Category Archives: Liberal religion

Friday video: The empty jar

Story time, Unitarian Universalist style! In this week’s video, I read Jesus’s parable of the empty jar, from the Gospel of Thomas (one of the books that didn’t make it into the official Christian scriptures). Then I talk about a few possible interpretations of the parable, but since I’m a Unitarian Universalist minister I refuse to come up with one final correct interpretation. (5:05)

Note to nitpickers: Yeah, I know I’m posting the “Friday Video” on Saturday. Before you start picking nits, remember that I do this as a hobby, and sometimes life makes it difficult to keep to schedules.

Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.

Worth watching

Peter Bowden of UU Planet sent me a link to a video of Seth Goodin talking to Google employees. Seth Goodin is the marketing guru who wrote the book Purple Cow. (I wrote about Purple Cow back on November 9, 2005.)

One of Goodin’s key points in the video lecture is that the whole landscape of marketing has changed in the past twenty years. It used to be that the way you did marketing was first to come up with a whole bunch of money. Then you took out as many ads as you could, trying to grab people’s attention to tell them about your product. When you made a profit, you poured that money back into advertising. Goodin calls this approach the “TV-Industiral Complex.”

But a new way to do marketing has emerged. First, you create “something worth talking about,” and “if you can’t do that, start over.” Next, you find people who want to hear from you, and you tell them about that “something worth talking about.” Then those people tell their friends about that “something worth talking about” — you don’t tell people about that something worth talking about and you don’t spend lots of ad dollars promoting yourself — you rely on enthusiastic users, not on ads, to tell others. Then there’s a last key step: get permission from those first people to tell them about whatever new things-worth-talking-about that you come up with.

Goodin’s second approach to marketing should be easy to use to spread the word about Unitarian Universalism. Unitarian Universalism is something worth talking about — it’s a religion that provides all the wonderful aspects of a warm religious community, but it’s also a religion where you don’t have to swallow unswallowable doctrines or creeds. We have something worth talking about, and Unitarian Universalists do tell their friends — “No, no, you have to check out my church, it’s this cool religious community where you don’t have to believe in God unless you want to.” Thus while other churches are losing members, Unitarian Universalism is slowly growing, because we Unitarian Universalists are willing to talk to our friends.

Now along comes the new marketing campaign from the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The UUA is buying print ads in Time magazine, which is probably a waste of money, because the old marketing approach of spending lots of money on ads just doesn’t work any more. But the UUA also came out with a cool ten-minute video. It captures who we are — it captures that warm feeling you get when you go to your Unitarian Universalist church — it captures that lack of creed or dogma — it makes you feel good about being a Unitarian Universalist, so you want t o show it to your friends to help them understand who you are. You can get a DVD of the video to give to your friends so you can sit there and watch it with them — or you can tell your friends to watch it on YouTube.

Plus, without being heavy-handed, the video captures the cutting edge of who we are — we care about the environment, we welcome gays and lesbians, we have racially mixed churches (OK, maybe your church isn’t racially mixed, but ours here in New Bedford is, and yours could be someday soon). This new video is worth talking about! And some of us are already talking about the video, and showing it to our friends. And maybe — just maybe — we need to do lots more new media, because I suspect the future of our religion has to add a new-media component to our traditional face-to-face churches.

That what I got to thinking about as I watched the Seth Goodin video. There’s lots more food for thought there. Definitely worth watching. Link.

Midwesterners and liberal religion

I was out in Naperville, Illinois, for three days last week, co-leading a workshop of worship for religious educators. Most of the dozen people in the workshop were from the Midwest. I was reminded of a few regional differences between Midwestern religious liberals, and New England religious liberals.

  • Midwestern Unitarian Universalists are nice. They are friendly, courteous, and pleasant in a way that New Englanders just aren’t. (On the other hand, I do like the edginess of New Englanders.)
  • Midwestern Unitarian Universalists do not take their religion for granted, the way many New England Unitarian Universalists seem to do.
  • A related point: Midwestern Unitarian Universalists have a visceral understanding that they are a tiny minority of the population. Because of this, they don’t seem to have the sense of entitlement that New England Unitarian Universalists often suffer from (as if we’re God’s gift to New England, not that we believe in God).
  • Maybe I didn’t see a representative sample of Midwestern Unitarian Universalists, but most of the people in this workshop came from growing congregations, and they were all committed to growth in a way that I just don’t see among most New England Unitarian Universalists.

