InterConnections Tipsheet

Having trouble reading the Unitarian Universalist Association’s website on your handheld electronic device? That should be a thing of the past, says Kasey Melski, website manager for the UUA’s Information Technology Services Web Team. On March 19 she announced the launch of a new set of styles that make UUA.org much easier to read on mobile devices.

She notes that the website now comes across on handheld devices with only a single column of text and larger default text size. She notes, “This isn’t a ‘mobile site’ or a ‘mobile app’ with a limited set of features. The approach we used is called ‘responsive design,’ which means the same website is available to both desktop and handheld devices. It now looks better on smaller screens.”

If you notice anything that needs fixing, notify web@uua.org.

Registration and the housing reservation system are now open for General Assembly 2012, to be held at the Phoenix, Ariz., Convention Center June 20-24. This GA will be a “Justice GA,” focusing largely on immigration, racial, and economic justice issues.

Adult full-time registration is $320 until April 30 when it increases to $365. A one-day registration is $130. The first two days, Wednesday and Thursday, are also grouped for a one-day rate. Youth registration is $190. The opening ceremony is Wednesday evening and the closing celebration is at 7 p.m. Sunday.

Housing begins at $125 in the two hotels close to the convention center, the Hyatt Regency Phoenix and the Marriott Renaissance. Many other housing options, including economical rooms at a residence hall at Arizona State University a half mile from the convention center, are available through the GA Housing Reservation System.

For this GA the UUA is partnering with immigrant rights groups and other organizations in Arizona to bring attention to human rights abuses there and to help GA attendees learn how to address similar abuses in their home communities. There will be numerous public witness events in Phoenix but no civil disobedience is planned.

The Ware Lecture will be presented Thursday night by Mexican-American broadcast journalist Maria Hinojosa. More information on GA 2012 can be found here and here.

Starting this month, congregations and individual Unitarian Universalists are being asked to contribute information about the future direction of the Unitarian Universalist Association. The information is being collected through Gathered Here, a denomination-wide listening campaign begun by the UUA’s Board of Trustees and administration.

Gathered Here invites congregations and individual UUs to share hopes for the faith through “Community Conversations” and one-on-one interviews during the next eight months. The board and administration will use that information to help determine the UUA’s future. A longer article about Gathered Here is at uuworld.org. The program also has a website, which includes all the forms needed to conduct Gathered Here interviews.

Amanda Trosten-Bloom, with Corporation for Positive Change, has been retained by the UUA to serve as the project consultant for Gathered Here. She said that all UU congregations and non-congregational communities are being encouraged to participate in Gathered Here, starting this month and continuing through the end of August.

“All those who participate will be inspired and renewed,” she said. “People will form strong new relationships that will give life to their faith and their UU communities.”

Unitarian Universalist lay and professional leaders are eligible to apply to the interfaith group GreenFaith, Interfaith Partners in Action for the Earth, to take part in 18-month fellowship programs focused on environmental leadership in religious settings.

Current GreenFaith Fellows from UU communities are the Rev. Alison Cornish, Shelley Dennis, Dr. Cheryl Larsen, and Susanne Novak. Cornish is minister of the UU Congregation of South Fork in Bridgehampton, N.Y.; Dennis is a student in the Master of Arts in Sustainable Communities program at Northern Arizona University and in the Master of Theological Research program at Andover Newton Theological School, and an active member of First Parish UU in Medfield, Mass.

Larsen is a senior management analyst at the United Nations and a leader at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester, N.Y. Novak is a retired teacher and leader at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Westchester in Mt. Kisco, N.Y.

They join 21 additional fellows from Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Evangelical, Roman Catholic, and mainline Protestant backgrounds. The fellowship program is called the only comprehensive education and training program in the United States to prepare lay and ordained leaders from diverse religious traditions for environmental leadership.

Deadline for applications is June 15 of each year. Next June up to four more UUs can be selected. Applicants who are accepted must pay $1,500 in tuition fees. GreenFaith pays for food and lodging and educational materials. Coursework is conveyed through three retreats, field trips, and at monthly seminars.

For more information, go to the UUA Green Sanctuary blog and email Robin Nelson, the UUA’s Environmental Stewardship manager.

The month of November is the annual open enrollment period for the UUA Health Plan.

