Minister’s Letter — October 2007

Sunday, October 14 has been designated by the UUA as Association Sunday. The purpose of this day is to affirm and celebrate the common bonds and purposes of Unitarian Universalists everywhere. We will also host a special collection to help support the outreach efforts of the UUA. Hundreds of UU congregations, including our own, will be participating in this momentous event. And we want this Association Sunday to be a religious experience.

The UUA is developing a dynamic new program to “to grow” our faith and numbers by helping all UU congregations to reach out and inform people and communities everywhere that there is a body of liberal religious people who reject religious dogma and who vigorously uphold the values of worth, dignity, compassion, justice, peace and environmental responsibility–all of which are urgently needed to help heal the wounded world. And I believe the numbers who are looking for a religious home like ours are enormous.

I believe we can attest to this in our own Fellowship. I believe we now hold the largest membership in the history of our congregation and more neighbors are visiting us than ever. The Fellowship is changing, my friends, and growing. And I welcome it all. With this in mind, at a recent Board Meeting, I shared some of my views about where we go from here. I framed those views with three questions which I hope all of us will be discussing in the coming months:

1. Why are we here? What is our purpose? Would we be able to tell if we were fulfilling our purpose or not?  It doesn’t have to be mysterious. Our purpose may simply be stated in our mission statement.  Or it can be: We are here to change lives…….We are here to serve the community……..to teach moral values…………..to nurture our spiritual needs…….  I will say, however, that our purpose should not be the comfort and satisfaction of our members.  It has to be more dynamic, far-reaching and deeper than that.   What is important is that we not forget our purpose, and that we keep it alive in our hearts and minds in everything that we do! (RE-read our mission statement!)

2. What is our future? How do we envision it? How do we want to grow? Given the changing needs of the times in which we live, our changing lives, and our changing community, how do we begin to imagine our future? My hope is that together we will begin to imagine a future that will be boldly transformative of our lives and our world.
Where do we start?  In my mind this question implies two things: 
urgency and patience.   To be alive and vital and purposeful, we have to act with some sense of urgency, whether it is related to programs, social concerns, or a new building. 
What are our urgent needs and goals? I believe I stated some of these urgent goals, as I see them, in the last Newsletter. But urgency also has to be balanced with patience.  We must be patient as old structures give way, with our leaders, with one another and allow change to happen organically.  We don’t always have answers in advance.  We grow and learn by listening, envisioning, serving and processing as we go.
  
I urge all of you to keep these questions in mind and have conversations about them as we continue to work together and serve in the coming year–in your committee meetings, social gatherings, dinners, during the coffee hour and one day soon, at a TOWN HALL MEETING (to be announced) that will be led by me and the Committee on Ministry where all of us can assemble and talk about your vision for the Fellowship, your hope, and the urgency of our mission and our needs–and then make them come true. See you at the Fellowship.
Jim Covington