Millennial UU Innovators Discussion Google Hangout

The following is the archived video of the live Millennial UU Innovators Discussion Google Hangout convened by Carey McDonald on June 5, 2013.  Total running time 1 hour.    

 

Now you may be asking, how do these things get scheduled and how do I get involved?   Join the UU Growth Lab on Facebook!  Many great conversations happening and connections  being formed there…  Not on Facebook?  Well, you really need to be if you want to be part of our 21st Century UU leadership. Its how we’re organizing….

Start Tweeting at #UUAGA in 3 Easy Steps

Reprinted from previous UU Planet post.

You have a smart phone, you’re on Facebook,  you might even have an iPad.  If you DO and you’re at General Assembly, it is time to try Twitter.  I know you can do it and I want to follow your tweets.  Here’s a quick guide.

  1. Find someone you know who is techie and probably tweets.
  2. Offer to buy them an ice coffee if they help you get set up on Twitter.
  3. Do what they say.

I’m serious! GA is the perfect time to get some social media and tech coaching from friends and colleagues.

We need to help each other to learn the communication tools of our time.  I’ve found that one-on-one is best for some people, especially those who are anxious about trying. That’s why I’m doing more private clergy social media training these days.  But I can’t do that for everyone. We need to help each other. If you are at GA and Tweet, try and teach one person how to do the same during the week.

Now that you are set up, make sure to do the following while your coach is standing by…

  1. Write your first tweet. If you’re at GA, include the hashtag #UUAGA.
  2. Next, have them show you how to search for a hashtag, that’s the keyword tags we use to create conversations. Search for #UUAGA by clicking here.
  3. Follow other UU’s tweeting using that tag.
  4. Follow me on Twitter @uuplanet. I’ll follow you back.

Let me know via Twitter if you’ve started Tweeting this GA.

Don’t forget to use the GA Hash Tag!  When you tweet during GA, if you want all of us to follow it, include the tag #UUAGA.

Use Hahtag #UUAGA at GA

Church Growth Conference – Taunton, MA, October 26-27, 2012

First Parish, Taunton, MA - Exterior

Next month our Unitarian Universalist congregation in Taunton, MA is hosting a growth conference which I hope you will consider sending a team to.

It is Friday, October 26 – Saturday, October 27, 2012.

See Full Details and Online Registration.

Paul Nickerson

Presenting will be my colleague, Paul Nickerson, a senior associate with Griffith Coaching, the leading new church Start and Turnaround Company in the country.  Paul has more than 30 years of experience as a local pastor, judicatory leader and church consultant.

I met Paul in May of 2011 at a New Church Start Boot Camp  he was leading with Jim Griffith, author of Ten Most Common Mistakes Made by New Church Starts.  That training was the best I’ve attended in years!  Now I’m excited to hear Paul’s take on growth, membership and turning congregations around.

Is this a Unitarian Universalist event?

This event is being organized by our Unitarian Universalist congregation in Taunton, MA, will have mostly UU participants, and is being coordinated by the very Unitarian Universalist minister, the Rev. Christana Wille-Mcknight.

Presenting will be Paul Nickerson, who is NOT Unitarian Universalist, which is exactly why I’m going to this event.

Paul has also been kind enough to invite me to speak briefly on congregational social media.  That’s right, can’t have a complete growth conference without a healthy (and fun) dose of social media!

Registration

Online registration is now open at http://growthconference.eventbrite.com.  Want to share news of this event with others?  There are sharing buttons at the end of this post. Below you may also find the original event announcement from the Ballou Channing District of the UUA.

I look forward to seeing you in Taunton!
Peter Bowden

Church Turnaround and Growth Conference in Taunton

The First Parish Church in Taunton is sponsoring a growth conference for churches who want to do something new to turn their church around on Friday, October 26 and Saturday October 27.

The conference is being lead by church development consultant, Paul Nickerson. It will introduce new ways of thinking about conducting and employing  new techniques for doing growth work differently. For more information contact Rev. Christana Willey McKnight, minister@firstparishtaunton.org. Register at http://growthconference.eventbrite.com/ Registration fee: $350 group/$125 individual. First Parish Church in Taunton, MA, is located on Church Green (on Route 44).

Videos: Thousands of Unitarian Universalists protest Arpaio’s Tent City jail

On Saturday, June 23, 2012 thousands of Unitarian Universalists and immigration partners protested outside of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City jail.  The following are videos containing footage from this event, including UU World videos and media from vigil participants. For full coverage of this religious witness event and the 2012 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association, visit the UU World’s GA blog.

