It's a great to see you all here today.
Some of you know that my Mom is a retired Minister. In her first two positions, she served as a "circuit preacher" and had to travel the roadways every Sunday morning and deliver sermons to each of three small country churches way out in rural North Dakota. One of the small churches she served had an arrangement with a local radio station to broadcast her sermons, live every Sunday. The radio broadcasts made it possible for people who could not travel in bad winter weather to still be able to partake in the worship. The broadcasts also brought a spiritual connection to people who were confined at home for health reasons.
I've always thought that live radio broadcasts of our services here at CVUUF would be a great idea to consider.
I got an email from my Mom this morning, that said "Good Luck, and if attendance is down because of the Labor Day holiday weekend, don't get discouraged -- I once went to one of my little churches on this Sunday and there were only 2 people there!"
My family and I moved to the Conejo Valley three years ago, and since then this UU community has become a vital part of our lives. I can't tell you how much we appreciate the many ways this Fellowship has welcomed and nourished us.
My talk this morning is about how our community may look in the future as we continue to share our principles, programs, and fellowship with each other -- and with more and more visitors and new members and friends who join us.
Next week we'll have our annual in-gathering service. Everyone who is present will have an opportunity to come up front and take a good look at our gathered community. If you're here for that service, when it is your turn to look out at the group and see all the beautiful faces looking back at you, I hope you'll recall some of the images we will visualize today.
The idea for today's sermon first came from a survey about the readers of the Unitarian Universalist magazine, the UU World. The data showed that the overwhelming majority of the readers of the UU World have college degrees. Well, that's no surprise, I thought. Our denomination's name has ten syllables. You need a college degree just to say it.
That brought a smile - but at the same time the data was troubling. Our message, or at least our magazine, apparently doesn't appeal to many folks who do not have college degrees. It is possible that some people out there may perceive us to be too academic, or even elitist? I hope not.
With the survey data in mind, the first working title for this sermon was "Unitarian Universalism for the Working Class." A sermon on Labor Day weekend in tribute to working people, and the importance of making our church a welcoming and inclusive place for broader populations.
So I went to our church library to start my research. While I was looking at books in our collection, I stumbled on an unexpected treasure, a little red book called "How to Preach a Sermon: A Guide for the Amateur." (Hold up the Book.) I recommend this for anyone else who volunteers to walk the gangplank up to this podium.
One of the handy hints in this book said that "Nobody complains if a sermon runs short -- but run five minutes long and people begin getting restless." So - with that in mind - I want to give everyone permission to give me the "cut" signal if the sermon runs long.
And if you're too polite to give the cut signal, no worries, you can take comfort that the Worship Committee has installed a new safety valve. Up here on stage right, there is a button. When it is pressed, that button will open up a trap door underneath my feet. So if the sermon goes over the time limit, or goes badly at any time at all - I may suddenly disappear from view. I'll be sliding down a laundry chute to the street, and you will hear piano music.
Much of today's message is drawn from articles and books I've been reading, including some great material from our church library. By the way, I hope everyone here knows about our church library. Another member told me a few days ago he has never been to the church office, and has never seen our library. That made me wonder how many others have never seen the rich collection of books that has been organized over the years, thanks to our librarian, Sylvia Johnson. If you have not been to the office, I urge you to stop by for a visit. Our library is one more example of the benefits of being part of this community.
I want to say up front a couple of things this sermon is not. Today's message is not a workshop on church marketing. It is not a proposal for a growth plan. And this sermon is not a list of things we need to do - we are already do a great job with many of the most important things that support growth.
What this sermon is, is a message from the heart. It's about the spiritual practice of growth. I want this congregation, and our denomination, to grow larger. I believe that our continued spiritual health depends on sharing our faith with others. We cannot stand still. If we don't grow, we eventually will shrink. By welcoming new members, we all grow in spirit and our community becomes stronger.
Consider our principle that calls for a responsible search for truth. We live in a veritable fog of misinformation on this issue:
I invite now you to join me for a brief exercise of the imagination. You might find it easier to follow along if you close your eyes.
Now, try to imagine that all of the images in all of our minds could be woven together into a shared vision. If that shared vision could be projected up onto a screen, where we could all see it, like a window to the future, what would we see through that window? What does our dream look like? What is our shared vision?
