Archived Messages
from the executive director, Rev. Ron Robinson
Pentecost
Welcome to the UUCF in this Season of Pentecost or Ordinary Time, according to the liturgical calendar of the church year. This calendar of special days helps remind us that we are not on the time-frame or cultural value-frame of our dominant culture. Though we may be "in" that world around us, we are not "of" it ultimately. The counter-cultural movement of time and meaning found in the church year roots us in the story of Jesus and helps guide us in walking lovingly and freely the way of Jesus.
Especially if you are encountering the UUCF during this time of General Assembly of the UUA, or from our advertising in the UU World magazine, we welcome you and hope you will explore our many pages here and our related links and communities to find out more about us and to look for ways that you can belong and help us re-create church at the intersection of Jesus and Freedom.
That is especially what Pentecost is all about, birthing the new church. Be a part of our new birth by attending our General Assembly events, at Revival/Retreat, through small groups, online, and especially by giving of your time, talents, and treasure (donate button is on the home page; use it often, as you would the offering plate weekly).
Here is the main reading for Pentecost Sunday followed by a reflection of how this fits with our mission in the UUCF:
Scripture Reading: Act 2:-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o”clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Reflection:
Pentecost Story is ripe with core values and images of progressive liberal faith. It is a calling into community story. It is a celebration of diversity. It is a story of healing and hope.
Looking at the story from a textual lens, Acts is part of the narrative arc that begins with the Gospel of Luke, a continuation and expansion of the themes engendered in Luke. The focus is on the Spirit of God as a power, the power, in the world, a topsy-turvy power that comes to the least of those in their most vulnerable times. The story of God's spirit moves from John the Baptist to Jesus in Luke, and then God's Spirit comes back into the world in Acts at the Day of Pentecost and moves from Peter and Jerusalem on to Paul and eventually headed toward Rome. This is the day, the time, when The Story moves from Christ into the world and through it, through us.
Looking at the story from a historical-critical lens, it taps into the experiences and memories of the early followers of Jesus. They were adrift and caught in limbo. So recently they had been in his presence, once being in the hope of the stories and gossip and gospel of his being an anointed Resurrected One, and yet now it was fading. They were breaking up but holding on. The past was still with them but the future hadn't pulled them into mission. They were together; they were a community; but they were not what the liberation theologians call a communitas, a people with a purpose. And then the world broke open again and the Spirit that had been mainly in the One was now in The Many too.
Looking at it from a progressive liberal lens, it is all about the truth of ongoing revelation and the power of covenant rather than creed, of presence rather than principle. First of all, they are together, simply together. They have, in all their despair and loneliness and fear, continued to come together...because when people come together in the spirit of Jesus, you never know what will happen, but you can trust, based on what had gone before, that something good would happen, healing would take place, abundance would be overflowing. Gather together just to be together in groups of two (with just one other person) or two or more, and the Spirit of God will break out. And it does. In a particular, peculiar way in keeping with the ministry and example set by Jesus. The power of God comes not just to one only but to all, and it doesn't come through just one culture and one language but through many as they begin speaking in different languages (remembering that language meant culture meant religion back then especially), and yet the power of God, of love and justice, allowed them each to understand the other. What a foreshadowing of the non-creedal church where what we believe together doesn't have to unite us as a people but how we share alike our different truths and visions in the free spirit that helped to bring them forth in the first place. This unity in diversity comes to all regardless of station in life or condition of being.
That the scriptures are quoted in this letter which was not yet scripture itself shows that even in the midst of the new spirit, there is a place, a necessity, for that which has gone before. Being connected to the prophets, to that Great Story, was a ground for what new would emerge in the church that was forming. This is something liberals and progressives need to reclaim today: the ancient ways, all of the warts and bad history of the church, can and should be incorporated into who we are today, for it is a part of who we are today, and we neglect it at our peril. Traditionalism, as it is said, kills the Spirit, but Tradition gives it birth. We at the UUCF are committed to preserving our UU history in its Christian origins, and finding new ways to make it alive and real.
One of the joys of being a Christian in Unitarian Universalism, amidst all the challenges it brings (and we do know fully the experience of how others see us, think we must be drunk or crazy to be in community as we are, like they saw the Pentecost community, so much room for difference and yet so much common understanding among us), is that we have such an ancient tradition that is ours as Christians and followers of Jesus; we don't just go back to the founding of the American Unitarian Association in 1825 or the Universalist gatherings in 1790 and 1793 or, for that matter, to the Plymouth founders of 1620, or even to the Radical or Magesterial Reformation movement of a hundred years before that, but we are the recipients of the Spirit of it all, community bequeathing to community, even through all the changes, back to those events and experiences that came to be chronicled and called Pentecost.
