First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

What Next?

When Bob and Sally Public appear at the church door, they are not seeking to belong to an organization. They are seeking to be changed. "I want to be different," says Bob or Sally Public. "I feel empty inside. I am locked into a job that I hate, and a marriage that is rocky. I am addicted to alcohol, sex, cigarettes, materialism, and a hundred other self-destructive habits I haven’t even identified yet. My kids ask me questions I can’t answer, my parents tell me to do things that are pointless, and my company may lay me off at the mere hint of a recession." "I want to be different," says Bob or Sally Public. "I want to be changed, whole, healed, healthy, and full! I want to feel like somebody special! I want to like myself for a change! I want to be going somewhere valuable, doing something important, and personally connected with an enduring meaning! I want a fresh start, so that I can ‘boldly go’ wherever I am ‘meant to be’! I want to be transformed!"

So writes Thomas Bandy in his book about congregational systems, entitled "Kicking Habits", in which he seeks to articulate the differences between declining churches and thriving ones. Recently, as you have heard, our FUS strategic planning committee submitted its report to the board, outlining three major recommendations that may help to keep this congregation on the thriving side of the equation. Much might be said both about the vision for a process of more intentional annual planning, and about the recommendation, which originated with our Large Congregations consultant, Stefan Jonahsson, that we begin to plan for adding an assistant minister in the not too distant future, and I’m sure that I will have opportunities to speak to these ideas in due time. But this morning I want to focus on the middle section of the report, which suggests the importance of finding a better balance among what we identified as four essential dimensions of church life, none of which can effectively be given priority over the others, if the institution is to continue to be healthy and vigorous. In the shorthand of our work, the committee came to call these four dimensions inreach, outreach, service, and education, and I would like to unpack with you some of what these terms mean to me.

Let me begin with what is for me the most ambiguous element, that of inreach. In my view, the building of community is a lot like the search for love; everybody recognizes how important it is, and everybody wants it, but whenever you go after it directly and try to seize it, it slips away. I believe that genuine, lasting community grows out of engaging with other people in substantive, worth-while challenges. It is in the context of trying to accomplish something meaningful that we come to understand both ourselves and one another, and learn to depend on each other’s gifts and accept each other’s deficiencies. Whether it is a sports team, a theatrical production, a quilting bee, an election campaign, a military unit, or a boarding school class, nothing cements community like the combination of hardships endured and accomplishments achieved as a group. I actually don’t think that just being entertained and made comfortable together does much to create community among people; rather, it is in the aftermath of meeting a challenge together that it feels good to rest, celebrate, and relax. This suggests to me that it is not enough for the church merely to bring people together into the same space and invite them to connect. If we really want to create community, we must bring people together around issues of substance; we must offer them meaningful opportunities to do something that matters, whether that is to learn and think, to create, to cook or teach or march or sing, so that they have a shared experience within which to value each other.

Every colleague I know shares my frustration that people come to our churches seeking community; that is the number one answer that people give when you ask them why they are here, whether they are newcomers or old timers. And then they sit back in the pews, and wait for the experience of community to descend upon them, which of course in most cases doesn’t happen. This is not a mystery; we know that the way get the experience of community is to get involved. It is not one good way, or even the best way – it is the only way. When I think about the places where I have experienced the deepest sense of community myself, it is almost always in the context of my ministerial colleagues, or in the process of learning, either as a student or a teacher. It’s just not something that happens for me at cocktail parties. The conclusion that I draw from this – aside from the knowledge that I am by nature an introvert, which you may have already guessed – is that both with my colleagues and in the learning/teaching environment, we are about something that matters. When I am with other ministers, there is an underlying, unspoken agenda that whatever we may be doing or talking about, part of the reason that we are together is to help make each other better ministers – even if that means challenging one another, or being uncomfortable together. In any learning environment, we know that our purpose is to master the subject at hand, and that assumes that we are going to have to work together to make that happen, and be changed in the process.

