Beloveds,

Today I am sharing with you a message from UUA Southern Region Team Leader Natalie Briscoe because it speaks so well to the realities of congregational life in this (and honesty, every) moment.

Yours in being our own version of a good small congregation,

Rev. Denise

RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“A Good One”

By Natalie Briscoe, Lead for the Southern Region

“Whatever you are, be a good one” - William Makepeace Thackeray

Every month, a great number of congregations reach out to Regional Staff to ask questions about growth. If you have experienced a decline in membership and/or attendance in the past three to five years, you are certainly not alone.

And I’m sure many of you have been surprised by how we conduct these conversations. The first question we always ask is, “Why do you want to grow?” Because our financial situation is dire. Because we can’t afford our minister. Because we have no children anymore. Because we can’t afford our mortgage. Because we’ve never had this few members. Very few folks say it is because there are people in their communities who are hurting and reaching out for love, and they have love to offer.

The next question is, “What do you believe is holding you back?” Our building. The parking lot. We don’t have enough space. We don’t have any children. No one offers programming. We don’t have any volunteers. We can’t even get a full board together. Our minister. We are lay-led. We can’t afford a religious educator. Very few folks say it is because they are not yet the beloved community that they envision.

Look, I’m going to give it to you straight: people want to go where it is fun to be. They don’t want to go where they are asked to serve right away. They don’t want to go where people don’t laugh, don’t celebrate, don’t love out loud. They don’t want to go to a space that is exactly the same as the harsh world they stepped in from. People want hope. They want beauty. They want joy. They want their spirits uplifted. There is no magic formula: people want to go where they can leave the world behind and make a better one.

You can do that at any size. You are fully equipped right now to offer everything the world needs so desperately right now. Whether there are eight or eight hundred of you, I am willing to bet you have untapped potential just waiting to blossom.

If you are a small congregation, be a good one. Your strength is in the way you know each other, the way you care for one another, the way you build strong multi-generational relationships. You are flexible and able to respond to member needs with swift agility. Your programs consist of phone calls, meals shared, and milestones celebrated. You have the ability to become rooted in local activism, seeking deep connections with other organizations working for justice. You create Beloved Community by welcoming folks into your homes and your hearts every time you gather. Give that away, and you will never be lost.

If you are a mid-sized congregation, …

If you are a large congregation, ...

Whatever you are, be a good one. Growth follows the Good.

P.S. from Rev. Denise: If you’d like to read about medium/large congregations, or perhaps the whole (very informative) newsletter from the Southern Region, this month’s edition is located here. (Be patient while it loads! Subscription link near the bottom of the page, if you’re interested in a monthly update.)

September 13, 2023

“This mornin’ a miracle happened
The risin’ of the world’s closest star”
– Willi Carlisle, “Your Heart’s a Big Tent”

Beloveds,

During some Zoom meeting I attended sometime last spring, one of our UU siblings played for us Willi Carlisle’s “Your Heart’s a Big Tent”, which sounded to me exactly like a sort of Universalist hymn (if not exactly something out of 19th century New England).  You can listen here (If you enjoy banjo & harmonica, you’re welcome. Even more fun with the crowd at this year’s Newport Folk Festival joining in!)

Willi’s lyrics and his exuberance reminded me immediately of our congregational mission statement, opening with the assertion that our core belief is the transforming power of love. He sings

I need a theory of all love
Like the heart’s a big tent
Gotta let everybody in
Doesn’t matter who they are 
If they do right or where they’ve been
Everybody gets in

And every fall, we–through our governing Board–spin a new vision of how our ministry together will serve our mission to create sanctuary and champion justice in the coming year. (You can see our mission statement anytime you need some inspiration, right at the top of our webpage: nashvilleuu.org.) This Sunday, the Board will present our shared vision of ministry for 2023-24. 

Go ahead and listen to Willi while you’re waiting…

Yours in the big tent, 
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

Aug. 9, 2023

“I know of nothing else but miracles.”
– Walt Whitman

Dear Ones,

Today I am wondering where you find “miracles” in your life. You can email me and tell me, if you like! But it’s not an assignment. And it doesn’t particularly matter to me how you/I/we define the word; I personally do not mean “outside the realm of, or unexplainable by, science”.

I know not everything in my life seems miraculous, but … (what follows is a new thought, so it could be I’m quite wrong from some angle) I wonder if everything that we experience as distressing isn’t in some way rooted in miracle. Most of the miracles I notice are small, sometimes ordinary, but always wonderful and usually delightful. 