And what is true of the community can be true for us in our community today, and in our personal lives. First, it tells us to be in community with one another. Just show up. That first principle of covenant living. Find some community to be a part of, to start. That the Spirit of God showed up where they were and not in the Temple, not in a sacred in itself gathering such as at a synagogue, and not coming, at least at first, through the wisdom of a chosen and set aside pastor and teacher and prophet but came all at once and to all of them, means that the community you can be a part of and experience God doesn't have to go by the name church, or even small group, even ours in the UUCF; it means it can come at any time through any kind of people, so you have to live lives of openness so that, like the strangers on the road to Emmaues, you will know it when it happens.
Pentecost Season tells us that Easter is over but Easter will never be over. And knowing that we can be a part of it. And that we have a mission now that calls us into being in the first place, a mission that creates the church rather than the church struggling to find its mission. Pentecost lays out our mission, one that soon we will take into the world through the longest season of the church year, the season of Ordinary Time also known as Pentecost Season. Our mission that makes us a church is that we are to be an Easter people even after Easter, and we are to share Easter with others, sharing it in a diversity of ways too, that hope and purpose and community will never be over, will be forever renewed, in those that come together faithfully.
Prayer:
Spirit of God, renew us again, come into our midst again, create us once again as a people of God whose mission is the make visible in our world the presence of Jesus which was not killed by the powers of the world, but is here with us today, here with all of us, young and old, male and female, regardless of status or condition, here bringing us alive, as if on fire, with the truth of everlasting love and justice for all. Spirit of God, which is not always felt, which can seem as if absent in our lives, just a shadow of what once was or a glimmer of what might yet be in the far off future, may we experience you today in all your fullness and wholeness, mending our fragmented lives and world. Spirit of God, we know not to look for you in the designated places and recognized and expected spaces, or people, but to look for you in the ruins and remnants and forgotten and neglected places, the dangerous spaces, and people. May this day given over to this truth be a day when we dedicate ourselves to being a part of your church's renaissance, rebirth, as a people and not a place, and may the people we seek to become be sharers of your Spirit with others, so in need of a healing community with a purpose, and even more than that, may we be seekers of your Spirit from others.
Going Deeper. Take a sentence from the scripture and use it as both a text for sacred reading, lectio divina, as well as a breath prayer. Isolate one word from the scripture and meditate on that word. Journal or share with another your responses, what comes to you. Pray your own prayer inspired by a sentence or word in the prayer above. Attend a church worship service in a community different from yours where you have never been. Form a new community where you are, a UUCF inspired small group of two or more people. Study the Hebrew origins of Pentecost in the celebration of Shauvot, the Festival of Weeks, the giving of the Torah to Moses forming them together as a people. Read the Book of Ruth in keeping with Shauvot and about how the story of that people is to welcome the stranger, the foreigner, as the very way itself the people show they are a people of such a God of Love, who keeps providing harvest and welcome tables for that harvest.
For more reflections like this every week, and to see the ones that have been written in the past, go to our Virtual Monastery section of the website through the Members portal which is open to all.
Blessings,
Ron Robinson
Executive Director, UUCF
UU Christianity and The Edge Effect
Lent is a period for looking backward, evaluating and relinquishing, and looking forward toward Easter and re-commitment to living more fully in the image of God, especially as given to us in Jesus. This is also the time for me to re-orient toward the Big Picture, to re-focus on the Vision calling me forward, that which puts all the smaller tasks and responsibilities into the God Perspective. It is one of the reasons I look forward to Lent.
For me, the UUCF’s Big Picture is about the creation of a space. It is then an ecological metaphor. And the metaphor of the space is that of "The Edge Effect." In God's Good Creation, where nature has been allowed to live fully, there are the edge places where different bioregions converge; the forest edge, the stream, the temperate zones of the mountains, the valleys, the inlets and gulfs, the reefs, and the pathways traced by animals. Here where I live it is the meeting place of the prairie and the woodlands. In all of these places, life thrives and experi-ments and species flourish. One can experience something of the original sense of the Genesis Garden here.