My friends, if we imagine what our future can be, if we talk about our hopes and our dreams, we can create a shared vision that can serve us like the rudder of our ship.
So as we take this brief moment to dream, I ask a few questions. Who will we welcome into our family? Who will be included in this community?
The imagination is a vital tool for shaping and creating the future. I hope we all will continue imagining and talking about and building a vision of where we want to go and what we want this congregation to become.
Sharing our faith is a very personal mission for me, and I'll tell you why - but first I do want to recognize that growing does present challenges.
I have sister who lives in the Midwest. She and her family of five are among the people I love most in the world. For several years we have rented summer vacation houses so our families could share time together. This year money was tight so we invited her family to come visit with us for a week at our house.
The plan for their visit sounded great and we eagerly looked forward to the date. After they arrived at our home, however, a few issues cropped up that created some stress. As an example, we found that while on summer vacation, their family likes to stay up and play music and watch TV until well past midnight every night. My family generally goes to sleep by 9 or 9:30. Our respective hours of operation created a culture clash to say the least. There were a few other culture clashes as well - and I have to admit I became grumpy at times.
Prior to the arrival of my sister's family, the thought of togetherness felt wonderful. The reality of togetherness was wonderful too - but it required patience and tolerance.
The point is that much like having guests in one's home, welcoming new people into our church family means making room, sharing what we have and what we do, and adjusting to the impacts on our familiar routines.
Newcomers being new ideas we may not have thought of before. We have to hear and consider those ideas and open our hearts to the possibility of change.
As we grow and welcome new people, the growth brings changes that are exciting and inspiring, but at times the process can be uncomfortable. But despite the challenges that growing can present, I believe that actively and deliberately sharing our values, our programs, our faith, and our resources with more and more people is an essential spiritual practice.
I'd like to share a little bit about how I got here. When I was a teenager, like many others, I rebelled against authority. For most young people, rebelling is a normal, healthy phase, a transition from being a child who is dependent on parents to an independent adult. Unfortunately, for some, the rebellion phase does not go well. In my case it was a disaster.
Phase one of Willie's big revolt was that I grew my hair half-way down my back -- a lot adults in my life at that time hated the sight of long hair on a young man.
Things went downhill from there. I became heavily involved as a teen with another symbol of rebellion, the abuse of what are euphemistically known as "substances."
It turned out I was not capable of being a so-called "social user" - to me the only meaning of social use was "if you're having one, than so-shall I."
What started out as fun and parties quickly turned into a deadly serious habit. As a direct result of this problem, I never made it past the ninth grade in school. For a few years, I became a shadowy and frankly scary person, well known to the police in my town.
During the years when I was 17 and 18, four of my closest friends, all about the same age, died. And as I attended their funerals, one after another, I knew in my heart that if I did not make a big change, the same result would happen to me.
So - with the love and support of family and some dedicated social workers, I began trying to change. I learned early on that to create a new and healthy way of life, it would not be enough just to stop the destructive behaviors and thinking. I had to replace them with something new, powerful, and positive - something spiritual.
So literally to save my life, I began searching for a new foundation - an experience of spirituality that would work for me. It did not come easily. I had always considered religion to be nonsense.
I started with nature. Every day I took a walk in a park or on a nature trail, by myself, in order to witness the miracle of nature - and I found it every time. Still today, few things are more calming and emotionally healing for me than the beauty of a tree or a stream or a bird.
A direct experience of spirituality, accessed through nature, worked for me - but only to a certain extent. I needed more - a community, a place to access spiritual values that would help my steer my life, behavior, and decisions. So I began checking out a variety of religious groups. I found a lot of things I liked.
But in every case, there was a barrier. All the religious groups I visited seemed to be so sure their dogma represented truth. I asked a few of them "how do you know your beliefs are right and that the people worshipping across the street have got it wrong? How can you be certain?" There seemed to always be one of two answers -- either a rejection of the question, or -"that is where faith comes in" -- which seemed to me like a requirement to check my brain at the door. I couldn't do it.
