tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-288092132024-03-19T02:47:08.589-06:00iMinisterProgressive faith, connected in cyberspace, Unitarian Universalist minister's blogChristine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.comBlogger392125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-71239034134441622642016-11-30T10:34:00.003-07:002016-11-30T10:34:51.525-07:00The Major Cost of Entering MInistryThe UU World published an article on this topic <a href="http://www.uuworld.org/articles/rising-costs-entering-ministry" target="_blank">here</a>, It's a very important issue which affects our future as a denomination, but it doesn't talk about an important part of the problem.<br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There
is another solution to the high cost of ministry besides forgiving debt and
adding a new class of lay ministers, and that is to pare down the requirements
for preliminary fellowship to those which are essential to a beginning
minister, can’t be easily acquired when not in school, and which can be
reasonably accomplished in three years.
When I entered seminary 40 years ago, almost all students finished their
seminary work, their internship, and their Clinical (chaplaincy) training, met
the Fellowship Committee (credentialing)
AND completed a search for their first ministry, all in three
years. Part time work in churches, work-study,
and a couple of summer jobs was a part of those three years, making the process
much more affordable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My
experience with intern applicants and seminary students these days tells me
that, besides the 250% increase in the cost of seminary, a major contributing
factor to the expense of preparing for ministry is that this is now at least a
4 year long process, which sometimes extends to 5 or more. That’s almost twice
the amount of prep time ministry used to take, and that time, for most
candidates is time out of a living –wage income. While
seminary itself is still a three year degree, the list of competencies to prove,
experiences to have, and books to read has grown longer and longer over the
years. The MFC meets half as often as it used to,
meaning that students often complete all requirements for ministerial fellowship
and then cool their heels for months waiting for their interview. And if they don’t happen to perform well enough
in that interview, they wait at least 12
months for another chance to prove their merit before they can begin to even
look for work in ministry. (This happens
to even well-prepared candidates who go on to success in ministry.)
The high stakes nature of this interview itself encourages candidates to
delay their appointment and increase their preparation time. All
this adds incredible stress and expense to the work of preparing for
ministry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If
we assumed that our new ministers would continue to be learners throughout
their career, we could ease up on the requirements for preliminary fellowship,
discarding some and perhaps moving some to the second stage of Final Fellowship,
allowing new ministers to “finish” their ministry preparation while being
employed. Let us look again at that
high stakes interview that is the key to the ministerial credentialing process (which has not been seriously
reviewed since merger, and which is very different from any other professional
credentialing process) and ask ourselves if this is really the best way to
assure that ministers are prepared for their work, and if it is worth its many
costs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-11435722512391580492013-05-12T22:27:00.000-06:002013-05-12T22:27:22.194-06:00Beloved Community?My mother, who lives in a senior community which is a ministry of the United Methodist Church, told me today that she had a religious question. What, she asked, was the meaning of the term "Beloved Community?" It seems that this phrase is turning up all around her and she doesn't really understand what is being described, is not sure she will approve when she knows and is feeling generally cranky about the whole thing. Forgetting something which I used to know, which is that this is a term that Martin Luther King used to describe a community in which people were treated fairly, I blithered a bit about beloved community being a community where people were good to each other, took care of each other, and so on. She was all for that sort of thing, but hated the term and wanted to know if I used it. <br />
<br />
As a matter of fact, although I hear the term a lot, I am not particularly comfortable with it either, but I had never stopped to ask myself what my problem was and finally said, "I guess I just think it's a bit over the top." My mother liked that. "I'm glad to make friends here," she said, "but 'beloved'....really...that's my husband."<br />
<br />
I think she has a point. This big of jargon might be best used only with church leaders who can appreciate its history and unpack its meaning. Less committed folks might feel like they are being sucked into something more than they bargain for or, alternatively, may discover that the church actually can't promise them the level of help and intimacy which is implied by that term, "beloved." <br />
<br />
In the same vein, I counsel the leaders in my church to be very careful when they use the word "family" to describe the church. While it is true that people take care of each other here, sometimes to an almost "family" extent, for most people in this large church, their relationships here are "neighborly" not "family-like", and to wax too eloquent about family is actually pretty scary to lots of folks and misleading to others. It's no accident of economics that most people don't live in large extended families any more; we escaped them gladly, by and large, finding them suffocating and time consuming and not really worth the energy. I'm always touched which I see evidence that the church has become family for some people, but I don't want to promise, and I don't think that that is what most people want from church.<br />
<br />
<br />Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-18140418256797855522013-05-06T11:35:00.002-06:002013-05-06T11:37:36.398-06:00On the Board and Administration of the UUA: Metrics and Vitality<br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941);"><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Helvetica Neue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Last month the UUA Board, once again disappointed that the administration was unable to satisfy it's reporting requirements in justification of its budget proposal, took the extraordinary step of going into executive session (never a trust-building move) and deciding to (1) approve the budget with a (2) $100,000 line item added for consulting. What that consulting is for, exactly, seems to be not </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941);"><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Helvetica Neue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">completely clear to all parties. You can read Peter's and Gini's takes on the matter </span><a href="http://tomschade.com/" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">Here</a>, <span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">on Tom Schade's Blog, and the Board's explanation </span><a href="http://board.blogs.uua.org/uncategorized/uua-board-of-trustees-letter-to-congregations-may-2013/" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">, in their informal report on their meeting. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941); color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941); color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">The crux of the matter seems to be that two groups of smart, dedicated UU's have not been able, over four years of massive effort and expense, to figure out how to ask for (the board's job) or produce (the administration's job) reports that guarantee, document, or specifically plan for denominational growth and vitality. This has been variously called a failure of understanding of Policy Governance, a power struggle, and even a personality conflict.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941); color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941);"><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Helvetica Neue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">My guess is that it is some of all of those things but mostly it is impossible. More and more this conflict is reminding me of the conflict between politicians and educators over accountability which has resulted in the disastrous educational experiment called "No Child Left Behind," which could perhaps be better named, "No Child Left Untested" and "No Teacher left Unshamed." </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941);"><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Helvetica Neue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941);"><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Helvetica Neue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">There are some situations in education and religion, those notoriously messy people-activities, which are to most eyes, vital and exciting. There are some situations which are obviously under-performing and limiting. Replicating the first and fixing the second are very interesting, very complicated issues which don't turn out to be very easy to do no matter how many supposedly neutral "metrics" you have or how many perfect reports you write. Budgeting for vitality and growth is a matter of guesses, hopes, and projections. Strategic planning is a matter of courageous guessing, not of reassuring a skeptical boss who wants guarantees of outcomes. