Yesterday a few of us launched a new project on Facebook, a group called “The UU Media Collaborative.” The group is described as follows:
The UU Media Collaborative is a space for Unitarian Universalists to collaborate on the production of freely available and sharable visual graphics, images, videos and other resources. We hope to encourage collaborations between UU graphic designers, photographers, videographers, graphic artists and other creative minds. Interested in sharing the ideals of Unitarian Universalism visually? Join us!
Coming together in a new spirit of collaboration, members started sharing resources for free stock photos, then sources for UU quotes. Then POW! The following UU Media Collaborative works resulted. We’ll be figuring out a vehicle for making the groups works easy to follow and share, with clear use guidelines. UPDATE: We’ve launched a Facebook page for sharing images created by the UU Media Collaborative. Like to get new content you can share with your congregation and beyond!
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.
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 (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 ministers respond to the question, “What are the challenges of ministry?” Five UU ministers describe briefly the challenges of being in ministry.
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?
I’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.
I’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