday in 1987 I attended Mass in a Roman Catholic Church in the middle of Tennessee. Over the altar that day, probably created in anticipation of the upcoming feast of Christ the King, was a large black banner with a mosaic design in orange, yellow, and red. The banner depicted a church steeple silhouetted against the sunrise, and the bright orange letters proclaimed "Every day is SON day."
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"Do I Stay or Do I Go?"
Recently on the covenanted confidential ministers chat list for the UUCF, a perennial issue arose that comes up not only among ministers but among our lay members as well: what is it that keeps us Christians, or free followers of Jesus, in the wide sphere of the Unitarian Universalist Association or movement?
The comments were so incisive and universal that we decided to break a little of our confidential chat in order to share the conversation with our wider circle. This is a common and continual issue in the UUCF and has been since its beginning; it also reminds us that, as we like to point out, while rooted in the traditions and churches of the UUA, the UUCF is also for UUs who are not Christian and for Christians who are not UUs, but who, like the wide diversity among us as UU and Christian, find in and with us and our resources and our mission a deepening of their own spiritual journey. We also say we have among us UUs who are too UU to be considered Christians by many Christians, and who are also too Christian to be considered UU by many UUs. But in and through the UUCF all have found a home in the spirit of Jesus. Here are excerpts of the ministers' conversation, edited to preserve anonymity: We will post this conversation on the website and on our official Facebook page so other voices can be heard and so those ministers who want to can also post their responses by name. Click for rest of story >> |
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Blogs on Occupy Wall Street
Resources for bloggers
Many of our UUCF bloggers have been commenting on the Occupy Wall Street movement, or the one in their hometowns; here are their sites and also other topics of interest in the past few weeks:
- Sunflower Chalice - Homebrewing Church for The Inventive Age, Is Congregational Polity killing the Liberal Church, If You Want To Change The World Start With Breakfast by Rev. Tony Lorenzon.
- Deep River Faith - When Scripture Gets Ugly, and more from Anna Snoeyenbos.
- Boy in the Bands - Psalter Commons, Scottish Anglicans, Misconducting Ministers, World Communion Sunday, and More by the Rev. Scott Wells.
For more blogs >>
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Video
Our Evangelical Neighbors
Here is a link to a video of a recent sermon at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa. Its minister, The Rev. Marlin Lavanhar, hosted a guest sermon by a conservative evangelical pastor from Colorado whom he has developed a friendship with over recent years following the death of his young daughter. The shared sermon is about the ways both UU's and conservative evangelicals offend the other and what we can learn from going deeper into relationship with one another, still respecting the differences.
For the video >>
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Q. Jesus and Christology: Who is he to you?
Here is another sampler from our minister's chat list; this time in response to a question from one about what others are thinking about who Jesus was and is to them. We hope it sparks your own honest responses, questions, and deepening thought.
A. What an interesting question.
As for me, I have a very low Christology. I'm not even sure I like* *Jesus. Sometimes I think he may have been a bit of a charlatan. And yet...I had a profound experience in seminary, when I read and studied and encountered the gospel of Mark. The Jesus I relate to is thoroughly human: someone who can get stressed and angry, someone who can lash out at people who care about him, someone who can make impossibly high demands on people. For me, encountering what I perceive as Jesus's imperfections helped me to accept my own imperfections. I love the stories about Jesus; I love working with the texts. I feel most creative and inspired when I engage with the stories and the texts and the traditions. Personally, I separate "Jesus" and "Christ." I use (or translate) the word "Christ" as the "Body of God." I have an incarnational theology. My faithis: we are all part of the Body of God, and Christ is in each of us.
Click for rest of story >>
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Virtual Monastery
Rev. Dr. David Breeden, Fall 2011
Every week, the UUCF publishes some of the best of progressive Christian biblical interpretation by our UUCF members, connecting with current events, with our struggles for deeper spiritual lives. We do this through the Virtual Monastery area of our website, a space where you can go and rest and read and reflect and be moved to respond. We also have a link to the archives where you can be moved by meditations of previous writers. We are also always looking for new writers. Contact Rev. Ron Robinson if interested. As we enter the special weeks of Advent and Christmas, we hope you will make this part of the UUCF a place you visit often, and share with others.
Here is an excerpt from the writings this month by the Rev. Dr. David Breeden:
"....How apropos to our time and season sounds the parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 25. No-this parable isn't about how good it is to double your money. This chapter of Matthew is building toward Jesus' vision of separating the sheep from the goats according to the metric not of how much return on monetary investment we get, but on how dedicated we are to serving "the least of these." We hear from car windows and from the television news,
'You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents.
Yes, those to whom much is given have every reason-and every opportunity-to double the master's money and hear the good news: "I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master."
Ah, but the rewards of speaking truth to power:
I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.
"Toss out this worthless slave!" shouts the unjust master, unwittingly speaking one of the great spiritual laws even as he rages:
For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
Yes, true words in the world of profit and loss; but truer words in the realm of the spirit, where the first is last and the last first. As the Zen koan puts it, "If you have a cane, I will give you one; if you have none, I will take it away." What is it that we have heard Jesus say about a camel and a needle's eye? Fact is, the unjust master has no joy to enter into. What was it Jesus said about the rich fool and his grand plans? "That night he died" (Luke 12:21).
When they say, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them . . .
Unfortunately, there is always another nine hundred chariots of iron to deal with. Always we must roll up our sleeves and got on down to the Wadi Kishon-or the local Occupy outpost-to meet them. Always it is our lot to encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing..."
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General Assembly 2012 in Phoenix
Plan now to join the UUCF in Phoenix, June 20-24, 2012, for the Justice General Assembly of the UUA. Our Communion Service during GA will be led by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger of New Orleans, a past president of the UUCF. She has returned to her native city to help lead its renewal. Our booth will be a place of rest and connections and resources and a way we introduce the power of our movement to others. For more visit the UUA website and stay tuned to our website for updates. This will be an event of witness and education and calls out for a good turnout of those who follow Jesus.
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UUCF History
A Christian Symbol
by
Harry Stokes
I believe in one God
In whom I rejoice
Holy is the One, the Creator, the All Mighty
Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, God of patriarchs, prophets, psalmists and sages,
The Holy One of Israel.
I believe God gave us a servant son, savior, redeemer,
prophet, priest, teacher, physician and king,
an exemplar
Jesus as Messiah, the Anointed One,
Christ, our Lord
In whom all godliness lived: who being at one with God,
Was one with us in nature; In all things overcoming sin.
God's Holy One, Jesus, given for our reconciliation,
We crucified and put to death under the law.
I believe God raised Jesus from the dead and made him Christ
Through resurrection to a new kingdom,
Where as judge, knowing life, death and resurrection,
Christ, of those asleep, the first to rise,
Is our promise of everlasting life: Who lives forever
present at the right hand of God in glory.
I believe in Jesus Christ as God's word, way, truth and life;
Our good shepherd, true vine and bread of heaven,
The lamb of God; God's mediator, reconciler
and the Covenant with us.
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Address: P.O. Box 6702, Turley, OK 74156-0702
Phone: (918) 794-4637 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (918) 794-4637 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
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.
Sincerely, |
Ron Robinson
Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship |
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