Unitarian Universalist Growth, Outreach & Media
Friends,
I hope you have had or are having a great holiday season – I know some of you are on break through the new year. Me? I’m very excited for 2010. Once we hit January I will be be sharing plans for growth related events in my district (open to all) and tell you more about my goal of moving from being a “bi-vocational” UU growth consultant and secular TV producer to working with our faith full time. That’s the intention, more on the plan in 2010.
Peter
I just came across a post by Rev.Thom pointing out another instance of Christmas journalists/writers having fun with Unitarian Universalism. Well, not so much fun as perpetuating stereotypes and misinformation about our faith. Joy!~
In this next case a Slate.com article title “One Gift To Bind Them All: Streamline your holiday shopping by purchasing the same present for everyone on your list” by Noreen Malone recommends – as the title says – buying one gift for everyone. What UUs may find of interest is that she describes the perfect bulk Christmas gift as follows:
The perfect generic gift ought to share attributes with the loose strictures of Unitarian Universalism—vague and inoffensive, warm and fuzzy and enveloping and giving the general impression of standing for something while not really standing for anything in particular. The gift-giver must sacrifice panache at the altar of practicality. Greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Noreen Malone highlights for me an issue we really must work harder on – the sense many people have that we don’t stand for anything.
To Noreen Malone and others who share this view, I say read our association’s collection of Social Justice statements (400+ page pdf). Too much justice for you? You can search our Social Justice statements using the interface here. In his post Rev.Thom talks more about our standing for something including bringing attention to the Standing on the Side of Love Campaign.
We stand for plenty. We just do a craptastic job of communicating what we stand for. Some would argue we do a poor job communicating not only with the larger world, but with our members and friend too. If this is the case, communicating better is a huge and urgent growth strategy for our faith and for your congregation.
Instead of getting annoyed at this Noreen Malone for demonstrating what to many UUs will feel like ignorance, I’d like to invite you to challenge yourself to do the following in 2010. For every message you share be it a newsletter column, a newspaper column, a blog post,
an announcement in your Sunday Bulletin, or sermon by a minister or lay leader ask yourself the following question:
“What does THIS communication say about what we stand for?”
If this isn’t coming through in our communications, our ongoing messages, we invite every cheap shot by those who don’t “get us” and every clever reference to our so called wishy-washy nature by the Noreen Malone’s of the world.
Don’t complain. Communicate better.
Don’t rant in return. Prove them wrong.
That said, what is the “the perfect universal holiday gift” - that is oh so UU like in its ability to be all things to all people without being much of anything at all?
According to Noreen Malone it is a collection of edit poems by Garrison Keillor, Good Poems.
Just a reminder that our next book of the month is The Growing Church: Keys to Congregational Vitality, edited by Thom Belote. After a short holiday break (Christmas – New Years) we’ll pick up our discussion of the Almost Church Revitalized. Then in February we will start with The Growing Church. Not sure how long we’ll work with this one. It is an edited volume and could be a great springboard for conversation. A month might not cut it.
If you’d like to join the conversation you can pre-order the book now.
The Growing Church
Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you enjoy time off with friends, family and other loved ones. Look for more from the UU Growth Blog after the new year. Best, Peter
Friends, Don Skinner of the UUA’s Tip Sheet Blog and I have been discussing top social media tools for congregations. The following is a quick write up / draft of my thoughts. It was posted in rough forms so it could be linked to in another publication. I will clean up this draft over the next day or two. – Peter
Peter’s Top Social Media picks for UU Congregations
When talking social media I think congregations need to focus on the goals of their communications with members and friends, and to determine how these tools fit in.
Social media — blogs, Facebook and Twitter in particular — are one more communication channel. But with some differences. When people sign on to receive blog posts, Facebook announcements, and Twitter Tweets, they are opening the door to be in closer contact with the congregation than the average email or print bulletin allows. Conventions of social media allow for content to be shared in more of an ongoing fashion, a stream of discrete news items. This is in stark contrast to many other church communications which “bundle” large quantities of information as weekly emails, Sunday bulletins, and monthly newsletters.
My top social media pick for congregations is to start publishing news items via a blog either on their primary website or a dedicated news blog hosted by one of the many free blog services. Once news is moved from bulky bundled “I don’t have time to read this right now” publications to a blog platform the magic of social networking can kick in.
Congregations sharing news via a blog should publish each discrete item of news as a single post. Why? Because other social media tools are optimized for sharing discrete news items and links. This brings us to pick number two – Face Book.
Once a congregation has a blog, they can set up a Face Book fan page. This page allows anyone to become a “fan” of the congregation and receive all of its shared news items without sharing personal information with the congregation. Whereas people may be selective about becoming a Facebook friend with someone, there is very little risk involved in becoming a fan of a congregation. This is great outreach.
