March 27, 2011     Relevance

By Rev. Kim Preveza, Minister of Religious Education Second Parish

(written for the spoken word)

Centering Thought

Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future.

Susan Sontag

Readings

From “On Going to Church”

By Rev. A. Powell Davies (1902-1957)

Let me tell you why I come to church.

I come to church—and would whether I was a preacher or not—because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. It is not enough that I should think about the world and its problems at the level of a newspaper report or a magazine discussion. It could too soon become too low a level. I must have my conscience sharpened—sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible thinking of which I am capable. I must feel again the love I owe my fellow men (and women). I must not only hear about it but feel it. In church, I do.

I need to be reminded that there are things I must do in the world—unselfish things, things undertaken at the level of idealism. Workaday enthusiasms are not enough. They wear out too soon. I want to experience human nature at its best—and be reminded of its highest possibilities, and this happens to me in church. It may seem as though the same things could be found in solitude, but it does not easily happen so.

In a congregation we share each other’s spiritual needs and reinforce each other. In some ways, the soul is never lonelier than in a church service. That is certainly true of a pulpit, for a pulpit is the most intimately lonely place in the world—yet it is a loneliness that has strength in it. Perhaps this is because the innermost solitude of the human heart is in some paradoxical way a thing that can be shared—that must be shared—if the spirit of God is to find a full entrance into it.

We meet each other as friends and neighbors anywhere and everywhere, but we seldom do so in the consciousness of our souls’ deepest yearnings. But in church we do—in a way that protects us from all that is intrusive, yet leaves us knowing that we all have the same yearning, the same spiritual loneliness, the same need of assurance and faith and hope. We are brought together at the highest level possible. We are not merely an audience, we are a congregation.

I doubt whether I could stand the thought of the cruelty and misery of the present world unless I could know, through an experience that renewed itself over and over again, that at the heart of life there is assurance, that I can hold an ultimate belief that all is well. And this happens in church.

Life must have its sacred moments and its holy places. The soul will always seek its nurture. For religious experience—which is life at its most intense, life at its best—is something we cannot do without.

Source: from “On Going to Church” by Rev. A. Powell Davies, as reprinted in Without Apology: Collected Meditations on Liberal Religion by A. Powell Davies edited by Rev. Dr. Forrest Church.

Offertory

Second Reading

Muriel A. Davies from a sermon she wrote in 1998 for the 90th Anniversary of the Unitarian Summit.  In 2006 she was ordained at the age of 100.

Davies wrote: “I think we Unitarian Universalists have a great opportunity today, if we cease putting obstacles in our path -- obstacles of vocabulary, of narrow identification. In a conversation with a friend who had attended the most recent General Assembly, I was saddened to hear that there is still apparently controversy between humanists and theists and anxiety about splinter groups such as Unitarian Pagans. These conflicts can even split congregations.

We have a message which supersedes these differences. I submit that our message, as stated in our seven principles, is one to which we can all subscribe, whatever our religious preferences in expression are. Surely, whether one chooses to use the word God or adheres to a humanist or scientific approach, we can unite in covenanting to affirm and promote the inherent worth of every person; justice and compassion for all; acceptance of one another; the search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience; the goal of world community, and respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

In a culture which is becoming increasingly global, there is need for a religion which is relevant to an expanding world. If we can focus on our basic message, I believe we can make a significant contribution to this new world. Our religion looks to the future. In a world of intolerance, where religious, ethnic and cultural differences are tearing people apart, we offer a religion which is inclusive, from which no one is excluded except, as William Ellery Channing once said, "by the death of goodness in his or her own soul." In a world of rigid sectarianism, we offer a religion which finds wisdom and insight from many sources, past and present, thus linking us to the whole human experience. We affirm our belief in world community with peace and justice and liberty for all.” (http://reasonable-thought.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html)

Sermon  “Relevance”

Today’s sermon is inspired by our auction winner.  Our almost annual service auction often includes a sermon topic.  This year, I thought, I will auction a sermon topic to see what someone would like to hear me preach about.

I wanted to preach on something relevant.   Ironically, that is the topic.  Lou Belknap, our auction winner, choose “What is the Relevance of Second Parish Today?”  He was going to let me off the hook and just choose my own topic but I am glad to have this one.  I think it is a very important and relevant topic for us to explore together. 