As much as I like our little church in New Bedford, and as much as I love New England and New England Unitarian Universalists, I did have a moment of nostalgia at this workshop, thinking about the year I spent serving in a Midwestern Unitarian Universalist church. New England Unitarian Universalists do have this tendency to make excuses about why New England Unitarian Universalist churches aren’t growing; we could learn from the Midwesterners who are just rolling up their sleeves and making growth happen.

Comments on the new video

Today we showed the new video on Unitarian Universalism, “Voices of a Liberal Faith,” to half a dozen people after church. Everyone seemed to like the video.

Someone who has been coming to church for two months wanted a copy to send to family, so family would understand that we Unitarian Universalists are not a “cult.”

Someone who grew up in the church wanted copies to show to friends who have never quite understood what Unitarian Universalism is.

One or two others said they would like copies, too. Both newcomers and old-timers alike felt that the video captured who we are and what we stand for. I told everyone that I had ordered twenty-five copies, and would be able to give them out at church next week. I know this video was meant as a marketing tool, but now I’m beginning to see it as a celebration of who we are and what we stand for — makes you proud to be a Unitarian Universalist.

Download a Windows Media (.wmv) or Real Player (.ram) version of the video here.

See it on You Tube here.

New media links

I like keeping an eye on new media around the Web. While I’m out in Chicago leading a workshop (with no time to produce a video), I’ll share some links to sites that have got me thinking about new ways to use new media. Check these out, and see what you think….

Just reading the titles of the sessions for Podcamp Boston 2 is already making me think. How about “Podcasting on the Cellphone [and] Building a (near) Realtime Audience”? And then there’s “Podcasting as a Tool for Non-Profits: What does it take to do a high-quality podcast for your organization?” Or how about the session titled “What is the sound of your brand?” Link.

I’ve been following an online animated video called Unleashed. The animation is minimal, but effective. The sound quality is exceptionally good. The whole online show is low-budget but very effective — and the basic structure should be relatively easy to replicate. Link.

Speaking of low-budget, “xkcd” is a very low-budget online comic strip. The drawings are crude, but the strip is funny and has developed a huge online following. Once again, this structure would not be hard to replicate. Link.

All these sites represent new ways of delivering new media content online. The real problem, as always, is coming up with content that people will want to have delivered to them….

An immigrants’ church

I’m out in Chicago leading a workshop. While I’m there, I’d thought I’d treat you to some interesting Unitarian history.

The following comes from an unsigned manuscript in the First Unitarian church archives. This manuscript, titled “How our church began,” gives the history of North Unitarian Church, which merged into First Unitarian in 1971. It should be obvious that when the author refers to a “Bohemian man,” she means someone who literally came from Bohemia, a part of Europe now part of Germany and the Czech Republic. Thus, the “Bohemian man” is a recent immigrant to the United States.

In the year 1889 Mr. Paul Revere Frothingham came to New Bedford as assistant minister to Mr. Potter who was the minister of the Unitarian Church on Union and Eighth St. He had a very pleasing personality and was liked very much by young and old alike.

In the year 1892 Mr. Potter tendered his resignation and Mr. Frothingham then became minister of the church.

It wasn’t long after Mr. Frothingham became minister that he began looking around to see what he would do to improve the community. With Mrs. Frothingham they started a club for girls, called ‘Girls Social Union’ they met in the chapel of the Unitarian Church. There were classes in sewing, millnery, & cooking, besides having fun playing all sorts of games. This was given free of charge to any girl who was interested in becoming a member.

In 1894 it was decided to hire rooms in the North end of the city 1651 Purchase St. where the girls could meet and they would be nearer their homes as they all lived in the north end of the city. It was in the same rooms Mr. Frothingham established a free kindergarten and secured a trained teacher for the children. Later this kindergarten was taken over by the city and called the ‘North End Day Nursery.’

The beginning of this movement is quite interesting, for at that time a Bohemian man living in the north end, having read of the day nursery and of a sermon by Mr. Frothingham translated was deeply impressed, and said this is what I believe, and would like my children to go to the Sunday school where Mr. Frothingham is the minister. The children went to Sunday school, soon other children joined, and this was the beginning of our [church]. Don’t know the exact year but think it might [be] 1896 or 1897.