And, in keeping with the biblical narrative, the edge effect can occur from crisis as well, such as from the prairie fire that allows for native plants and diversity to be restored when monocultures have taken over, which allows for more animal species to join the feast of life in these spaces. Jesus himself used so many ecological metaphors in his teach-ings and many reflect the importance of the edge effect: leaven that mixes in where it shouldn't, eating with people of all conditions, healing and being healed by those who had been cast out, mustard seeds that bring a little chaos into the orthodoxy of our lives and expectations. So the cross, a symbol of tyranny, becomes a symbol of rebellion against tyrannies, pointing to a deeper truth that the love and life of God is present and at work transforming even the cruelest and starkest places. The cross is a manifestation of this edge effect.
The UUCF, in promoting the free following of Jesus, creates an edge effect theologically in the world, and in the Unitarian Universalist spheres, and in Christianity itself. Here we create space for different theologi-cal and spiritual bioregions to converge. Where others would look at this and fear conflict and a loss of identity, and in the face of so much of God's abundance they retreat into scarcity reactions, we rejoice and our souls are grown by those of so many others. We experience Jesus in the face of others who go by different names; we learned to do this from Jesus himself. And this then is our unique species we contribute to the world around us. We give to others the gift and the presence of a generosity and a radical trust that has a particular face, one which ironically was never liter-ally drawn and preserved for the ages, but we don't have to define the shape of that face for others and for all time.
Likewise, on the other end of the spectrum, we don't stay on the outside just observing the life of the edge effect out of fear that if we go down one path in it we will miss something going on somewhere else, resulting in a life of anxiety. We know that as there is infinity in the palm of the hand and eternity in a blade of grass, that going deeper into the study of the path of Jesus will open us up to the ways of our neighbors. Even among us within the UUCF, we have our own internal edge effect as we merge our various ways of experiencing Jesus. The more we are able to do so the more we are able to help others do so. It is just like our mission to be a healing presence in the way of Jesus to those who have been hurt in the name of Jesus.
Let us remember too that Lent and all the special seasons of the life of the church are themselves ways we create edge effects in our lives and communities. These times of the year juxtapose themselves against the daily ways the culture tries to fashion our lives. As we immerse into them, as in daily prayer times, daily random acts of kindness and beauty, daily acts of sacrifice, we experience the full flourishing of God's im-ages surrounding us.
When you read what is going on in the UUCF in this newsletter, and when you get renewal letters from us, and when you are asked to give to special appeals, and when you are asked to be a part of our many planning teams, and to begin a group of two or three or more wherever you are, (and CONSIDER YOURSELF ASKED) know that what you and we do here is part of a Big Vision, something cosmic, creating space for the edge effect to happen and for God to grow among us.
Let Lent come into your life and guide you once again this year toward the spirit of the one who has created a space for God in our lives.
Blessings,
Ron Robinson
Made in the Likeness of the Giving God
Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas Message
By Rev. Ron Robinson, Executive Director
The holiday season of Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas are most appropriate seasons to consider what we give to one another and to the world in and through the UUCF. One way to consider this is to think of "what do I get from my membership in the UUCF?" or "what do we give to those who join us?" But thisfosters the anxiety of continuing questions, "Am I getting or are we giving enough? Is it worth what I spend on it? Should I be doing something else with my money and time I give?" But these questions and concerns, natural and human though they are, stop short of the kind of spiritual sense of living and giving that is lifted up in a counter-dominant-culture way at this time of the year when we begin to enter into the Christmas story and feel again the presence most acutely of the Creating Giving Sending To The World Lovingin Abundance Surprising Grace-Filled Spirit of God who brings us alive bysuch a spirit. We think Jesus calls us to deeper questions and deeperresources for living.
Theologian Miroslav Volf, in his book "Free of Charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace" reminds us that there are three main modes of living--taking, trading, giving--and though at times in our lives we may live more deeply in one mode than another, and even our giving can so easily turn into taking and trading, we are nevertheless made in the likeness of a Giving God and find our deepest fulfillment in freely become givers ourselves, of ourselves to others, especially to strangers, enemies.
