If we were to write a mission statement for this church… Well, we have one, and it\u2019s long, not particularly memorable, and therefore not particularly useful in guiding the work of the church. What if, instead of a statement, we could set out just three words that truly define the values of who we are and what we want to make manifest in the world?
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We are talking in the church this month about mission.
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\u201cWhat should we do?\u201d is always an appropriate question for a spiritual community because the issue of purpose is a core spiritual issue.
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Churches, like this one, in the process of searching for a minister who will lead them into a new ministry especially need to have a good answer to the question because your new spiritual leader will certainly ask, \u201cWell, where do you want to go?\u201d
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And last week this church also kicked off our annual Stewardship Campaign. The Stewardship Campaign is all about dreaming our future. Affirming what we love about the church. and planning together what we will accomplish in the coming year. In short, to ask ourselves, the question of mission: \u201cWhat should we do?\u201d
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A year ago, when the Board set its goals for this church year, we set a goal of working through a process which would have started in January of examining, evaluating, and perhaps re-writing our church\u2019s mission statement. That process would have ended about now and I set aside this Sunday in my worship-planning calendar to talk about it.
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It turned out, as we got into the year and we began to think a little more about our work for this year, and then some unplanned work presented itself in the form of a water leak and flood in the church office, that we didn\u2019t have the capacity this year for a mission-review process. Perhaps we will get to that next year.
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The process I imagined was not really about re-writing our mission statement. Instead, I proposed that we have a church-wide conversation, speaking one-to-one, about what people like about our church. What attracted you to the church when you first arrived? What keeps you involved now? What do you hope we do more of in the future?
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Those conversations would result in each of us articulating for ourselves something like what Ginny Quinn spoke about this morning in her Stewardship Testimonial.
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From those conversations, some themes would emerge. From those themes a few key words could be identified. Maybe three key words. Our core values. The three elements we really love about the church. What we\u2019re really here to do and do well. Three little words.
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Three little words that would in themselves be a kind of mission statement for the church. Here\u2019s what we do. Here\u2019s what we do well. Here\u2019s what we think is powerful and purposeful and valuable about our church. A mission statement without the statement.
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Let me guess what those three words might have been:
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Justice
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Spirituality
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Community
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Now the church already has a mission statement, of course. You know that. It\u2019s published on our website. You know our mission statement. Let\u2019s all recite it together, shall we?
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No. You can\u2019t, of course. Because it\u2019s a statement. As church mission statements go it\u2019s fairly short, actually. But it\u2019s still too much to remember, and thus, not very useful in actually guiding our decisions as we\u2019re making them.
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Here\u2019s our mission statement:
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We, the congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach, affirm our mission:
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To create a welcoming and diverse community rooted in love, trust and freedom
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To lead by creating a multi-cultural, anti-racist, anti-oppressive congregation and denomination
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To take these ideals to the wider community in action and in service
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To share our values with the next generation and empower them to create a better world
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To inspire and encourage each other in our spiritual journeys
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That statement was adopted by this congregation in 2004, and was then reviewed and re-affirmed several years later. And what\u2019s not to like? Except for being too long to remember it\u2019s a good statement and a sound mission for a church.
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But here\u2019s the problem I have with church mission statements.
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Church\u2019s know what their mission is intuitively and word-smithing a careful crafted statement that then gets forgotten is not a productive exercise. Church mission isn\u2019t that complicated. Our statement could pretty much be the mission statement for any Unitarian Universalist church. That\u2019s not a fault with our statement. It\u2019s a just an observation that we don\u2019t need a statement to know what our mission is.
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The second mistake I see when churches work on mission statements is that they get distracted by the word \u201cmission\u201d to then have a too-heavy emphasis on the outward expressions of our faith. We take for granted that churches are about community and spirituality, and that therefore \u201cmission\u201d only refers to those parts of church life active outside the church walls. In fact, that\u2019s what \u201cmission\u201d means in a lot of churches. Mission work, or mission trips, means going out from the church to work in the world. Thus, a lot of church \u201cmission\u201d statements over emphasize the work outside the church and de-value the important goals for the people inside the church.
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In fact. I see that churches need to give their members three things. I\u2019ve already said them.
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Nurturing Community
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Spiritual Growth
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An opportunity to make a real difference in the world.
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Frankie Price taught me those three phrases that she heard from Harlan Limpert who was the former vice-President of the UUA.
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It\u2019s a generic mission statement that applies to every Unitarian Universalist church. We are here to do three things:
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Justice. Spirituality. Community
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Those three goals are at the core of the mission statement of this church.