The staff of 307 UU congregations, plus many UUA staff and related organizations are covered by the plan, said Plan Director Jim Sargent. He noted that plan premiums have increased less than 16 percent over five years and that base rates for participation in the plan will decrease 5 percent this year. Complete information is on the Unitarian Universalist Association Health Plan page on UUA.org.

The plan is open to congregational paid staff who work at least 750 hours annually. Enrollment is open at any time for people who are newly hired, with new dependents, whose hours have been increased to meet the 750-hour minimum, who have lost coverage they had through a spouse or partner, whose congregation does not renew an existing group plan, and whose benefits change for individual plans. If a congregation participates in the plan all eligible employees must be offered coverage.

The UUA Health Plan also has a new Health Blog where participants are invited to contribute to discussions about food, meditation, books, exercise, and more.

Congregations are being sought to field test the new edition of Our Whole Lives: Sexuality Education for Grades 7-9, during this congregational year.

Although OWL contains 27 workshops, field testers do not have to commit to all workshops. The test is of new and significantly revised material only. Congregations may choose how many workshops they want to use and evaluate, and in what order they use them. The field test will end June 1, 2012.

For more information or to apply, contact fieldtest@uua.org.

From a September InterConnections feature story, now online at UUA.org:

Excellence in Ministry is the theme for the fifth Association Sunday, which gets under way October 2. Funds collected this year will be used to support Unitarian Universalis ministries in a variety of ways, including providing scholarships and continuing education grants for UU religious professionals and conducting a comprehensive assessment of UU ministries.

Association Sunday is an annual fundraising campaign of the Unitarian Universalist Association to promote growth and to reaffirm our connections as an Association of congregations. Congregations are invited to set aside a Sunday to focus on their connections to one another and to the Unitarian Universalist Association. They are also asked to take a collection to support special UUA projects.

Funds raised by Association Sunday in previous years were used, in part, to fund scholarships for UU ministerial students. Gretchen Haley received a $17,000 scholarship in 2010 through Association Sunday.

Go to the full article.

Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, a memoir by Eboo Patel, is the 2011–2012 Unitarian Universalist Common Read. The Common Read project invites Unitarian Universalist youth and adults in all congregations to share a common reading experience, and to engage in reflection and action about that book.

In Acts of Faith, Patel shares his faith journey as an American Muslim who comes to believe in religious pluralism. Patel founded the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a nonprofit focused on building an interfaith youth movement. Patel invites those who believe in religious pluralism to support young people, helping them ground themselves in a faith that can equip them to work across faiths to make the world a better place.

Gail Forsyth-Vail, the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Adult Programs director, said the book was chosen with an eye to both the tenth anniversary of September 11 and to the work of building coalitions as UUs prepare for General Assembly 2012, a “Justice GA” focused on immigration issues, in Phoenix.

The discussion guide will be published in October and will offer materials for a single 90-minute session or three 90-minute sessions, each expandable to two hours. The guide will provide the option of splitting the single 90-minute session into two shorter sessions. Download a flyer for Acts of Faith. The UUA Bookstore is offering the book for $14, plus a discount for multiple copies.

The UU Common Read last year was The Death of Josseline, stories about crossing the Mexico-Arizona border.

The Fair Share contribution requested from congregations for the fiscal year just started is $58 per certified member, an increase of $2. Congregations with 550 or more members have the option of contributing 4.2 percent of their budget instead.

Fair Share contributions to the Annual Program Fund enable the UUA to support congregations with programming and other resources, including books, UU World, InterConnections, lifespan faith development curricula, stewardship services, worship materials, and ministries to young adults. Contributions to the APF make up nearly half of the UUA’s undesignated funding. A PDF of a brochure explaining the Annual Program Fund is available online.

UUA President Peter Morales commissioned a task force after he was elected in 2009 to study the area of professional ministry and make recommendations. The task force’s final report is available as a PDF on UUA.org.

Its recommendations include:

• developing formal systems for recruiting strong, diverse leaders who are committed to transforming Unitarian Universalism

• supporting seminarians and religious professionals in multicultural learning experiences

• rethinking the ministerial credentialing system, described as “overwhelming, bureaucratic, and complex”

• considering expanding the Transitions system, including extending interim ministries to 18 to 24 months to allow time for change to take place.

Morales has said he believes that Unitarian Universalism can be “the religion for our time.” He adds, “If we are to live up to this challenge, we must equip our religious professionals to become deeply grounded in theology, cross-culturally competent, strategic about the use of technology, entrepreneurial as leaders, and resilient in the face of new challenges.”