Showing posts with label Future of Universalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future of Universalism. Show all posts

Friday, January 3, 2020

Religion in the public square - Future for religion in the coming decade of the 20s


What will become of religion in the coming decade? For a sweeping consideration click here.

What will happen to Unitarian Universalism in the next decade? Here are some guesses:


  1. It's membership will remain stagnant if not decline further as its older congregants die off.
  2. If Unitarian Universalism is to survive it must rejuvenate its theology and focus more on its convenantal model and its seven principles. However, this is unlikely to happen because it's governance structure is too weak to provide clear, decisive, and effective leadership.
  3. The recognition of Universalism will grow, but its main growth will occur outside the denomination.
  4. The liberal ethos of Unitarian Universalism will continue to grow and spead with an inclination towards more, not less, inclusivity in the broader society.
  5. There will be an increase in "nones" on surveys of denominational identification with the further trend of people saying they are "spiritual" but not "religious."
  6. There will be a need for a greater focus on helping people develop a spiritual life instead of social justice, but Unitarian Universalism will miss this opportunity and people searching for this assistance will find it elsewhere.
  7. While there will be a decrease in quanity of people who say they are UU, there will be an increase in quality of the membership with remaining members taking the faith more seriously and making it a daily part of their lives.

Monday, March 11, 2019

At Church on 02/24/19, The future of Univeralism and social justice with Rev. Lane Campbell

The last of three questions explored at church on Sunday, 02/24/19, on the topic of the future of Univeralism in the next twenty years, was

The last question we wanted to talk about this morning was sort of what's the future of universalism as it informs of our social justice efforts.  

Here is Rev. Lane Campbell's answer:


 That social justice General Assembly was in Phoenix. It was taking action around immigration particularly and it was a time when all our denominations showed up and in droves to get to take action around some of the inhumane immigration policy.

For many things I would say that universalism and this idea of love being
at the center of the justice work that we do is so key.  

When I first got involved in activism in my own life I was very angry, and I was very self-righteous, and I was like, you know, these people should be doing something differently! Why aren't they doing things differently? I'm seeing now an evolution in like in embracing more love at the center of our justice movements, more healing language at the center of our justice movements, realizing that to be involved in social justice is also to be exposed to trauma, and to be exposed to generational trauma. 

How do we feel some of the generational trauma that particularly marginalized communities experience,  and also how do we heal the generational trauma that privileged communities experience as well?

 I'm seeing a lot of sort of love and healing. I feel like our faith has something.  I mean certainly faith communities we can bring an experience to justice communities and and help us to make our justice efforts sustainable because I think probably in 2039 we're still going to be fighting the good fight and still planting some seeds for the next generation.  

I kind of look forward to seeing in 2039 what our work, where are we going to be sort of on the leading edge and what's going to be pushing my comfort zone.  How am I going to feel challenged to show up? How is this deeper this call to love going to continue to transform us and invite us into a deeper sense of justice?


This section with Rev. Lane Campbell's ideas is from 09:38 - 11:40.

Saturday, March 9, 2019

At Church On Sunday 02/24/19 - The Future of Universalism and Social Justice

On 02/24/19 Rev. Lane Campbell and Rev. Michelle Yates made a presentation on the question of where Universalism will be in 20 years by 2039. They addressed three questions and the third question is:

The last question we wanted to talk about this morning was sort of what's the future of universalism as it informs of our social justice efforts.  Where do you think that will be in 20 years?


Rev. Yates : I think it's very interesting the ways in just the past 10 years we've been showing up.

I feel like there was the the civil rights era and then there was a bit of a slow down. Then we've had a big round trip up with the yellow shirts. UUs are known as yellow shirts when we show up to rallies and events and social justice action things because we have it as standing on the side of love. How do we live that -  we show up in that way?
  
I think in some ways it's being more brave than we were before because I think sometimes there's still that concern of if I show up to this rally am I safe? If I show at this rally is my family safe? Are people going to judge me?

But finding courage and resolve for our self -  this is where I need to be. I felt a conviction when we did the social justice GA in Phoenix, like this is history, this is the moment.  I want to say to my children that I was there. And that moment, this is the moment, and it might be hard, but I want to say that I was there.  I showed up. Doing this work here so that we can show up out there.

Rev. Michelle Yates speaks from 08:15 - 09:36

Friday, March 8, 2019

At church on Sunday, 02/24/19, The Future of Universalism in the local congregation.

At church on Sunday, 02/24/19, in a service dedicated to exploring the future of Universalism, Rev. Michelle Yates, answers the question:

What do you think as far as the future of this church, of our church, and of the Unitarian Universalism as a denomination?

Rev. Michelle Yates: I would also be concerned about how do we continue to include everyone as we go forward because people don't need to come here for socialization in the community. They can get that in many other places, but what makes Church unique from all those other places?