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\u201cTo create a welcoming and diverse community rooted in love, trust and freedom\u201d. That\u2019s nurturing community, right?
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\u201cTo inspire and encourage each other in our spiritual journeys\u201d. That\u2019s grow spiritually, right?
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And \u201can opportunity to make a real difference in the world\u201d is the essence of the other phrases in our mission statement about being an anti-oppressive congregation and taking that value into the wider community in action and in service and empowering the next generation to create a better world. That\u2019s justice work, broadly, right?
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Justice, spirituality, and community.
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That why you come to church. That\u2019s what we offer.
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You come because you love these people. These are your best friends. The people you laugh with and cry with and were there for you and will be there for you. You come for community.
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You come because you\u2019re curious about spiritual questions and you want some prompting and encouragement to work out your answers. You want to talk about right and wrong, and values, and meaning, and interpret the news of the world in terms of the ultimates of existence. You come for spirituality.
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And you come for justice. You\u2019re here because you want to be part of a community that has a vision for a better world and is actively doing something about it.
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Nurturing Community
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Spiritual Growth
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Making a real difference in the world.
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So I imagined, nearly a year ago, when we planned to go through a mission review process, that we would end the process with three little words, our core values, and that I could share them with you during this sermon.
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When we decided not to do the mission-review process this year, I kept this sermon on my worship planning calendar, because I figured I could come up with three generic words. Justice, Spirituality and Community are probably pretty close.
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But thinking about what those three words might be, I remembered a little phrase that I learned in seminary. It\u2019s an old phrase, attributed to Plato, but adjusted and evolving through the hands of many philosophers and theologians over the centuries. It\u2019s three words. Three little words that are supposed to express the transcendent values, the best of existence, the supreme prinicples, not just for this church but for all people everywhere, the ends that we are all striving toward, the ultimate.
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Are you ready?
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The good. The true. The beautiful.
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For Plato, the good, meant the ideal forms of the world. To me, \u201cthe good\u201d means the right, the just, the kind. The morally good. That\u2019s one ultimate we seek in a church. \u201cJustice,\u201d you might say. That\u2019s part of our mission. To seek the good.
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The true, to me, means an accurate description of reality. We want to know what really is. The true is wisdom, knowledge, scientific exploration of those parts of reality available to science but more broadly a complete description. Logic and reason that go beyond science, and compassionate opening of our hearts and minds to the personal experiences of others. \u201cSpirituality,\u201d you might say. In a Unitarian Universalist church we seek the true.
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And we seek the beautiful. To Aristotle, beauty meant order out of chaos. Beauty is the attractive element that draws the disparate individual elements of creation into harmony. \u201cCommunity\u201d you might say.
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In our UU seven principles \u201cthe good\u201d comes up several times. Our second principle: \u201cJustice, equity and compassion in human relations\u201d is an expression of the good. So is our sixth principle: \u201cworld community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.\u201d
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The true is in our fourth principle, \u201ca free and responsible search for truth and meaning.\u201d And in our third principle\u2019s, \u201cencouragement to spiritual growth.\u201d
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Aristotle would call \u201cthe interdependent web of all existence\u201d from our seventh principle an expression of \u201cthe beautiful.\u201d The \u201cworth and dignity of every individual\u201d but also \u201cworld community.\u201d As an artist myself I love that beauty is named as a transcendent value for its own sake. We seek the beautiful because beauty lifts our spirits, inspires us, pleases us. In this church we strive for beauty in the art in this room, in our music program, in the beauty of our grounds, the beauty of the wildflower garden, the choices we\u2019re making in the re-design of our church office to be not merely functional but also beautiful.
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The phrase, \u201cthe good, the true, and the beautiful\u201d comes up often in our hymnal.
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In hymn, #113, \u201cWhere is Our Holy Church?\u201d The first verse asks, \u201cWhere is our holy church?\u201d and the answer is, \u201cWhere race and class unite as equal persons in the search for beauty, truth, and right.\u201d \u201cRight\u201d being another word for good that fits the rhyme scheme.
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The little doxology in hymn #380 incorporates the three like this:
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Rejoice in love we know and share,
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in love and beauty everywhere;
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rejoice in truth that makes us free,
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and in the good that yet shall be.
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So three little words
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Good, true, beautiful in their transcendent form
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Justice, spirituality, community in the form those three take in the mission of a church.
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Maybe Nurturing Commuity, Spiritual growth, and the chance to make a real difference in the world, in Harlan Limpert\u2019s language.
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Justice, Spirituality, Community
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The good.
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The true.
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The beautiful.
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May it be so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"