So, I usually answers question with more questions – my husband will tell you that.

I am not a yes/ no person.  I suppose I could just answer the question if it were,

 Is Second Parish Relevant Today?  I could just say yes or no

But that would be a very short sermon

AND – I checked -- the question was “What is the relevance of Second Parish today.”

Let start with relevance itself.  

As I thought about relevance the word Releve keep coming to my mind, my daughters take ballet, you see. 

I had this little mantra going in my head

Relevance, Releve.    Releve is when a dancer raises up on her tiptoes

And that is the meaning of the word.

It is Latin.  relevāre  means to raise, lift up

To be relevant means to be important, To have direct bearing on the matter at hand; to be pertinent, meaningful, to be up here, significant, related, connected, satisfy needs, met a goal.

So, we might ask what is the raised or lifted up quality of Second Parish today. 

What is our importance, our meaningfulness, our significance?

How do we relate, connect, and satisfy needs, met a goals, today?

And this is a “today” question. 

What is our relevance in the here and now

As our centering thought for today says:  “Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future. “

Sontag tells us that existence itself is a quest for relevance

And this quest for relevance is a precarious attainment. 

We cannot be guaranteed relevance.

So, although we may have been relevant yesterday and we may be relevant today. We have to realize our relevance may change.

Therefore, it is important to question it.

This quote by Craig Bruce, a software engineer – sums it up --

"Never question the relevance of truth, but always question the truth of relevance."

Striving for relevance is a big topic in marketing, religion and education. 

The following comments may be metaphors:

In Marketing, relevance is measured by if people click on your ad; see your information as spam, or as important and pertaining to their life and needs,

Relevance in marketing means people are interested in your product.

Education

The other type of relevant that we're seeing people explore is relevance in education.

In education people are trying to get kid’s interest, helping them see how their educational topic is relevant – yes you will use math someday.

Or using relevant means of conveying the topic – for example, rap music or hip-hop to get kids interested and excited.

And showing that education applies to real world.

(http://www.leadered.com/pdf/R&Rframework.pdf)  International Center for Leadership in Education

Mega Churches

Mega Churches and Evangelical Churches focus on relevance as well.   There are churches that actually use the title Relevant Church.   It seeks to be culturally relevant with current music, projection screens, casual clothes, etc. 

But it is not only about being relevant culturally; it is also focused on messages that “you can ‘use’ in the workplace or at home.”

Like, what would Jesus do?   UUs have our won version – What would UU do. 

This is very much like the educational model of relevance.

You have a lesson, a clear curriculum if you will,

You learn it and live it

And apply it to daily life.

Education Theory uses the terms “Rigor, Relevance, and Relationship”

Learn it, apply it, do it in relationship, teach others, seek mentors.

These are some of the ways that people in and out of church settings are looking at trying to be Relevant in today's world

And of course that is our question today

What is the relevance of Second Parish today?

What are the ways we are or can be relevant?

To whom are we relevant?

We are relevant to the people who come here. 

People who come to Second Parish tell me how much this church means to them

Often I hear how it is an oasis from the pretentiousness of our wider community.

UU and down to earth too.

It is a Second Family

It is a place where people can explore their religious beliefs without

the confines of preferences.

We have a UU gem here.

Often, as is my experience, UUism can be less than open minded about God and Jesus talk -- that theist and humanist split Muriel Davies spoke about. Preferences

My home church was a humanist UU church and you just did not talk about God or Jesus, everything else was okay.

One of the things you told me when I first met the congregation was

We are UU and God too.

This is a great gift to offer people, people who want to fully explore their religious questions and beliefs, people who need to heal from a religious past, people who have no religious past but want to learn and explore it all, children who can learn a full curriculum of religion.

Those people are here but

Those people are out there too and they need a place like this too.

This is a place that would be very relevant in their life too.

Our size may make us wonder sometimes, how relevant we are.

Relevance is often linked to numbers, to influence, to growth. 

I believe we are a growing church.

I also think we are one of Hingham’s and the wider community’s best kept secrets.

I also believe it is hard to be relevant beyond our walls and be a secret.

So, we have started at an answer Yes, Second Parish is Relevant.

But what is our relevance?

We are relevant to the people who know about us and come and worship with us and we house the food pantry. 

