Certification stops at 909; Hollow Cough Club get members
Well, the UUA congregational registration cycle has closed with 909 congregations participating. Watch for analysis in coming days.
As a first installment, please indulge a little macabre observation, and at the risk of being in bad taste: there is a group of churches I’m dubbing the Hollow Cough Club, after the early sign of consumption that carried away many a heroine in Victorian melodramas.
Twenty churches — most with double-digit memberships — have not registered in the last two years. Perhaps they don’t care to send delegates, or they have a forgetful parish clerk. There are a number of reasons for missing two years in a row. But the membership numbers — which I carry forward — suggest something a bit more troubling.
Some churches are federated: these may just have administrative reasons for not registering. At least four are Christian and one Pagan, and they’re distributed across the US. (I’m assuming Canadian churches that don’t register — and don’t resign their UUA membership — have other concerns.)
Pray for their welfare. (Listed alphabetically by state.)
Sitka Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Sitka AK Unitarian Universalist Society New Britain CT Panthea Pagan Fellowship Hoffman Estates IL Church of the Open Door Chicago IL Community Church of North Orange and Tully Orange MA Unitarian Universalist Parish Monson MA First Congregational Parish Unitarian Petersham MA Leicester Unitarian Church Leicester MA Cong Parish in North (Unitarian) Norton MA First Church Templeton MA First Parish Church Berlin MA First Parish Unitarian Church East Bridgewater MA First Universalist Society Federated Charlton MA First Parish of Bolton Bolton MA First Parish Northfield MA First Universalist Society Hiram ME All Souls Universalist Church Oakland ME First Universalist Society Brownfield ME First Congregational Society of Eastport Unitarian Eastport ME Hollis Unitarian Universalist Congregation Hollis Queens NY U. U. Fellowship of Klamath County Klamath Falls OR First Univ. Church of Burrillville Harrisville RI Free Congregation of Sauk County Sauk City WI
4 February 2005 at 12:33 am
Vigorously Discussing
This was a week of lots of vigorous discussions. After lots of vigorous discussion the votes are in and we have winners in the UU blog awards. There’s a vigorous discussion about rejection of organized religion going on at peacebang Oh, yeah, and Philo…
4 February 2005 at 6:20 pm
– The “hollow cough” is important for us to notice. Some predictions of my own…
… the federated coughers are drawing away from the UUA, and towards their respective UCC, American Baptist, and NACCC partners. Why not? The UUA does not serve well its Christian and/or interdenominational churches.
…Open Door in Chicago has a very independent streak. My guess is that it is indifferent to both the UUA and UCC, and is content being an effectively independent, liberal, Black church.
… the rural churches that never certify coucld be near death’s door. My up close observation of such a church that once existed in southern Illinois, is that this “hollow cough” is a symptom of a larger break-down in church administration. What strength remains is sent to bare-bones tasks of sporadic worship, and slavish building preservation.
4 February 2005 at 6:22 pm
PS - Extra reason to worry… I count that at least 8 of these “hollow coughers” are Christian churches.