Faith in Action

If I could attract 588 lesbians to dinner in Charlotte, North Carolina, think how many people you could get to your congregational events! Ok, not all 588 of them have come to dinner, but they are all members of the “Charlotte Single Lesbians Dinner Party” Meetup.com group.

I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2006, to become District Executive of the Southeast District. When I moved to Charlotte, I didn’t know a soul and my job required me to travel on weekends to visit congregations around the district. That made it virtually impossible to attend the various LGBTQ functions in the area. So asked myself, why not see if I could find six or eight lesbians who wanted to have dinner on a Wednesday night?

I started a group on www.Meetup.com and scheduled our first dinner at a local restaurant. I put notices up (all provided by Meetup) at our local LGBT bookstore and a couple other lesbian hang-outs in town, and sent some individual invitations to lesbians on Match.com (that’s a whole other story). I expected four or five women to join me for the first dinner. Within days of listing the group, forty-two had joined! And better yet, twenty-six showed up for first dinner! Within a month, we had seventy-five members, then hundred, then two hundred, and more have joined each month since. It’s now an established community where lesbians meet each other, develop friendships, have fun together, and occasionally, fall in love.

So how does Meetup.com work? Meetup is a social media site with a twist: members who connect online over a common interest, actually meet together in person. Meetup is designed for people to find each other, but unlike a dating site, its focus is to bring groups of people together. Using the Meetup.com tools, you can schedule events, sign-up members, post photos, hold discussions, email all the members, post static pages, even print name tags for your events.

It’s a perfect tool for congregations to reach out and find people. In fact, when new people move to town, especially new people under 40, Meetup is one of the first places they check for ways to connect to their new community.

Some UU congregations, like the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Benton County, Arkansas, use Meetup as their primary website. Congregations, such as Fourth Universalist Society of New York City, use Meetup to encourage fun activities for their members and the community at large. Still other congregations use Meetup to attract people who are interested in a particular faith development topic, a social justice issue, or connecting with others with particular affinity. North Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Danvers Massachusetts, for example, sponsors a GLBT Parents on the North Shore Meetup group.

For a group to be successful, you need three key ingredients:

1. A topic or affinity that people will want to connect with
2. An organizer or team of organizers who welcome new members, online and in person, and keep the site up-to-date (generally, once it’s set up, site maintenance is less than an hour a month, at most)
3. Regularly scheduled meetups to keep the group active and alive

How might a Meetup group serve your congregation and your community? How about sponsoring an LGBTQ Meetup group and hosting a monthly dinner for the members? Your congregation could provide a vital link for LGBTQ people, especially in rural communities, who often have nowhere to gather and connect. How about a Zen group or a liberal Christian group? Maybe you want to start a multicultural writing group or a jazz music group. The possibilities are endless.

Who do you want to attract to your congregation? What population could you support by offering a place to meet?  How might you extend your congregation’s reach using Meetup to doing the reaching for you?

If you have a successful Meetup story, we’d love to hear it.

____________________

Guest Blogger Annette Marquis is the LGBTQ and Multicultural Ministries Program Manager, Unitarian Universalist Association.

The following is from a recent press release put out by Reverence John Crestwell, Lead Minister of AWAKE Ministries. He can be reached at jcrestwell@uuannapolis.org.

New Ecumenical/Interfaith Service

“AWAKE” to Launch

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

MIDWEEK WORSHIP IN ANNAPOLIS TO REACH EXCLUDED COMMUNITIES AND THE “NONES”

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis has created a new, weekly worship service to build a more connected society that transforms lives and begins Tuesday, March 12, 2013 6:30-8:00 p.m. The AWAKE service has been developed primarily for younger families, couples or singles of color and the almost 20% of Americans who currently categorize their religious affiliation as “NONE.” Although these people may not worship or feel engaged at the church where they were raised, they still have a need for community connection and to be affirmed, inspired and grounded so they can reach their full potential.

“This is our faith’s conscious, deliberate and determined effort to attract and support the fast-growing religiously-unaffiliated and people of color communities,” stated John Crestwell, Lead minister of AWAKE Ministries.

AWAKE believes that all humans have a purpose; that we all must manifest our greatness in life. This weekly event will motivate people and help them gain the skills, mindset and support system they need for success in the 21^st Century as mothers, fathers, singles, professionals, and as involved members of society.  The services will be spirited with music provided by a live band featuring Juan Brown, Sr. The AWAKE Singers, featuring local artist Johnelka Stafford, will sing selections from many music traditions.  Healing touch will be available for those in need. Life Coaches will be available to help attendees grow their emotional/social literacy/life skills. The preaching will be simple, practical and emotive. Attendees are encouraged to dress casually in jeans and sneakers.