Now, based on this, it seems to me that if the church were doing its rightful job, then whenever we are together as members of FUS, we ought to be in some way about the business of helping one another to become better human beings. That is the inherent challenge and struggle that our experiences of community might arise out of, and incarnate. For it is a never ending possibility; that we might be more wise, courageous, just, and self-aware than we already are. To me, that is the essence of inreach; building the relationships in which we can best assist each other to learn and grow into the fuller humanity that is always available to every one of us. This is part of what it seems to me that Bob and Sally Public are seeking, when they want their lives to be different. It is what happens in discovery groups, and awareness groups, and support groups, and classes. It is what happens when members of the Society walk with each other through the joyful hours of a wedding ceremony or a child dedication, or through the difficult hour of a memorial service. To be there for one another in the moments when life is changing us, whether we want it to or not, is inreach, and the foundation of genuine community. As we will see with each of these dimensions of the community’s work, inreach doesn’t come separately; it necessarily entails all the others. Surely both education and service are challenges that we meet together, that draw us into the deeper relationships of community. Even the challenges of outreach can do this as well; for while current members work at welcoming newcomers and understanding how to meet their needs, they must also come to understand each other, and together grow beyond their own collective preferences for ‘the way things used to be’ into a commitment to doing what is necessary to make the congregation accessible to those who will be its future.

In turning to examine outreach, however, let us be clear that it is not primarily about new members. Outreach is about every person in this metro area knowing that this society exists as an option for them, whether they ever set foot in the place or not. It is about every gay and lesbian couple in this town knowing that they can celebrate their love and commitment with a beautiful wedding here, and bring their children to this Sunday school with the assurance that their family will be welcomed and affirmed. It is about every teenager in Minneapolis knowing that they can get thorough, honest, positive and values-based information about their developing sexuality here, and every parent knowing that they can give their child a foundation of understanding humanity’s oldest and deepest questions about life, where they will be exposed to the variety of religious options, and be encouraged to trust their own reason, their own hearts, and their own dignity. I want my own clergy colleagues to say, as I know that some of them have, to the misfits among their people, "You don’t have to give up on religious community because of your doubts; try the Unitarian Society." I want the mayor of Minneapolis to recognize me, and know that I represent you and the liberal conscience of this community. I want reporters to know that for the progressive, skeptical, human equality affirming point of view, this is the place to call and we are the people to talk to. I want every grieving family in the Twin Cities to know that their loved one who was a life-long nonbeliever can have a tender, moving and honest memorial service here, that would not make them gag if they could have seen it. I want perfectly happy and committed Christians and Muslims and Jews to say to their perplexed, searching friends, "You sound like one of those humanists over at First Unitarian – you should check it out." I want students at UTS, and at the UU seminaries in Chicago and Berkeley, and at the Humanist Institute, to aspire to do their parish internships here in order to experience humanism at its best. I want the interfaith community to call on us when they need a prayer for disaster victims that will touch all hearts and wound none, and I want the president of the UUA to call us when he or she wants a meditation that will speak to all the strands of our faith’s heritage.

Outreach is about making this happen; it is about the reputation we create in the larger communities of which we are part. This is certainly to some extent about publicity and advertising; we need to do a much better job of getting our word out. There is no reason for us to be the best kept secret in Minneapolis. But this is not primarily about bringing in new members to help us pay the bills and do the chores we do not want to undertake for ourselves. Outreach that self-serving can only make us ultimately appear needy and small. Genuine outreach happens when we have wrapped our minds around the idea that people out there need what we have to offer; that our message of inherent worth and dignity, of freedom and responsibility, of compassion and interdependence can have life-saving and world-saving consequences. If you don’t believe that, I have a challenge for you; come host one of our orientations for newcomers, and listen to the stories that people tell. I promise you, every single one of those groups will include someone who will say, with something close to tears, "I never knew there was a place like this; I never thought there could be a spiritual home for someone like me; I am so thankful that I found you." My goal is for those people to be saying, "I knew this place was here; I don’t know what took me so long to try it."

It’s possible that there are only 520 people in this city who want the exhilaration of this free faith. I doubt it, but it’s possible, and if it’s true, that’s fine with me. We can have a vibrant and transformative community here with whatever number of people choose to be part of it. If every man, woman, and child in a fifty mile radius of this building knew we were here, and understood what we represent, and made a conscious choice that it wasn’t for them, I would be content. But as long as there are people saying, "I was hungry for this, and I never knew…"; as long as there are people out there that we could bless with friendship and heal of cynicism and save from loneliness if they only knew, as long as that remains true, you and I have work to do in the area of outreach. Like each of the other dimensions, outreach includes aspects of all of them. If we are truly reaching out into the community, we will inevitably discover opportunities for service; the more we know about what people need, the more we are called to recognize how we might, individually and collectively, help to meet those needs. In order to communicate to others the meaning and heritage of our faith, we have to understand them more deeply ourselves, and that requires getting educated. And of course, as we work together to engage the needs and questions of our neighbors, we will connect with each other, and come to understand and appreciate the old timers as well as the newcomers among us.

