The purpose of UU worship services

In a recent comment, Joe C. asks some very good questions, saying: “I agree that increasing worship attendance is a worthy goal and is likely to have good side effects. The questions then become: how do we increasing worship attendance? what kinds of worship service satisfy the needs of current and future members? what is the purpose of worship services in the UU context and how do we know if we achieved this purpose?”

All very good questions. Every local congregation is going to have to answer these questions to meet their local situations. A general principle seems apparent, though: one increases worship service attendance by directly addressing the hurts and hopes of present members and friends — and this is likely to address the hurts and hopes of potential members and friends, who may then begin attending worship services.

In this context, the purpose of UU worship services is to put individuals in touch with something larger than themselves. Some Unitarian Universalists (a minority these days) might say that it is God which is larger than ourselves, and the rest of us will not wish to put God in that place. But whatever our stand on the God question, all of us will say that there are larger moral and ethical principles that should govern our lives; there is the interrelationship of all life; etc. However we name that larger principle, one primary purpose of Unitarian Universalist worship services is to remind people that there is something larger than ourselves.

A second purpose of Unitarian Universalist worship services is to put individuals in touch with a living human community. This community is literally the immediate and present community of that Unitarian Universalist congregation. More figuratively, it is the worldwide community of Unitarians, Universalists, Unitarian Universalists, and other religious liberals; and it is the historical community to which the local congregation traces its roots. It is to our living human community that we can bring our hurts and hopes. It is from this living human community that we can draw strength to get through the hurtful and difficult times in life; furthermore, we can draw strength from this living human community, and take that strength out into the world to make the world a better place, i.e., to make our hopes come true.

Thus, when we say our goal is to increase worship service attendance, we are actually inviting people to join us in connecting with something that is larger than our individual selves, and we are inviting people to share their hurts and hopes with us as we share our hurts and hopes with them. When we talk about increasing worship attendance, we are implying that there are larger ends contained within that simple numerical goal.

How do we know if we have achieved these larger goals? In my experience in congregations that have lived out these ideals, there aren’t specific metrics we can look to (unlike some Christian churches that point to how many people have been saved). Instead, what we look for is anecdotal evidence that people’s lives are being changed, both by staying in touch with something larger than themselves, and staying in touch with a living human community. This anecdotal evidence can be reflected back to the congregation in a variety of formats: some UU congregations ask members and friends to give one or two minutes “testimonies” of how the congregation has changed their lives; some UU congregations reflect these stories back through the sermon (having asked permission from those concerned, of course); some UU congregations find that “Joys and Sorrows” (or as we call it here in Palo Alto, “Caring and Sharing”) is the time when persons reflect this back; some UU congregations may find this happens during a pastoral prayer; in some congregations, this occasionally may also take place outside of worship, e.g., in the newsletter.

3 thoughts on “The purpose of UU worship services

  1. Joe C.

    Your theory of worship and church reminds me of something Glenn Turner wrote in 2000:

    “I believe that the mission of the Unitarian Universalist Church
    is to address the social isolation and rootlessness
    that is characteristic of modern life,
    to minister to the hurts and hopes of those in our community,
    to radically define our community beyond our membership borders,
    seeking to bring other people who need our support
    into our churches and into our lives,
    and to nurture deepening relationships between members
    as they share their lives and their faith together.”

    Great post!

  2. Bill Baar

    We’re having a “fifth friday” (I think that’s what we call it). Every month with a fifth friday we invite folks to Church to witness what the Church and some Church activity has meant to them. One of mine will be attending a service were two of my kids did the music.

  3. Rosemary Donahoe

    Hi Dan,

    Thanks for lifting up the importance of community Worship as the keystone of church growth and vitality.
    Embedded in your response describing two purposes of worship— putting individuals in touch with something larger than themselves and putting individuals in touch with a living human community—- I see your acknowledgement of individual hopes and hurts.
    I would suggest that intentionally putting individuals in touch with themselves is a primary goal of the Worship experience. We are busy and frantic and fragmented while we multi-task and attend to constant streams of information overload.
    IMHO a quality Worship Service provides vehicles to acknowledge our humanity, burdens and broken vows and offers a path to reconciliation, hope and encouragement to renew our vows and try yet again. Remind us that this world is not a caravan of despair. Then bring on elements of joy, celebration and community that call us out of ourselves into the wider world.
    I could go on and on about the importance of a Transformative Worship experience……

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