UU World description: On Saturday, June 23, 2012, more than 2,000 Unitarian Universalists and their immigration justice partners protested outside Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Tent City” jail in conjunction with the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Justice General Assembly in Phoenix. Read UU World’s coverage of the vigil and a tour Sheriff Arpaio gave to UUA President Peter Morales, United Church of Christ President Geoffrey Black, and other religious leaders:
blogs.uuworld.org/ga/2012/06/24/thousands-wage-peaceful-protest-at-tent-city/
blogs.uuworld.org/ga/2012/06/24/religious-delegation-visits-tent-city/

This 4-minute film includes footage from two previously published UU World videos:

Our colleagues with Denver Film & Video recorded the speakers at the vigil — 14 minutes.

Religious Leaders Tour Tent City

UU World description: The Rev. Leslie Takahashi-Morris was part of a delegation of religious leaders who toured the ‘Tent City’ jails in Phoenix, Ariz., on Saturday June 23, 2012.

UU World description: The Rev. Geoffrey A. Black, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, describes the Maricopa County, Ariz., “Tent City” jail to the Rev. M. Linda Jaramillo, executive minister of UCC’s Justice and Witness Ministries. Black toured the jail with Unitarian Universalist Association President Peter Morales and other religious leaders on Saturday, June 23, 2012, before an interfaith vigil outside the jail organized as part of the UUA’s General Assembly. blogs.uuworld.org/ga/2012/06/24/religious-delegation-visits-tent-city/

Black, Jaramillo, and the Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, UCC Ecumenical and Interfaith Officer, attended the UUA General Assembly as interfaith guests. Black took part in the Sunday worship service.

ucc.org/news/ucc-leaders-to-join-unitarian.html

Three days before the Tent City vigil, the Unitarian Universalists Association held a rally following the opening of their 2012 General Assembly conference.  Event was held on the block adjacent to the Phoenix Convention Center. Read the UU World blog post about this event.

Additional Vigil Videos


Follow me and the UU World at the UUA’s 2012 General Assembly

This week I will be video reporting on the 2012  General Assembly conference of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) for the UU World Magazine. Coverage will be posted on the UU World’s GA Blog, including videos, and be shared via all available social media channels. Connect with the UU World and follow this week via links below.

  • Follow me on Twitter @uuplanet.
  • UU’s I know are welcome to friend me on Facebook.
  • Need to reach me at GA? Message me via the above channels or leave voicemail at (617) 744-9784. This will forward to my cell and notify me via email.

Follow the UU World Magazine

Full coverage of the 2011 General Assembly

Occupy Your Faith – A Boston Unitarian Universalist Revival

Event announcement via Matt Meyer. “Please pass it along to everyone you know!  Pass it along to youth group leaders and youth, friends and family, choir members and musicians, clergy and college students!  The RSVP will let us know how much food to get and how much help we’ll need with childcare.”

Boston UU Revival on May 12th!
Join us for a service of song, story, and reflection.
4-6pm.  Dinner to follow

Music by: Matt Meyer, Mark David Buckles,
and “The Music Committee,” a contemporary UU band.
$15 suggested donation.
An offering for the UU Urban Ministry will be taken.

Childcare Available
RSVP HERE



Occupy Your Faith
A Boston Unitarian Universalist Revival

Join us for an energetic service of song, story, and reflection as we share in a celebration of the transforming message of Unitarian Universalism.

Saturday, May 12th
Worship begins at 4pm, with a shared dinner to follow at 6pm.
RSVP HERE

Childcare will be available

At the UU Urban Ministry
10 Putnam st. in Roxbury
 
<10 min walk from Roxbury Crossing T stop

Music by: Matt Meyer, Mark David Buckles, and “The Music Committee” a contemporary UU band.
Suggested donation of $15.
A free-will offering will also be taken for the UU Urban Ministry of Boston.

Not Your Traditional Dialogue on Race: Building Partnerships with Multicultural Arts Organizations

First, thanks to Peter Bowden for the invite to guest-post on UUGROWTH.COM. This is a great website!

My name is Josh Pawelek. I’ve served as the parish minister at the Unitarian Universalist Society: East in Manchester, CT since the summer of 2003.  Peter was curious about a recent opportunity I had to preach at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City’s East Village.  Middle’s senior minister, the Rev. Jacqui Lewis has become a familiar face to many UUs in recent years as a popular workshop leader at the UUA General Assembly. UUs have also been attending Middle’s Leading Edge conference for a number of years. Among her many skills as a pastor, Rev. Lewis knows how to build multiracial, multicultural congregations. Middle is an old and historically white congregation going back to the Dutch Reformed settlers who founded Manhattan. Yet, through concerted and very intentional effort over the last thirty years, Middle has grown into a wonderfully diverse spiritual community and a leading voice in a variety of faith-based social justice movements in the city and state-wide.

