InterConnections Tipsheet

The Rev. Renee Ruchotzke, writing on the website of the Central East Regional Group of the Unitarian Universalist Association, encourages congregational leaders to constantly evaluate programs by asking, “Are we serving our core purpose (by doing this program)? Is it relevant to people’s lives?”

In her blog post, Ruchotzke, who is Regional Leadership Development Consultant for CERG, writes,

Our congregations can get stuck in . . . patterns with events or traditions but we don’t always notice when a committee or a program has outlasted its relevance . . .  In systems, any change within the system elicits one of two reactions.  The first and strongest reaction is push-back:  the system wants to return to its previous “comfortable” state.  The other reaction is for the system to change and establish a new equilibrium of the parts, and a new homeostasis. It’s the role of the leaders to help the system to respond to change based on the congregation’s core purpose rather than to react based on habit and individual desire for comfort.

June 15 is the deadline for applying to become a GreenFaith Fellow through the group GreenFaith, Interfaith Partners in Action for the Earth. Lay and professional leaders who are accepted take part in programming over 18 months designed to help them address environmental issues in religious settings.

Several Unitarian Universalists—the Rev. Alison Cornish, Shelley Dennis, Dr. Cheryl Larsen, and Susanne Novak—are current GreenFaith Fellows. Up to four more UUs will be selected in June. Applicants must pay $750 in tuition fees. The fee is normally $1,500, but that has been halved for UU participants for the first three years of the program. The second year of the program begins this summer. Coursework is accomplished through retreats, field trips, and monthly seminars.

Cornish, minister of the UU Congregation of the South Fork in Bridgehampton, N.Y., is halfway through her GreenFaith fellowship. She said, “The first gathering we had—an environmental justice tour of Newark, New Jersey—was sobering and deeply moving. Sometimes, as Unitarian Universalists, we are better versed in the injustices on other continents than in our own backyards. It was good to . . . witness to this and to imagine what we saw as religious issues.”

A new edition of the Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide is available from the UUA Bookstore. This fifth edition was edited by the Rev. Peter Morales and has a forward by Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC host, presenter of the Ware Lecture at General Assembly in 2009, and a lifelong UU.

The guide is a complete introduction to Unitarian Universalism, covering ministry, worship, religious education, social justice, and history. It includes essays by the Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt, UUA Executive Vice President Kathleen Montgomery, Rev. John T. Crestwell Jr., Rev. Gail R. Geisenhainer, Rev. Jane Ranney Rzepka, Rev. Mark Belletini, Judith A. Frediani, Rev. Rebecca Ann Parker, and Dan McKanan.

The previous edition of the Pocket Guide was published in 2004. The guide is $7 from the Bookstore. Orders of ten or more are 20 percent off. The guide is also available as an e-book.

Here are two useful congregational leadership articles posted recently on blogs:

• Church Leaders Need to Be the Grown-ups, says church consultant Margaret Marcuson. She recommends not taking other people’s anxiety personally and paying more attention to your goals for yourself rather than your goals for the congregation.

• Shane Raynor, on the Ministry Matters blog, gives reasons for Losing the Offering Plate. They include: many people don’t use cash and checks anymore, it reinforces negative stereotypes about churches and money, and it gives the impression a dollar or two is enough. He suggests other ways of giving—a credit card kiosk in the foyer and an online giving option. He adds, “Even if you choose to retain the collection plate, pushing alternative ways of donating gives people who don’t use the plate permission to be more comfortable in your church.”

Jessica Halperin, Women’s Issues advocate in the UUA’s Washington office, is collecting stories about Unitarian Universalists who worked for reproductive justice in the years before abortion became legal. Halperin is inviting ministers and lay people to contribute their own stories and to interview those in their congregations who hosted clinics, drove women across borders, argued before the Supreme Court, etc. Examples of such stories are here.

Halperin will publish the stories on UUA.org, and they will also be used and archived in various other ways and places that are still being determined. She says, “Ask people in your congregation how they worked for reproductive justice before Roe v. Wade. Ask the ministers you know, ask someone of an older or younger generation than you. Help write down their stories so that more people will know the legacy and capacity that we as Unitarian Universalists have to work for reproductive justice.”

Halperin can be reached at jhalperin@uua.org, by phone 202-393-2255, and by ground mail at UUA Washington Center, 1100 G Street NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20005.

The Resource Development Office of the UUA’s Ministries and Faith Development staff group is seeking authors who can help develop a religious education training module specifically for online learning. Until now, all the UUA’s Renaissance Modules­—fifteen-hour trainings for religious educators—have required in-person meetings. The new module, on UU theology, would be used online to reach leaders unable to attend in-person sessions.