Then I discovered the UUs. The Minister was a wonderful woman named Lucy Hitchcock. Lucy told me that UUs support the principle that there are great truths in all religions, but that none of them have a monopoly on truth. I felt like a light had been switched on. That was how I felt about religion! I was searching for a lifeline, a pathway out of despair, a source of healing spiritual nourishment - a community that would help save my life. And after a few services and meetings I knew that I had found it. I've been a UU ever since.
So you see, from my point of view, every Sunday Service, and every program we have, is a ministry - a chance to heal someone who is hurting - and maybe - a moment when we will help to save someone's life. And that is a part of why I feel passionately about growing our congregation.
And let me make something else clear. I have been a UU now for about twenty-five years, but I have not outgrown the need to save my life. I come each week partly to be here for someone else who may be discovering our principles for the first time, but also because I need to reinforce and renew those values for myself as well. For me - our good news is never old news.
Now some of you may know that I recently did an unusual thing and participated in the taping of a TV infomercial that is now running on late-night TV. I have received calls and emails from all over country from people asking Willie is that you? - Yes, it's me. So I hope you won't mind if I borrow a phrase from the TV infomercials.
I've let know you one part of why I want us to grow - "But wait, there's more!"
As Rev. John Buehrens wrote in our responsive reading, "Blessed are those who know that the work of the church is the transformation of society."
We Unitarian Universalists stand for values that matter, not just for those of us that are here, but for our society. There is a great need for the values we UUs stand for in our nation and our world today.
Let's be clear -- if there are more Unitarian Universalists, our world will be a better place.
If we remain small and quiet, and allow our voices and our message to be invisible, then we will go unnoticed and our impact will be negligible. Society and its leaders will be able to ignore the values we UUs' affirm. The values we affirm are important. We need to have more of UU around to make sure our voices and what we stand cannot be ignored.
Now, some might wonder if the vision of our congregation attracting more and more new members is realistic. So let's think for a moment about what's going on in the larger community. Research shows that a huge number of people, maybe 50% of adults, do not attend religious services. I am sure a few of us here today used to be part of that group. At the same time, the biggest growth trend in religion is among the so-called evangelical fundamentalist churches. They are not only growing, but gaining power and influence over virtually all aspects of society.
Think about those two factors. A giant percentage of people staying home on Sunday, and the fundamentalist sects steadily growing - and then consider this - studies by the UUA show there is incredibly low public awareness of our denomination and what we are about.
Earlier this week, a good friend in this congregation told me "I was a UU at heart for more than 20 years, but I didn't know it until three years ago when I found CVUUF. I had never heard of the UUs before that. I wish I had found this fellowship sooner."
How many other people like her are there today, within driving distance of this meeting place? How many in the Conejo Valley are longing for a spiritual community, and a place to affirm spiritual values that make sense, but for whom the options they know about don't work?
Our faith's perspective, of a lifelong process of searching for truth, wisdom, and enlightenment makes sense to us. So why shouldn't we believe that our faith would also resonate for thousands of others? We offer a very unique alterative to what else is out there. Our biggest competition is not other churches, it is lack of awareness. The point is not to sell anything or proselytize, just to let people know we are here!
One of the concerns about growing larger is the fear that having too many members could cause a loss of intimacy. The need for intimacy is important. There is a plenty of literature about the ways much larger UU churches provide for this need. The good news is that we are already doing the right things.
We are blessed with a robust program of social, spiritual and educational groups that help us connect with each other in small groups. These groups are important ways to maintain intimacy, and these kinds of programs are an essential way that larger UU congregations serve people's need for sharing and connections. These programs can allow us to always be the "right size" no matter how large the congregation's membership may grow. These programs are not a new activity that would we have to start up in order to be ready to grow - the programs are already up and running and available to all of us.
The concept of a specific right size is another challenge that can inhibit growth. It's difficult to carry out. If you try to establish and maintain a magic membership number, then every time you reach that number, you would start to shrink because people always do leave and go away for any number of reasons.
To maintain a specific "right size," we would have to operate like a business I know well from my professional life - magazine publishing. Magazines maintain a number they call their rate base, which represents how many copies circulate each month. If their circulation drops below the rate base, they run the risk of charging advertisers for more ad impressions than they are really distributing. If they go above the rate base then they risk paying to print and distribute more copies than their advertisers are paying for. Going under or over the magic number creates problems, so magazines work hard to stay at just the right level. The community of subscribers is viewed as an imaginary bathtub with a line marked at a certain depth of water. The drain at the bottom of tub represents people leaving the subscriber list. The spigot at the top represents new subscribers pouring in to replace the people exiting out of the drain. The spigot is carefully controlled to supply new readers at the same rate as the loss rate out of the drain. If the drainage rate increases, the spigot must be opened up wider, and if the drainage slows down, the spigot is turned down in kind.