In other words, back in the early 20th C., at least one Unitarian church was willing to promote outreach to recent immigrants.

Rev. Mr. Fenn weighs in on “Rev.”

Researching this Sunday’s sermon found me going through the church archives to look up an obscure point, and in the process I found a letter dated October 31, 1944, from Reverend Dan Huntington Fenn, then the Director of the Department of Ministry at the American Unitarian Association. It appears that Reverend Orval Clay, a brand-new Unitarian minister just settled at North Unitarian Church in New Bedford, had sent along a church newsletter, asking Mr. Fenn for his advice and comments.

As is still the case in smaller churches with no office staff, Mr. Clay was writing, typing, and printing the entire newsletter himself. No wonder he, a brand-new minister, wanted an older, experienced minister to look it over and offer advice. However, I’m not sure he got quite the advice he wanted. In the first paragraph, Mr. Fenn compliments Mr. Clay on the many activities reported in the newsletter. But the second paragraph offers this advice (which, by the way, directly contradicts the current advice given by the Unitarian Universalist Association):

I recognized the frequent typewriter slips but one which caught my eye was where you referred to yourself as Reverend Clay. That is one thing which always does bother me because it should either be Reverend Orval Clay or Rev. Mr. Clay, or just Mr. Clay, but it is not accurate to say Reverend Clay. I have always fought with every newspaper in every community I have been in trying to get them to give up the practice but they have a persistency which I haven’t been able to yet break down. This has become, therefore, a little pet obsession of mine but it is founded upon the requirements of accurate and good English.

The current practice of the Unitarian Universalist Association is to refer to ministers as “the Rev. Firstname Lastname,” upon first reference, and then as “Lastname” alone (with no honorific) for subsequent references. I have never liked this practice; I see no need to include a direct article prior to the word “Reverend.” Now I have the weighty Mr. Fenn weighing in with a different formula which he says is “founded upon the requirements of accurate and good English.” Of course, that’s basically what the advocates of “the Reverend” claim.

As is so often the case with the English language, there is no right answer. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

“Voices of a Liberal Faith”

In the mail today, our church received one of the best marketing tools I’ve seen in quite a while. The Unitarian Universalist Association has just released a DVD with a ten-minute video called “Voices of a Liberal Faith.” Every Unitarian Universalist congregation received a couple of copies of the DVD, so it should be easy to get a look at it.

The video is definitely worth using. It’s not boring, it’s got high production values, good camera work and editing, so we’ll feel good about having it running on a TV during social hour here in New Bedford. it’s a DVD that’s cheap enough that I’m planning to buy them in bulk so that we can have enough to loan them to newcomers and not worry when some of them never get returned. Full disclosure — I make a brief appearance in the video (mercifully brief; and more mercifully, mostly they don’t show me, they show a bunch of my favorite kids from Ferry Beach) — actually, I would have been more likely to use the DVD if I weren’t in it. The real point is that while I was watching it, I immediately saw how I could use the video to give newcomers a good sense of who we are as a religious faith.

Now comes the real fun:– the “Voices of a Liberal Faith” competition. Quite a few Unitarian Universalist church buildings are shown in the course of this short ten-minute video. How many of those churches can you identify? (I lost count, so I have no idea what the total is.) Next, in how many of those congregations have you attended (or led) worship services? My answer was seven, but I’ll bet some readers of this blog can top that number with ease.

Update: In a comment, Philocrites says: “RealVideo and WindowsMedia versions of the film are now available for online viewing at UUA.org.” Thanks for the tip!

Now, what do you think of this?

In an earlier post, I asked about whether or not you would welcome “outside” teens, that is, teens whose parents were not part of your church. Now, here’s a more specific question along these same lines. In the most recent issue of Interconnections, the newsletter for church leaders put out by the Unitarian Universalist Association, someone writes in to ask:

“A 16-year-old girl whose parents do not attend our church is attending our Exploring Membership class. She assures us that her parents are OK with this, however I am concerned about allowing someone under the age of 18 to sign our membership book without our knowing what the parents think about it. How do other churches handle these situations?”

I won’t include the answer printed in Interconnections — instead, how would you answer this question? And if you immediately say that you would let a 16-year-old girl sign the membership book, how young would you go — if she were ten years old, would that make a difference, and why?