AWAKE will be led by the Reverend John Crestwell who has been a minister for eight years after receiving his Masters from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.   Rev. John also has an undergraduate degree in Mass Media from Hampton University. He is committed to working to advance the place of underrepresented and marginalized communities.

About the Awake Worhsip Service

The new, AWAKE service is a weekly worship service held on Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis. It was created to connect people from many religious paths to a modern, spiritual community. Thoughtful and inspirational themes are presented by ministers, life coaches and friends using practical real-life situations and knowledge that affirms, elevates and empowers a person on their spiritual path.

About Awake Ministries

AWAKE is a Unitarian Universalist ministry created to share our faith’s spirit and values with those who have historically been untouched by its powerful and transforming messages of generosity and hope. AWAKE is a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis and focuses on reaching out to and partnering with people of color, youth, young adults, and other under-represented, and often marginalized, members of our communities.

The ministry has many components, including:

• Mentoring programs

• Prison ministry

• Spirited weekly worship

• Life coaching

• Digital/social media

About the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis exists to create the Beloved Community by empowering and inspiring all souls to live bold and compassionate lives.  The UUCA celebrates diversity of belief and is guided by seven principles. The congregation is a place to nurture spirits and put faith into action through social justice work in local communities and the wider world.  AWAKE Ministries is possible because of the generous support of members, the UU Funding Panel and other individual donors.

AWAKE on Facebook

uuannapolis.org

UUCA youtube page

UUCA Ministers blog

John on facebook

Pod-blog

AWAKE Drive-Time Msg

GA Worship Service

In Part 1 of this blog entry, I explained the tremendous power of social media to permit anyone to broadcast to large numbers of people. It is a greatly useful too, but – like any medium – the message and its targeting is essential.

While many Unitarian/Unitarian Universalist social media campaigns appear to be aimed at existing members of our movement, my primary purpose in using social media has been evangelism. (I make no apologies for that word. I believe it is my moral responsibility to make our transformative faith visible and appealing to all who might benefit. We have very good news and we are obligated to share it.)

I want to inform the world about Unitarianism and interest them in giving it a try. To do that, I have needed to think hard about who I am trying to reach and about the sort of messages and language that will catch their interest, speak to them, and inform them – not a small challenge, particularly for a medium like Twitter where messages are limited to 140 characters.

I serve a Unitarian congregation in London, England. The United Kingdom – like most of Western Europe – is a rather secular place. Only 5-10% of our population participates with any regularity in a religious community. 40% proclaim that they are not theistic. ‘Church’ and even ‘religion’ have, to a great extent, become words that causes people to turn away. Religion is understood to be irrelevant at best and a cause of division, hatred, and violence at worst.

The first step in my communication strategy has had to be to gather an audience of the sort of people I want to reach. This works somewhat differently between social media tools, but generally, the approach is to ‘follow’ or ‘friend’ the people you want to reach and hope that they then reciprocate. If they do, then you have someone listening. If they don’t, no harm done. You can always ‘unfollow’ or ‘unfriend’ them! Follow, unfollow, rinse, repeat. Do this 160,000 times and you should have 16,000 followers on Twitter, as I do. Not complicated, just a lot of work!

Who to follow? I choose people based on their interests. This is easily done by watching what people say in their posts or tweets and what they say about themselves in their profiles. I have sought out people who are passionate about social justice, interested in spirituality, and people who proclaim themselves atheists. The last category may seem a bit odd, but in fact, the proud and even angry atheists are at least interested in the subject. As Elie Wiesel wrote “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” The angry atheists may well be more interested in hearing about religion than the ones who don’t give it another thought.

The next step is to consider what to say.

The vast majority of UK residents think they know what ‘religion’ is. They are convinced it is dogmatic, boring, socially conservative, and exclusive. My goal has been to challenge that mindset in an engaging, eye-catching way – remembering that my message has to somehow stand out amid the torrent of messages that appear at every moment.

