Live Blogging Greenfield Group

This is an unusual post. Right now I am giving a brief tutorial on wordpress to the Greenfield Group.  I am showing how to creat a new post. This is that post.

 

Dawn in New Hampshire

We are meeting at a new place for Greenfield Group this time. In Greenfield, NH at the Barbara C. Harris Camp and Conference Center, an Episcopal Church center in the NH woods.  The setting is lovely, the rooms, wonderful, and we even have WiFi.  I am sitting this morning, before chapel in our main meeting room, listening to a variety of religious music taking in the atmosphere of the fireplace on a beautiful New England morning and I am full of gratitude.

Fireplace at the BCH Centger

 

Christ follower vs Christian series

This series of videos by Community Christian Church is a couple of years old now and spoofs the Mac – PC television ads.  They are also interesting capsules of some of the differences between an Emergent Church attitude and mainstream Evangelicals or even mainline attitudes towards religion in general.

 

What if worship was like the NBA?

 

Facebook Guidelines from Rev. Rose

Rev. Rose makes these recommendations she found on sophos.com:

ID fraudsters target Facebook and other social networking sites to harvest information about you. Sophos experts recommend you set the following Facebook privacy options to protect against online identity theft.

Think about how you want to use Facebook. If it’s only to keep in touch with people and be able to contact them then maybe it’s better to turn off the bells and whistles. It makes a lot of sense to disable an option until you have decided you do want and need it, rather than start with everything accessible.

Facebook walkthrough – adjust your privacy settings

This guide walks you through Sophos-recommended privacy settings in Facebook, and shows you how to set more secure levels of privacy and reduce the chance of becoming a victim of online identity theft.

• Profile
  Controls who can see your profile
• Search
  Allows you to decide who can find you
• News feed and mini-feed
  Controls what information is published about your activities
• Poke, message and friend request
  Controls what information you share with people you contact
• Applications
  Controls what information Facebook applications can access and share about you

General safety tips for Facebook

Adjust Facebook privacy settings to help protect your identity

Unlike some other social networking sites, Facebook has provided some powerful options to protect you online – but it’s up to you to use them!

Think carefully about who you allow to become your friend

Once you have accepted someone as your friend they will be able to access any information about you (including photographs) that you have marked as viewable by your friends. You can remove friends at any time should you change your mind about someone.

Show “limited friends” a cut-down version of your profile

You can choose to make people ‘limited friends’ who only have access to a cut-down version of your profile if you wish. This can be useful if you have associates who you do not wish to give full friend status to, or feel uncomfortable sharing personal information with.

Disable options, then open them one by one

 

Best Practice in Email from Rev. Rose

After a few conversations, Rev. Rosemary and I thought it would be wise to have some hard copy take-aways for the convocation related to her presentation which will be either video or Power Point and will arrive to us at the conference center for Tuesday afternoon’s session.

One of the handouts will be from the Church of Ireland’s Best Email Practices Ettiquette

Which I quote below:

E-mail Best Practice/Etiquette

Efficiency

1. Keep your e-mail message short and to the point.

2. The e-mail subject should be detailed enough to give the recipient an idea about the e-mail content without having to open it. Single words like “Hi” or “Hello” or “Help” are unhelpful, think of meaningful but short titles.

3. If you have to e-mail more than two documents as attachments, zip them into one file. Doing so would ensure that the recipient will not miss downloading any file. There are many programmes which can do this, such as WinZip or 7-zip.

4. Do not attach large attachments in your e-mail since not everyone is on a broadband connection. If you have to send a large file over e-mail, check first if the recipient is able to receive the file, and give them an idea of the filesize.

Security

5. When sending e-mails to multiple recipients please use the ‘bcc’ field. This will help to limit the access of potential ‘spammers’ to e-mail addresses.
Insert your own e-mail address into the ‘to’ field to prevent e-mail showing as having undisclosed recipients. Insert the recipients e-mail addresses using the ‘bcc’ field, look at the help files of your own e-mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird…) to determine how to use the ‘bcc’ field.

6. You may wish to remove your personal mobile number and the home number from the e-mail signature if you are participating in a big mailing list. You never know the kind of people who have subscribed to that list.

General Etiquette

7. Do not automatically request a Read Notification Receipt as this can seem aggressive to the recipient. Please consult your e-mail client’s help files about how to switch this off.

8. Always endeavour to reply to e-mails, especially the ones specifically addressed to you. The sender is still waiting to hear from you.