The miracles showing up right now, as I’m planning for our next few weeks together: 

1 - The miracle of water, which underlies the miracle of life itself. Be sure to join us for our Sunday service on August 27, which will include a UU favorite–the celebration of Water communion (you are invited to bring water from somewhere important to you), which besides celebrating the life-giving miracle of water, also celebrates another current miracle on my mind =>

2 - Community! Like ours at Greater Nashville UU! Also on August 27, we are going to celebrate some new members. Every single one of us is a miracle on our own,  but together we create so many new miracles that simply wouldn’t be if we were not together. (If you are relatively new to GNUUC but ready to sign our membership book, please talk to me on Sunday or email me–soon, if you’d like to be included in the celebration on Aug. 27.)

3 - I’ve also been thinking about the miracle of life and birth and our capacity to care for one another within a framework of love that looks like justice. I participated recently in a state-wide summit for reproductive justice, and I am keenly aware that our Unitarian Universalist movement has a distinctive voice to contribute to both conversations and actions desperately needed right now. Which is why the following recent miracle in my life was extra-delightful =>

4 - Through the miracle of volunteerism, we were able to quickly fill an unexpected gap in our Summer Song schedule with a talk by Susan M. who promises to share with us her latest thoughts about abortion. I hope you’ll join us this Sunday (August 13) for her medically-informed reflections on this politically contentious but absolutely vital subject.

Yours in the web of miracles, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

Aug 2, 2023

“There is no power greater than 
a community discovering what it cares about.” 
– Rev. Margaret Wheatley

Beloveds,

It is still summer, to be sure, but August is also a time of planning and preparing for the “year” which runs from fall through winter and spring before releasing us into the fun and games and songs of next summer. At church, some planning began months ago, especially for worship and religious education, as did tentative thoughts about additional programming that wasn’t even possible to consider 12 months ago. (A congregational retreat might be fun… Could it, at last, happen again this year?) 

This month and next, there will be extra meetings to reflect on our experiences last church year and discern where we’d like to go and how we’d like to get there. Your Board will meet to articulate our mission statement for this church year. The Worship Team will gear up for some big-picture thinking about how our Sunday Service has been and how it could be. Religious educators will continue planning for this year’s spin on the never-ending process of faith development. 

During these opening weeks/months of the church year, we engage intentionally in conversations that help us discover what this congregation cares most about right now and how we want to work (and play!) together to shape the year ahead and identify the particular ways we will live into and out of the love at the center of our Unitarian Universalist tradition’s most cherished values. In the midst of meetings and scheduling and spreadsheets, we hope to discover the power of knowing what we care about and the joy of working together to create it. I hope you will watch for opportunities to participate in this work and bring your energy and enthusiasm to the shared work of discernment and planning.

Yours in discovery and care, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

June 28, 2023

“We are, in fact, the bearers of magic,
and that magic is connection.”
– Rev. Leslie Takahashi

Dear ones,

I spent most of last week participating in Ministry Days (the annual gathering of the UU Ministers Association) and the General Assembly (GA) of the UU Association of Congregations, during which I collected some quotations like the one above and all of us learned and debated and voted and enjoyed good music and installed a new UUA President: the learned, wise, and compassionate Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt.

The Berry Street Lecture (an annual part of Ministry Days) this year was particularly spectacular & timely: “My Little Pony Was Right: Reflections on Fascism Without & Within” by the Rev. Cecilia Kingman. If that sounds interesting, you can find the link to the recording, as well as information about an upcoming Side With Love webinar further exploring the topic on this page.

If you are curious about what happens at General Assembly, I suggest you start here and click around to see what recordings you can find of worship services and general business sessions.

At the very end of GA, UU theologian and scholar, the Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker reminded us that on our journey toward Beloved Community, “conflict and struggle persist, but love abides”. We can’t avoid struggle (it persists, just as, perhaps because we ourselves persist), but in all our strivings, we are held in a love that abides in, through, and around us. It is so. May we remember!

