New Blog for Chief Officer

The Chief Officer of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, Derek McAuley, has started a new blog for those who want to know what the Chief Officer has been up to and get an insight into some of the issues facing the Unitarian and Free Christian denomination. Followers might even find out what inspires and occasionally shocks Derek.

Unitarian publicity: promoting an event

Communication – Communication – Communication

Is your congregation/society holding a special event in 2011 or do you need to promote your organisation better? Would you like help in learning how to market this occasion or organisation, give a radio interview, write a press release and put together posters and leaflets for print and your website? If so the Unitarian Communication Coordinators’ Network (UCCN) can offer you hands on help from experts in their field.

Join us on the next UCCN Workshop Weekend 25th-27th February 2011 and learn about promoting your event or group on the radio, in the press and by using posters and leaflets.

More information on the UCCN conference website or on the event page on Facebook.

The Network has no membership or committee but has always been well supported by volunteers and those enthusiasts, from throughout the movement, who are keen to develop skills and extend networks both internally and to others on the fringes of and beyond our own movement.

Hope to see you there!

UU It Gets Better video

UUA Presents "It Gets Better" Video

The UUA Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministries recently released a video in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth, encouraging them to seek out UUism as a welcoming faith community that affirms each person's worth, regardless of race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation.

The "It Gets Better" project is a collection of videos produced by people across the globe aimed to offer hope and inspiration for LGBT teens.

Watch the video now.

R Travers Herford

Robert Travers Herford (1860 - 1950) was a great Unitarian scholar. He entered into Jewish life and thought, and often described himself as a "Jewnitarian". He rehabilitated the reputation of the Pharisees from the hammering they get in the Gospels, and also wrote scholarly works interpreting the Torah and Talmud.

I have scanned and uploaded a PDF of the appreciation of Herford's life and work which was produced after his death by H McLachlan.

Some of his books are available to view at Google Books.

• Christianity in Talmud and Midrash
• Memorials of Stand Chapel
• The Prophecies of the Captivity (Isaiah XL - LXVI)
• The Pharisees
• Pirke Aboth: the ethics of the Talmud : sayings of the fathers
• Talmud and Apocrypha: a comparative study of the Jewish ethical teaching in the rabbinical and non-rabbinical sources in the early centuries
• Pharisaism, its aim and its method
  
• What the world owes to the Pharisees
  
• The Effect of the Fall of Jerusalem Upon the Character of the Pharisees
• Judaism in the New Testament Period 
• The truth about the Pharisees 

The Idea of the Kingdom of God (PDF) is available from the Cambridge Unitarians website.

As can be seen from this quote (quoted by Andrew Brown), Herford regarded all faiths as divinely inspired:

"The Kingdom of God, as the rule of God in the heart, the love and service of him, and the consequent love and service of all men as children of the one Father, that is not limited by any doctrinal definitions. No one but a Christian ever did, or ever could, work for the Church. But all can work for the Kingdom of God, not Christians only but all who consciously own God, whether Christian or Jew, Mohammedan [sic] or Brahmin, or any other of those to whom God has revealed himself "by diverse portions and in diverse manners" (The Idea of the Kingdom of God, R. Travers Herford, Lindsey Press 1929 p. 13).

I am also glad to see that the plaque commemorating the fact that Robert Travers Herford lived and worked at Dr William's Library is listed at Open Plaques.

How to create a blog-roll

Once you have created your blog, you might like to add a list of blogs that you read. This is called a blog-roll. Here's eHow's useful step-by-step guide to adding a blogroll.

In order to get to the bit where you can add a gadget, you need to click on Design at the top of your blog.

New blog

Rev Bob Pounder, the new minister of Oldham Unitarians, has started a blog, entitled Faileth Never, and his first post is a beautiful prayer for Advent that he has written, which includes lots of Nature imagery and the idea that the Christ child is waiting to be born everywhere and in every heart (so more like a universal avatar than a particular incarnation). I look forward to reading more.

The title of the blog is presumably a quote from the hymn, The King of Love my Shepherd is, by H W Baker.

Off-putting quirks

Andy of thoughtsON has some excellent points in a blog-post entitled It isn't welcoming if I can't figure out how to get inside.

All of these are excellent pointers for Unitarian congregations who don't want to put off newcomers by our funny quirky little habits.

Additional ones for British Unitarians to think about...

Remember to brief the visiting worship leader about what happens with the collection and the notices and the musical interludes. And bring them a glass of water and tell them where the loo is. (Most people do remember most of these, most of the time.)

If you sing the Lord's Prayer / Prayer of Jesus: not everyone knows the tune, or knows the same tune as you.

Children don't always like being sung out of the sanctuary with the same song. Go Now In Peace can get awfully samey. And don't get me started on that Rumi chant, Ours is no caravan of despair.

Please feel free to add your pet peeves in the comments!