On the evening of Feb. 12, Rev. Lewis and I preached a dialogue sermon on race and racism in the United States entitled, “Many Voices, One Song.” Watch the video:

In this sermon we both tell a bit of our own stories in relationship to US racism. We reflect on current events. And we offer a hopeful vision and call to action. It’s a simple structure, but hopefully a compelling one. Certainly UUs have been wrestling with race and racism in a very intentional way since the 1992 General Assembly Resolution on racial and cultural diversity. But, just like the nation, we have many miles to go. A dialogue sermon on race and racism is simply one tool we have available to us in our efforts to build antiracist, multicultural congregational identity.

Having said that, sermons on race and racism are, in the end, not what has shaped Middle Collegiate into the congregation it is today. In short, Middle made multicultural arts central to its worship celebrations. (The term “service” is off limits at Middle: every worship is a CELEBRATION!)  Amazing music, visual arts, dance, poetry and puppetry from a wide variety of cultural traditions are what transformed Middle’s worship into a weekly CELEBRATION. On the evening of February 12th, the featured artist was Tituss Burgess. I confess I didn’t know who he was before I arrived. It turns out he is a Broadway star and a cast member on 30 Rock. If I didn’t understand before what Jacqui Lewis meant by celebration, I ‘got it’ once I heard Tituss sing! 

What can our UU congregations learn from this? Of course, it’s rare to have a star like Tituss Burgess in your congregation. And most congregations don’t have the kind of talent that Middle’s membership has, or the budgets to bring in that kind of talent on a regular basis. But it is also true that in so many communities in the United States, especially urban communities, there is a wide range of talent and a great diversity of artists from many cultural backgrounds. And most artists don’t operate in a social vacuum. Most artists participate in arts organizations, and many such organizations have unique cultural and/or multicultural identities. Why couldn’t a congregation partner with a multicultural arts organization?

We’ve been asking ourselves that question at UUS:E. It makes sense to us. Partnerships with arts organizations are an excellent avenue for building relationships with artists from diverse backgrounds, for creating new markets for artists’ work, for bringing people into urban centers, and for opening new pathways to explore spiritual themes beyond the Sunday morning sermon. Building relationships with artists is also a way to avoid the pitfalls of cultural misappropriation. Towards all these ends, our largely white, suburban congregation has begun to build a partnership with the Charter Oak Cultural Center, a multicultural arts organization located in downtown Hartford. The week after I preached at Middle, UUS:E and Charter Oak co-produced our first event, a performance by spoken word artist Uni Q. Mical. Uni Q. performed at Charter Oak on Saturday night the 18th, then participated in worship at UUS:E on Sunday morning the 19th. My post about Uni Q.’s trip to Hartford is here.  The text to Uni Q.’s poem, “restless sleepers (a motion picture),” which she wrote in response to our February theological theme of restlessness, is here.  And, for a taste of what Uni Q. is like in concert, check out one of her more famous poems, “The Radical Homosexual Agenda,” (which she also performed at UUS:E, though a slightly edited version) at 

We are only at the beginning of building our relationship with Charter Oak, but so far so good. It is helping us to think in new ways about what it means to build an antiracist, multicultural congregational identity. It is helping us to realize there is so much more we can do than the traditional antiracism workshops, sermons on white privilege and educational movie nights, as important as those are.  Middle Collegiate Church is a shining example of how a congregation can be transformed through multicultural arts. There’s no reason to think we can’t  experience such transformation if we continue with purpose and vision down this new path.

“Congregations and Beyond” vision from UUA President Morales

Rev. Peter MoralesThe Rev. Peter Morales has issued a white paper detailing what he sees as “a historic opportunity for our faith.” Released by the UUA on January 19, 2012, you may read the paper on uua.org or  download as PDF  below.

I very much look forward to the conversations “Congregations and Beyond” will stimulate.  Download it, read it, then join the conversation.  Connect with me via Twitter, Facebook Page and UU Growth Lab group on Facebook.