For many people out in the community, that is our relevance, we host the food pantry that is how we are known, and are raised up, that is something that makes us matter.

People know us for music and art as well.

Many people do not know, however, what we are about. Or even that we are UU.

I have known a woman for three years, we are only acquaintances, but have conversations often.

She has worked here for years and lives in a neighboring town.

She knows I am the minister of religious education at Second Parish.

We were talking about preschools.  She asked of I tried the Jewish preschool.

No, I have not.

Many people like it but they do teach religion there.

That would be fine with me, I think they could learn more about the Jewish religion; I am Unitarian Universalist after all.

I did not know that

You knew I had the Sunday school though right.

I thought Second Parish was congregational.  I knew it had the food pantry but I never knew it was UU.

The conversation went on.

It reminded me of the time a woman visited the church on Easter and thought we were Catholic.

And one of you told me you knew someone who lived on Main Street that was surprised to learn we were UU.

Yes, we Hingham’s best kept secret.

If a tree is in the forest and it is an oak tree but no one knows what kind of tree it is, is it still an oak tree?

But this problem of being known is not unique to Second Parish, oak trees are very hard to identify.

And, even if people do know we are UU, we may still have some identity problems and, therefore relevancy problems,

In fact it is an issue in UUism in general.

Listen to this dialogue from the Religion in a Globalizing World

EVENT TRANSCRIPT December 4, 2006

“Some of the nation's leading journalists and distinguished scholars gathered in Key West, Fla., in December 2006 for the Pew Forum's biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life.

Peter Berger, professor emeritus of religion, sociology and theology at Boston University said during the conference,

BERGER: Some of my best friends are Unitarians in Boston. I like them in many ways, but they represent absolutely nothing. Well, my favorite Unitarian joke, which was told to me by a Unitarian minister in Boston is: What's the beginning of the Unitarian version of the Lord's Prayer? To whom it may concern. (Laughter.) There is a market niche for Unitarianism for people who define themselves as seekers, OK? So the seekers get together and seek. But it's not a very promising position, with whatever openness or doubt or hesitation. Unless a religious community has something to affirm, it has no [reason for existence]. 

This is, unfortunately, the way many people in the world see us, or for that matter do not see us.

UUs can believe anything they want

UUs don’t believe anything.

Berger said we need to affirm something or there is no reason for our existence.

However, we do affirm something, we even say in the beginning of our Principles “We covenant to affirm and promote

But maybe the principles are too general

To be relevant in a community, we may need specifics.

To be relevant churches need to be filling a specific mission. 

Kennon Callahan in his book Twelve Keys to an Effective Church says

“the first and most central characteristic of an effective, successful church is it specific, concrete, missional objectives.” ‘Specific’ refers to the fact that the local congregation has focused its missional outreach on a particular human hurt and hope” (1).

In other words, a relevant church’s central characteristic is that it reaches out to a particular human hurt and hopes in a specific way.

Our church mission, in your order of service says:

Second Parish is an inclusive church that values worship as a source of inspiration.

· We encourage each person’s spiritual, ethical, and moral development, and we respect each person’s search for truth.

· We are a multigenerational community that unites to provide mutual strength and support.

· We encourage service for the betterment of our congregation, our community, and our society.

This is getting at it, but we could certainly be more specific and concrete.

We do have so much to offer. We should be sharing it, reaching out.

How can we be truly relevant if we are only relevant to those gathered here? (No offense)

It would be one thing if everyone knew who we were and what we had to offer but decided we were not relevant to their lives,

And we would, therefore, be relevant to everyone to whom we could be

But right now we are not relevant to everyone we could be.

How can we be?

Do we have a specific, concrete mission?

As, I have been thinking about Second Parish, I

Have been coming up with pithy statements about us that may convey who we are and offered some specifics.

Coming of Age youth and people studying the ministry are often asked to sum up UUism in an elevator speech.

I have been thinking of summing up the relevance of Second Parish on a sign people could read at 30 miles an hour with a play on the word “Second”

So like: Give Religion a Second Chance Here

People need place where they can give religion a

Second Chance. 

We do that.  Many people who find relevance here come from another background.

People need a welcoming multigenerational place we offer.

Second Parish: Second Family

A place where they can have

Second Thoughts, where they can explore their ideas and beliefs again and again. 