With a Facebook fan page created all of the congregation’s blog posts can be set up to automatically be shared via Facebook. Every blog news item posted is turned into a shared item on Facebook. All of the congregation’s fans can then share these items in turn. This allows news to spread in a more viral fashion. Fans can also comment on items increasing communication and strengthening relationships.
Just as new items are easily distributed via Facebook, the same is true with Twitter, the most popular micro-blogging service. Congregations may a free service such has hootsuite.com (my pick) to automatically send out “tweets” notifying their Twitter followers of each blog post. Post a news item and your followers receive a tweet with the title of the post and a link to it. They may then click on the link and read the full post.
It’s important to highlight that once you are publishing news via a blog item-by-item for no addition time investment you may set up Facebook and Twitter to share these items as well. This leads to a cascading effect with news traveling from the blog to Facebook and Twitter and from their to whomever your fans and followers share items with.
We’ve all heard a picture is worth a thousand words, and its true. And congregations should cash in on this. My next set of picks serve to help turn the congregation inside out, making it easier for visitors online to get a sense of what your community is like. I recommend that congregations get in the develop a practice of sharing videos and photos on their website. YouTube and Flickr, the top video and photo sharing sites are ideal for this. Placing videos and photos documenting congregational life on your website is an ideal way to tell your congregation’s story and communicate to visitors what they can expect if they visit. And again there is the bonus of making content easy to share. Videos and photos published using YouTube, Flickr and other services are easy to share.
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr — that’s five. If I were to include a sixth to round out the package it would be podcasts of sermons. Sermon podcasts allow people considering Unitarian Universalism to have all of their fears, doubts and questions addressed. Is this the right church for me? What is a UU Sunday Service like? I recently greeted a newcomer at our congregation. It was his first time but he walked in with a confidence that surprised me. I asked if he had been to our congregation before. No, but he had already watched all of our YouTube videos and listened to multiple sermons. He had even heard one of mine and we immediately launched into conversation about the issues that service addressed.
Beyond helping newcomers in their quest for a spiritual home, podcasts also allow teachers and those unable to attend to hear the sermon. Some question whether sermon podcasts encourage people to skip church. In my experience I’ve found that as peoples’ busy lives pull them away, social media and sermon podcasts in particular help keep people connected. These tools keep members, friends and even soon to be visitors engaged.
A last note on “Silent Night” as it relates to Mr. Keillor’s column. I’ve had the opportunity to check in on the version that our congregation uses, as well as some other UU congregations. In the case of our congregation we’ve been using a version that places more of the original language back in compared to the UUA hymnal. We have a “savior” line, a couple of sleep in heavenly peace’s, but no Lords. Unitarian Universalist’s aren’t too keen on the Lords.
Good for people to keep in mind that the UUA Hymnal is not the Bible when it comes to the version of Silent Night that UU congregations are using. In fact, I think many congregations print the music in the order of service for the Christmas eve service.
Our congregations are free and independent churches and many may be using a version that Garrison Keillor might delight in singing. NOT that I am concerned with his position. But I do think it is worth noting our independent nature. Many non-UUs following our conversation may not be aware that our congregations have such freedom.
I would like to end my participation in the so called “Christmas Controversy” discussion by wishing Mr. Keillor and all of you a very merry Christmas (Chanukah ended last night).
Mr. Keillor, if you don’t have plans we’d be delighted to have you join us for one of our congregations Christmas Eve services. Here in Newport, RI our service is at 5 pm at Channing Church. You can find a Unitarian Universalist congregation near you here.
May 2011, Update: Here’s a video discussing Garrison Keillor and Unitarian Universalism.
photo credit: Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg News / Landov
On December 16th, 2009 Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion (PHC) published a syndicated column titled “Don’t Mess with Christmas.” In it he states “…it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite ‘Silent Night.’ If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn ‘Silent Night’ and leave ours alone.”
It is true that the hymnal published by the Unitarian Universalist Association has a slightly different version of Silent Night. But I think Garrison Keillor is missing out on some key information about the origins of this holiday. He is such a smart man. Isn’t he aware of the origins of this holiday?
The kind of spiritual piracy he is attributing to Unitarians is, as I understand it, exactly what was the Christian Church did to the pagans. One might also note that there are many versions of Silent Night as the English version is one of many translations. This website lists translations in many languages with over 20 English versions.
But I’m no historian so I need those of you who are Unitarian Universalist ministers, religious educators, music directors/leaders, theologians, historians, and other members of our congregations with extensive knowledge of the history of Christmas to step up and respond. In the spirit of Christmas, outreach and education I’d like to invite you to take a moment to
You may find Keillor’s column on the following websites. You might craft your response and then cut and paste into each of these sites.