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941);"><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Helvetica Neue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.952941);"><span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: Helvetica Neue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">I know this from experience. My congregation in Albuquerque has doubled in size in the past 25 years, outperforming the Methodists (30% decline), the UUA in general (flat), and the population of the city (up 50%) And could I tell you, even in retrospect, how my budgets each year contributed to that growth? I can not. The best I can do is make some educated guesses. Bringing on a second minister, for instance, was clearly a part of our growth, although it had to be not only the right line item but the right minister to work. Funding a church band was probably helpful. On the other hand, our numbers of children have gone up and down without regard to the money we have poured into our RE program. All my prospective guesses about what might bring those elusive guests, growth and vitality, into our church have been just that. Guesses, Hopes, Optimistic plans; just the sort of thing that the administration set forth in the document called a strategic plan (you can see that yourself by following the link in Peter's letter, which is on Tom Schade's blog.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">I do know one thing about growth and vitality, however, which has nothing to do with reports and budgets, and that is that growth and vitality do not co-exist with the kind of conflict that the board and administration have engaged in over the past four years. A local church that sanctioned this kind of fighting between Board and MInister would be in decline, and the only hope of health would be both a consultant and the uprising of the people of the congregation saying, "Stop". </span><br />
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<span style="color: #3f4549; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">We live in a cultural era unfavorable to the health and vitality of religious institutions, which are shrinking, threatened, and dying all around us. This is no small matter and we are so tiny that we can not afford to waste our time on conflict. The mutually acceptable consultant is now agreed upon. The anguish of the people, even at a distance is being heard ever-more clearly and loudly. What is set before us is life and death for our faith. Let's choose life. </span><br />
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Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-4172665632454073592012-11-05T08:50:00.002-07:002012-11-05T08:55:19.195-07:00The Cult of Free To Be You and Me<br />
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Last Week, Steven Colbert, commenting on how Billy Graham endorsed Mitt Romney in spite of the fact that his website calls Mormonism a cult, also commented on another "cult" Graham doesn't like, the cult of Unitarianism. (The Graham organization has taken this part of their website down since). <br />
<br />
Colbert comments that the "dangerous cult of Unitarianism is so loose<br />
that their sacred texts are the Old Testament, the New Testament, and <i>Free to Be You and Me.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Free to Be You and Me</i>, some will remember, was children's album created by Marlo Thomas and a cast of stars with the explicit goals of loosening up gender stereotypes and empowering children to be themselves. It's high spirited, freedom-loving, worth-and-dignity displaying and mostly pretty forgettable. It came on Colbert's radar because it just had a 40th anniversary.<br />
<br />
I owned the album when I was in my 20's...purchased with some thought of playing it for my own children, but by the time that child came of age, not only had technology morphed twice but so had society, and when I heard the Colbert piece I could only dredge up one song on the album in my memory and had to go to the internet to remember the rest. <br />
<br />
After a trip down memory lane, I have come to the conclusion that a religious movement could do worse than be guided by the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Free to Be You and Me. It beats the heck out of Atlas Shrugged or 19th century notions about race, family, and sexuality, the "third books" of way too many Christians.<br />
<br />
My favorite, "William Wants a Doll", an ode to masculine caring, anti-bullying, and grandmotherly wisdom, which made me tear up. It can be heard, in all it's scratched-vinyl glory, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lshobg1Wt2M" target="_blank">here</a><br />
<br />
You can view the Colbert segment <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/420709/november-01-2012/colbert-report--tip-wag---constant-documentation---billy-graham" target="_blank">here</a>. It's about 7 minutes in... I have to agree with Colbert that one good thing about this election is the de-cultification of the Church of Jesus Christ of the latter Day Saints. Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-30045558803812546032012-07-27T13:12:00.005-06:002012-07-27T13:12:36.130-06:00More Blogging on the ARIS SurveyTom Shade, at the Lively Tradition, has his own interesting interpretation of these same survey results <a href="http://www.tomschade.com/" target="_blank">here</a>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-66232391423715606092012-07-26T09:48:00.000-06:002012-07-26T09:48:05.902-06:00Westward Ho!<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> I don’t know if the ARIS Survey puts exactly
the same boundaries on US Regions as the UUA does, but regional findings from this survey are
pretty interesting.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1990, the
Northeast contained 21% of the American Population and 26% of the UU’s. (Remembering that this survey counted as UU anyone who claimed that, which was a lot more people than are actual members of churches.) The Northeast area shrank in population, and
in 2008, contained 18% of the population
and 19% of the UU’s. The Midwest lost
less population (2%) but more UU’s (6%).
The South gained 2% of the
population and 3% of the UUs, and the west gained 3% of the population and a
whopping 10% of the UU’s. Still…that’s a lot of growth. The upshot is that, as of 2008, this chart shows regional distribution of those claiming UU identity. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We have a
lot of history and heritage in New England. And there is a lot of current life and
vitality in New England. I went to
Seminary there and was fascinated for three solid years. But I was glad to leave because even 35 years ago, New England UU'ism seemed dull, dug in, and old fashioned to me. My ministries have been in the South and the West. And I don't think I am alone among southerners or westerners in chafing at the New England Mindset that so often rules our denomination. At this time of year, it is particularly irksome, as the </span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">privileged</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> UU calendar which involves churches and ministers taking the summers off because churches are not air conditioned and "everybody" is at the beach or in Maine until Labor Day, after which school and Church start up for the year. Those of us who manage year-round, full service programs in modern buildings and start our program year Mid-August with the rest of the West and South, especially notice that we're outsiders in the UUA at this time of year. But really, we're not outsiders! Further, we westerners are doing quite well, capturing the hearts, if not the membership, of a significantly larger percentage of the population than other regions. Not all of that is our own doing, of course; the south in particularly is known as a haven for conservative religions and the Northeast is nearly European in its disdain for religion of any kind. Still, something is going well in the west that we should take note of!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-2076427036034569062012-07-24T09:02:00.000-06:002012-07-25T11:18:20.752-06:00Congregations and Beyond<br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">In my last
two posts, I have discussed research findings about Unitarian Universalists
from the American Religious Identification Survey. Now…what does it all mean? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">More than
half of those who tell researchers that they are UU’s don’t belong to a UU
church. Some are probably peripherally
involved with a UU church, but it seems
more likely that the majority of this group consists of people who were raised
UU. (This can be inferred from the large
number of people who identified as UU’s who said that they had never changed
faiths, ie, were raised UU’s. Over 50%
reported of the sample claimed this, whereas I have never been in a group of UU’s
over age 35 where more than about 20% were raised UU’s; the usual figure is
10%.) So it appears to me that a major
question we should be asking is, “What
could we do to get our kids back?” (most
of those “kids” are now over 40, of course).