Magically yours in conflict, struggle, and love,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

Important Note:
I will be on vacation for the entire month of July (July 1-31). During that time, our wonderful affiliated ministers, the Revs. Dr. Michelle Pederson and Cynthia Stewart, will be available for pastoral emergencies. If you find yourself needing to talk with a minister, please contact the church office by email (gnuuc@gnuuc.org) or phone (615-673-7699; leave a voicemail message). Our amazing administrator, Kris, will connect you with the minister on call

 Jun 7, 2023

“The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.” 
– Alfred Kinsey

Beloveds,

My daughter is home from school for the summer, and we’ve been discussing weirdness and difference and the not-so-useful ways that “normal” works in our culture. This is a recurring topic for us, and it’s fun catching up on it after a year of new experiences in the world away from home (for her) and a year of reading and thinking (for both of us). I am currently reading this book, which in the midst of recounting the horrors of the twentieth century’s attempts to define and enforce normality, throws out the above 80-year-old quotation from a classic scientific study of human sexuality. Good fodder for our ongoing conversation, but reading this also occasioned a moment of pure joy for me–because this statement, which has the ring of universal truth to my ears, isn’t only about one narrow field of research, but about “the living world” in which I and we live and move and have our being. We are all different in many ways, and that is the astonishingly beautiful truth of what is. Amen. Glory be.  

Repeating a couple of reminders from last week’s note:

-Your delegates to General Assembly (June 21-25) are Kristin and Nat R, attending remotely; I will be in Pittsburgh for GA. Talk to any of us if you want to know more about the important business coming up for voting, and be aware that parts of GA are open to the public without charge.

-I will be on vacation for the month of July. Before I go, I will arrange pastoral coverage for emergencies, but if there’s anything about which you would like to talk, now is a good time to reach out!

Yours in all the pride and beauty and truth we can stand, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

May 10, 2023

Faith development is all we do.
Unitarian Universalism is the faith we teach.
The congregation is the curriculum.
~ Connie Goodbread

Friends,

I don’t know about you, but it feels to me that this week/month is a huge exercise in faith development. The curriculum is packed! (Translation: lots going on church for our congregation)

I hope you will join me this weekend for a number of chances to learn together: 

-On Saturday at 2 pm, we will gather to celebrate the life of David Frese, one of our founding members, with music, pictures, and lots of memories. Reception to follow. 

-On Sunday morning, immediately following our regular (learning-packed!) service, we will be treated by the Belfiglio family to a Mother’s Day luncheon in honor of the anniversary of the death of another GNUUC founding member, Barbara Belfiglio. 

-But wait, there’s more! Right after lunch, at 1 pm, we will gather for our Annual Congregational Meeting, during which we exercise democracy, voting to approve the slate of Board members and officers and the proposed budget for next church year, and conducting other important shared business.

It matters that we gather to mark loss and support each other, celebrate beloved lives that have been and continue to be well-lived, and attend to the health of our congregation, which relies upon both the relationships among us and the institutional structures which support our being together. It matters that we practice Unitarian Universalism, commit to living our values, and continue (over and over) the creation of our shared life. I hope we will see you this weekend.

Yours in faith development,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

 Apr. 19, 2023

“How could we tire of hope?-- so much is in bud.
How can desire fail?-- we have only begun
to imagine justice and mercy, only begun to envision
how it might be to live as siblings 
with beast and flower, not as oppressors.”
–Denise Levertov, “Beginners”

Beloveds,

Today I am thinking about our legislature and gun violence (still…), about public policy that not only fails to protect our children but actively contributes to the deaths of citizens of all ages, about fundraising and budgeting and democracy, about spring and new growth and possibility, and yes, about hope. 

Thank you for being a community that can hold all this with me and with and for each other. I love being your minister, and I hope you are doing what you need to do to be connected and to stay hopeful.

Yours in imagining how it might be, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

Mar. 29, 2023

“It’s hard to be human.”
–David W. Lewis

Dear Ones,

We have a mantra of sorts in my household, articulated many years ago by my partner, David, and repeated many times. (Mostly by me. I seem to have a knack for gathering wise words from others and repeating them over & over–go figure.) “It’s hard to be human” turns out to be useful in so many situations when our thoughts and feelings seem inadequate to the task of making sense of human behavior and experience. For me, it suggests that whatever we’re facing isn’t so much senseless as it is difficult and arising out of the different complexities of different lives. It also suggests that extending grace and understanding and compassion as far as we can (without violence to ourselves) may be a good default response to cultivate.

It’s been a hard week to be human in Nashville. In the aftermath of Monday’s shooting, we are feeling many things, wondering what happened and why, worrying about safety, and casting about for ways to respond to tragedy that honor those most deeply affected and align with our deepest values.

Please be gentle with yourself in the coming days and know that I am here and available should you need a shoulder to lean on. 

Please be gentle with those around you and remember that some of them may be processing unthinkable grief or riding waves of fear. 

Finally, whatever your experience of this tragedy, please consider how our sorrow and care for each other and all our Nashville neighbors might be transformed into action, working for sane and sensible gun safety laws and recommitting to building a world in which every person is welcomed, included, and supported. 

Yours in sorrow and love, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org