Inquiries should go to Pat Kahn, children and families program director. She is seeking authors with instructional design expertise and familiarity with software options, as well as a grounding in Unitarian Universalist theology.

More information, including how to apply, is here. The deadline for application is June 15.

One way for congregations to support LGBT friends and members is by joining, or encouraging individuals to join, Interweave Continental, the national Unitarian Universalist organization that works to end oppression based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

Interweave publishes a monthly newsletter, Interweave Connect; presents workshops at General Assembly, district events, and at its own annual gathering, Convo; and develops LGBT religious education curricula. The March issue of Interweave Connect focused on preventing bullying. The April edition is on transgender issues. The full newsletter is available only to members.

There is information on the Interweave website about how to join, how to start a local chapter, and how to participate in the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Welcoming Congregation program. Individual memberships are $20 to $50. A chapter membership is $100.

Dr. Wayne Clark, the UUA’s director of Congregational Stewardship Services, has written a post on the Congregational Stewardship blog about “Assuring the Long-Term Fiscal Stability of Your Congregation.” In it he notes that less than half of UU congregations have an active planned giving program. Planned giving is most often done with charitable bequests through a will or living trust, he says. Another means is by naming a congregation as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy or retirement plan.

An estimated 70 percent of all Americans die without a will and fewer than 10 percent of those capable of making a charitable estate gift have ever been asked, Clark says.

For a step-by-step guide to creating a planned giving program, see Clark’s book, Beyond Fundraising: A Complete Guide to Congregational Stewardship.

The March 12 issue of Time magazine featured ten trends changing American life. One of them was the rise of people who mark “none” on surveys asking them to identify their religious affiliation.

The article, “The Rise of the Nones,” notes that about seventy-five percent of Americans between 18 and 29 consider themselves “spiritual but not religious” and that traditional forms of Christian practice have sharply declined from previous decades—including church attendance, Bible study, and prayer.

The entire article is available by online subscription. A longer essay on the same topic can be found on the Los Angeles Times website where author Philip Clayton could have been talking about Unitarian Universalism when he wrote:

In my experience, the nones are not rejecting God. They are rejecting doctrinal requirements that they no longer find believable, along with the rigid structures of many organized religions. For that reason, the rise of the nones may well be a new kind of spiritual awakening, one in which doubters are welcome.

In the Christian tradition, for example, the Emerging Church (meeting in homes, bars, parks, and churches) invites participation from all who find themselves attracted to the teachings, actions, and person of Jesus. It isn’t crucial that members call themselves Christians, or that they believe Bible stories literally (rather than metaphorically), or even that they are believers rather than agnostics and atheists. As long as people want to sincerely engage with the teachings of Jesus and with the communities that seek to live by those values—”Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “Love your neighbor,” “Blessed are the peacemakers”—they are welcome.

The discussion also complements the UUA’s current dialogue about what constitutes a congregation and how to connect with the many people who say they are UUs, but don’t attend a bricks-and-mortar congregation.

InterConnections is not the only source of useful information for lay leaders. Check out uuworld.org for articles about UUA changes and congregational activities. Here are some recent ones:

• In December the UUA signed on as a friend of the court to a Supreme Court religious freedom case [Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC] regarding a disabled woman who was fired from her teaching position at a religious elementary school. She filed a claim for discrimination. At issue was whether a secular government had the power to resolve religious disputes or select ministers. In its brief the UUA said the school should not be exempt from discrimination laws. (12.19.11)

[Note: the court ruled in February 2012 that secular governments lack the power to resolve religious disputes or select ministers. Chief Justice John Roberts stated, “the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful is the church’s alone.” A USA Today article has more information on the decision.]

• An article on Gathered Here, a denomination-wide listening campaign initiated by the UUA Board of Trustees and administration. (1.16.12)

• Article on ways that various UU congregations are preparing for General Assembly 2012, including education and advocacy around immigration issues. (2.15.12)

• Profile of an all-ages book group at the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Illinois. (2.15.12)

• Article on ways that congregations responded to the “Thirty Days of Love” Standing on the Side of Love campaign between Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Valentine’s Day. (2.27.12)

• UUA looking beyond traditional congregations. Article on ways of identifying and including people who may not be part of “conventional” congregations but who identify as UU. (3.12.12)

• Congregations encouraged to study Doctrine of Discovery. The premise that European Christian explorers who “discovered” other lands had the authority to claim those lands and subdue peoples of those lands will be a topic taken up at General Assembly 2012. (3-26-12)