The answer to that question will have to be found by discovering ways we
can serve the religious needs of adults who were raised UU’s, still think of
themselves as UU’s, but are no longer
participating in a congregation. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">A second,
more general question would be, “How can
we serve the religious needs of those who tell researchers that they are UU’s
but are not members of our congregations?
(In some polling situations, three times as many people tell researchers
that they are UU’s than are members of our congregations) What’s
up, here? Are there solvable issues with
current congregations that would bring more folks in? (maybe most of our congregations need to find
ways to offer Saturday worship? Maybe what people really want is small groups?) Is the problem that we’ve conflated legal
membership in the corporation with membership in the religious community? (We
need to ask the Puritans how that worked for them!) Are there ways to meet needs on a
fee-for-service basis that would allow non-member UU’s to feel a part of things
and offer support without joining? (Retreats, RE, Small Groups, etc?) Do we want to do that? This
discernment is the work that is being called “Congregations and Beyond”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-54107664624793411332012-07-23T08:59:00.000-06:002012-07-23T08:59:00.536-06:00More from the Religious ID Survey<br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">The American
Religious Identification Survey is done about once a decade and involves a
large number of Americans (about 50 thousand) in a telephone poll about their
religion. The third such poll, done in
2008, was just released, and has a number of interesting points for UU’s to
ponder. The information can be found<a href="http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2012/05/unitarians9008.pdf" target="_blank"> here</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Besides the points
I covered yesterday (That fewer than half of those who identify as UU’s
actually belong to a congregation, that that group is growing in number rather
significantly and growing in diversity even faster than the American population
is), here are some more points of interest in this survey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 115%;">1.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">We’re migrating just
like the rest of the population. In 1990, 26% of us lived in the northeast and 23% of us
lived in the Midwest, while 21% of us
lived in the south and 30% lived in the west.
In 2008, only 19% of us lived in
the NE and 17% of us lived in the Midwest,
while 24% of us are southerners and 40% are westerners. We are only historically a New England
congregation these days! The great
majority of UU’s live elsewhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 115%;">2.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 115%;">We’re aging faster than the
population at large. The median age of
the population has increased from 40 to 44 years old over the study period, but
increased from 44 to 52 years among those claiming to be Unitarian Universalists. (remember, half of these people don't belong to congregations. However, most of our congregations appear to have aged in this time period.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 115%;">3.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 115%;">We are more monolithically Democrats
than we were in 1990, when about 18% of u were Republicans and 37% were
Independents. In 2008, only 6% of us
were Republicans and 30% independents. In
2008, the percentages were 6% Republicans and 30% Independents…a significant loss
of diversity. We have also seen this in congregational life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">A small percentage of respondents were asked more detailed questions of their religious
beliefs. The following data is suggestive but based on very small numbers of
respondants, so is not statistically significant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<li><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">1.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;"> 77% of self-identified UU’s told researchers that
they believed in God, but of those, few believed in miracles or that God helps
them in any way. While this is very surprising to most UU's, it actually is not very far off from surveying I've done over the years in several congregations. </span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">2.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Fewer than half of the people
researchers spoke to said that they were legal members of a UU
congregation. This is similar to what
they found among other liberal religious groups. </span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">3.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">About ½ of the sample UU’s had
switched religions at some point in their lives. (common wisdom among UU’s, however, is that
90% of UU’s “came out” of some other
faith. This gives us a strong hint, it
seems to me, about who identifies as UU but is not a member of a church…that
is, the adult graduates of our RE programs.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">4.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">This study estimates that there are
100,000 people in the US who used to be
UU’s but who are now something else, mostly, none. (so the old joke about how Unitarian
Universalism is a way station between the Mainline and the Golf Course seems to
be true.)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">5.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Over half of UU’s in this sample were
in interfaith (or UU/no faith) households. </span></li>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">In the last
post of these series, I’ll comment more on the significance of these
statistics. <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-614892569211330832012-07-20T08:52:00.000-06:002012-07-20T09:01:18.612-06:00Unitarian Universalism: Beyond Congregations, Growing, Diversifying!<br />
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;">In 1990, 2001, and 2008, researchers funded by the Lily
Foundation randomly dialed up about
fifty thousand Americans and asked
them, “What is your religion, if
any? Then, they asked follow-up
questions. In 2008, 192 of those fifty
thousand identified as Unitarian Universalists, up from 182 in 2001. The following is an extrapolation and
analysis of this data. The whole report
can be found <a href="http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2012/05/unitarians9008.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> This study gives us some interesting
information about ourselves and comparison to other religious bodies. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;">The single most
interesting, but not surprising fact is that this study suggests that there are
more than a half a million adult UU’s in this nation. Fewer than half of these self-identified UU’s
are legal members of UU churches, but they think of themselves as UU’s. Furthermore, this group is growing robustly…as
a matter of fact, nearly keeping up with
population growth. (the group of
self-identified UU’s grew by 26% </span></b><b style="background-color: white; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">between 1990 and 2008, compared with 30% population
growth)</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Here’s
a happy surprise: The UUA has done a
little better than the nation as a whole in increasing ethnic diversity. In 1990,
non-Hispanic Whites were 90% of the UUA.