In my community of young adults they are willing to get out of bed early for a job, for a reason. They can make a difference in people's lives and in the world. They're not just going to be a pedestrian looking at things, but to be active to find ways of what does it mean to be a member? What does it mean to be part of a church community beyond Sunday mornings?

I feel like sometimes when families walk in the door we also like to stand up and give a round of applause because I really appreciate what it takes to get many members together and out the door and into this building somewhere near 10:30.

Rev. Lane Cambell: With all their shoes on right?

With all the shoes. Yes. And so how do we come to do church, faith and action, where everyone is a part of it, looking outside of the box for ways to make those moments happen; we make community and church and faith in action a part of our lives.

We've already evolved away from the Sunday school of the past. You know, I think we've achieved the vision of Sophia Lyons Fahs of an interactive experiential learning experience for our kids. How do we do that going forward? 

Rev. Lane Campbell - More to come.

This segment runs from 06:20 - 08:02

Thursday, March 7, 2019

At Church on Sunday, 02/24/19 - The future of Universalism as a denomination and our local congregation

The question #2 on 02/24/19 regarding the future of Univeralism in the next 20 years is:
What do you think, Lane, as far as the future of this church, of our church, and of the
Unitarian Universalism as a denomination?

Here is Rev. Lane Campbell's response:

I think certainly the future is, we're making it right now, right here, and I think that in the future, I mean the church has to look different than it has. We have to think about what is our faith going to look like in the future.  The church that I grew up in was informed a lot by sort of this 1950s structure of everybody had Sunday free. Everybody's life was focused around having Sunday's with the day off. Sundays were the day you go to church.
Now, from the last five years of working with families, Sundays aren't always free for church. Many of the families that I worked with we were battling against hockey practice for a few years, you know, or even just like time to be with your family.
So I think, you know, when it comes to the future of church, we have to think about how we're going to be relevant, and why why people come to church, like what is our unique contribution, and what do we need to do outside of Sunday mornings? I will say Sunday mornings are, of course, very important to me and I'm sure you all because you’re  here, right? (Laughter)
But I wonder what it was going to look like to be sort of a faith community of focusing on Sundays, and focusing sort of, throughout the week? How do we make opportunities for people to plug in? 
I certainly have a fear, or a concern, that for the future of Universalism I don't want our Universalist history, in our roots, to get lost. I don't want us to get too far away from the traditions and the roots that we are built upon because they are so beautiful and so important to us.

Rev. Lane's response runs from 04:30 - 06:19

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

At Church on Sunday - The future of Univeralist theology.


At church on Sunday, 02/24/19, Rev. Lane Campbell and Rev. Michelle Yates had a conversation about the future of Universalism in the next twenty years.

Here is what Rev. Lane Campbell had to say about the future of Univeralist theology.

"I think some of what we've been talking about here recently, as we've been looking at Universalist theology in the present day, is seeing that this belief in universal salvation, that all people are going to go to a good place when they die and that no one is going to be judged and going to hell, is becoming a part of our mainstream Christianity.

So I wonder what our unique contributions will be to Universalism moving forward. I think that what we have to offer certainly, as a faith community, is having folks from a diversity of theological backgrounds that bring multiple perspectives to Universalism.

We certainly have folks in this room right now who are theist. We have folks who are atheists, folks who would identify with Judaism. Folks who would identify with Christianity, with Islam , with Buddhism, with Hinduism like we heard about this morning. We have folks here that have multiple different belief systems and sort of theologies.

 I wonder and I'm excited to see what that will look like in the future and I think that's really the
future of of our branch of Universalism having so much more and a deeper dialogue  - getting together and really talking about what we believe together."

This section of Rev. Lane Campbell runs approximately from 02:55 - 04:19




Tuesday, March 5, 2019

At church on Sunday - The future of Universalism

At church on 02/24/19, Rev. Lane Campbell and Rev. Michelle Yates presented some thoughts on the future of Universalism over the next 20 years.

What will Universalism be like in 20 years by 2039?

Rev. Lane and Rev. Yates discussed three questions. The first of which is What will Univeralist theology be like in 20 years?

Here is what Rev. Yates offered:

I think we spent most of our history as Universalist thinking about what happens after we die,  our universal salvation, but I think in the next 20 to 50 years we're going to be really focusing more on now.

If we are all loved, if we are all important, then what does that really mean in having a lived faith?

I certainly have seen this in the past 10 -  20 years. I feel like when I was young, as a universalist, you know, it's kind of like we did our own thing in our church but the the level of activism, and of looking inside, and seeing that we missed it on that one. You know, we need to do better on this.

We need to show up for that. We need to live this belief that everyone is important, and should be included, in better and better ways. It is really going to come to the forefront of our lives and of our faith communities and what we do.

This section runs from 01:40 - 02:58
Print Friendly and PDF