What's it like at a UU church?

[MommaFox]

For several reasons. I am a Pagan, I believe in the sacredness of time and nature, I cannot seperate the feminine from the divine. I could go into a stream-of-consiousness about it, but I'll spare you. I want to find a STABLE community to worship with, and quite frankly many of the Pagans in my area are flighty. The many times local people have held OFMs they've lasted a year or two, maybe three if the group is extraordinarily cohesive. The closest UU church even has a pagan group called a "Chalice Circle" They have a Spiral Scouts group, and many other services for the Pagan community. Unfortunately, it's still quite far away in a town you can't get to from here. (Even with the new highway) I really don't want to drive that far and find myself disapointed. I'm researching them on thier website, but dial-up isn't really friendly for downloading sermons or service transcipts. Yes, I'll lug the laptop over to the book store for the free wireless and do more research there. Anyhow, what is it like anyway? Does it vary from one church to another? WHat do they teach the kids? Is there any fire and brimstone? How is Jesus presented, especially to children? They claim to include Buddhist and Earth-centered as well as Humanist views in thier services. Is that really true? What is thier library like? I'm really tearing myself up over this, and I don't know why. I guess it's a big decision, it's a long way to drive and it's on a Sunday which is already taken up with our gaming group. Any advice is welcome.

[Llyra]

First of all, each UU church is a relatively independent entity. They are congregationally-controlled, and so each one will be somewhat different. The thing that binds us UUs together is the 7 principles.

* The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.



We are Pagans, here, and we wound up at our UU church for exactly the reasons you've described, and we have been extremely happy with the decision. It's been the best thing that ever happened to our family. We've found the community you sound like you're craving.

What do they teach the kids? DD1 is only in kindy. Her sunday school curriculum consists of learning about the 7 principles in kid-terms, and of learning about the holidays celebrated by a variety of different religions, and a few of their beliefs, with no particular emphasis on the Christian belief. Those are presented as just one of the spectrum.

I'd say there are very few people in our congregation that identify as Christian. There is very little Christian God-talk in our services. They are very inclusive. The few times that a service focuses on a Christian theme, it's done in non-doctrinal way-- for example, the focus of our service this coming week is what are the lessons that we can take away from the story of Jesus' birth in the scriptures, even if we don't actually believe Christ was divine.

Stuff like that.

My kids are being taught about Jesus as someone who some people believe lived, and many people believe was God. They're taught that some of the teachings of Jesus are ones we can all learn from. They'll also be taught, later on, that there's value in understanding where Christians are coming from in their beliefs, so that we can be compassionate towards individuals, and so that we can better understand the forces that move our society.

Stuff like that.

No fire and brimstone. UUs don't believe in hell. That's what Unitarianism and Universalism were originally all about.

If your UU church is anything like ours, I think you'll be very comfortable there, from what I'm reading in your post.

Lots of UUs are gamers, too!

[Epiphany]

I am also a Pagan that is part of a UU congregation. I love it.

Llyra explained it much more eloquently than I could. I would like to add that I teach religious ed at my UU, they call it Spirit Play. It is a Montessori based teaching style and we teach about the 7 principles as well as holiday traditions from several religions. The emphasis is on questioning, learning, and growing as people rather than indoctrination in a religious ideology.

I started going to the UU mainly for the religious ed program for my children. I became more involved because I truly feel I have found a spiritual home there.

[Teenytoona]

Another UU Pagan here! I've looked at a few different congregations (there are two in my vicinity and one where I used to live), and the services can be varied, but no fire and brimstone.

We have a structured service that sort of feels free form, if that makes any sense. I'm not sure exactly, but I'd say ours has a Humanist/Earth Centric sort of flavor. There's a fair amount of music, some readings from all different sources (poem, various religions' sacred texts, exerpts from other books), times for meditative silence. It's all put together very well... My DD is only 21 months so she goes to the nursery and plays. But I'm pretty excited about the Spirit Play and other Religious Education programs. (My DSC go with DH on Sundays).

The library has such a variety of books, you just reminded me that I'd like to check something out from there!

I think it can't hurt to check out a service or two. Get a feel for it, see if it works out for you schedule and drive wise. From what I've learned, alot of UUers sort of start out slowly, a service here and there and then as they feel more comfortable start getting more involved.

[wombatclay]

Another pagan UU family here!

As pp said, each UU group is independent and other than agreeing to the 7 principals there isn't anything a UU group "has" to do or be. I've visited UU groups that were very protestant christian and others that were more of a meditation circle. The UU group we attend now is very buddhist/humanist with a strong pagan and jewish componant. The minister actually is buddhist (as well as an ordained UU minister) and the head of the celebration committee is pagan.

RE programs vary as well, this is the RE website for my UU... it gives a nice outline of what is covered in different years and it's based on one of the commonly used UU RE programs. You can also visit the Tapestry of Faiths site to see the info provided by the national UU church. I really like that the purpose of the RE program is to help kids figure out their own beliefs instead of telling them what they "should/must/do" believe.

And, like you, I wanted a stable community of open minded people so that when my kiddos are older they will have a wider community of adults and peers to turn to with questions.

[MommaSuzi]

I would think that the only people who might be uncomfortable in our UU church are the fire and brimstone type of Christians! We seem to be pretty inclusive of just about every type of religious tradition/ leaning EXCEPT the fire and brimstone variety.
Ours seems to have a strong Pagan group- I have been desperate to attend some of their functions, but somewhat intimidated about jumping in.

[Callimom]

Our UU church has a Pagan group and 6-8 services each year are decidedly Pagan in content lead by one of our Pagan members.
Other services cover everything from Muslim peace activists to ending violence against women and children, lessons from Buddha to what UU has in common with Quakers. We recently had a service about spiritual inspirations in community activism with a variety of activists talking about their how their world views shape their community work . There were Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Humanist and Pagan panel members - very interesting. We don't have a paid service leader so we have guest speakers from the community, or from the congregation. It is very varied - lol.

The Children's Spiritual development program focuses on helping kids understand UUism, place various world religions in context, and is influenced by the themes in adult services about social justice, peace activism, environmentalism. All faiths are presented as something to be respected but there is no hierarchy attached and none is valued more than the others. It's all explained as "this is what some people believe" and "here are the stories that guide them in those beliefs".

We have a very small congregation - the library is limited but very eclectic. Songs, hymns, prayers and meditations are drawn from a number of faiths/world views, thinkers and poets.

hth
Karen

[MommaFox]

Thanks everyone! There's a newcommers Chalice Circle on Monday night, and I think I'll pack up the kiddos and make the haul out there. I'll also probably drive up for the Sunday services on Solstice. We'll see how it goes. It feels like the right thing to do, I think I'm just a little afraid of the word "church" is what it is.

[stayinghome]

My dh is humanist or atheist depending on his mood, and i can't pick just one religion either... but would call myself pagan if i had to pick one, we go to a uu church and find it perfect for us. Our church has services for solstice, a labyrinth walk, meditation groups... all kinds of different activities.