We know that people participate in the UUCF for a multitude of reasons, and we welcome all for whatever reason and wherever they are on their journey. Not all are Christians, and those of us who are have a wide range of understandings of what that means or where we find ourselves at home in the Jesus Story; not all are Unitarian Universalists, some have been and no longer are, some have never been, some consider themselves both UU and another denomination or another faith entirely, and some are very happy being UU and can't conceive of following Jesus in any other home. Some support us to see what we are up to, some to engage more with the ideas of our movement than with the movement and the people themselves, some to build and increase their library, some to augment how they are growing spiritually in their own congregations, some as a way of connecting deeper on a spiritual and theological level than they can find in a local congregation, some to share their own gifts of the spirit with the world through us, and through us to come alive in a way that transforms their lives and their communities. Some find us helpful and meaningful for a short period of time in their journey as the search for a spiritual home, and some have been with us all their adult lives, and some come and go with us. And there are others.
What, then, can we offer this season to each of you in such diverse states? Consider how what we offer and how we operate flies against the current of worldy enterprises and organizations that might seek to be in relationship with you. Consider how the UUCFembodies in all we do a deep holiday and Christmas spiritof the biblical not commercial kind.
Can we offer an ever-improving and expanding website and online ministry? We have a team meeting monthly to continue doing this. Each time we meet it takes money as well as the use of our paid staff. And you or others don't have to pay a dime to the UUCF to be able to enjoy and be enriched by our webministry though it costs the UUCF. Still, we are not called into quid pro quo living, but into giving living. We can offer our Good News periodical to bring you timely sermons, resources, reviews, news and event announcements and coverage. If you support us you will get access to this before others can through the web, but if you are willing to wait you can see the issues online later or pick them up at our gatherings all for free. And we don't charge those in prisons anything for receiving our Good News. We do send out the intellectually engaging UU Christian Journal free only to those who support us financially, but we sell the new issues for half what we ask in our membership subscription levels and our issues don't get out always every year. Again we are called not intoquid pro quo living but giving living.
We can offer excitingspeakersat General Assembly as we have done, and we can continue to expand the size of our GA boothso we can offer our own programming in that space when we have been denied programs at GA, as we have done, even renting nearby hotel space to be able to keep up our traditions at GA.This year we again will be expanding our space to join with even greater numbers of other UU theological groups, and all of GA costs us money and we don't get discounts through the UUA anymore for it, and though we do make some sales at the booth most of our materials and brochures we make are given away for free as we interact with UUs who may be finding out about us for the first time during their time at GA. We create atGA in a rented space acatered dinner and hymn singprogram for our annual meeting but the costs only break even at best since we never can be sure how many people will attend. But GA is a time for sowing seeds of our faith, and sowing seeds by itself never makes economic sense in the short run. People are not charged for our GA booth and programs. All free of charge, like God's love, like Creation, like the lives of service that continue to inspire us through the centuries. Even at our Revivals, the one place where we do budget for breaking even financially, we always err on the side of generosity and risk providing depth and quality even at a time when we know the economic situation is tough.
We can offer a staff that helps keep the organization carrying out its mission and plans and keeping us attune to the event horizon, but you or others might have limited contact with me or our Administrator. I certainly don't charge for phone conversations or email with those wondering if we might become a help or a home to their spiritual journey, or who are looking for connections and encouragement to start a small group of free followers of Jesus in their church or area. The UUCF has invested in staff because it helps the mission of outreach and healing, not as a substitute for it. The growth of our small groups is also done in the spirit of generosity; we charge no fee for small groups; we want them to multiplyand take on a diversity of forms to fit the local area; we provide free resourcesand sometimes speakers for them all free of charge.
None of this giving so much away for free makes sense to many in the world. But, then, neither does Christmas and the story of where and how God was found two thousand years ago. And we can only do it because of you.
In the latest UUCF Board Retreat held this past October in Cleveland, of which you will read more in the coming weeks, new direction for our collective energy in the next three years began to be prioritized and mapped out. Look for Mission trips. Continued deepening of events at GA and Revivals, making them and thewebsite increasingly more interactive and touching all aspects of our personal and family and community lives. A "UUCF Roadshow" to introduce us to churches across the country. Expanded advertising, more and better promotional material, investment in virtual office technology to help our volunteers work more easily on their time and to de-centralize our database and our knowledge base, moving to print-on-demand even as we transform our publicationsinto a wider theological conversation and response medium. And a more personal contact, in the midst of the technology, with our members andall who come into contact with us, through an Easter Season Commitment Campaignthat will enable us to become a more energetic and broaderprogressive Christian movement and voice we seek to become both within UUism and in thenewpost-denominational world.
