Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Emerald Coast
“An Expanding Vision”
Rev. Rod Debs
February 20, 2005

Why is there a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Emerald Coast?
What are we doing here?
Whom do we serve?

Asking these questions is a lot like asking, How do you get from Boston to Kansas City? There are a lot of right answers. If fact, the more creative the answer options the more interesting the journey together. I hate it when I’m told there is only one way!

A lot of us came to Unitarian Universalism because we don’t like being told there is only one way to have a good and meaningful life. In fact, most Unitarian Universalists stepped off the religious path of our childhood to become UU. As many as 80% of us came new to Unitarian Universalism. We came here choosing a different path, the path that our personal integrity demands of us.

Our religious forebears of the 1500’s have been called Radical Reformers because, in different ways they each stepped off the paths of both Catholic and Reformed traditions. Radical Reformers came in different stripes. There were the Polish Brethren and Italian Humanists, and also the Anabaptists who declared that uniformity of belief was not important because it had not been required among the earliest Christian communities. Anabaptists observed that the early followers of The Way, small groups practicing the teachings of Jesus, had widely differing beliefs and loose community organization. So Anabaptists organized their religious community around a “covenant,” a promise of how they would be together, in The Way of Jesus and without uniform beliefs.

In the late sixteenth century, Frances David, formerly a Catholic priest, then a Reformed Bishop, finally and fatally turned Unitarian: he died in a dungeon as a heretic. Frances David articulated this new perspective among Radical Reform communities when he said: “We need not think (believe) alike, to love alike.”

This being our historical identity, a community of diverse beliefs, where we covenant mutual trust and support---actually “grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith”---as many as 80% of us have come out of other traditions. Our traditions of origin never trusted its members to decide the Why? What? and Whom? Others had faith in Kings, Bishops, Priests, Episcopacy, Presbytery, or enlightened leader to deliver truth or to interpret divine revelation, but, little faith in the individual soul’s “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Though some 80% of us are “come-outers” and despite our diverse traditions of origin, among Unitarian Universalists it is historically appropriate for us all to be asked and for us to define ourselves:

Why does this Fellowship exist?
What are we doing here?
Whom do we serve?

In the light of our historical identity, I think it is significant and appropriate that our Board of Directors should charge a Discovery Team of members to carry out a Visioning Process to ask these questions of us all---including newcomers with roots in countless other traditions of origin.

Would any other group, for example, would any industry, after recruiting 80% of its employees from a whole range of other businesses would they name a Discovery Team charged to ask all us newbies to define the identity, product and market used to guide the company? Imagine being called away from your work and being ushered into a meeting room with a number of other relatively new employees, and the facilitor begins:

“Welcome to the Visioning Process of Acme Inc. I am a member of the Acme Discovery Team, and we will be leading this Focus Group today. The goal of this Focus Group is for you to answer three questions. These questions are important because your answers to these questions will guide the Board of Director’s Production and Marketing Plan for the foreseeable future. Now, before we go around introducing ourselves and what each brings to this enterprise, I would like you to know the questions we will be answering:

#1. What is unique about this company? Why do we exist?
#2. What is the product most suitable to our company?
#3. Who is our market? Whom do we serve?

As strange and amazing as it might seem for a business to ask its employees, or for any other church to do so, for Unitarian Universalist congregations that keep faith in the right of conscience and refuse to abdicate religious authority to bishop, priest or king, it is really necessary for us, all of us, newbies as well as long-timers to reflect for ourselves on:

Why this Fellowship exists?
What are we doing here?
Whom do we serve?

This morning, I propose to lead you in an exercise for creating a Shared Vision. Certainly each one of us has our own vision of Why we’re here, What we’re doing, and Whom we serve, but for our fellowship to reflect our collective vision, we must listen to and integrate one another’s vision and expand upon our own.

To begin, you will find in your Order of Service a couple index cards. By now you have probably memorized the three questions we are seeking to answer. I invite you to find a pen or pencil and as images, thoughts, feelings, and words occur to you during the exercise, jot them down on the index cards under one of the three questions:

Why does this Fellowship exist?
What are we doing here?
Whom do we serve?

Now let’s begin the Guided Visualization. I invite you to close your eyes, take a deep breath and relax. Use your imagination to dream of a compelling but practical future for this UU Fellowship some five years from now.

The vision you have of this Fellowship exists like a moving picture in your imagination. Allow that moving picture to become more explicit. Allow this vision to appear to you rather than deliberately trying to create it. As images, thoughts, feelings, or words occur to you, jot them down remembering to stay with those images and feelings long enough to enjoy them. Perhaps with your eyes half open, write the essence of your imaginary experience. Consider that you are taking still frames from the moving picture of your vision and just jot down phrases that describe these still frames.

In your imagination, approach a compelling but practical vision of our fellowship five years from now. What is the feeling of anticipation you experience as you do this? Imagine yourself approaching this community where the fellowship is located. What do you notice about the area? Who are the people that live here? What are their needs and desires?

Now in your imagination approach our fellowship location. What does the setting look like? What does the facility look like? Now open the doors to the meeting place. What do you notice? Who is gathered here? What are the activities in which the people are engaged? What is the atmosphere like? How does it feel to be here? What are the aesthetics of the building? Tour the building and visit the various activities that are occurring in the building.

In your imagination allow yourself a sense of the activities, groups, services, outreach and fellowship of congregation… as you deeply hope and imagine it to be five years from now.

Stay with whatever images, thoughts, feelings, and events occur to you. Jot down just the essence of what presents itself to you. Spend the next several minutes touring this congregation in your imagination recording snapshots of the future that compels you. . . .

Now I invite you to bring your imagination back to the present moment. Imagine for a moment that of the about one hundred people here this morning, each of us has our unique, compelling vision of what is wonderful about our fellowship, Why we are here, What we do here that is meaningful, and Whom we influence and serve by our presence and activities. Do you wonder just a little bit how others have imagined the Why?, What? and Whom? of our near future just five years from now?

I wish to dedicate the rest of our time this morning to listening to one another share no more than half-minute long snap-shots of What you see us doing in five years, Who will be served, whether participating or otherwise influenced by our Fellowship, but also share snap-shots of Why we are here, how what we do is unique and worthy. Let’s share our different views and expand our vision.

…. I would like to close the service this morning with two readings by fellow Unitarian Universalists sharing their vision of our mission in the world:

“The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.

“It is the (congregation) that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.” by Mark Morrison-Reed

“This is the mission of our faith:
To teach the fragile art of hospitality;
To revere both the critical mind & the generous heart;
To prove that diversity need not mean divisiveness;
And to witness to all that we must hold the whole world
In our hands.” by William F. Schulz