(compared to 77% in the US as a whole)
These days, non-Hispanic whites are 75% of the UUA. (compared to 66%
overall) We are still lagging behind our nation, but
not by as much. Our success at
this is largely due to an increase in Hispanic UU’s, however, while most of our diversity "angst" over the years has been the small number of African American UU's. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"> 11% of the US population
is Black, but only 6% of
this sample of people who claim to be Unitarian Universalists is Black. However, even on this point we have notable
success. In 1990, we lagged 8 points
behind the nation in percentage of Black members. These days, we lag only 5 percentage points
behind. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 115%;">This study has more interesting
things to say about us. Stay tuned to
this Blog for more! <span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-64830566933841557132012-03-27T07:18:00.000-06:002012-03-27T07:18:00.407-06:00Who cares if Zimmerman is a Racist?It seems very odd to me that the news/opinion making has focused on whether or not George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin in Florida last month, is a racist. Seems to me it makes very little difference. The important point is that he shot and killed a young man who scared him...a young man who was doing nothing more alarming than walking home from a trip to get snacks, while talking to his girlfriend on the telephone and had nothing more alarming on his person than a bottle of iced tea. What's clear from 911 calls is that Zimmerman was hostile to Martin, followed him in spite of being told not to, that there was some kind of a scuffle, and Zimmerman felt so threatened he shot the boy and killed him.<div>
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Maybe instead of arguing whether or not Zimmerman is a racist, we should be speculating on whether he is a bully, (he outweighed the kid by 110 lbs) or a coward (threatened by iced tea?) or a vigilante (the police told him to stop following this kid..) </div>
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Even more importantly, we should be arguing about what kind of law is so poorly written that it doesn't allow the police to distinguish between someone who was jumped and used lethal force to protect themselves, and somebody who picked a fight with a person, then claims he felt threatened, and shot the guy. </div>
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Not to mention wondering what would have happened if, by chance, Zimmerman had picked a fight with the kid but in the scuffle, Zimmerman had ended up dead. We don't actually have much doubt in our minds about that, do we? Martin would be in the klink. </div>
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<br /></div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-13264450275137946922012-03-26T07:33:00.000-06:002012-03-26T07:33:08.788-06:00My HoodieWho knew that hoodies had such massive symbolic weight? This item of clothing has been in the news since the killing of Trayvon Martin and the comment by Geraldo that the hoodie was just as much to blame for his death as the gun. (Guns don't kill people. People kill people, especially people who are so foolish as to wear a hoodie.) Talk about blaming the victim!<br />
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Boy was I clueless! I who have not been without a hoodie since my college years, when I discovered that they are perfect for a certain kind of weather and are easier to wash than sweaters for casual indoor wear. Even worse, clueless mom, whose 21 year old son is so hard on his favorite hoodie that he gets a new one every Christmas, like some men got ties or socks. We white people, it seems, can wear whatever comfy piece of clothing we like, while others have to be careful not to be threatening...especially in the 18 states where "being threatening" is a capital offence if the person feeling threatened happens to have a gun and feel like using it.<br />
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I am a hopeful person by nature, and I hope that justice will be done in this case...and that national attention will assist the clear thinking of the officials in Florida. But it is a tragic state of affairs we've gotten ourselves into in this nation. It lifted my spirits to have about 1/3 of the attendees at church yesterday wearing their hoodies in solidarity with this matter. <br />
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<br />Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-23580139899654298542012-03-21T02:39:00.000-06:002012-03-21T02:39:00.033-06:00On WelcomeThere's an interesting article in the UU World this month, about beliefs that UU's don't tend to have. You can find it <a href="http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/192622.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>. But the editor was apparently confused by the first paragraph and added a pull quote in big letters that is a dreadful misunderstanding of the concept of "Welcome." ("Signs by doors say, 'Everyone welcome here,' but we know it's not true. If you hold some beliefs, you may not like it here.')<br />
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But whether a person feels welcomed to a congregation and whether they like it there are two very different things. Although a poor welcome lessens the chance that a person will like the congregation, it is not only possible but likely that some people who feel fully and warmly welcomed will also, after a time, decide that this is not the right community within which to nurture their spiritual life. <br />
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That was actually the point that the author was trying to make, and she went on to list 10 beliefs that a new person might have which are dissonant with some understandings of UU Principles or with commonly held beliefs in UU congregations. (Although I must say that I have known individual UU's who have held one or another of the 10 beliefs discussed and didn't leave. Some went so far as to insist that they not only were not in the minority, they were "real" UU's. But that's another story.)<br />
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The confusion in the pull quote mirrors a confusion I have heard often enough, which is a confusion between "Welcomed" and "Happy". <br />
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The two are very different. To welcome someone is to say, "We are glad you are here." Welcome requires the basics of hospitality; that we let strangers in, share what we have, treat them with dignity. This is hard enough and we don't do it very well and should work on doing it better. However, hospitality does not require that we bend, pinch, and change ourselves so that everybody who comes to us will like us and feel well served by what we have to offer. <br />
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The difference between a creedal and non-creedal church is that when there is no creed, it is up to each individual person to decide for themselves whether they belong here and are well-served by our way of doing religion. No outside force will say, "Because you believe this, you are not welcome." (Sometimes the congregation has to draw lines about behavior; that, too, is another story.) Instead, each person looks around and says to themselves, "I think I could grow in spirit here.", and stays, or "This is not for me," and goes. This may (or may not) signify a failure of mission for the congregation, but it does not necessarily mean that their welcome was deficient. <br />
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The Signs by the door should say, "Everybody Welcome Here!" but that doesn't mean everybody will decide that this is the right place for them. And that's OK.<br />
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<br />Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-6827870601908109482012-03-20T16:04:00.003-06:002012-03-20T16:04:50.219-06:00Psalms P.S.I'm twittering the Psalms, these days, and invite those interested to follow me on Twitter @revCRobinson.<br />
<br />Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-5080268679250634842012-03-19T19:16:00.000-06:002012-03-19T19:16:21.238-06:00Praying with Your Iphone(an article written for <i>Journey, </i>The Journal of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scranton, PA)<br />
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">When I was a very little girl, I
gathered…I’m sure nobody taught me this…that in order to pray, one had to have
a particular posture; head bowed, eyes closed, hands clasped. It was also clear to me that those prayers always
had to have words, either recited or extemporaneous. And while I was always
drawn towards the idea of prayer, I ever felt very good at those wordy
exercises. When I discovered the meditation practices of
the East, I had no idea that many of these same practices would be called
“prayer” by contemplative Christians or Jews.
It was a revelation that brought me back home, so to speak, to the
practices of my own Christian heritage, and in that exploration, I discovered
that all kinds of things that I had found myself to be useful spiritual tools;
journaling, walking, art, chant, and picturing loved ones in my mind’s eye,
could also be considered prayer. For
someone who had always felt a bit spiritually backwards, it was wonderful to
discover that I had been praying all
along…but with things in my hands, or a spring in my step. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Last year, I spent a few
sabbatical months in a faraway city. I
had only a couple of suitcases with me, my Kindle for books, and a new
smartphone, which I had purchased mostly for its map capability. I had a book to write and a city to explore
and time for silence and prayer. And
that’s when I learned to pray with a Smartphone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Away from my landline, my phone
was my lifeline to the world. It was never off, I was careful to take it
everywhere with me, and I found all kinds of capabilities besides phone and map!. I discovered quickly why it is that
the younger generation is said to check their messages before they get out of
bed in the morning! (While I was discovering smart phones, that
younger generation was discovering Ipads and Tablets, which do everything
except make phone calls even better than a smart phone. While I have no
direct experience with tablet computing, everything I’m about to say about
phones goes for tablets, too.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Having learned to take pencils,
journals, books, and art supplies into my prayer time, perhaps it was
inevitable that I started taking my phone. That might seem off-putting to some,
but a smart phone is, after all just a tool, as a pen and paper or a printed book
might be. All tools take getting used
to, and none work for everybody, but I’m certainly not going to put a limit on
what tools God can use to get through to me! I encourage you to try some of these suggestions
and see if they work for you. Even if the
old ways feel better to you, those of us who advise that younger generation
should keep them in mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Praying with Photos<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Those of us who keep a prayer
list can, of course keep that list on a memo in our phone, but I have loved
praying with photos I’ve taken or downloaded.
For me, seeing faces helps a lot!