What, then, this season do we have to give toyou for your support of all this? We give you the opportunity tolive more fully in the life of giving, rather than taking or trading; we give you the opportunity to become deeper, truer givers; we give you the opening to respond to the calling ofthe babyJesus who came first as a giving gift of God.You may notdirectly benefit on a visible level from most or all ofthe UUCF"presence" outlined above, but I hope you will feel in your heart that the support you send to us financially and through your own presence with us as volunteers nationally and in your own area, all of it gives birth to and grows the soul of Christand Freedomin the world, and thatis as personal as it gets.
Use this Thanksfulness and Advent and Christmas season of your contemplation and action to become such a gift to others.Check out the link below to an easy way of giving to support our giving, and you can contact us in many ways for conversation on how best to connect more deeply withthis movement dedicated to helping connect people with Jesus.
Blessings, Ron
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In Gratitude
Former UUCF Board member and renowned theologian James Luther Adams tells the story once of "an old minister in a mill city in New England who used to preach annually a long sermon on the year's discoveries in astronomy. His people...bore this ordeal with patient resignation. Someone asked him, "What is the use of this sermon on the stars and astronomical space? He replied, 'My dear boy, it isn't any use, but it greatly enlarges my idea of God."
I came across that passage again as I write this, a week after a heart attack and a short stay in the hospital for some stent surgery on an artery and in my recovery period now, and as I await tonight the annual sermon God writes back on the same topic--the Perseids meteor shower. Some of my fondest memories have been of waiting patiently for the shooting stars, staring at the space between the stars, waiting for what may or may not burst across the sky at any given moment, reminding myself that even as the stillness seems so vast and permanent without any perceptible change or event that there is so much going on beneath my feet and also up where I am looking though I cannot see it.
Many of those Perseids memories have come as I have been at our regional church camp, here known as the Southwest UU Summer Institute. I attended my first some 30 years ago. I was still in the process of leaving my childhood connection with Jesus Christ behind, and as I had always been enamored by all things astronomical, I was thrilled that the theme speaker at this first UU church camp I attended was the renowned scientist Ralph Alpher who helped, back in the Fifties, discover the evidence that led to the Big Bang theory. He had the most amazing slides as he talked, back thirty years ago, of the latest theories on the universe. There was, as I remember now, no talk of God. Atheism was strong in all the UUs around me, and a part of my path then too. Which was all right by me.
But each night after the talk and slideshow I would sit with friends on the shore of a lake and spend hours in the dark looking up and feeling, even on those times when meteors did not streak across the sky in front of us, that I was part of something more, connected not disconnected to time and eternity. In just a few years the works of Unitarian process theologians and scientists Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne would open up the word God for me and that feeling again, and then later for me the ultimate story and face of that God in and through Jesus Christ and the community created in his wake all brought it home for me again as my idea of God was both enlarged and made particular.
Now I am grateful for those UU atheists on my spiritual journey, then and now, but in these days of recovery and re-orientation underway I am even more grateful for this particular community of God known as the UUCF and the love you have shown me, the prayers you have sent, the offers of help that have come. James Luther Adams was also well known for reminding Christians that "by your fruits you will be known" as followers of Jesus; I have seen and enjoyed your fruits (as well as all those in my new diet).
I am grateful that through my now almost 20 years as a UUCF member, I have received so much that has sustained and nurtured me this past week especially. I have been saddened that my colleague and recent UUCF Board member Rev. Tim Jensen, who was one of those from whom I and others have received so much, died recently from his struggle with cancer just as I was getting home from the hospital with a new opportunity at living longer. A spiritual life is built up of moments, day by day, learning to pray, to trust, to think theologically, and act accordingly with others and through our own life. So many witnesses there have been like Brother Tim that have shared their knowledge and experiences and transformations in our publications over the years, in our programs at GA, in our deepening times of Revival and now through our online communities and the webministry. All of these ways the UUCF has made Jesus visible in the world has helped me now in fearful and anxious moments, and as I look forward to living in and toward Life Abundant and the multitude of changes in that journey.
Thank you to President Kathleen Rolenz and the Board and to Administrator Lisa Franklin and many more of you who have helped me now help myself as I take some medical leave and just gradually and occasionally do things like write this column and slowly come back to duties. Along with the prayers of current UUCFers, I am also blessed to be still, and to enjoy reading again the works of the UUCF that are also my companions and thinking of the lives that have enriched us all. Like the old minister said, to be of no use as the world and ourselves too often think of being of use, and to enlarge my idea of God and even more importantly to be enlarged by God.
