The path ahead

This piece gives a flavour of the work along the path ahead for the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches (GA), from planning and discussion with the Executive Committee in September 2019 and many others inside and outside of the denomination. Plans are of course famously good for making God laugh, and a decentralised, non-hierarchical, free-thinking religious group in a changing society is very clearly the kind of complex system where the unexpected will emerge. But this is the course we’re setting on, ready to learn from what happens along the way. Of course, the shape of these plans will depend on those who wish to get involved and help make them happen — each of these forms the start of an invitation to be part of shaping the future together.

Expressing what Unitarianism can offer. In many of my conversations, people bring up the challenge of expressing exactly what Unitarianism is; even Unitarians can find it hard to explain, and that makes it hard for us to tell the world who we are and what we stand for — made more complex of course by the fact that there are so many different beliefs, experiences and attitudes within the denomination (including whether or not it should be referred to as a denomination). This nuance is part of our identity, but doesn’t make it easy to bring new people through the door. Despite the questions and differences of opinion, I have also got the sense that there is a clear shared core, even if it is difficult to express. Perhaps it’s the sense of feeling value in being in community with people who have different ways of looking at the world, and an openness to learning from each other.

There is also a sense of tradition, often within a particular congregation or region, of ‘this is how we do things’, which is different to, but sometimes mixed up in, ‘this is what we stand for’. Someone visiting a congregation for the first time might find the ‘this is how we do things’ easier to access and it may even mask the ‘this is what we stand for’. And for some, perhaps particularly those who are from families that have been Unitarian for many generations, the need to express it is less — it is taken as read that this is who we are and this is what we do.

Now, with the number being so low of people in the UK who are active participants in a faith community, many people have no place to go where they can get their spiritual needs met. This makes me feel like there is a moral responsibility to express what Unitarian churches can offer in a way that truly resonates with people’s lives today.

The first thing to help navigate this will be a gathering to help surface the core elements of what Unitarianism can offer today’s (and tomorrow’s) society, harvesting the deep insight of those immersed in these ideas. We think that the Art of Hosting is a form that can help tap into these insights while retaining their nuance, and not trying to distill them into lifeless language.

Alongside this, we will develop a series of public events to explore the questions around the role that religion might play in our society’s future, and help to develop our understanding of what Unitarianism can offer. We’ll work with partners, and invite those who aren’t connected with Unitarian congregations too, so that we can learn from outside perspectives as well as from within. Sometimes it’s easier to understand ourselves when there’s a reflection from others. There is an opportunity for a much more nuanced discourse around the role of religion in British culture, and what it means to live a spiritual life than is currently happening in the public sphere, and we can play a role in inviting and exploring this nuance. It seems essential to me that we must explore outside of ourselves, rather than developing Unitarianism just by focusing on ourselves, and we need to play a part in expressing the benefits of living a spiritual life.

Sharing what we already have. There have never been more things competing for people’s attention, in a busy, fast-moving, increasingly digital world. It’s easy for our message be overlooked if we don’t have online and print materials that are relevant, timely, beautiful, and clear. So we’ll invest in improving our website and leaflets. We want it to be easy for people to find out how they can go to a Unitarian church for a rite of passage and how this might work, what they might experience if they visit a congregation, and what kind of welcome they might expect. This is important at a national and a local level.

Building leadership capacity. Good leadership is essential for spiritually healthy communities. For some congregations, this exists in the shape of a minister; for others there are lay leaders, or ministry teams, or a variety of roles played by different volunteers. The role of leadership in all sorts of organisations is changing; you don’t have to look far to see that those in leadership positions in politics or business leave much to be desired, and are not acting in the interests of people and planet. The role of ministry is changing too, as it must when there are changes in the expectations and needs of a community, and of our understanding of what it means to be spiritually healthy in today’s culture. There are plenty of big, difficult, and sensitive questions around the type of leadership that we might need within our denomination, how the funding and resources work to support leadership, and how we ensure access to high quality training. We will be exploring these questions carefully and collectively, and continuing to work closely with Unitarian College and Harris Manchester College, Oxford.

Supporting congregations. There is extraordinary expertise, vision and experience in many different people and places across the Unitarian movement, and very often the people doing the most interesting work are so busy getting on with it that there is no time to share their work with others. The GA will be recruiting a new staff member to help share ideas and information between congregations, connecting people who might be able to help each other, and share publicly what might help others to avoid reinventing the wheel. It’s rare that there can be such a thing as ‘best practice’, because each congregation is different, and local activity must be defined by the needs of the community. But sharing stories can inspire innovation and encourage action, and more connection with peers can give the stamina for seeing things through. So we hope that this work will help build connection and create opportunities for learning and sharing between congregations — and of course to celebrate.

Forming new groups. Developing our existing congregations is important, but to meet the needs of more people, we will need to create new opportunities for people to gather too. Creating a whole new congregation from scratch is hard, and for many people the shape of a congregational gathering won’t meet their needs. So in order to create the opportunity for more people to gather together ‘Unitarianly’, adopting a model of meeting in small groups has the benefits of having a low-ish bar to start, flexibility, and a sustainable level of organising to make each one happen. Unitarians have long been meeting as fellowships — smaller, intimate, perhaps informal groups often meeting in someone’s house — and this approach was part of wider growth in Unitarian Universalist numbers in the US in the mid 20th century. Engagement groups and small-group services like Heart and Soul already make up a big part of the Unitarian calendar in many congregations, alongside traditional Sunday services. Small group gatherings have been growing outside of religion too — women’s circles and men’s groups have been growing in number in recent years, as people look for more meaningful ways to connect and share what’s going on in their lives, particularly in times of uncertainty. I’ve experimented with setting up my own as well, when I felt the need for a different kind of space outside of a Sunday service, and with people who weren’t already part of my church community. So we’ll be developing resources and support for those who are interested in forming a new Unitarian group in their neighbourhood — whether or not there is already a Unitarian congregation nearby.

Learning and sharing. More and more, people are exploring ways of creating connection and belonging outside of religion. The How We Gather report from Casper ter Kuile, Angie Thurston and (UU Minister) Sue Phillips explored the ways that millennials are creating community in new ways, including Sunday Assembly which showed the appetite for congregation without religion. More and more people are exploring elements that used to be found in faith organisations to find new ways to bring them into their lives, and there is much we can learn from these spiritual innovators. And there may be things that we can share with them. We hope to create some opportunities to compare notes.

We are right at the start of these new strands, and now seven months into the role of Chief Officer, I’m feeling an inflection point moving from the listening and learning to taking the first steps forward from planning to action. I’ll be sharing more as we start moving, and seeking out collaborators, conspirators and colleagues for the journey.