April 21, 2023

Something For the Moment 

• Board Dialogue Session: Reminder that the Board Dialogue Session for April has been rescheduled to NEXT Friday, April 28, 2023 (2-3ET/ 1-2CT/12-1MT/11-12PT). We will cancel the session if there is not a minimum of 10 folks registered. This is your opportunity to be in dialogue with the Board of Trustees around the upcoming Bylaw Changes, the goals of the board, and the continuing role of advocacy for a sustainable ministry. Register Today!

• Chapter Leader Calls: Reminder that we will be holding Chapter Leader Calls next week. We hope every chapter will send at least one representative. If you are a chapter leader, please register for the call that fits your calendar. Thursday, April 27, 2023 (9-10pm ET/ 8-9pm CT/ 7-8pm MT/ 6-7pm PT), Friday, April 28, 2023 (12-1pm ET/ 11am-Noon CT/ 10-11am MT/ 9-10am PT), or Thursday, May 4, 2023 (4-5pm ET/ 3-4pm CT/ 2-3pm MT/ 1-2pm PT)

• Annual Meeting Volunteers: Are you looking for an easy, low-commitment way to give back to your professional association? The UUMA Board is looking for folks interested in serving as Election Tellers for our annual meeting. Read the description and time commitment here. Please email Janette Lallier if you are interested and available (now or in future years) to be a teller.

Something for the Journey

As part of my final project for class this semester, I explored the complexity of our hymnody and the need to contextualize hymns within our current cultural understandings. It has been nearly thirty years since Singing the Living Tradition was published. A lot has changed in the world and Unitarian Universalism since then. 

To provide a framework for this work of contextualization, I developed four questions:

1. Who wrote the hymn?

2. For what context was the hymn written?

3. How does the hymn relate to our current times?

4. How does this hymn fit into the program or service?

These questions allow us to explore a hymn’s intent and history, placing it in conversation with modern ethics and values. We could engage this as a small group ministry exploration of our hymnals, beginning with number one. Each session would consist of reading the lyrics, singing, reading contextual information about that hymn, reflecting on the four questions, and ending with another round of singing. My hope is that this format will bring challenge and connection to our hymnody.

Something Extra

Sending Gratitude to Arran: Our Intern, Arran Morton, is preparing to leave us for the next stage of his ministry at the end of this month. To send a message of love and gratitude to Arran, please fill out this form. 

Invitation from the UUA: As a part of the UUA’s journey of implementing recommendations from the Commission on Institutional Change report Widening the Circle of Concern, the CiMAT (Commission on Institutional Change Implementation/Mission Alignment Team) Data and Metrics team is beginning to plan how they can collect and use data to both understand and advance equity toward an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and multicultural UU community. They are starting with two areas they want to develop: (a) indicators to understand the quality of livelihood of religious professionals, particularly those who hold marginalized identities, and (b) demographic categories for assessing the composition, representation, and equity among UU religious professionals (RPs).  

The team is organizing a few focus group conversations to hear thoughts about these topics. Plans are to offer focus groups both for a few identity specific sessions, and one or two that are open more generally to RPs with historically marginalized identities. Sessions will be organized by the following identity groups: BIPOC, Disability and neurodivergent, Trans and non-binary, and an open group (for RPs with any of these identities). The team is specifically inviting RPs who are BIPOC, Disabled, or Trans/non-binary to these groups because we want to be in right relationship as we set up processes to understand how equity and inequity are showing up across all of our UU religious professionals. A more detailed invitation has been emailed to members of the BIPOC, Trans/Non-Binary and Disabled Ministers Chapters. Please check your inbox or click here to register for a session. The first session is April 24! Additional times have been added with the Pacific Time Zone and Community Ministers in mind.