You can even have folders of pictures for days of the week, and besides
faces, you can snap photos or download pictures from the web to remind you of
situations you want to pray for. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Especially if one has the larger
surface and better resolution of a tablet or Ipad, it would be possible to
download images of icons or other evocative religious symbols for
meditation. You can even download a
video of a flickering candle! Perhaps
none of these are “as good” as gazing at the real thing, but the “real thing”
is not always available. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Using the Clock<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">For those who find it easier to
sink down into meditation if they know they will be called out of it at a
particular time, (Or who don’t want to be distracted wondering how much time
has passed), there are lots of meditation timers available. The virtual ones can be downloaded from the
phone’s app store, but many phones come with a clock/stopwatch/timer function
built in. Often it is possible to change
the alert tone to something more gentle than an alarm beep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Using the Music Player<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Smart Phones often double as MP3
players, which means that it is possible to download all manner of chants and
prayer services. This can be especially
useful for prayer/meditation in a distracting environment. Pop in your earbuds, press play, and you can
create a spiritual space wherever you are. (This tool is also useful in the dentist’s
office, the waiting room, and on the bus!)
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Lectio Divina<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Most smartphones and all tablets
allow you to download files, so the day’s scriptures, poetry, or whatever you
study as your spiritual practice is readily available. Multiple languages and translations and even
notes and commentary can all be at your fingertips with a little advance
work. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Social Media<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">The meat of my spiritual
practice during that sabbatical was a version of Lectio Divina, which I was
practicing with daily chapters of the Tao Te Ching, and I summed up each day’s
study with a sentence which recapped the message I wanted to take into my day
with me. Then I learned about Twitter: which is a very quick and easy way to
share very short messages…144 characters or less. That limit was a good challenge for me, and
although I didn’t seek out any followers,
I eventually developed quite a few.
I also learned how to get my twitters to automatically appear on my
Facebook page, where commenters encouraged me to compile the Twitters into a
book. Twittering one’s spiritual
practice turns out to have a downside; it take discipline to keep this a
spiritual practice and not a performance.
But it is another way to share.
Twitter has another spiritual benefit.
If you “follow” the right people, you will find an unending supply of uplifting quotes, scripture passages, and
links to poems. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">I expected to return to paper
and pen in my spiritual practice after that sabbatical was over, but it didn’t
work that way. Now I pray with my phone
in my hand every morning. Hello, Is that you,
God? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;">Christine Robinson is the senior
minister of the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the author
of <i>The Twittered Tao</i> and co-author of
two books for small group ministry, <i>Heart to Heart</i> and <i>Soul to Soul</i>. She Twitters
as RevCrobinson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-45212228152065301062012-03-19T14:29:00.002-06:002012-03-19T14:29:57.882-06:00Psalms and the Small WorldYears and years ago, when iMinister was just learning how to blog. she was experimenting with blogs and, needing a body already written short works to populate her blog with, used some adaptations of the Psalms which had been slowly coming out of her morning spiritual practice. She was so new to blogging that she didn't quite understand that anybody could find a blog, and they would, and, did. She was very surprised that anybody would be interested in her agnostic version of the Psalms, but..it's a big world, and the internet brings special interests together! Having so many interested readers, some of whom wrote from all over to comment and compliment, motivated iMinister to complete the project. What she ended up calling "Improvisations" on all 150 Psalms can be found <a href="http://doubterpsalms.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here. </a><div>
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The Psalm Blog gets just as much readership as iMinister, although I have posted only a few times a year in the past 5 years. And some of those readers have asked permission to publish, or told me about musical settings they'd created or just written their appreciation. It's been fun. </div>
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A Psalm acquaintance asked if I would write an article for her community's journal, and she happened to ask on a day that I had been thinking about praying with one's smart phone, so I did it. The actual article will come soon. </div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-12532882387384476992012-02-01T20:57:00.000-07:002012-02-01T20:57:35.332-07:00What's a Unitarian Universalists1. Technically, a Unitarian Universalist is a person who is a formal member of a UU congregation.<br />
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2. Popularly, a Unitarian Universalist is anybody who calls themselves a UU, whether or not they belong to a congregation (Group #2 is three times the size of group #1).</div>
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3. Beyond Congregations is a conversation about how we might serve/include/claim more people in group 2 and, by extension, some of the "spiritual but not religious" who would say, when they found us, "I've been a UU all along and didn't know it!"<br />
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4. It is an interesting fact of our UU life that lots of people seem to know exactly what Unitarian Universalism is, including Beliefnet, three quarters of a million polled persons, and that "I've been a UU all along" new member, but the official UU's do a very poor job of articulating this.<br />
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I think this is at least in part because we're so afraid of creeping creedalism that we won't articulate our shared theology. So..let's be clear. A creed is a statement of beliefs which is used AS A TEST FOR MEMBERSHIP. ("Believe this or go elsewhere.") We don't have those. But we do, it seems to me, have a theology. The theology goes something like this. <br />
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Life is good, and so are you. <br />
Reason and Intellectual Faculties are good. You can trust them to understand life. </div>
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However it's a Very Big Universe out there, and many important things can't be known through reason and intellect. For this we have intuition, heart, spirituality, and other faculties which are useful but don't lead everyone to the same conclusions. <br />
Truth on these Very Big matters is best found in conversations, actual, virtual, literary, and internal. It is to be expected that there will be differences. They enrich us. <br />
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That's what we do as Unitarian Universalists...grow in spirit, together. </div>
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Many Unitarian Universalists have much more specific theologies...beliefs about God, the afterlife, and so on. And this is NOT A CREED. People can join our churches who think that science is a bunch of baloney. But they won't hear their view extolled in sermons and there will probably not be any adult classes on the subject. We don't determine membership based on our theology, but we do figure out what "fits here" based on it. <br />