Unitarian Universalist Hymnal and Chalice Photo by Peter Bowden
As a lifelong Unitarian Universalist I’ve participated in many Christmas celebrations and late night Christmas Eve services. I will tell guests surfing in that in my home congregation’s tradition our minister did speak of Jesus and the meaning of Christmas and the holy and the divine. Hundreds of us gathered together in the darkness at the end of the service and sang Silent Night by candlelight. And these were holy nights.
Growing up in a Unitarian church I also had the opportunity to learn about the evolution of Christmas. I am well aware that much of the present form of Christmas involves elements incorporated from Pagan solstice celebrations. I would love for someone with a more thorough understanding of the history of Christmas to educate Mr. Keillor. To me the kind of changes that he is complaining about are of the same nature as those that gave rise to Christmas as we know it today.
Given that word is spreading the Keillor has “sparked a Christmas controversy” I think we should do our part to educate people about Unitarian Universalist history and views of Christmas.
UU’s Responses (updated 12/18)
Here are some related posts on other blogs you might enjoy reading. They may inspire you in your own reflection and blogging.
The Rev. Edmund Robinson wrote the following response to Keillor’s column. I’ll share it here as it is getting buried in the column’s comments.
Garrison Keillor, I’m talking to you!
I have listened to PHC for most of my adult life (for most of that time I have been a UU and for the last 10 a UU minister) and I have lots of dear friends in the folk community who have appeared on it and poet friends who have been featured in your writers almanac, but you have really lost it with this post.
1. The only words changed in Silent Night in the current UU hymnal are that the lines “Christ the Savior is Born” and “Jesus Lord at thy birth” which conclude stanzas two and three are replaced by the equivalent ending line from stanza 1, “Sleep in heavenly peace.” They are omitted because many UUs do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, as implied by the term Christ and Lord.
2. Yet we celebrate the birth of a human Jesus as one of the great religious teachers of the world. The Nicene creed which we do not recite contains assertions which are not supported by scripture or common sense and ignore the whole point of Jesus’ ministry. It is because we take Jesus seriously as a religious leader that we celebrate Christmas; we helped establish it as a public holiday in the early XIXth Cent., and it was Unitarian minister who introduced the Christmas tree to America.
3. Emerson was an apostate to the Unitarians of his day, and yes he wrote some things which were later used to support a cult of individualism. If you checked a UU church today, you would find that community is celebrated over individualism and Emerson is honored for his spiritual insights as contained in the Divinity School Address, the very apogee of his apostacy to his contemporaries. He was not invited back to Harvard for 30 years after that address.
4. You comment about Jewish songwriters is frankly anti-Semitic and I’m deeply disappointed in you.
5. Don’t you think that the idea of a Christian “club” is contrary to the whole spirit not only of Christmas but of who Jesus was? This is a guy who outraged his contemporaries by eating with tax collectors and sinners. Is this “club” defined only by those who can accept the doctrine of the Trinity in all its self-contradiction?
Those of you with the credentials can help fill in the gaps in Mr. Keillor’s understanding of the history of Christmas. The more the merrier! And please note that writings in support of Keillor’s statement and against are all encouraged. I don’t want UU’s complaining, but educating. Let’s discuss the issue. Has Unitarian Universalism evolved the point where we are no longer eligible to sing Silent Night? Are we only allowed if we stick to the original? And which original version is that? Anyone have the skinny on which version has the Keillor endorsement?
If your history is rusty you can visit wikpedia’s Christmas entry and review the Pre-Christian background section
Pre-Christian background
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti
Main article: Sol InvictusDies Natalis Solis Invicti means “the birthday of the unconquered Sun.” The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the god of Emperor Aurelian; and Mithras, a soldiers’ god of Persian origin.[48] Emperor Elagabalus (218–222) introduced the festival, and it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.[49] This day had held no significance in the Roman festive calendar until it was introduced in the third century.[50]
The festival was placed on the date of the solstice because this was on this day that the Sun reversed its southward retreat and proved itself to be “unconquered.” Several early Christian writers connected the rebirth of the sun to the birth of Jesus.[6] “O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born…Christ should be born”, Cyprian wrote.[6] John Chrysostom also commented on the connection: “They call it the ‘Birthday of the Unconquered’. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord . . .?”[6]
Winter festivals
Main article: List of winter festivalsA winter festival was the most popular festival of the year in many cultures. Reasons included the fact that less agricultural work needs to be done during the winter, as well as an expectation of better weather as spring approached.[51] Modern Christmas customs include: gift-giving and merrymaking from Roman Saturnalia; greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year; and Yule logs and various foods from Germanic feasts.[52] Pagan Scandinavia celebrated a winter festival called Yule, held in the late December to early January period. As Northern Europe was the last part to Christianize, its pagan traditions had a major influence on Christmas. Scandinavians still call Christmas Jul. In English, the word Yule is synonymous with Christmas,[53] a usage first recorded in 900.
