UUs in Congress

The Washington Post/Newsweek web only "On Faith" published a fact sheet on the religious affiliations of members of Congress. Currently the House and Senate each have one member designated as "Unitarian." Presumably UU. They are Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA). With .04% of total members of Congress we exceed slightly our reported .03% of the general population.

In numbers we equal Buddists, as well as AMEs, Disciples of Christ and a number of other Christian denominations. We exceed Quakers and Muslims (one each) and Hindus of whom there are currently none.

A little something for this election season.

h/t Street Prophets.

Introducing Our New Interim Minister

Rev. Mary comes to us after a two-year, highly successful interim ministry at Westside UU Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. She has training for accredited interim ministry and tells us that “I am now convinced that my skills and interests are best suited to interim ministry.” As a former parish minister, hospital chaplain, student, spouse, and current mom, Rev. Mary brings us a wide range of personal and professional gifts and interests.

Former colleagues describe her as outgoing and caring, with a definite sense of humor. She is regarded as a dynamic and focused speaker. She likes to work with “folks of all ages who are excited about their church, enjoy each other’s company, and look forward to working
together toward a common future.” Rev. Mary believes strongly in the importance of lifelong religious education and in creating worship that is varied and inspiring. Rev. Mary is excited about many of the programs we already have in place, including Worship Assistants, Pastoral Care Associates, and our nursing ministry.

Rev. Mary sees herself as a “vision caster,” working with lay leaders and staff to form a leadership team together. As a supporter and professional guide to our lay leaders and congregation, she hopes to foster “good communication, collegial and open exchanges, sharing and collaborating.” She is strongly committed to accomplishing the “Five Tasks of an Interim Year” as envisioned by the UUA. And, her experiences with conflict management, behavioral covenants, and stewardship and budgeting will be assets as we determine exactly where we are and where we want to go.

Theologically, Rev. Mary describes herself as a “UU Theist” who has served a variety of
congregations with members of many different backgrounds. She comes to us with hopes for a
productive, growing, and caring experience. As she says, “I fully want to be able – even encouraged – to bring ALL that I am to this new interim ministry.” (And then reminds us that we should include some FUN along our journey together!)

We have an Interim Minister!

The Board of Trustees is pleased to announce that we entered a contract for interim ministry with the Rev. Mary E. Moore. We and Rev. Moore are very excited about our relationship. May we walk together in a holy space as we chart our future.

Once the contract was signed and accepted by the Board, the Interim Task Force’s duty of strict confidentiality as to the candidate’s name and information ended. Rev. Moore is currently the Interim Minister at Westside Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN. She is warm, enthusiastic and committed to celebrating who we are and helping us move closer to our vision of who we can become. We will be sending more information to members about her in the very near future, but wanted to share the good news as early as possible!

What UU's Believe About God

Our 7th and 8th grade RE class did a survey of members during coffee hour. We asked people to check the beliefs below that pertained to them. We allowed the respondents to check as many as they felt fit for them. We got the list of statements from Compass Points by Gaia Brown and Michelle Richards, the curriculum for our class. After people responded (48 people), we classified the statements in the categories shown on the pie graph and determined the percentage of responses in each area.

Almost everyone agreed with the statement that "There are as many ideas about God as there are people", so we used that for the title of our graph instead of including it in our pie graph.
Here are the statements and the way we classified them. We would be interested in finding out what others in our congregation and other UU's on the Internet think about the findings of our survey.

Statements and Classification
Theist-
God cares for us and listens to our prayers.-9
God is present in the relationships among people.-30

Pantheist-
There is a spark of divinity in each of us.-43
God and the Universe are the same- God is in everything and everyone-30
God is inside, around us and with us wherever we are-8

Pagan-
I find God in Nature-43
God is like a loving mother who sustains us and all life-11

Humanist-
God is my conscience calling me to make the world a better place-19
We can use science and reason to make the world a better place-46

Agnostic-
There is no way we can know whether or not there is a God-20

Atheist-
There is no such thing as God, and even the word is meaningless-5

Deist-
God created the universe and left it to run itself.-6

Some Questions We Have:

* Do you think this is a true representation of the diverse beliefs in our congregation?

* Is this representative of UU's in general?

* Would you classify the statements the same way we did or make changes?

* Are there other beliefs that are not represented here?

Please leave your comments.
Thanks,
7th and 8th Grade RE Class

The New Guy

Hi. I'm the latest blogger for the UUCA blog. In blogworld I'm known as "Pho;" those of you in the congregation are more likely to know me as Scott Piepho.

For those who don't know, I've been blogging for about a year and a half now. My original blog, Pho's Akron Pages, is something of a fixture on the Ohio political blog scene. The avatar at right (art by my older daughter) is well known in comment fields around the state.

Blogging has been an important part of my life for the past year and a half. It was through the blog that I was interviewed for the piece on WCPN that many of you have heard (and that you can still listen to online.) I've also interviewed candidates and elected officials, been interviewed for news stories and gotten one campaign job so far, all directly as a result of blogging. With all that, one of the most satisfying moments in my blogging career was when Rev. Arnold introduced me to a visitor who had found his way to our church through my blog.

So when I recently stumbled across this blog and saw that Jamie and CeeJay were looking for more writers, I signed up. I'm excited about this new project. Having seen how blogs help organize communities of interest, I am pleased that we are using this tool to communicate with our members and advance our ideas.

For me posting here will necessarily be different from posting on my home blog. Though I focus more on policy than politics and though I try to maintain a high tone, things get heated and elbows get thrown. I've been known to say things like "X is just plain stupid," which falls somewhat short of treating every individual with dignity and respect. I'm also overtly partisan on my home blog which will not work here.

At the same time, we have things to say as a church. As I said in my Reflection back in July, we bring important perspectives to the increasingly strident conversation about the role of faith in our modern society. We represent a religious minority (or perhaps minorities) and we know the difficulties of maintaining a community based on religious pluralism. This is one place we can talk about what we've learned and witness for religious pluralism.

I look forward to the conversation.

Our Church Blog Needs Writers!

Are you a member or friend of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron?

Would you like to try your hand at writing on this blog?

We would love to have you! Send an email to jamie.goodwin@uuakron.org and we will get back to you with a request for the appropriate information.

See You On Sunday!

Welcome!

We are a welcoming congregation, committed to:

- building a community founded in love, trust, and freedom
- supporting each other in our spiritual journeys, and
- taking our common ideals to the wider community in action and service.

If you have found your way here from our Web Site, thank you for visiting!

On this blog we hope to share a little about what makes our Church special, unique, and an interesting place to be.

We also hope to share some our perspectives, ideas, and important up and coming events.

Welcome!