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I go into detail about this because it is going to be hard to figure out whom we can serve among the "spiritual but not religious" unless we can describe ourselves and what we offer more clearly than we do. </div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-739570493995816012012-01-24T03:02:00.000-07:002012-01-30T14:53:51.578-07:003 of 4 UU's Don't Belong to Congregations. Why?<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_owECRnIwDWXt3h0lNX5yun2xRL_R7ryEysJh9aGtnySisg2vJhc4-MLcZRnoKGYihg6yWlqPeVlVisPFntoyg1y-aoeoWwSz31dUS52_PJR16NxM7pLZgJ8QxgTuqmuGIWNS-g/s1600/map+UU.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_owECRnIwDWXt3h0lNX5yun2xRL_R7ryEysJh9aGtnySisg2vJhc4-MLcZRnoKGYihg6yWlqPeVlVisPFntoyg1y-aoeoWwSz31dUS52_PJR16NxM7pLZgJ8QxgTuqmuGIWNS-g/s400/map+UU.gif" width="400" /></a>Of course, it is technically true that <u>all </u>UU's belong to UU congregations,<u> </u>because technically, there is no way to be a UU unless you belong to a congregation. But don't tell the people that. (It makes them mad!) And, of the people who tell pollsters that they are UU's, 3 out of 4 DON'T belong to a congregation.<br />
<br />
Why would that be? Let me count a few ways.<br />
<br />
<br />
1. Some of them don't have a UU church in commuting distance. Above is an old map, but it shows huge swaths of our nation (anything not pink or purple) where there is no UU church in the county. Not much has changed in 12 years. Some people who are out of range of a brick and mortar church belong to the <a href="http://clf.uua.org/" target="_blank">Church of the Larger Fellowship</a>, and more may now that this organization has really beefed up its on-line resources, but most apparently don't. <br />
<br />
2. Some live in range of a UU church but don't belong because they can't find a place for themselves theologically, or they don't like the minister or the leadership group, or they have become discouraged by church politics or burned out by the incessant demands of lay leadership. We are a denomination of small congregations...and small congregations are hard, hard work. There are very few communities outside of the East Coast between Washington DC and Southern Maine which offer any real choice of UU congregations. <br />
<br />
3. They may live in range of a UU church but be busy with other things in their life right now. Many college students are near UU groups but don't join up, for instance. Their lives are rich and interesting and busy on campus. It would take a huge effort of outreach and support to get them interested in belonging to a UU church. (I get this. My son belongs to this group)<br />
<br />
4. They may have grown up as UU's and not continued to belong to a UU church, although, if asked, they would say they were UU's because they generally agree with what they were taught as children. That is to say, they may be among the between 80 and 90% of children of our church schools who don't join UU churches ever again in their lives. If the goal of our RE programs of the past 50 years had been to innoculate children against church, we'd consider ourselves quite successful. Ouch. My two siblings belong to this group. <br />
<br />
5. They may be kind of interested in being a UU but when they visit they discover nobody like them. Nobody under 40. Nobody who didn't graduate from college. Nobody who is not white. Nobody who is not Anglo. They look around and see that in this congregation, they'd be by themself. So...they stay by themself. <br />
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6. Then there are the ones who don't want to be asked for money but don't mind taking advantage of the fact that some people will give for them. But this is, in the end, a pretty small category.<br />
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Put all these folks together, and it is easy for me to believe that 3 out of 4 people who think of themselves as UU's would not actually belong to a congregation.<br />
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How about you? Can you add other reasons UU's might not belong to a UU church? <br />
<br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-14901661713903704972012-01-23T03:42:00.000-07:002012-01-23T03:42:00.520-07:00Congregations and Beyond<br />
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Peter Morales' paper, Congregations and Beyond (found <a href="http://www.uua.org/uuagovernance/officers/president/moralespeter/192145.shtml?utm_source=UUA.org+Updates+RSS&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+uua-updates+%28UUA.org+Updates%29" target="_blank">here</a>) raises some interesting issues for UU's and other religious people, especially those in small denominations and those which practice congregational polity. (polity is church governance. Congregational Polity is the form of government that makes congregations the basic unit of the denomination. So, for instance, technically, you are only a UU if you belong to a congregation which belongs to the UUA. You can't be an individual member of Unitarian Universalism.)<br />
<br />
The basic problem is that the institutional category, "congregation", once virtually a pillar of American society, has become less and less interesting to younger generations. (Congregation is still a pillar of society in a few places, notably the South, or in Utah. You can tell this is the case when the first question asked of a newcomer to town is, "What church do you belong to?" Some newcomers to town take this as a rather agressive evangelizing effort but it probably isn't. It is probably just a social locator. "Oh...he's an Episcopalian. Got it.")<br />
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There's no doubt about the declining fortunes of "congregation". To recap, here's a paragraph from my part of last year's Minns Lectures. (find it <a href="http://minnslectures.org/2011Talks/RobinsonTalk.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>)<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Just to give you a
sense of how the market share of all religion has changed over 50 years, let me
go over some statistics.</span></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoFooter">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFooter">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Researchers have been asking 20 year olds about their
religion for several generations, so we know that 3% of young people of the
WWII generation said they had no religion, and about 6% of the next generation…my
parent’s generation…persons now in their 70s and 80’s. About 12%
of the Boomers in the 1960’s and 70’s claimed “no religion” 20% of gen X’ers who were 20 years old in the
80’s and 90’s and a whopping 26% of the Millennial Generation now claim “no
religion”. From 3% to 26%...and rising. </span></i></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
Now, there is a difference between "no religion" and "no congregation." There are actually a fair number of people who do have a religion but don't belong to a congregation. But there will not be very many people with no religion who DO belong to a congregation. So, for those who are interested in congregations, these statistics are even more dire. <br />
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When you notice these overall statistics, you have to remark that the ability of Unitarian Universalism to hold its own over the past generation is a show of strength, not weakness. And, indeed, most denominations have done much worse than we have. <br />
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Peter is asking what we should do. It's something we should all be thinking about. <br />
<br />Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-22837560969924605692012-01-21T17:45:00.000-07:002012-01-21T17:45:02.437-07:00Counting the Audience*This is one of several responses to UUA president Peter Morales' white paper on congregations, which can be found <a href="http://www.blogger.com/(http://tinyurl.com/6wa4exz">here</a>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQY4r5ww9JaSazd62utDCyS_mXFC-xzdgVohRLReRctnr7q_ZWnBUoHRf56XoHzQqvjWyg1b9vp8S8R5OpSq-tREEc-MLGcJnuEkQcqX4-pmxW1T0BRk7JAIKum6jgY3fXxzcogQ/s1600/bullseye.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQY4r5ww9JaSazd62utDCyS_mXFC-xzdgVohRLReRctnr7q_ZWnBUoHRf56XoHzQqvjWyg1b9vp8S8R5OpSq-tREEc-MLGcJnuEkQcqX4-pmxW1T0BRk7JAIKum6jgY3fXxzcogQ/s1600/bullseye.png" /></a>There's a theory of congregations that says that each congregation has three kinds of constituents. They are called by different names but the picture is the same. At the center of the life of the church are its most committed members, formal and informal leaders, contributors, workers...the people you see more than once a week and who give and get. This group could be called "leaders", or "core members" or "most committed", or any number of other phrases.<br />
<br />
The middle group are the members, constituents, the people who come some, participate some, and give some, who identify with a congregation but don't put it at the center of their lives. There's another group that is further removed from the center of the congregation, sometimes called the community, (as in, the community we serve), but perhaps better called the audience. <br />