The dimension of service is a different kettle of fish. Service, as ?? once said, is the rent we pay for being alive on the planet. It is the demand that each of us must find a way to bring our particular gifts and talents and interest and urgings to focus on something in the world that we personally can help with. Maybe it’s part of your vocation, like teaching in an inner city school, or working as a nurse in a women’s health clinic, or being a legislative aide to a progressive politician. Or maybe it’s a volunteer commitment to be a big sister or big brother, to deliver food for Meals on Wheels, or work at the local food pantry, or help organize the AIDS marathon. Maybe it’s an adventure, like going into the Peace Corps, or spending three weeks every year in Guatamala, or rebuilding homes in New Orleans, or helping with the olive harvest in Bethlehem. Maybe it’s years of patiently building a neighborhood organization, or supporting an innovative school, or getting a piece of legislation passed, or helping immigrant families adjust to their new homes. It might involve taking care of the local wetlands, or writing letters to the editor and to congress, or writing checks to support the work of groups that you believe in. It might be mowing an elderly neighbor’s lawn, or being a foster parent, or serving on the homeowner’s association board, or knitting blankets for orphans in Africa.

It has to be something you are passionately concerned about, and something that calls upon what you can do and give. There is no life of integrity and wholeness for any human being that does not include some element of service. The religious community has two responsibilities in this regard, it seems to me. One is to offer a range of opportunities for people to find a problem that touches and engages them, together with a way to address that problem effectively. Part of our FUS service component must be for us to connect with each other about what we are each doing and learning; about the possibilities for service that we have already found, or that we are itching to create. Because service is rarely an isolated project – it should almost always be bringing us together with other people who are interested in the same problem, so that we can join forces and so that we need not reinvent the wheel.

The other responsibility of a Society like this one in regard to the service component of our individual integrity is to nurture our commitment, celebrate our achievements, and embrace our disappointments in this work. The church should help us remember why it matters that we do these things, the vision that we have of justice, compassion and peace in the world. It should help us pay attention to the ways in which we are stretched and challenged by it, how our ideas change, and how we grow emotionally, morally, and spiritually as a result of our involvements. We ought to be able to come here and have our courage and hope renewed, be sustained in our values, so that we have fresh energy and creativity to bring to the problems we are called to solve. Our religious community should recognize and celebrate the work that our members are doing, reminding us that none of us needs to do everything, but that each of us ought to do something. In this endeavor, I believe that our commitment to diversity is key, precisely because both people’s gifts and their passions are diverse. When you find a cause that excites you, where you can make a real difference, you aren’t going to lay that work down just because FUS decided that wasn’t our focus this year. Inevitably, each of us would like to line up all the commitment of all our fellow members here in the service of our own convictions, but it is my observation that this simply doesn’t work. People only give their best energy to that which is deepest in their own heart and urgent in their own conscience, and it is not the church’s task to discourage that.

At the same time, just as our individual integrity requires that we have a commitment to service in our personal lives, I am also convinced that our institutional integrity demands that we as a community have a corporate commitment to being a good neighbor and citizen collectively. Together we must have a passion for something that our congregation can do to make our city, nation, and world a better place. While it may ultimately serve to enhance our reputation and make FUS better known, that is not primarily the point of the dimension of service. The point is that we owe something back to the environment in which we have our institutional existence, and the social and civic infrastructure which makes it possible for us to come together for all the activities in which we engage. While I agree with those who say that we ought to pay particular attention to those areas of our specific values, where many others might not be working, I think that we must also pay attention to what shows up at our front door, and in our back yard. Sometimes the task that lies before you is not unique, but the fact that others are already engaged does not mean that your contribution might not make the crucial difference. Whether it is affordable housing, or reliable childcare, or educational help for our youngest neighbors on the north side of Minneapolis, or protecting our own and others’ civil liberties and right to marry on a national level, or working to end hunger or genocide or nuclear weapons globally, we need to be of service as a community.