I have used messages that challenge what is expected of ‘religion.’ Not all have been effective, but together, they help to create an impression of a faith community that is very, very different from what most people expect:

• Celebrate!: Scotland to be first part of UK to legalise gay marriage buff.ly/OohcaZ
• Gay Marriage A ‘Dangerous Experiment’ Says Catholic Church In Scotland buff.ly/LOWAva <True. Love is always dangerous!
• A inclusive faith community without intolerance in North London: New Unity bit.ly/KGHFz0
• I’m so disappointed we didn’t get Unitarian condoms to give out at Pride #lgbt #WorldPride2012
• We are proud to practice a very “queer” faith. Unitarians in North London. new-unity.org. #lgbt #WorldPride2012
• A loving spiritual community without dogma in North London: New Unity buff.ly/LIOlgo
• Our banner for World Pride parade this Saturday: “Unitarianism – a very queer religion” #lgbt #pride
• A loving spiritual group without hate in North London: New Unity bit.ly/KGHFz0
• A radically inclusive faith community without certainty in North London: New Unity buff.ly/LIOlgo
• A radically inclusive spiritual group without conformity in North London: New Unity bit.ly/KGHFz0
• Salvation Army Rep: Gays Should Die goo.gl/mag/rS2Tz
• My congregation is getting hate tweets from US right-wingers. We must be on the right track! new-unity.org
• The water we drink has more than a million molecules/L of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed… Everything is holy.buff.ly/PzoV7w
• What you call ‘I’ is an arrangement of atoms continually exchanging with other living things. How can we think we are alone?
• I consider a faith to be “true” to the extent that it makes us more compassionate, connected, and justice-seeking.
• I am surprised at how many people can’t imagine religious/spiritual atheism. My congregation has lots! new-unity.org
• Dear God, Do you exist? If so, will you please @reply me? I await your #word.
• Dear God – Did you get my tweet? Surely an all-powerful deity can get onto Twitter, no?
• God is not responding to my tweets. Has God blocked me? 🙁 #deargod
• #Unitarianism – a religion unlike others. Leave judgement & homophobia outside. Bring your reason in with you! BBC:buff.ly/MrdNZJ
• Spirituality – conformity = Unitarian. BBC: buff.ly/MrdNZJ
• Where can atheists meditate, do yoga, pray, sing, love, discuss, support, and do social justice in N London? new-unity.org
• I am a deeply religious nonbeliever – this is a somewhat new kind of religion. – Einstein sounds Unitarian!goo.gl/nnrDv
• Unitarianism = #religionforatheists (and others too)ht.ly/9YPo7

Some of these may be shocking or even blasphemous. They need to be edgy in order to break through two challenging barriers: the high volume of social media messages and the widespread assumption of what ‘religion’ is and is not.

Many of these messages have been seen and repeated (retweeted) by others. Many have driven traffic to my congregation’s web site. We have been at least modestly successful at getting Unitarianism known by more people, changing minds, and even at having more newcomers show up at a Sunday service.

These messages are intended for an urban British context. Your context is almost certainly different. The key questions are the same: Who is your audience? What is your message? How can you say it so they will pay attention?

_____________________

Guest Blogger: Andrew Pakula is the minister of New Unity in London, England.  He also writes for the blog Throw Yourself Like Seeds.

Social media is a new way of communicating that has turned the traditional broadcast communication paradigm on its head. Social media permits anyone to be broadcast to the public – something that in the past was a privilege limited to wealthy individuals and corporations.  Beginning with blogs and then moving to the more agile, fast-moving media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and more, social media has created all kinds of new opportunities to communicate with people all over the world – people we know and total strangers.

It has become so easy to send messages to all sorts of people that we are now nearly inundated in an ocean of messages. Some people want to tell us to buy something. Some want to tell us what they think. Many just want to tell us what they’ve seen or even what they had to eat.

As Unitarians or Unitarian Universalists, we are people who love and benefit from a faith tradition that we know can be transformative and welcoming for so many people the world over. Most of those people have not even heard of us! Most of those who have heard of us lack any realistic sense of who we are or what our movement is about.

Social media presents a new opportunity to communicate with some of these people in the larger world. Many of us have tried to take advantage of this new media and we have done so with varying degrees of success.

Because of its easy, we are easily tempted to forget some of the basic rules of communication. Primary among those are three:

1. Know who you’re trying to communicate with.
2. know what you are trying to tell them.
3. Know how to get your message heard.

Guest Blogger: Andrew Pakula is the minister of New Unity in London, England.  He also writes for the blog Throw Yourself Like Seeds.