"Taking Membership Seriously"

Once upon a time, back in June of 1997, I went to the General Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona. That was a less complicated time to meet in Phoenix, before all the immigration hysteria produced the awful and racist law now involving the state in controversy and causing us to ask ourselves tough moral questions about the ethics of meeting, and thus bringing money, into a state that practices what many of us consider to be blatant discrimination.

The General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association is scheduled to be in Phoenix again in 2012. The Board of the UUA and many members are wresting with the issue of whether to boycott or to go and be present in advocacy.But I digress.

GA in 1997 in Phoenix – hot, as expected. Crowded, as General Assembly tends to be. A program filled with worship and workshops and the most important activities – the plenaries in which the governance work of our association of congregations gets done. I was more interested than usual in the election that year as my name was on the ballot, in a contested election no less, for a seat on the Commission on Appraisal. The Commission on Appraisal is charged with independent and ongoing evaluation of the health and well being of Unitarian Universalism. Members meet, do research, invite feedback from UU’s around the country, and report on issues of vital interest to the Association.

I was dismayed to learn that it would be a contested election; usually for Commissions like this the  Nominating Committee presents a slate that, after their careful vetting, runs unopposed. Much like the board positions here. But alas, somebody who had been rejected by the Nominating Committee was running by petition, and I had to run a campaign.

Except that I didn’t. My entire campaign consisted of having friends hail me from across crowded rooms and say, “Hey, aren’t you running for the Commission on Appraisal?” “Yes,” I would yell back and smile. They would respond with something like, “Well, good luck. There couldn’t be a more qualified candidate.” And that is how I got elected.

Soon after that General Assembly, the Commission met for the first time and we decided that what most needed attention and study was the question of the meaning of membership in our congregations. Our previous report: Interdependence: Renewing Congregational Polity, had looked at the nature of the relationships among UU congregations – reminding member congregations what it meant, philosophically and theologically, to be a member congregation of the UUA in voluntary association with other congregations. It asked some serious questions about the nature of power, obligation, and mutuality in our larger movement.

After that report was published, it seemed logical and compelling to turn our attention to the nature of the meaning of membership in our local congregations. What does it mean for an individual to be in voluntary association with others? Could we ask the same questions about power, obligation, and mutuality in our congregational life?We spent four years on those questions.

At a General Assembly four years later, in Charlotte North Carolina I think, (where General Assembly will meet next year by the way – close to home for those who might want to attend) . . . anyway, there we were, all nine commission members, gathered in a small, airless meeting room, feverishly trying to complete the final galley proofs and get them to the publisher without doing serious harm to each other in the process.

The result of that effort was this book: Belonging: The Meaning of Membership.This book was both a culmination of years of work and reflection, and the beginning of a deeper conversation. A conversation that is still going on in UU congregations across the country.

And what better day for us to delve into the meaning of membership than a day when we welcome our newest members? What better time to consider what it means to belong than a time when global events urgently and maybe even desperately impel us to seek the very things that church membership offers -  strength in numbers; the opportunity to come alive; the possibility of being opened to the infinite and engaged in serious reckoning; the reminder that we are bound to ancient sources, and to the infinite unfolding before us.

The times demand that we take our religious affiliations seriously. Belonging is a report about taking membership seriously. It imagines a Unitarian Universalism that offers a religious identity that is profound, life-changing and life-saving – an identity that would keep our young people committed after they graduate from our religious education programs – that would change the membership practices in our local congregations so that they reflected the depth of love and care that we feel for our churches.

The Commission dared to imagine a less casual, more committed practice of Unitarian Universalism. That was in June of 2001.

We thought then that current events were sufficiently urgent that we UU’s needed to change our tactics to become more effective advocates for peace and justice and sustainability. A few short months later the terrorist attack of September 11th changed forever the way we Americans look at ourselves and our world. Since that time Presidential elections have broken our hearts and given us hope, wars have been fought, laws have been passed, our economy has gone to the very brink of disaster, oil is washing up on Gulf beaches . . . Need I go on?

However compelling the case may have been on 2001 for a robust growth in Unitarian Universalism, the case is only more compelling this morning.

In practical terms, the Commission assumed that a meaningful religious identity is a reflection of a meaningful path to membership - a path that invites people to move, at their own pace, from eager or anxious inquiry, to a deepening experience of the breadth and depth of possibility that belonging offers. We hoped to help congregations avoid the classic church mistake - the assumption that all you have to do to get somebody involved is to get them on a committee!

As my colleague Roy Phillips was fond of saying, people don’t join churches because they get up one morning and say, “You know, the real void in my life is not being on a committee.” What people do wake up in the morning and say is probably something more like, “There is an empty place inside me that needs filling.  I need to be with other people who care as much about life as I do, who have the same deep and scary questions that I do, who have known love and loss like I have, who are willing to be companions with me on this strange spiritual pilgrimage that is my life.”

The journey from that first moment of recognition to the desire to commit whole-heartedly and whole-souledly to an institution is complex, colorful, full of twists and turns and unexpected surprises. And that kind of path into the center of our communal being can only be laid by people who have traveled it themselves and arrived at that committed place. People who have not simply “signed the book” but have experienced an increase in spiritual depth, a calling to bring their gifts and talents and treasures to the altar of our free faith. People who are truly in covenant with one another.

You are probably aware of the number of media polls done over the years suggesting that there are orders of magnitude more people who call themselves Unitarian Universalist when asked than there are on the membership rolls of our churches.