Got Second Thoughts about Religion: Welcome

People need a place where their religion does not have to be

Second Hand.

As Mark Twain once said

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners.

No Second-hand Religion here.

That is a marketing approach to advertising our relevance, I suppose

But it also speaks to our mission

Of helping people with their religious hurts and hopes.

That is the purpose of a church, that is being relevant.

The question of purpose runs throughout human history.

It is the age-old question

What is my purpose?

This church has a purpose and is therefore relevant

 Relevant to those gathered here.

But what of being relevant to more people who need us.

We become more relevant by bringing our relevance to the wider community.

This church is already relevant and growing in many ways. 

As I said, relevance is often judged by numbers.

However,

There are four types of growth, only one of which is numbers.

Loren Mead, a church expert and the author of More Than

Numbers: The Way Churches Grow, describes four types of growth possible in

Congregations.

There is growing in

Wisdom,

Strength,

Action,

And numbers

Our Strength is Growth in Wisdom

This type of growth allows the congregation to "challenge, support, and

Encourage each one of its members to grow in the maturity of their faith, to deepen

Their spiritual roots, and to broaden their religious imaginations." (Mead)

We have this with sermon topics, adult RE, exploring thins like Welcoming Congregation, our covenant itself highlights this type of growth.

Then there is Growth in Strength

According to Mead, growth in strength “is about the task of building the community,

…. [It]  is the call to shape congregations themselves to become communities that generate life and energy.’"

Our board focuses on this, organizing our self to be a stronger community.

We have wisdom and strength and I see that this is place that seeks to ever renew these types of growth and relevancy.

The two places, I think we are poised to grow are in action and numbers.

Growth in Action

“defines the relationship of the congregation to the environment. This type of growth shows the embodiment of the congregation’s collective faith, as evident in the faith-driven actions and programs of its members.”

This again is mission. Outreach.

WE have second Sunday offering we give away and we help with the food pantry.

But there is more we could be called to do.  (I am not going to tell you what that is.  We have to figure that out together)

Numerical Growth or Growth in Member Numbers

Mead says,  “Ignoring the need for growth and the need to respond intentionally to growth will inevitably threaten a congregation’s survival. It may take as long as a generation to feel the impact, but the impact will come. Adjusting congregational life to the needs of new members keeps the congregation relevant to the wider community that it serves.”

So growth in numbers causes other types of growth as well, because a church has to continue to grow in new ways, adjusting keeps a church relevant. 

It is a circle.

So we must ask our self

What is our relevancy to the wider community, which we serve?

Not just to do social service but to be their church home.

Do we serve a wider community?

Are there more potential UUs out there who need us and our type of UU church?

UU World, a Unitarian Universalist Magazine reports in an article entitled Three in a Thousand by Richard Higgins   that there is a  “number gap between those who identify with and those who participate in our tradition ‘a pretty large one.’ And that brings us to some discomforting questions the study provokes: Do we, as Unitarian Universalists know who we are? Does the rest of the nation?”

158, 000 members or so versus over 500, 000/ 600, 000 who claim they are UU.

The article concludes that, “people get the impression that Unitarian Universalism is something they can do on their own, that they don’t need to join a congregation.” http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/108007.shtml

But, people do need a congregation,

Remember Rigor, Relevance, and Relationship

We need community,

We cannot do it on own,

But maybe I am preaching to the choir,

You guys know this already.  You are here.

Like A, Powell Davies said,

We need each other, not just for encouragement and with love and with respect for each person’s search for truth, as our Second Parish covenant and mission state,

But to goad each other, sharpen each other,

We need a place where we are reminded of our highest aspirations

Let us remind each other, that we can do more and be more, that we must.

We must continue ever on to discover our individual and community relevance and purpose.

May we continue to affirm it, question it, and make it more so.

Homework handed out after service:

Some final questions for us to think about to help us on our path of Relevance from The Twelve Keys to an Effective Church:

What specific human hurts and hopes do you have longings to help with?

What concrete strengths do you have with which to share affective help for these specific human hurts and hopes?

What three to five persons do you know who have similar longings and strengths in your church or your community?

What events in the community are timely or pressing?

What specific ways are you feeling called to invest yourself?

And finally,

How can Second Parish and You be more relevant?

* Closing Hymn #126   Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Everyday thing – wear stole

Curriculum Owning your Religious Past