I am also reminded acutely now of how we intersect with your lives--if you are in or just out of hospital or caring with loved ones who are, or in and out of prison or jail or caring with loved ones who are, or in and out of addictions or companioning those who are, or in and out of despair or of broken relationships or caring for loved ones who are. Know that the faithfulness of Jesus even unto the cross that we seek to emulate is not just a mind-game to us, and that our way of creating that faithfulness in the world may be a progressive liberal generous way, but it is not a way, as too often implied and unfortunately reinforced, that is only for the healthy and spiritually fit or just for those times in our lives. It is a discipline though, and I am sustained now not only by the presence of companions but also by those spiritual practices of prayer and meditation and study and sacred reading and biblical interpretations and inspiration from inspired lives that has been a fruit of the UUCF and the way the UUCF connects us with the larger faith.
This is my recent story. Please let us know of yours as we move forward into our most exciting year ever of the 65 years of the UUCF. blessings, thanks, and more soon, Ron
UUCF Annual Meeting 2009 - A Pentacost and General Assembly Message
This past year has been full of the kinds of big public events and programs that make annual reports easy to write: the first full year of the new and still growing website; the new bylaws reflecting new circumstances and how we can best structure to meet them; more small groups forming, something I still continue to believe to be critical to our future; a spirited Revival that was full of diverse worship and the depth of holy conversations that made it as much Spiritual Retreat as Revival, as well as a lineup of these Revival Retreats that goes from next year in Dallas to Washington DC San Diego and back where they began in New Orleans, and we hope given the economic realities there will also be a renewal of regional events; the new survey for our members and friends and seekers to help guide us into the next decade; new directions for publications; and of course this expansive General Assembly presence and experiment in theological group engagement. It has been a full year, and yet there is the sense that this whole year, these past few years, have been leading us up to just a new beginning, a transformation internally to allow us to transform our communities and movement.
And yet what I am most moved to lift up now are all the moments of the past year that never make it into annual reports, for they point not only to our activities and accomplishments but to the struggles still before us and our calling to grow. First, the many chances to work with many of you on so many different projects and requests, small and large; the calls I get from people around the country and the world finding out about us for the first time looking not only for information but for relationship and community; the emails from those who are thinking about joining a UU church for the first time but wondering if there is a place for their love of Jesus to be expressed; the meeting and conversation with students at Meadville Lombard Seminary after leading a communion service with another UUCF clergy and supported by the Chicago UUCF group; and the conversations with those who are on their way out of UUism, who have been a part of us or wish they’d found out about us sooner; the clergy and seminarians wondering if there is a career possible in their calling as UU Christians; also this past year it seems there have been more than usual the number of emails from UUs who are finding out about us for the first time, through the web or as a small group is beginning in their church, and they are not happy about it and want to let us know about it and are worried about whether the big tent of UUism will continue to be supportive of them as well; correct information and understanding and pastoral work and representing Jesus isn’t confined to Christians; and then the most painful of all during the year, those inquiries from people who are looking for a UU Christian church, or failing that, a UUCF group near them, but where there are none and they don’t feel called to try to start one of their own. Those are all the kinds of conversations that I know many of you have as well. It is a big part of the unseen witness of the UUCF; in some ways it is what all the big ticket projects and programs all lead toward.
Knowledge is not what saves us; St. Paul is right about that, nor is it our programs and projects. We know what our mission is, to represent and make visible Jesus in our lives and all our communities. We even know what in large measure we need to do in order to do that: we need to create and sustain and expand a living presence that will help people live fuller lives so that they will not only want to be a part of us but share this presence called the UUCF with others because they have experienced the power of a Loving God through us, and love always calls out to be shared; we need more members even as we need to continue deepening the financial and volunteer support of our current members; we need to continue moving to new plateaus in our webministry to enable us to become one of the many forms of virtual church that has a real effect on real relationships; we need to continue leadership nurture and development, from the start that the new bylaws will give us, to develop a wider sense of leadership and teams of members reaching out in our name to many different generations and cultures and groups of people; we need to find new income streams in this era of turbulent economics and increased competitive market for all things spiritual; we need to take our small groups to a new level of networking and seeding new groups, who see themselves as vital parts themselves of the church universal. We need to connect better with Christian Churches within the UUA, and we mourn this past year the dissolution of one of those, Epiphany in Michigan, and need to learn more from it, realizing that dissolution doesn’t have to mean failure unless we don’t engage it. We need to connect better with other denominations, and look for ways to become a part of the greater work wherever we can, as we did with the groundbreaking work of the Consultation on Common Texts where the UUCF was represented and worked alongside many other traditions to produce the Revised Common Lectionary as well as other joint projects. We need to help our UU churches learn to connect with their Christian counterparts in their communities. We need to become indispensable sources of learning and content and guides for our seminaries that are UUs and for our UU seminarians in non UU seminaries. No Board no Executive Director, can do this by themselves. But where two or more are gathered as a ministry team, in the spirit of Jesus and Freedom, it will be done.
