In this time when most congregations hold their Annual Business Meetings, I think it’s important to reflect on what a congregation is for. Every congregation has a variety of stakeholders, people who feel a sense of ownership in their church community. And when times of change come around, often in the spring around that Annual Meeting, sometimes those stakeholders butt heads.

Rev. Dan Hotchkiss, a Unitarian Universalist minister and senior consultant at the Alban Institute, has some great insight on this question of ownership and priority. Is the minister in charge? The Board? The largest donors? Or is a congregation more than that?

Who Owns a Congregation?

by Dan Hotchkiss

Comparisons are useful but tricky. New Testament writers compare the church to a human body, a herd of sheep, a bride, and a vineyard. Synagogues are often likened to a house, a tent, or an extended family. None of these analogies is meant to be exact or literal—a church may act in some ways like a herd of sheep, but a wise leader doesn’t plan on it. Poets do exaggerate sometimes.

In the same spirit of poetic license, it may at times it may be useful to compare the clergy leader of a congregation to a corporate CEO, its members to customers or stockholders, or its staff to the employees of a charity. We can draw many useful analogies between congregations, other nonprofits, and businesses, but ultimately congregations need ideas and language of their own. It is easy to say that “the church should run more like a business,” without recognizing that in some respects the church should and does run very differently.

(Read on … )

John Ockels, a lay-leader at the Red River Unitarian Universalist Church in Denison, Texas, preached this sermon decrying the “Theology of Running Away” two weeks ago to his congregation. He challenges the notion of religion as constant searching, and encourages us as Unitarian Universalists to put down roots, “Kudzu-style.”

And I, for one, say “AMEN.” How about you?

Shall We Dwell At the River?

by John Ockels

This morning Iʼm here to criticize what I call “The Theology of Running Away.” Enough already with the theology of Singing the Journey, This World Is Not My Home, running-all-over-creation-chasing My Elusive Dreams, and nostalgic floating around in a boat, never quite docking, never quite engaging. “I’ve been sailing all my life now, Never harbor nor port have I known.” Please. Enough with all that. Enough with the theology of always being on a journey. Itʼs officially wearing me out.

This morning I want to argue for an end to all that Hank Thompson “Iʼm Moving On,” “We are going, heaven knows where we are going, Woyaya,” Christopher Columbus, thereʼs a better world over yonder, “Go West Young Man,” Herman Hesse Journey To the East, somewhere over the rainbow, life must be better somewhere else or sometime else stuff. Forget all that. Makes me tired just to think about it.

This morning I want to argue for a radical theology of loving where you are, staying put, spreading out, putting down roots … and taking over. Like a plant. And doing so successfully, like a successful weed. In short I want to argue a theology based on radical engagement where we are standing right now. A theology based on observing how plants interact with their surroundings, not one based on continued roaming predator behavior. A theology of taking over like a weed. A theology of Kudzu.

(Read on … )

This week I’m exploring the things that bind Unitarian Universalists together in religious community. Since our liberal faith does not rely upon a specific doctrine of religious belief or creed, each congregation has a different way of expressing the promises members make to one another in how they will be together as an organization.

Today we look at mission statements from several congregations around the country. I’ve chosen examples of those statements by congregations that express what it is they gather to do as a community, both within and outside the walls of the church.

For consideration: What does a mission statement say about a religious community? How are you, as an individual member of a congregation, part of the mission?

Mission Statements

We, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Catskills [Kingston, New York], have a mission to:

• Provide a supportive place for spiritual, philosophical and intellectual development
• Celebrate and affirm, through the democratic process, our commitments to social activism, cooperation, caring and love
• Seek ways, for both individuals and the congregation as a whole, of providing service to the community
• Invite and welcome persons in our geographic area to become part of our religious community.

We covenant with each other to:

• Accept the responsibility to maintain a congregation in which to develop the best possible relationships, to love ourselves and others and to encourage our children to realize their potential
• Provide a respectful place for people of diverse backgrounds, views, and religious beliefs and foster a sense of well being for everyone in our religious community
• Respect, recognize and appreciate each and every individual’s spiritual search and unique nature, and provide for alternatives to traditional forms of religious practice
• Affirm our special responsibility, and that of our members, to promote the full participation of persons in all of its activities and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, color, sex, disability, sexual orientation, age or national origin and without requiring adherence to any particular interpretation of religion or to any particular religious belief or creed.

We are a community built on interdependence.

(Read on … )