For most of my quarter-century sojourn with the Unitarian Universalists, I’ve been a Christian and have held some leadership positions. I think I’m in a good position to say that in those years we’ve had better and worse times. We don’t see the full-bore Christian-baiting as once was common, but neither do I hear much from the mellow yet constant “near Christians.” Perhaps both generations have moved on. And there seems to be much less institutional activity even though the Unitarian Universalist Christians are more geographically dispersed, if fewern I sense, than ever.

Thus a chicken-or-egg question. Is the institutional change the cause of the smaller numbers, or a symptom? There are roughly the same number of Christian churches in the UUA as before, with roughly the same number of members. Perhaps the Internet Age, with its focus on self-organization and self-publication, have a role; indeed, I suspect it does. Also, I’ve known more people than I care to count that have drifted to other denominations, or have detached their affiliations. (Far fewer become non-Christian Unitarian Universalists.)

Which makes me think: Unitarian Universalist Christian institutions, other than congregations (and perhaps even them, to a point) have depended on a ministry of identification. That is, the simple fact of their existance shows that Unitarian Universalist Christians exist, and that’s an important point if the majority opinion is that you shouldn’t exist. Other programs come and go, but this persists. Luther said “Here I stand; I can do no other.” I’m inclinded to think, “Here we stand, and it’s time to get to work.”

I took a piece of paper and jotted down what the Unitarian Universalist stakeholders do.

Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship

• Point of identification (“they exist”)
• Point of contact, especially for isolated Christians
• Mailing lists for community and resource-sharing
• Newsletter for inspiration, resources and information
• Website, ditto, with extra resources
• “Revival” series of conferences
• Participation in the ecumenical Consulation on Common Texts, the source of the Revised Common Lectionary
• Public worship at General Assembly
• Publication sales and sharing
• A scholarship journal, though inactive in recent years

Council of Christian Churches in the Unitarian Universalist Association

• Point of identification
• Annual meeting for (limited) business, networking and support
• A (limited) opportunity for study

Bloggers

• Source of opinion, and sometimes theology or other resources
• Sharing news

But these are some programs or functions that would be very helpful in a growing Christian movement among Unitarian Universalists:

• Advocacy among non-Christian Unitarian Universalist decision-makers and opinion-shapers
• Presence among non-Unitarian Universalist Christians, apart from the Consultation on Common Texts and in federated congregations
• Support for Unitarian Universalist Christian ministers seeking placements, including secular work
• Coordination of field trials and feedback for liturgical material
• Publication of religious education resources
• Developing a theological rationale (or rationales) for Christian presence among Unitarian Universalists
• Discerning the distinct, non-fungible Unitarian and Universalist strains of Christianity
• Coordination of ministerial internships
• Creation and idenification of hymn resources
• Recommendation of best licenses and distribution models of intellectual property
• An opt-in service — such a directory — for in-person organizing
• Recasting and publishing classic texts in a contemporary, digestible way
• Assistance in administrating small groups
• Importation, translation and republication of foreign Unitarian and Universalist Christian literature
• Developing ministry models among young adults

Share this article

I’m glad minister and blogger Christine Robinson (iMinister) has stirred the financing-ministerial-education pot here and here and here.

Her thoughts include a reform of the Unitarian Universalist ministerial internship system, in which it is not uncommon for a family to be divided for a year. I’d add the bottleneck — there’s more demand than supply, and there’s little incentive for congregations to add internships — which keeps promising candidates for ministry outside of fellowship. She proposed an extended, alternative internship.

But let me take this one step further. Is a seminary education an essential qualification for ordained ministry? Or rather, is it a one formation opportunity among others?

I have met — perhaps you have, too — skilled professionals, epecially in the literary, design and technology world who are either self-trained or who developed their skills while working. And I’ve known persons of spiritual depth and skill but lacking a seminary education (or ordination, or both) who I would gladly have as a pastor.

I’ve seen people of differing ages hobbled by the debt they took to afford a seminary education, and have met others who came to the end of their M. Div. to discover they had no continuing calling for the ministry. But do have the bills.

And — this is the rub — there are gaps in the seminary experience you could drive a semi through.

But back to the Unitarian Universalist experience for a moment. Apart from small district-led programs and local custom, there’s little opportunity to develop as a something-other-than-an-ordained-and-fellowshiped-minister, like, say the Universalist lay preachers or Congregational commissioned ministers. So let me start there. I would welcome as a minister someone who learned the ropes of ministry on-the-job for three or four years part-time, in a medium-sized or large church, under a minister’s supervision, with evening and weekend training to round out. Call this person a “parish assistant” or what have you. This experience might even run concurrently with a college education, should that opportunity present itself.

Throughout, and certainly at the end, let a committee of local ministers interview the parish assistant, and if he or she is found qualified, let them issue a letter of license for a year.  Perhaps now’s the time to take on a sole pastorate. Review and renew, if worthy, the next year. And then a then again. And if at the end of three years — seven in all — the licensed minister has grown into a peer, let her or him be ordained.  (It’s not hard to imagine a parallel process for institutional ministries.)

There are a couple of problems of course. I’ve known a training college in Another Denomination that prepared and supported ministers like this. It was well-loved by lay persons, too. But people with seminary ties saw it as a rival and it has been bled into a shadow of its former self. Such a plan, too, would attract enemies. It also assumes a geographic density that Unitarian Universalists have in only a few areas, but in which I suspect most of the membership lives.

And then there’s inertia. It’s plain there are enough people who are willing to suffer the current system. Suffer, perhaps, but can they thrive within it. And perhaps less than thrive — can we survive with a generation or two of endebted ministers, buffetted by a largely opaque and unaccountable system?

Share this article