“The world looks different today than it did fifty, thirty, or even ten years ago. The way that we experience community has changed, and in order to fulfill our potential as institutions of faith, hope, and reflection, we too must change. This does not mean that we lose our values or who we are theologically. But it does mean that the world will develop, and we have the choice of developing with it or not. Our congregations can keep exemplifying the values that were highlighted in churches thirty or forty years ago—the values of being quiet, and the traditions of separating children from worship, the idea that the church of the poor and the church of the rich were not the same places. We could do that. But, today, our values are different. What I hear from my congregation is that we value authenticity. We value the ability to connect with new people because we don’t know all that many and want to meet more. We value being with people who understand why the plight of the homeless makes us sad, and in a place where we can work every day to make the world a better place.
Of course, it looks and feels different than it used to. And there is still, as I suspect there always will be in ministry, much more work to do. But today, we are doing so many things that matter, and because of that, our church, along with so many others, is creating a new kind of hope, a new kind of Unitarian Universalism. Built on where we have come from, we are finding new ways to matter and to meet the needs of our hungry world. The mission can guide us to new ways to matter, to transform, and to connect that we have not yet dreamed of.”
—Christanna Willie McKnight, “Making it Matter”