Christian establishment
The New Testament does not give a date for the birth of Jesus.[6][54] Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria wrote that a group in Egypt celebrated the nativity on Pachon 25.[6] This corresponds to May 20.[55] Tertullian (d. 220) does not mention Christmas as a major feast day in the Church of Roman Africa.[6] However, in Chronographai, a reference work published in 221, Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox, popularizing the idea that Christ was born on December 25.[56][57] The equinox was March 25 on the Roman calendar, so this implied a birth in December.[58] De Pascha Computus, a calendar of feasts produced in 243, gives March 28 as the date of the nativity.[59] In 245, the theologian Origen of Alexandria stated that, “only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod)” celebrated their birthdays.[60] In 303, Christian writer Arnobius ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods, which suggests that Christmas was not yet a feast at this time.[6]
Feast established
An early reference to the date of the nativity as December 25 is found in the Chronography of 354, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome in 354.[61] In the East, early Christians celebrated the birth of Christ as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival emphasized celebration of the baptism of Jesus.[62]
Christmas was promoted in the Christian East as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced to Constantinople in 379, and to Antioch in about 380. The feast disappeared after Gregory of Nazianzus resigned as bishop in 381, although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.[6]
I love it! A reader of the UU Growth Blog just shared with me that the UCC has a CHURCH VITALITY website. Remember, growth is a consequence of health and vitality which makes this site their headquarters for supporting church growth.
One of the resources on this site is a Vital-O-Meter, a survey designed to help you take the pulse of your congregation. This fits in well with our conversation from our book of the month.
Just joining us? Click Here to view all posts related to our Book of the Month.
The Vital-O-Meter asks you to rate to what extent the following are true for your congregation as a whole.
Now I don’t want you to all go an run survey. I’m sure they are tracking the results.
In lieu of taking their Vital-O-Meter, I invite you to take the Vital-UU-Meter! Okay, don’t get excited. All I’ve done is set up a one question, simple scale to get a read on the vitality of your congregation
For a more in depth “read” of your congregation’s pulse, print out this post and take an offline version of the UCC’s Vital-O-Meter.
I wonder what would happen if you started each board meeting checking in on the congregation’s pulse in this way? You don’t have to answer that! But you can share this post with your leadership. 
In the last post I mentioned “eight essential qualities for healthy churches” as detailed in the book Natural Church Development.
The first of the eight is EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP.
Chapter two of our book of the month, The Almost Church Revisited by Michael Durall, is titled “Leadership Makes it or Breaks It.” I’m with Michael 100%. Doesn’t matter what else you do, it takes a very few number of people in leadership to put on the brakes.
In my work facilitating retreats (yes, I do that too) I’ve found the following image of leadership helpful. Imagine your congregation is preparing to leap across a chasm of some size – large enough so you must LEAP. It is too far for tentative steps, begrudging hops or inching along.
As leaders in the church your job is to help set the course far enough out so that you can identify the chasms you want to leap and then move towards them with sufficient energy, momentum and enthusiasm to LEAP with such conviction the rest of the church will practically think they can fly. If you take on the role of minister or board president or board member you must, in my opinion, learn to have a default position of “YES!” and “How can we make this happen?”
Durall offers a number of examples of this in this chapter. Bottom line, you are part of the engine that makes things happen, you are not the brake.
See the movie Dumbo? An elephant with huge ears has the ability to fly, he just doesn’t realize it. He needs a coach and a “magic feather” to convince him he can do it. In your case, your congregation is the miraculous flying elephant and you as a leader are both the coach and the feather.
The Growing Church: Keys to Congregational Vitality
Our next book of the month, The Growing Church: Keys to Congregational Vitality , edited by Thom Belote is now available for pre-order from the UUA Bookstore. We’ll be looking at this title starting in February.
The following is the book description from the UUA Bookstore:
The Growing Church is an open invitation to experience the progress of some of our fast-growing congregations and to see ministry through the eyes of those who have led their congregations toward vitality and expansion.
Growing our movement is not an institutional need. Growing Unitarian Universalism is a moral imperative. It is the moral equivalent of feeding the hungry and housing the homeless. These essays by ministers who have led some of our fastest growing churches share their passion and their wisdom. This is essential reading for everyone who wants to see our faith thrive. – Peter Morales, president, Unitarian Universalist Association
These essays are far and away the best guide to congregational growth and vitality I’ve ever read. They provide both practical and spiritual guidance for those of us who are secret or not-so-secret evangelists. – Kathleen Montgomery, executive vice president, Unitarian Universalist Association
If you as ministers or as lay leaders want to see your churches get past the roadblocks, if you are willing to change a few bad habits and begin practicing a few good ones, read this book. Not only read it, but take it to heart. What you will find may surprise you. You just might like what happens to your church. – Dennis Hamilton, minister, Horizon Unitarian Universalist Church, Carrollton, Texas
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