In the Interim, September 2019

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I am really excited to be with you for another year of interim ministry. I am very much looking forward to what we have coming up! Most of our work together in the next months will revolve around three overlapping tasks. First, we will be preparing for the developmental ministry that will follow my interim ministry. This ministry will last between five and seven years. It will be designed with the explicit intention of addressing long standing issues and patterns that have led to conflict in the past and prevented First Church from realizing its full potential. Over the next few months the Board and I will be leading a number of activities designed to help identify the goals for the developmental ministry.

Second, we will be laying the groundwork for future visioning work. In order to have an impactful future, First Church needs to answer the question: What is the purpose of First Church? The actual task of defining a vision, writing a new vision statement (and possibly a congregational covenant), will most likely occur after my interim ministry. Casting an effective vision for a congregation takes time. It requires a cultural shift within the congregation. That means an interim period is an ideal time to start preparing for future visioning work.

Third, whatever ultimate vision the congregation develops for itself, it is clear that the global crises of the hour demand a Unitarian Universalist response. We are in a period of grave crisis. Much of life on Earth is threatened by the human driven climate emergency. In the United States, we face the intertwined crises of resurgent white supremacy and the potential dissolution of democratic culture and institutions. In order for Unitarian Universalism, and First Church, to matter we must face these crises, recognize that they collectively represent a profound moral and spiritual crisis, and devote ourselves to the task of developing the spiritual practices and theological resources to confront them.

Essentially this means that we must figure out new ways of being in world, both as individuals and as a community. This year in worship and through some of our adult programs and social justice efforts we will be attempting to imagine, and live, these new ways of being. Each month we will focus on a different worship theme that is suggestive of the crises we face and the new ways of being we might develop to face them. Our theme for September is Disruption and over the course of the month we will be exploring each of the three major crises and the disruptions they bring. At the Museum District, our September 8th service will focus on disrupting white supremacy. Our September 15th service ask us to consider the question: What is a religious response to the climate emergency? And on September 29th we will devote ourselves to threats that are disrupting democratic institutions and norms in the United States. The Thoreau campus will be following its own worship schedule during this time. Look for details about it in Scott Cooper’s column and in upcoming newsletters.

Throughout the year we will be bringing exciting guest preachers and programs to help us on our collective path. Paula Cole Jones will be joining us in September to work with the Board and the staff and to offer us a sermon at Museum District on September 22nd. Jones is the founder of ADORE (A Dialogue on Race & Ethnicity), a former president of DRUUMM (Diverse and Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries) and an independent consultant specializing in multicultural competencies and institutional change. She is also a longtime member of All Souls Church Unitarian, in Washington, DC.

Throughout the year we will also be working to integrate more Spanish into our worship services. Spanish is the second most spoken language in Houston and we have a number of members who are native Spanish speakers. In an effort to have a more multiculturally welcoming service we will be including Spanish language choral anthems, hymns, and readings at once a month. We will also be singing our chalice lighting in both English and Spanish. To support this work we plan to purchase sufficient copies of Las Voces del Camino, the UUA’s Spanish hymnal for the congregation. We will be launching a hymnal drive during Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15, 2019). You can underwrite the purchase of a hymnal for $18. Hymnal underwriters will have their contributions memorialized with bookplates in each hymnal that they underwrite.

So, it is going to be a busy year! And I am excited for the work we will do together, the opportunities for personal and collective growth it brings, and possibilities of collective liberation it will open up for us! It wouldn’t a column if I didn’t close with a bit of poetry. Here’s a fragment of “Heal the Cracks in the Bell of the World” by Martin Espada:

Listen to the bells in a town with a flagpole on Main Street,
a rooster weathervane keeping watch atop the Meeting House,
the congregation gathering to sing in times of great silence.
Here the bells rock their heads of bronze as if to say:
Melt the bullets into bells, melt the bullets into bells.
Here the bells raise their heavy heads as if to say:
Melt the cannons into bells, melt the cannons into bells.
Here the bells sing of a world where weapons crumble deep
in the earth, and no one remembers where they were buried.
Now the bells pass the word at midnight in the ancient language
of bronze, from bell to bell, like ships smuggling news of liberation
from island to island, the song rippling through the clouds.

Now the bells chime like the muscle beating in every chest,
heal the cracks in the bell of every face listening to the bells.
The chimes heal the cracks in the bell of the moon.
The chimes heal the cracks in the bell of the world.

love,

Colin

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