Archive for the 'Church mission and identity' Category

The video I wish I the UUA had made

Monday, October 15th, 2007

I am disappointed by the stodgy, over-produced and old-fashioned video to promote the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Association Sunday. It felt like I was being sold something and I wasn’t buying it (in any meaning of the idiom.)

I think we should have spared the production and have gotten the rights to use this video by Clay […]

Unitarian Universalist church planters: not Christian but well-defined

Friday, September 28th, 2007

I’m curious, are there Unitarian Universalists out there who are (1) not Christian, (2) come from a well-defined theological cohort, like the Humanists or Pagans and (3) advocate and plan for new congregation development?

Please comment

Terms as the Uniting Church of Australia defines them

Monday, September 10th, 2007

From paragraph three of the Uniting Church of Australia constitution. A couple of interesting concepts, simply described. Not all would work with Unitarian Universalists, and the UUA shouldn’t come up with a glossary including terms like these — their polity is presbyerial — but I think a congregation reasonably should, to help clarify terms and […]

UUA Drupal Love

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

A while back, I mentioned that the tee-tiny Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Beech Lake, Pennsylvania has a website that punches far above its weight, and that it is powered by the free and open-source Drupal content management system. I love Drupal to pieces and UniversalistChurch.net runs on it. But it can do far, […]

More than churches are emerging

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

I was watching Nova scienceNow on PBS tonight and they had a segment on “emergence” — that is, leaderless organization towards greater complexity.

I love this stuff: makes me go all geeky-gooey, thinking about synchronicity and ending up with a copy of the Whole Earth Catalog. (From which I also got my childhood geodesic dome, at-home […]

If I was Jewish, looking for a congregation

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007

I’m in the middle of a chavurah (Hebrew חבורה, also spelled havurah, plural havurot) research kick. These small Jewish groups — often translated as “fellowships”; the root word means “friend” — have been an incredible force for transforming Jewish community life by increasing participation, changing expectation of community life and often times introducing egalitarian and […]

Megachurches: be careful what you want

Friday, April 13th, 2007

A while back, Kevin D. Johnson (Reformed Catholicism) wrote about the strain megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll faces and the Faustian bargain that megachurch pastors often make. Now Driscoll just gives me the creeps, but I can imagine some would be quite jealous of what he’s accomplished.

A cautionary tale of getting what you ask for.

Who’s unchurched? I’m unchurched! You’re unchurched!

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

Joshua Cody, writing at Church Marketing Sucks, reviews recent Barna Institute research on who’s unchurched. Hmm. Gays are high on the list. Also liberals. And singles. (Since it seems most demographers treat Hubby and me as a pair of bachelors saving money on living expenses. I have a visceral hatred of ticking “single” on my […]

Beautiful

Thursday, March 15th, 2007

I’m waiting with baited breath for The Rev. Victoria Weinstein’s segment on Nightline. . . . (I knew her when, sniff)

Rejoice with her at her Beauty Tips for Ministers blog.

The other segments: about Colors, the worker-owned cooperative restaurant created by the surviving members of the Windows on the World restaurant and GodMan, the real-guy […]