9. Do not hit the Send button without doing a spell check.

10. Re-read the message where possible before sending it.

There will also be a handout on best practices for email design:

Five tips for effective e-mail design
The advent of E-mail—one of the most cost-effective mediums—changed communications.  E-mail persuades, promotes, informs, reminds and creates buzz.  The better it works the more complicated e-mail marketing gets. What’s the best creative?  Where do you get a good e-mail list? How do you ensure delivery of your e-mail to your  constituents’ inbox? How can you know how many recipients open or read your e-mail?  What are the legal-compliance requirements?
In light of the above challenges, United Methodist Communications is providing a series of  articles on the best practices of e-mail marketing. Part I of this series covers Tips for Effective E-mail Design:
1. Design for the preview pane.
Does your e-mail message deliver its punch in a space roughly 4 inches wide and 2 inches  deep? That’s all that shows in the preview pane, the feature in many e-mail clients that lets  e-mail readers partially scan messages without opening them.  According to a report from MarketingSherpa (January 2007), about 27 percent of e-mail  readers use preview panes instead of looking at the entire e-mail. To make matters worse,  preview panes are not uniform in terms of shape and size.
Tips for dealing with preview panes
* Don’t design your e-mails too wide. About 600 pixels are as wide as you should go.
* Use text instead of a single big image.
* Make sure the most important content—a link to your Web site, a summary of the  content or a newsletter table of contents—“peeks” out of the side of the preview pane.
* Try to get your call to action above the scroll.
* Left-align your company logo. You don’t want to hide it behind the preview pane. Your  logo gives your e-mail credibility.
These steps help deliverability. Readers should be able to tell who you are and what you’re  doing in their inboxes.
2. Design for blocked images.
More and more e-mail programs are turning off images by default. Recipients must click a  button or right-click on an image to turn images on. It’s a privacy-protection measure.  When you design HTML e-mails, always assume your images will be turned off by default.  By placing your entire message into a single large image, you also risk getting trapped in  spam filters.
Tips for dealing with turned-off images
* Include alt-text for your images. Don’t make your alt-text so descriptive that readers won’t  actually need to view the images.
* Don’t put important content into images. Always use text for the important stuff. Replace  navigation images with text links.
* Use images that don’t overwhelm. Use HTML color to highlight call to action. Make it  visible in the preview pane.
* Watch font size; some filters flag large point sizes (36 points or higher).
* Another alternative to consider (if you are willing to pay for it) is e-mail certification. It sometimes can get you into inboxes with all images ON by default.
3. Balance image with text.
In response to spam filters looking for keywords, spammers have resorted to sending e- mails with one giant graphic. If you check in your e-mail junk folder now, chances are your  spam filter has many image-only spam already trapped.  When you design HTML e-mails, do not create one enormous graphic; always include some text. Images are turned off by default, and spam filters will think you’re sending image-only spam. If you send one giant image, with inadequate supporting text, you even  can get blacklisted.  Some spam filters appear to place the image: text ratio criteria even higher than the  “spammy keywords” criteria.
Tips for image-to-text ratio
* Many small thumbnails work better than lots of big graphics, even if you have enough  text to balance things.
* If your content is just one or two lines of text, don’t insert more than one or two graphics into the e-mail.
* If you must have very little text and one giant graphic in your e-mail, make sure the image is well compressed and the HTML code spotless.
4. Don’t neglect your footer.
Include an “unsubscribe” link and your physical mailing address in the footer of every e- mail campaign. That should be common sense, but it’s also required by the CAN-SPAM
Act of 2003.
Tips for e-mail footers
* Do not work the footer content into an image map.
* Do not make the text in the footer extremely tiny.
* Do not use a footer font color that almost blends in with your background.

5. Avoid being too fancy-schmancy.
Most e-mail applications support stuff like Flash, JavaScript and ActiveX. Unfortunately, that’s how most e-mail programs get infected by viruses. Most people run anti-virus  programs that check incoming e-mail for that fancy stuff and remove it (or quarantine your message).
Tips for flash and movies in HTML e-mail
* Remove the flash movie from your e-mail and replace it with a stunning graphic that makes people want to click. Include some text to balance your image: text ratio.
* Move the flash movie to a landing page on your Web site. Link the graphic from the e- mail to the landing page.
* Recent research and tests indicate more response (in case of promotional e-mails) is driven by the landing page than by the e-mail itself. (Newsletters are exceptions.) That’s why we recommend building a few solid, reusable e-mail templates, and not reinventing the wheel for each campaign. Focus on good, solid content you can e-mail quickly, and spend most of your time on your landing pages. (You’ll learn more on Optimizing Landing Pages in future articles.)