And in this process of service, two things have to be okay. First, it has to be okay for people to disagree, and dissent. You may believe that tutoring within the public schools is a less effective use of energy than starting our own liberal charter school. You may believe that lobbying the legislature for funding is more important than installing insulation in a Habitat house. You may think that helping African farmers raise animals for meat is wrong. It has to be okay for the group who believes in a project to pursue it, even without 100% agreement from everyone in the congregation. It also has to be okay that individuals continue to do what they are personally passionate about. We each have our own electric bill to pay, and FUS has a bill for electricity to pay on behalf of us all. Pitching in for the Society’s bill does not excuse us each from paying our own, nor does the fact that we each have paid our own mean that FUS gets power for free; it’s a both / and proposition. Just as we will be stretched and learn some things and have our assumptions challenged by the service that we do as individuals, so it is to be hoped that we will also have our perspective changed by the projects that we do as a corporate citizen; that’s part of the nature of genuine service.

As with each of the other dimensions, our service projects will incorporate elements of inreach, outreach, and education. Certainly part of real service will include educating ourselves and others about the world and its problems, and reasoning together about the most effective ways to address them. Whenever some of us get deeply involved in an effort together, whether that is an individual project that a few FUSers find they share, or spearheading something on behalf of the whole congregation, members will come together around matters of substance, and get to know and depend on one another, which necessarily builds community and deepens our inreach. And whenever we go out into the community beyond these four walls and touch the lives of others, we cannot help creating awareness of this Society and what we stand for.

Finally, the dimension of education is not just about our Sunday school program for children, important as that is, or even about our adult education offerings. Rather, it means seeing the learning opportunities for all of us that exist in everything we do together. It means that being on the board is a learning experience, and chairing the stewardship drive is a learning experience, and so is singing in the choir, and answering phones in the office, and attending General Assembly, and weeding the garden. It means that none of us is ever too old or too cynical to have our world expanded by what we find out here, and that part of our covenant with one another is to expect and challenge ourselves to learn more all the time, to create our community around the covenant of life-long learning. As you probably know, our overtly educational programs contain elements of the other dimensions; all our classes do service projects, and every small class becomes a breeding ground for community inreach. Moreover, in point of fact, our religious education program for children is one of the aspects of our community that the public may have some impression of, if they know anything about us at all. Education is one of the ways in which a humanist pursues the kind of life transformation that Thomas Bandy was describing in

the passage that I quoted a few moments ago, and the process of outreach is itself to a significant extent an educational project, helping people who didn’t know of FUS before, to have some idea about who and what we are.

In addition to these programmatic dimensions, the strategic planning committee identified what we called ‘foundational strategies’ of institutional maintenance, which included sound finances, a quality staff, and an attractive, versatile building. These are the elements of infrastructure upon which our four aspects of congregational life depend, and we need them in order to operate, but ideally they should not be the focus of our energy or concern. In a healthy system, our creativity and resources should be freed to go into the ministries which we exist to offer, rather than tied up maintaining the fabric of the institution. Raising money and repairing buildings is not what will make Bob and Sally Public feel that they have become different people, more "… whole, healed, healthy, and full… who like themselves, … and feel like somebody special."

Rather, it is through experiences of education, service to others, and deepening community that we and others are transformed by our participation in the First Unitarian Society. The strategic planning committee has called us to re-examine and renew our practice in the four basic areas of inreach, outreach, service and education. Better annual planning and communication is always a good thing, and I would gratefully welcome the presence of a colleague in ministry on staff here; these recommendations also deserve careful attention. But I believe that it is through finding an intentional, dynamic balance among the four key dimensions of our life together that we have the best chance of moving our congregation into a vibrant future of effective ministry in our community and our world. In this report we have a vocabulary and an outline for pursuing that balance. I congratulate the committee on a great deal of deeply engaged and thoughtful work, and I look forward with great eagerness to the process of implementing their vision.

As we sing together our closing hymn, I invite you to think of it along these four dimensions. If you don’t know it well, this could be a learning experience. If you have a better voice than your neighbor, and can lend him or her some support in sounding good, you have an opportunity for service. Think of the message both in terms of inreach and outreach; we are here to walk with one another, so that we might know each other’s minds, and create from our shared challenges, even something as simple as a walk in the rain, the connections of authentic community. At the same time, the invitation must go to a larger constituency beyond our walls, where hope is often hard to find, and people still hunger for a song of love, and the gift of a rose in the midst of their spiritual wintertime. May we be the bearers of that rose, the singers of that song, the givers of that hope, for the transformation of our own lives, and the saving of the world.