By Lisa Marie Fuller, Board President
You are invited–urged!–to attend and participate in the Berrien Unitarian Universalist Fellowship’s 2016 State of Fellowship celebration 1:00 – 4:00 PM, Sunday, January 31. Come learn about, reflect on, and celebrate Berrien UU advances and accomplishments over the past two years and recognize the people who helped realize them. Let me tell you why I think this is important.
In his book Governance and Ministry, Dan Hotchkiss writes that congregations (and their boards, religious leaders and staff) exist in faithfulness to the interests of, and in service to, their owner. Who owns the congregation?? Hotchkiss asserts that our congregation’s mission is our owner. Our success is the degree to which our mission is achieved. All elements of our fellowship must act in faithfulness to the interest of our mission.
Last year Berrien UU members spent time considering our mission. A mission statement was crafted by the congregation and fine-tuned by the board. The mission statement is our answer to the question, ‘What is your purpose?’
“For every individual searching for spiritual meaning, Berrien UU Fellowship provides a welcoming and caring religious community dedicated to diversity of thought, social and environmental justice, and peace for all.” — Berrien UU mission statement, adopted September, 2015
When I’m asked the question ‘what good work is this fellowship doing in the community?’, I turn to our mission statement for the perfect answer.
The good we do is provide a welcoming and caring religious community.
We do this for the benefit every individual searching for spiritual meaning.
And we do this because we are committed to diversity of thought, social and environmental justice, and peace for all.
Here are examples of ways Berrien UU carries out its mission in the spirit of the UU principles.
The first two UU principles are to value the worth and dignity of every person, and treat everyone fairly and kindly. If every person is valued, why are we expressly inclusive and welcoming of the LGBTQ community? Berrien UU singles out this group because even as the world has made strides toward being more inclusive, there remain many places (including family homes) where LGBTQ people are not welcome. We are intentional in our inclusion of this population because we want them to know that our welcoming and caring religious community is a safe place.
The third and fourth UU principles are to accept one another and keep on learning together, and that each person must be free to search for what is true and right in life. Our religious education programs help every individual searching for spiritual meaning. Creative Conversations, Spiritual Memoirs, Building Your Own Theology, and even our weekly circle talk discussion of the Sunday Service are opportunities for people to further their own search for spiritual meaning, without the constraints of a dogma or prescribed belief.
Our dedication to diversity of thought is evident in the spiritual sources that enrich our Sunday Services, and in our desire to learn and grow with each other.
Our dedication to social and environmental justice is evident in our commitment to the Berrien County Social Justice Coalition, to solar energy, to sustainable living, and to fair trade.
Our dedication to peace for all is evident in our liberal religious thought.
These aspects of our mission represent the sixth and seventh UU principles–we believe in working for a peaceful, fair, and free world, and in caring for our planet Earth, the home we share with all living things.
Can you articulate Berrien UU’s accomplishments? Can you speak to how the Berrien UU mission is being served? Can you say why Berrien UU matters to yourself or this community? If you have answers to these questions please come and share them with the congregation at our State of the Fellowship celebration. If you can’t answer–or struggle at answering–these questions then please come to the State of the Fellowship to be strengthened in your ability to act in faithfulness to our owner, the Berrien UU mission. Knowing how we will each be faithful to our mission is important. Come help us celebrate our progress and our people, and then join the conversation about where to go from here in our faithfulness to the Berrien UU mission.