All of that may seem like a massive undertaking, but we know from our own successes these past few years how to go about this wonderful ministry we are called to do—when we have teams of people working together on a regular basis toward all these areas with obtainable goals and big transforming visions, we get things done that change the world—it is the story of the web development, the revivals, GA, and our internal revisioning in light of the changing relationship with the UUA.
I believe that with the new Board structure and working leadership, with the Strategic Retreat coming up in the Fall, and with the growing new ways to engage with the world through the web, with the timing for thinking beyond the box about our very being, with the changing culture of the religious landscape where the markers of the emerging church are characteristics favorable to us theologically and for the growth of small groups themselves, that this coming year will be The Year when the seeds that have been planted for years in our soil will begin to sprout and take shape, shaping us. I hope this summer will be the summer when we find a place for everyone who wants to to become a part of a team of leaders either nationally or in their region working to surprise the world with the Good News we are.
Personally, I thank my new Committee on Ministry—Dean Drake Tom Schade Julie Sansone and Betty Morrow—for walking with me during this final year of final fellowship with the UUA MFC and as we will help create the kind of mutually supportive and transforming relationship between the staff and Board and UUCF members that will help others in our roles long past our own times. I thank deeply our UUCF Administrator Lisa Franklin whose skills and energy and passion for our cause make it a joy to be on the office team with her. And I thank my wife Bonnie and my family and my ministry partners at our own evolving Living Room Church and ministry site in Turley, OK for helping me learn lessons that are helpful in my UUCF ministry as well. Keep us all in your prayers. I have found out that part-time is still very much holy time, especially if I let it be.
With this meeting I begin my seventh year working with you in the UUCF. What a ways we have come from where we were then, and yet as I wrote in the first paragraph, I believe more fully than ever that all of it has been prelude to the major work about to begin that will be realized beyond us but not possible without us. Our situation reminds me of how St. Paul called Jesus the “first fruit” of what God had started to do in the new world emerging at that time, and how all of Creation would become part of the Great Harvest to come. But In the meantime the followers of Jesus were to bear witness of that Harvest to the world, becoming like trees bearing the fruit of God’s life and spirit among us, or like mustard seed growing where the world says it shouldn’t and in ways it isn’t supposed to, or like leaven even, reminding the world that God is always not what we expect. I truly believe we are entering a period of excitement and diversity and growth much like that in the days of Paul. It is a privilege to be in your company as we enter these days, these first days.
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An Easter Message
"From the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 11, The Message version: "The news traveled fast and in no time the leaders and friends back in Jerusalem heard about it--heard that the non-Jewish "outsiders" were now "in."...
At the UUCF these days, in keeping with the spirit of the Easter season we are now in which is full of life-changing visions, we are looking at the "big picture" that informs the changes and actions and ideas and plans of the UUCF in the days ahead. Especially how we can be an emerging church through our cyberchurch, through our small groups, through our spiritual events like Revivals and at General Assemblies, and in new ways we use the websites to help people grow their soul by following freely in the spirit and steps of Jesus. Much more about this vision will be coming out in the next issues of the Good News periodical, so subscribe to it with a membership and join the conversation.
George Barna is head of a religious research group that continually looks at the canvass of the American religious landscape and publishes findings and analysis. His understanding of Christianity and of "biblical principles" differ vastly from mine, but his views on changes in culture and church resonate deeply with my own and I find them informative for the future of our particular manifestation of Church through the UUCF.