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The audience includes the people who come to services but don't join or contribute, sometimes just on Christmas Eve, or when they are between relationships, or when their mother comes to town. They are the people who use the church parking lot as a staging ground for group hikes, who rely on the food pantry, whose children go to the child care center which only pays it's direct expenses in rent, but not the cost of the capital investment in the physical plant. The audience includes the people who read the op-ed's which the minister produces, whose organizations meet for free in the meeting rooms, and those who are considering membership and getting involved.<br />
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The audience is hard to count and easy for the leaders to resent. After all, these are the people who use the infrastructure, physical and emotional, which the church leaders have worked to provide, but they don't usually want to be counted...in part because their experience with the entity "congregation" is that it will try to suck them in, make them feel guilty, and ask them for money. So they make themselves scarce when counting time comes.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, they do a lot of wonderful things for a congregation. How good does it feel to have a full house on Christmas eve, after all? As the TV ad says, "priceless". We church folks do what we do to serve...and not just the folks who pledge. Watching our resentment level is a good spiritual discipline. It's a congregation and not a club, after all. The audience is a given. Plus, if we are good listeners, our audience keeps us fresh. They are our outside audit, if we let them be. And some of them will be enticed into the second or even the first circles because they come to notice that good things happen inside the circle. <br />
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Discovering a respectful name for folks that I had thought of as "hanger-oners" or, on my bad day, "free-loaders", was a wonderful day in my ministry.Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-25279138876772044012012-01-16T21:14:00.000-07:002012-01-16T21:14:32.763-07:00Contemporary WorshipSome of us at First U Albuquerque have set ourselves to really figuring out what contemporary worship is all about. Since the churches which feature this new religious art form tend to be big, evangelical churches whose mission is to meet people where they are and lead them to Jesus, they tend to have worship at times other than Sunday morning at 11. That makes it a lot more convenient for people who serve on church staffs to visit and learn. (and the first thing we might learn is that a LOT of people prefer to worship on Saturday afternoon.)<br />
<br />
Last Fall, we visited the home base of a multi site congregation of about 8,000 people. We noted<br />
<br />
1. That the order of worship was dead simple. Singing, Prayer, Sermon, prayer, singing, and greet your neighbors. No affirmation, no responsive reading. No announcements (although the pastor sprinkled some announcements in at the beginning of the sermon). No offering (there was an offering box at the end of some rows). No story for everyone...it was all pretty much for adults. There were plenty of kids in attendance and a full posse of teens, but there were kids classes at the same time. The kids present seem to have been giving a goodie bag, but in no way was the sermon or the music "for" them. They were a passive audience, helped to behave well, and those who didn't like it had another alternative.)<br />
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2. The congregation was predominately what I would call "established" young adults in their 30's and 40's. However there were plenty of baby boomers and more than a few elders, many of whom seemed to be a part of three generation families attending together. <br />
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3. The music was Christian Rock. Sound levels were kept out of the painful range. (in two churches we went to the poor drummer was seated in a clear plexiglass box to keep the sound level down). The most interesting thing to me about the music was that it was clearly conceived of, not as a message, but as a prayer. A lot of it was a Christian Rock equivalent of "Spirit of Life, Come Unto Me". Only....it was repeated enough that it became, not a reminder of what we believe, but an actual prayer.<br />
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4. The messages were skillfully presented but quite thin. Not to mention covering things we didn't believe, like, that 90% of the people of our good state are going to Hell.<br />
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5. Did I mention that there were LOTS of people there, at this second of 5 worship services offered at that site that weekend? <br />
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6. Some of those people are someday going to say to themselves, "I just don't buy this!"...and walk. If this has been their experience of worship, they are not going to find my church's eclectic but more formal music interesting, no matter how much freedom they are looking for. Nor will it sound like "home" to them. <br />
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7. Therefore...we are experimenting with contemporary worship. So that we can be hospitable to the next generation of seekers, most of whom attend churches with bands, not organs.Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-35215883777733662912011-09-01T06:00:00.000-06:002011-08-31T22:15:49.646-06:00Facebook: A Time Sink?A ministerial friend was complaining lately about the time it can take to wade through the dross of Facebook posts to get to the good stuff. Most of this post is a re-post of my tips on this matter from 18 months ago, and since then I have gleaned another tip. Up in the top line, where you can click "most recent" or "top news", you see that the "most recent" has a drop down menu, whereby you can choose what KIND of news you want...status updates, pictures, games, or linked articles. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWExLJSWCmpQbzkA6shAVVdnzhQ6VBf0pXEzYR1-PCTA-ZON7A4-67mIQcHOPzTivA3-wkCw7Bky3xmqOGLRRwBH9i7skCq3yaF5Pgshkwl8bAAWK-bsg83NfimaJp23FnQg1SxQ/s1600/untitled.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWExLJSWCmpQbzkA6shAVVdnzhQ6VBf0pXEzYR1-PCTA-ZON7A4-67mIQcHOPzTivA3-wkCw7Bky3xmqOGLRRwBH9i7skCq3yaF5Pgshkwl8bAAWK-bsg83NfimaJp23FnQg1SxQ/s320/untitled.JPG" width="320" /></a>If you've decided to use Facebook in your ministry, then you will want to use it efficiently. The most important way to do this is to use the "hide" function.<br />
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If you hover your mouse to the right of any post, the word "hide" will appear. Notice the two "Egg" posts to the left. The word "hide" is not there until you point your mouse to that place. Click and you will see a menu. You can hide a person...someone who posts utter trivia 10 times a day, for instance, or you can hide an application. If you don't want to see the news about your friends' high scores in Bejeweled Blitz or their levels in Mafia wars, just hide that application. The person who has been hidden doesn't know they have been hidden. <br />
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(You can unbefriend people, too. No notice is ever sent to them, but they they might study their friend list and discover that you are gone. That might be considered a risky pastoral move. Unless you object to them seeing your posts, just hide them.) <br />
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Live Chat is also a time sink. If you don't want to chat, click the "off line" option in the Chat window. If you don't do that and somebody tries to chat with you when you don't want to chat, close the window and ignore them. For all they know, you are away from your computer. <br />
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Use "like". You can click "like" to any post, or you can comment. Like is faster. <br />
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Your Home Page on Facebook can be set to give you "top news" or "most recent". In "top news", Facebook will give you only the posts it thinks you will be most interested in. That's probably a must for folks with hundreds of active friends. For the rest of us, scanning "most recent" is most likely to give us all the news we really want. Unfortunately, you have to select this every time you log in. <br />
