TRANSFORMATION

“The Unitarian Church of Lincoln is a loving community, uniting reason with spiritual exploration to transform ourselves and the world.”

Each Sunday we begin our worship serving with the aspirational words of our congregation’s vision statement.  We are a community of transformation, we say, changing both ourselves and the world each time we gather.  But why do we need to transform?  Why change, especially when things are already going well for us?

There are two ways to answer that question:  First, transformation is necessary because we know that it is not going well for everyone, either in the world or our Unitarian Church of Lincoln community.  We also know that our lives are interconnected; that what happens to one person matters to all of us. So we work to transform systems, from increasing access to affordable housing in Lincoln to how we welcome new folks into our community at UCL.

Second, transformation is necessary because change is constant.  Churches are long-lived places; here we get to work in decades rather than weeks, or months, or years.  In the space of decades, everything changes. What music is popular, the average age of members, who the staff and minister are, the questions new people come in the door with – everything changes in a church over time. The question, then, is not if we will be transformed (that is a forgone conclusion) but whether that transformation will be accidental or purposeful.

We are a season of change at the Unitarian Church of Lincoln.  A large change in our budget at the end of 2023 has meant some difficult but necessary changes in staffing, described on page10 of the March 2024 newsletter. Nationally, the Unitarian Universalist Association is considering changes to Article II of our Bylaws, reframing the values commonly held among us.  Here in Lincoln, we are just beginning a process to revise and update our congregation’s Mission and Vision statements, discerning who we are and where we are going in this post-covid world.

I have been looking forward to this sermon series on transformation all year.  Over the next few weeks we will cover transformation in our individual lives, in our congregation, and in the world. Your homework over this month is to thing about the transformation you want to see in each of those realms. Transformation is going to happen, either accidentally or on purpose.  What is the purpose you want to aim for?