A Meditation on the Word "Church"

We are Unitarian Universalists.
Who are we? We are a religious community, a beloved community, a congregation.
Where do we meet? In our sanctuary, our fellowship hall, our church.
What is the larger thing we are a part of? A movement, a religion.
What do we do? Some say that, together, we “do church.”

Only we “do church” the Unitarian Universalist way!

Our theology, our principles, our values demand that we accept the whole person, not just the parts we are most comfortable with. Unitarian Universalism demands that we don’t ask anyone to check their minds at the door, or to check their story at the door, or to check their language or beliefs at the door.

Just as we would never ask a person to hide a piece of his or her heritage, to “pass” as a white person, to “pass” as a person of color, to “pass” as a straight person… We will not ask our beloved community to cut off a part of itself and “pass” as something that is not whole.

Our family tree includes the heretics, the earliest Jesus followers who did not believe in a trinity, the puritans who rejected a “top-down” religion in favor of creating a community of equals where they explored their truths together. Our family tree includes the first signers of the Humanist Manifesto and the Universalist Ministers who were inspired to redefine universalism from “universal love” to “universal religion”: transcending Christianity. Our family tree includes those who fell short of their own ideals, and ours, but all of these forefathers and foremothers are a part of who we are today.

Unitarian Universalism demands much of us. It demands that we each choose, using a free and responsible process, our story, our words, our truth and our meaning. It demands that we respect the same for others. It demands that we stay in community, even though we are all different and all bring different stories and different words and different truths to our beloved community. Unitarian Universalism asks us to “do church” our way, and to translate, tolerate, and celebrate our unity in our diversity.

Who are we? We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.