Witnessing

[zvi]

I … rather envisioned people saying something here? I guess I'll go ahead and goose the discussion a bit, but I'd like people to can do intro posts or talk about practice, beliefs, intuitions, congregational life, anything that relates to your life as a religious person.

Okay, so, one of the things about me is that I'm a (non-UU) preacher's kid and some of the time I use Christian language to describe congregational practice that makes sense to me, but I'm an agnostic more-humanist-than-anything-else, and I'm not talking about Jesus or any god.

Are you publicly a Unitarian Universalist?

When people discuss religion in daily life, do you clarify the religious tradition to which you belong, rather than sticking to a single vocabulary of Christian sounding words like church or pagan sounding words like magic or Buddhist sounding words like meditation?

Do you proactively witness the tradition? Do your internet profiles include UU identifications*? Do you wear chalice jewelry or t-shirts? Do you have spare Principles & Sources cards to whip out of your business card wallet?

Does your family know what kind of religious community you belong to? Do they know that you don't only celebrate the holidays you grew up with, but now incorporate rites and practices from other traditions, or have given up rites and practices all together?

How do we tow the line between being open about our religious life and being proselytizers? Is being open on this issue part of your religious belief system? If you believe strongly in a specific faith tradition, like Islam or Judaism or atheism, alongside with your UU identification, do you prefer to identify that way? Is UU too complicated to talk about?

*Speaking of, can anyone recommend a more attractive icon than this one? It displeases me.

P.S. If anyone wants to reframe the questions, feel free? I know I stacked the deck with the implication that coming out is better, but if your coming at these questions from a whole other angle, feel free to lay that groundwork with your own questions and then answer those.

Comments

[lovepeaceohana]

Thanks for getting things started :3 And, er, you're free to use this icon, if it speaks to you; I borrowed it from Google image search anyway, and the text on it is hopeful.

These are some really interesting questions, and I'm really enjoying reading others' answers. I'm a baby UU myself; I only started coming to our congregation a little under three years ago, although since then I've become pretty active in our YA (25s-35s) community, and involved with our Journey Toward Wholeness committee (by which I mean I co-chair it ^^;). I still kind of struggle with identifying as UU, but I feel like that's okay - personal search for truth and meaning and all that ^^;

My family and in-laws know that I am attending a UU congregation (and I try to say congregation rather than church, because, associations): the former because I dragged my mother to a service, and the latter because our calendar is posted in the kitchen we share and there are UU-related activities all over it. Nobody except my mother really initiates conversations with me about religion, or faith, and so I try to respect that and don't give elevator speeches except on request. Not that I actually have an elevator speech, but, I am working on developing one! Practice makes perfect and all :)

[zvi]

I, too, am new at this. I started attending services in March, started listening to sermon podcasts this winter.

What's a Journey Toward Wholeness committee?

I agree with you that congregation or fellowship would be better, but our official name ends in church, so it's a little more awkward for me. Apparently there was a very intense vote about this just last year, so I don't feel like I can bring it up any time soon, since I am so new.

What did your mother think of the service?

[lovepeaceohana]

Journey Towards Wholeness - um. There's actually a bit of discussion right now, thanks partly to me, as to what JTW actually does/is for. Our function in the congregation is supposedly to act as something of a conscience for the Board, and to be proactively anti-oppression (if that's not too great a cognitive dissonance?); we're also supposed to somehow be in conversation with other ministry teams and congregational groups to ensure that fail does not happen. What we actually appear to do is to provide programming, i.e. workshops around diversity education - we actually brought in a guest speaker last October to do a day-long intercultural training thing. My goal for JTW is to ensure that we don't become just some kind of "oh look, you want a diversity team, here ya go" group that functionally does nothing; I am absolutely a-okay with educational workshops, but I also want us to be able to call out policies and systemic practices that inhibit inclusivity and etc. (I totally feel you on feeling too new to make waves! But since my co-chair pulled me into the chairship with the intention that I would make waves, I do not intend to disappoint!)

Ahaha! Ours does also - although I do kinda feel like we have more of a Christian slant than other UU congregations might, so that kinda makes sense. Our worship space is also very, er, familiar to me, having come from a Catholic background - we even have a narthex ;)

My mom really liked the service; as per the above paragraph, it actually very closely mimics a typical Christian service, with an entrance song, a group affirmation of beliefs, a reading or two, some meditation, a sermon, more singing, and a closing benediction/final thought (and more singing). It really only lacks something like the Christian sacrament of Communion/Eucharist - so she reported feeling very welcome and comfortable. :)

[zvi]

JTW sounds like a really good idea! I hope you guys get in and start poking around. It seems to me (from way out here not having anything to do with your congregation) that probably JTW needs to be distributed into the organizational structures, although not with JTW committee members getting invested in the committees with whom they're in contact. Like, committees should expect some JTW member to drop in not infrequently, but not have their own specific JTW person. But, again, I say this as someone who does not actually know anything about your church, and maybe that wouldn't work at all.

Your service sounds pretty UU typical, in that modified Protestant deal way, except ... group affirmation of beliefs?!?! I would expect chalice lighting to go there, but it wouldn't be a time when we subscribed to a belief system.

[lovepeaceohana]

Hrm, maybe that's not what it's called - oh! It's our Aspiration; I really feel like I should have it memorized, but I don't! ^^; It's less a statement of beliefs than an affirmation of our goals as a community - something like, may love be the spirit of this church, the quest for truth be its sacrament, and service be its prayer. It's part of the chalice lighting.

And, ahaha, that's actually what we're working towards :3 I'd like to have a JTW core team member in each ministry team, because I kinda feel like the resistance to the idea is one of feeling like we'd be looking over their shoulders? But barring that a designated liason would be okay too. We're still trying to figure it out :3