I guess for many people UUism is a label only - a way of saying, if I did ever want to bother to have a religion, that is the one I would have. Or if I ever find myself in such dire straits that I need a religion, this is the one I would ask for help from. But that kind of casual relationship with our free religious tradition is not an identity - an identity develops only in the context of involvement in and commitment to the local church.

Long ago, the apostle Paul urged the Corinthian community to think of themselves as members of one body. The church that Paul envisioned is one in which individual persons become part of something greater. As theologian Bernard Jones puts it, “It is clear that the church was not an organization that an individual went along to join as he might make an application to join a golf club. It was an ‘ecclesia’--a group of people called . . ." A calling implies the expectation of a serious and transforming relationship. People called to membership take that membership seriously.

We can build that kind of church, a place that brings us into covenant with other people who, though diverse in their personal experiences and needs, all seek one thing in common: wholeness. Membership should offer the opportunity to become more whole, more committed, more grounded.

Those of you who were welcomed into membership today - I hope that you will be transformed by your association with the First Unitarian Church of Orlando. In fact I hope you leave here today feeling like a different person, at least a little bit, than you did when you came. Even more important, I hope that every one of you who are here this morning will feel differently about your congregation when you leave today than when you came - because all of you joined voices and hearts in the welcoming covenant that included a promise to be changed by the reconstituting of our community.

We are, by historical tradition, a congregational faith, meaning that primary religious affiliation, like the power of decision making, is located in the local congregation. We are also, by historical tradition, a covenantal rather than a creedal faith. We are united by common commitments and mutual promises of support, presence, and participation.

That is something to celebrate, but it is also a matter of concern. Culturally, we moderns don’t take our covenants as seriously as did people in earlier times. As Conrad Wright has written with specific reference to our UU churches, “ . . .  a covenant is an agreement made between parties, not a statement by an individual to be discarded and forgotten unilaterally.  A congregation united by covenant is made up of people who have made commitments to one another.”

In long-ago times people treated the bonds of church membership as seriously as they did the bonds of matrimony, which is to say very seriously indeed. In our report, we urged a return to that seriousness about covenant.

The Commission on Appraisal invited Unitarian Universalists to think about membership in a new way based on a revitalized understanding of our covenantal nature. In other words, we wanted people to bring a contemporary sensibility to the ancient practice of covenant, and take covenant seriously once again.

Our report was an urgent plea to create congregations that invite deeply committed involvement, congregations that are inclusive and welcoming; most especially it was a plea to create non-traditional paths to membership that would usher in people who have previously felt unwelcome in our churches.

I encourage those of you who are, in various ways, committed to the growth of this congregation to take a look at this book. It is not out of date even after 9 years.Another goal of our work was to imbue the process of becoming a member with a spiritual meaning well beyond the technicalities of signing a book or voting.

I ask each of you to think about what it truly means to you to be part of this congregation. What need first brought you to our doors? What captured your imagination, tickled your mind, massaged your soul? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that the same experience occurs for the next stranger who comes in the door? If you are, you will grow.

Growth in members is not about marketing strategy, although that helps. Growth is the natural fruit of an intentional ministry of hospitality.You have been welcoming and hospitable to the new people who havecome through these doors in the past year. I can attest to that. New people inevitably bring change to the nature of congregational life. You have been unafraid to be challenged by newness and change. Bravo!

I want to tell you something – there are many more new people out there in the greater Orlando area, just waiting to be invited in. These people, unknown and yet to arrive, are hoping for an equally intentional and enthusiastic welcome. Unitarian Universalists, whether life long or brand new, are simply people who want to belong to vital, healthy, thriving ccongregations. Congregations that look outward as well as inward, congregations that support the spiritual growth and deepening faith of individual members and still ask questions about how they fit into the larger community. The way to grow a church is to be that kind of place - vital, flexible, an organic, learning organization.

In just a few months you begin a new ministry with a new settled minister. In the first few years of that ministry, the leadership will embark on a strategic planning process. They have already started talking about it. A good strategic plan asks questions about all kinds of growth and change. Number questions about members and budget. Vision questions about outreach and caring for each other. Practical questions about buildings and grounds and staffing. Philosophical questions about worship and fellowship and religious growth and learning. All of what you have done and will do is based on your understanding of the meaning of membership in this beloved community. It all comes down to belonging.

Earlier in the service I quoted former UUA President John Buehrens. John has said some important and compelling things about membership. He once wrote, “To be human is to be religious. To be religious is to make connections. To lead a meaningful life among the many competing forces of the twenty-first century, each of us needs support in making meaningful re-connections to the best in our global heritage, the best in others, and the best in ourselves.”

People are hungry for what you have to offer. Therefore you must continue to explore and practice the art of hospitality.

How will you grow your congregation? By taking your membership seriously. By living out your faith in words and deeds that are visible and audible to all the people out in central Florida who are looking for what you already have. A healthy, engaged congregation full of committed people demonstrates what Unitarian Universalism is at its best. Just by being who you are is practicing the most powerful and effective and unobnoxious form of evangelism I can think of. It is about demonstrating the possibilities of our beloved faith.

I know of many long committed couples who weep at weddings and union ceremonies. Shouldn’t we long time members weep every time we sit through a New Member Recognition service? We weep at the memory of what we once promised, at the reality of living out that promise, at the opportunity to re-make that promise in love and hope once again. Just as we asked our newest members to affirm their commitment earlier, let’s all of us recommit ourselves to the work of this church, and of Unitarian Universalism. Let’s all be evangelists, bringing our good news to this hurting world.