In his book "Revolution," Barna says that in the year 2000 people in the U.S. primarily experienced their faith and found spiritual expression through these means: 70 percent in local church, 5 percent in alternative faith-based communities, five percent in families, and 20 percent via media, arts, culture. But the forces that have been underway for a few generations are picking up speed in a revolutionary, not evolutionary, way and he forecast that by the year 2025 these percentages would be: 30-35 percent local church; 30-35 percent alternative faith-based communities, five percent families, and 30-35 percent media, arts, culture. Some of the fastest growing forms of church now are found in houses, in cyberspace, and in independent worship events.
The UUCF is committed to helping local churches help their people go deeper into the Spirit, and we will do more if we intentionally form a Church Ministry Team dedicated to this, and it is why Revivals are held in local churches, and many of our small groups are part of church small group ministries. At our recent Revival in Tulsa, our panel dedicated to discussing the new movements within churches and the new kinds of churches was a way to serve the mission of our churches. But, in addition to this, as one of those alternative faith-based communities, the changing one-size-doesn't-fit-all culture is ripe for the UUCF to become a deeper wellspring of faith for UUs, and others, who are looking for both "something more" and "something else."
Barna uses the term Revolutionaries for all those who, through a local church and/or not, are committing themselves to making their faith expression the primary expression of their life, instead of seeing it as an add-on to their life. He says they have seven spiritual passions, and the thriving groups will be those who can connect with those seven passions: 1. intimate worship, but not necessarily in an organized worship service, and daily; 2. faith-based conversations, sharing our experience of Jesus in low-key high-impact encounters, embracing these instead of running from them; 3. intentional spiritual growth, learning more and finding purpose as a way to connect with God; 4. servanthood, putting acts of mission and helping others first; 5. investing resources of talent, time, treasure in a way that reflects faith values and builds community and relationships; 6. spiritual friendships, for walking together in life with encouragement and accountability; and 7. family faith, which stresses the home as the model for connecting with God.
Some of the questions we will be asking, which will be guiding our UUCF through these changing times, are in what ways do we and can we align ourselves with those seven passions through the work of our websites, our small groups, our Revivals national and regional, our General Assembly gatherings, our publication resources, our curriculums, our relationships with other groups and churches, and our own presence as a means for people to invest their money, talents, time, hopes, and passions for God and the world.
Barna says that the Revolution is about recognizing that we are not called to "go" to church, but are called to "be" the church (as defined by another revolutionary, Shane Claiborne, as a people of God making Jesus visible in the world). May you this summer be in prayer and service and conversation about how you can "be" the "church" that is the UUCF, how you relate with these seven spiritual passions, and how you can join with us in the continuing revolution that Jesus started.
...."When the church in Jerusalem got wind of this, they sent Barnabas to Antioch to check on things. As soon as he arrived, he saw that God was behind and in it all. He threw himself in with them, got behind them, urging them to stay with it the rest of their lives. He was a good man that way, enthusiastic and confident in the Holy Spirit ways. The community grew large and strong in the Master...It was in Antioch that the disciples were for the first time called Christians."
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How Going Online Can Help You and the UUCF
You can receive our "Good News" periodical sooner by letting us know you want to receive it by email. This also saves the UUCF money which we can use in other ways to further our mission and improve. Send an email request to Editor Erika Webb or to the UUCF office.
Please check your mailing label on this issue of the Good News. It will contain the month and year when your membership and subscription is or was due. For example, 2008-10 means you need to renew in October of 2008. You can quickly and easily renew your membership online by going to our online store. If you have any difficulties contact us. Doing this will save us the expense of sending out the every two month renewal letters and return postage. Also make sure we have your up-to-date address. You can email those to us.
Finally, make sure everyone in your church and others who might be interested in us have our new website bookmarked at www.uuchristian.org so they can find out about our movement and check back for our updates and easily join with us increasing our impact.
You can also make simple donations to UU Christianity through the website.
Thank You To William S. Howe and All Others Who Remember the UUCF in their wills.
The UUCF recently received notice of a bequeath to us from the estate of a former UUCF member and supporter, William S. Howe, late of California but previously a UU church member from New England. The funds from his estate are dedicated to our UUCF Endowment. Others like the late Robert Doane, a former Treasurer of the UUCF, have set up annual payments to the UUCF from their Trusts.
We deeply depend and appreciate all such gifts, as we do the blessings of the gifts of life themselves from all who support us. Please consult your will or advisor or the UUCF office if you need further information on how to do this. It is usually a simple matter.
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