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Like all new technologies, Facebook has a learning curve. This one is a little less user-friendly to newbies than, say, Google products are. Be patient with yourself, and ask questions of your FacebookFriends. After you've learned, Facebook is much more manageable and much more fun than email. Enjoy!Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-52892055124955722822011-08-17T09:39:00.000-06:002011-08-17T09:39:33.858-06:00Radical Growth Idea for UU's<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcup-pbqx4550jW4GJhonvuWRTAW4p-APbPWE5nG0x0hHXLd813r9op6dJyjmQr4KtFhlJSMAWpaBs5F5j4XL6Hx5kVkNfz9qGrqH3HnILtnNjecJo5wULC-YonIbBrjHwuoyUA/s1600/closed" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtcup-pbqx4550jW4GJhonvuWRTAW4p-APbPWE5nG0x0hHXLd813r9op6dJyjmQr4KtFhlJSMAWpaBs5F5j4XL6Hx5kVkNfz9qGrqH3HnILtnNjecJo5wULC-YonIbBrjHwuoyUA/s1600/closed" /></a></div>Begin Rant:<br />
<br />
Let's quit privileging the practice of closing churches for the Summer. <br />
This idea, which comes to us straight out of the pre-air conditioned centuries past, has it that it is necessary, ok, or even refreshing to close UU churches from Mid June to the week after Labor Day, that ministerial life-style must be centered around "summers off", and that it is funny to joke about how God trusts us to do this and assume that it does no harm. <br />
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I'm not saying end the practice...just quit catering to it. Churches are free to do what they wish. No doubt there are some old buildings which are insufferable in the Summer and just can't be updated. However, we should feel sorry for those folks and see if we can help them upgrade to 20th century technology rather than letting them set the mind-set of our association. No doubt some ministers' contracts are set in stone and can't be changed. But instead of letting those folks drive ministerial practice, let's ask ourselves what's good for the people and communities we serve.<br />
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Last Sunday, the second week of August, was our Back to School Sunday in Albuquerque...because..school started here today, as it did in school systems all over the west and south. We had a lively time of it, and...we had about a dozen visitors. Some were traveling UU's, (who expressed their pleased shock at finding that the UU church was holds two services all Summer, and three starting the third week of August), some were people (UU's and newbies) who had just moved here and were looking for a church, some were just visiting. Some will become members because, hey, we were actually open on a Sunday when they needed us.<br />
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Why has this church grown from 400 to 750 members in the past 20 years, a time when the rest of the denomination has barely held it's own? Maybe because we're open when people are looking for a church? Maybe because we give off the message, in this and lots of other ways, that we think that the religious quest is so important that we make it a year-round occupation to help people grow this way? Maybe because we know that people vacation year round and not, as they used to in New England, just go away in July and August? Maybe because we aim to serve a population that includes working women, singles of all ages, people with only two weeks...or NO vacation, and the sort of working folks who don't get the Summer off? Maybe it is just because, when they happened to brave their first visit to a UU church in August, there was a well-crafted worship service and a minister to meet.<br />
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Now, of course, UU churches can have any schedule they want to, so there will be no pressure to conform to this startling growth strategy. But let's quit pretending that it's a good norm and sort of freeze it out of existence.<br />
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Let's quit talking about "start up Sunday" as if we all do that the Sunday after Labor Day.<br />
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Let's re-think the extraordinary idea that ministers, unlike any other class of workers except some University professors, should have two months of vacation and a month of accrued sabbatical leave each year. (UUMA Guidelines)<br />
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Let's put out a hymnal which has as many resources for Summer as for Spring and Fall. <br />
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Let's get enough sermons and worship materials on video, and enough churches video-prepared that one-minster and lay-lead churches can realistically have a high impact worship service every Sunday of the year. <br />
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Let's quit acting as if those UU ministers who work during the Summer are foolish martyrs and instead help the ministry conceive of work patters which give them time for study, preparation, and vacation, all through the year. <br />
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<div style="text-align: right;">Rant Over</div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-3594162128482453442011-08-11T14:10:00.003-06:002011-08-13T19:28:32.314-06:00Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisoEG9F0bOZ498Glq-ur-I2MAZfQ4gkFWf-8nYae7LD-rGWOJanUSiX1CRNL1zKwVR6nPPd_jJCCwdPxGzO5LuJzF9VbSSRvSLuz4RwnFgdKdTejzmY0SaVvQmr-GmEzrtY4Xchg/s1600/deathly+hallows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisoEG9F0bOZ498Glq-ur-I2MAZfQ4gkFWf-8nYae7LD-rGWOJanUSiX1CRNL1zKwVR6nPPd_jJCCwdPxGzO5LuJzF9VbSSRvSLuz4RwnFgdKdTejzmY0SaVvQmr-GmEzrtY4Xchg/s200/deathly+hallows.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-3534066955007405772011-08-04T15:45:00.001-06:002011-08-11T11:53:27.947-06:00Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisoEG9F0bOZ498Glq-ur-I2MAZfQ4gkFWf-8nYae7LD-rGWOJanUSiX1CRNL1zKwVR6nPPd_jJCCwdPxGzO5LuJzF9VbSSRvSLuz4RwnFgdKdTejzmY0SaVvQmr-GmEzrtY4Xchg/s1600/deathly+hallows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisoEG9F0bOZ498Glq-ur-I2MAZfQ4gkFWf-8nYae7LD-rGWOJanUSiX1CRNL1zKwVR6nPPd_jJCCwdPxGzO5LuJzF9VbSSRvSLuz4RwnFgdKdTejzmY0SaVvQmr-GmEzrtY4Xchg/s200/deathly+hallows.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28809213.post-48867743133248486302011-06-28T15:12:00.000-06:002011-06-28T15:12:00.384-06:00Breaking Up With God<div style="border-bottom: solid black 2.25pt; border: none; margin-left: -.25in; margin-right: 0in; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 10.0pt 0in;"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid black 2.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 28.8pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 10.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #cccccc; letter-spacing: -0.6pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: x-small;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Author of the book by this title, Sarah Sentilles, talks about a story which was left out of her book: </span></span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1.45pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #777777; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10.0pt; letter-spacing: 1.2pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 6.5pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #555555; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i> The founder of Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit that uses the resources of design to solve social problems, visited my brother’s class in architecture school and described one of the first design contests he held. He asked people to come up with the best design possible for a mobile AIDS clinic for a town in a country in Africa. He posted the deadline, and he waited. He didn’t think anyone would submit anything, but on the day of the contest’s deadline, a delivery man from Federal Express rang the doorbell to his tiny studio apartment in New York City. He was carrying a huge bag stuffed with envelopes. “Wow,” the founder said. “Are all those mine?” “No,” the delivery person said. He pointed to three giant Fed Ex trucks lined up on the street behind him, their hazard lights blinking. “All those are yours.” I really love that story. I think it reveals how human beings are waiting to make the world a better place. We just need to enter the </i></span></span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 115%;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">contest.</span></i></span></span></div>Christine Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02291622244158872449noreply@blogger.com0