To mirror this process of keeping a specific membership number, we would have to become more or less welcoming to visitors depending on whether or not we have the right number of members. If a few people were to leave the congregation, then we would warm up to newcomers, but if we reach or exceed the desirable number, we would have to cool down to visitors and give a signal that new members are not really aren't wanted at this time.
This bathtub approach seems obviously impractical for a church. But there is a deeper problem with the idea that we would want to reach a size plateau and then not grow any larger.
The problem is that this point of view inevitably means we might convey ambivalence to newcomers about how happy we are to see them. Obviously, if a visitor feels that kind of a vibe, it will be much less likely they'll ever come back.
That would be in direct contradiction to our most sacred principles.
I believe we have a very clear choice to make. Do we affirm, as a group, that we should share our faith with others and seek to welcome new people into our community?
The experience of many other churches seems to support this notion of making a clear choice to share and grow. In article after article about this topic there is a consistent theme - to grow, a congregation needs to be intentional about sharing their faith. Churches whose members do not intend to grow the congregation, won't. The churches that are growing most dynamically understand growth as a shared mission.
I'd like to take a moment to discuss Worship Services, and how these weekly events relate to growing. As Worship Committee chairperson, I have to opportunity and the obligation, working closely with, Rev Betty, to dwell on this topic, every week.
I'd like to suggest a wholistic view of Worship Services and our role in these events. I do not view a Worship Service as a show that is put on for us - rather, it is a ministry that is put on BY all of us. The Worship Service includes the entire experience, beginning when you enter the parking lot, and ending when you leave the parking lot. We, the members are not just consumers of the experience, we are the owners. Everything we do or say while we are here is our personal contribution to the service. This wholistic view means we all share responsibility for the experience -- for our members and also for anyone who is visiting.
By the way, if you have never been here between 9 and 10am on a Sunday morning - I'd like to suggest you come early one day and watch what goes on. To me, that hour is one of the most exciting parts of each week's service. This place is like a beehive of people carrying out selfless commitment to out together the service and RE programs. The 9-10am hour provides a vivid illustration of shared ownership of the worship experience.
Most UU congregations get as many visitors each year as their whole membership. Unfortunately, many of those visitors do not come back after their first visit. Here at CVUUF we have some of the world's best greeters. Anyone who comes in the front door is likely to be greeted warmly. But here is an interesting statistic. Figures show that if a newcomer is greeted by seven different people, that will greatly increase the probability that he or she will return. That means that as fantastic as our greeters are, they may not be enough. We all have a role to play as greeters - if we want to share our faith and grow.
Visitors who show up on their own - not because they were invited by someone, but just to check us out -- are a special group of people. There are two main reasons that bring the majority of these folks to our door. If you think of when you first arrived you may be able to relate -- I know that I can.
Reason number one is that the person has recently moved into the area and wants to make connections in the new community. The second big reason is that some kind of a personal crisis or upheaval is going on.
Now just because these reasons are there does not mean the person wants to discuss them. A visitor may or may not want to discuss anything personal. But we can all help to make visitors feel more comfortable and welcome with us simply by keeping in mind what they might be going through when we say hello.
We here at Conejo Valley are doing some great things to share our message and make our community more visible. I am so grateful for all these efforts- for example the Faith in Action programs out in the community, and all the work being done to set the stage for obtaining a building that will become a visible home for our denomination.
I do want to mention, in closing, one other important and fairly easy way we can make share our faith. Nothing works as well as word-of-mouth ministry. Most church growth occurs because a member invites a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker, or a relative.
That is a tangible thing to do that is within reach for all of us. So here is a quiz. How often does the average UU bring a friend to church?
The answer is - d - every 27 years
I don't know about you, but that statistic gets me thinking. We all must know at least one person who might relate to what we are all about. Perhaps they would appreciate being invited to share in what this very special community has to offer.