Reflections on Ministry UUA Video Series

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In this video series from the Unitarian Universalist Association,  religious professionals reflect on Unitarian Universalist ministry in all its forms.  Each video ranges from 2 to 4 minutes.  According to the Rev. Harlan Limpert, UUA Vice President for Ministries and Congregational Support Administration,  the last videos in the series will be released over the next two weeks.  If you don’t see your video here, stay tuned! ~ Peter

Unitarian Universalist Ministry – What do you love about ministry?
Updated version – 12/12/2011

Unitarian Universalist (UU) ministers respond to the question, “What do you love about ministry”? In two minutes and six seconds, ten current UU ministers describe what they love about being in ministry. Very moving.

Unitarian Universalist Ministry – What are the challenges of ministry?

Unitarian Universalist ministers respond to the question, “What are the challenges of ministry?” Five UU ministers describe briefly the challenges of being in ministry.

Unitarian Universalist Ministry – What is the core of your calling?

Five Unitarian Universalist ministers talk about the core of their calling.

Unitarian Universalist Ministry – How is your ministry transformative?

Four Unitarian Universalist ministers talk about how their ministries are transformative.

Unitarian Universalist Ministry – How possible is work-life balance?

Six Unitarian Universalist religious professionals talk about whether it’s possible to find work-life balance in their ministries.

Unitarian Universalist Ministry – So you think you have a calling?

Five Unitarian Universalist provide advice to those who think they may have a calling for ministry.

What questions should you ask yourself about ministry

What questions should you ask when considering the ministry.
Five UU music professionals talk about their music ministries.

Unitarian Universalist Ministry – The ministry of military chaplaincy.

A Unitarian Universalist minister and active Navy chaplain shares the joys and challenges of military chaplaincy.

Three Unitarian Universalist ministers of color reflect on their ministries.

Surveys and thoughts on Freerange UUs

A new survey for freerange UUs has just been created by the UUA’s Office of Growth Strategies.  I hope you’ll share this with your friends, colleagues and congregation at large.

Here’s the survey announcement:

Seeking Free-Range Unitarian Universalists…
by Tandi Rogers
If you’re a “Free-Range Unitarian Universalist,” please take this survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FreeRangeUUs. The UUA Office of Growth Strategies is seeking to better understand Unitarian Universalism outside our congregations. Help me transform the way we live into our faith. If you’re active in a congregation, but know people who aren’t, but identify as Unitarian Universalist, please pass this on to them. Thank you!!  In faith, Tandi

From a growth perspective,  I think figuring out how to cultivate (not control) a larger Unitarian Universalist movement is critical.   Often I hear people using the words movement and religion interchangeably.  They are very different. A few thoughts on that in older post Is Unitarian Universalism a Religion or a Movement?

For more on the difference between a movement and a campaign, read the book Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements.  For some inspiration on starting a movement, watch the Ted Talk video Seth Godin on the tribes we lead.

FREERANGE-UU-SEALI’m very happy to see the UUA taking what I call “Freerange UUs” and, if they had a sports team, “the UU Freerangers” seriously.   Since I started tweeting approximately three years ago (via account @uuplanet) I’ve come into contact with freerange UUs who feel that they aren’t allowed to be Unitarian Universalists because they aren’t connected to a congregation.  Some have expressed that they don’t feel like they have permission to be UU in any way other than the building bound form.  My response has been “With all the authority NOT invested in me, I hereby give you permission to be a Unitarian Universalist!”  

Some of my colleagues have challenged me on it being valid to be UU outside of a congregation.  I gotta tell you, if Unitarian Universalism is small enough to be contained in our existing congregations, it is too small of a thing for me.   The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations — this organization is rightly bound to congregations.  But I don’t think our larger faith should be.

Some of you may be wonder, why aren’t these people connected to existing congregations?  There are so many reasons.  Here are some highlights.

  • There is no local congregation
  • The local congregation is Sunday morning centric and they work then
  • They identify with our faith, but not our present demographics
  • They are in transition
  • The spouse they are divorced from is occupying the local congregation
  • They were asked to pledge their third time at the congregation and feel the church is all about money
  • The congregational leadership is constantly begging for volunteers giving a sense that it is a sinking ship
  • The congregation is filled with unhealthy politics
  • The congregation is old and they are young
  • They have accessibility issues
  • They “married out”
  • The local congregation stinks — it happens.
  • And on and on…

I’m looking forward to seeing what comes from the UUA’s Free-range UU survey.  Even more, I’m hoping that the UU Freerangers will start organizing themselves, that a movement will ignite.  There are far more of them in the United States than there are members of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Again, I hope you’ll share the survey.

In faith,
Peter

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