 

Install Minister

This was a light hearted and memorable moment of my installation service yesterday at Pathways Church.

 

Rev. Carol Rosine’s Response to “Emergences”

Greenfield Group, Spring Convocation 2009
Response to Frank Carpenter’s  “Emergences”

First of all, I want to thank Frank for taking us back to the Nineteenth Century  Transcendentalist Movement as we attempt to understand the challenges Unitarian Universalism is facing right now and how the Emergent Church movement might influence the direction we move toward.  Not having read William R. Hutchinson’s The Transcendentalist Ministers, I found interesting the descriptions of the different experiments in how and why to do church:  all the way from Orestes Brownson’s focus on social reform to Theodore Parker’s preaching platform at the 28th Society to James Freeman Clarke’s focus on building strong congregations centered on lay participation.

I am reminded of what happened out on the Western Frontier as the women of the Iowa Sisterhood evolved a different way of doing church.  You will recall that they did not sequester themselves in their libraries doing biblical exegesis or writing carefully reasoned theological discourses for delivery from the pulpit.  Instead they were out with the people creating networks of support and encouragement within their churches:  they started Sunday Schools, social groups, as well as groups for discussions and social reform.  They were pastors who took the time to listen to their parishioner’s stories and their troubles.  Their churches were not preaching stations but were instead homes for religious communities.

I also found interesting the connection you started to make about the Great Awakenings outlined by William McLoughlin and am guessing that if you had been able to continue this line of thought you would have made a connection between that First Great Awakening and the Fourth which has had such a major influence on where we are today.  I would like to hear more about this at some future date because, of course, societal trends are what influence the religious response, sometimes in a significant way.

You touched on the influence that European thinkers like Schleiermacher and Benjamin Constant had on the second generation of American Unitarians, but I would have liked to have heard more for it seems to me that the theological and philosophical concepts being puzzled over back then have re-emerged since the merger in 1961 and have relevance as we consider the emergent church.  It’s the tension between humanism and theism in all its forms, between religion and spirituality, between the intellect and other ways of knowing, between the head and the heart as we so often tell our parishioners.

Philip Gura, in American Transcendentalism, talks about the way in which the first generation of Unitarians were reacting against the emotionalism and instant conversion experiences of the Eighteenth Century Revivals which had been led by great theologians and preachers like Jonathan Edwards.  This first generation of Liberal Christians, as you probably recall, used reason to argue the nature of God, the authenticity and authority of scripture, and whether Jesus was human or divine.  They had been influenced by the Biblical exegesis being done by German scholars primarily and had come to believe that it was through the power of the intellect, through careful logic and reasoning that one could know God and God’s intent.  They understood that religion without reason is superstition.  It was this that was reflected in their writings and in their preaching as well.  I recall reading Channing’s Collected Works during seminary and wading through his carefully considered theological arguments, amazed that this is what his parishioners came to church to hear, that obviously this is what they were thirsty for.  Elizabeth Peabody would walk miles on Sunday mornings in order to hear Mr. Channing preach, so enamored was she of his intellect.

By the time some of their sons, however, had been sent to Europe to study, had been influenced by the European Idealists and Romantics, and returned to either teach at Harvard or assume pulpits, things had started to shift.  This second generation was not concerned with the arguments that had occupied their fathers.  Their focus was on one’s personal relationship with Spirit.  They said that God cannot be known through the senses alone, through the power of reasoning alone, but that one can have a direct experience of the Holy, a direct revelation from God.  They wanted a new experience of Christianity, one that was more spirit-filled, soul-moving, and emotional in which a deeper communion with God would be possible.  No more “corpse-cold Unitarianism” as Emerson so famously said.

Frank says that the Emergent Village began as a group of friends who were disenchanted and disillusioned by the church.  And so it was with the Transcendentalist Club as well.  They met thirty times over a four year period in order to talk philosophy, religion, and wider social issues.  Over time they experimented with new and different ways of doing church, some became totally embroiled in social issues like abolition, some established utopian communities, and others, like Emerson, believed that an inner transformation had to occur before you could join with others to bring about external transformation.  A new world couldn’t arrive, he believed for a while at least, until all hearts were pure.  And so these Transcendentalists (slippery as they are to define) moved in different directions and by the time of the Civil War had disappeared as an identifiable movement.

As I said earlier, however, echoes of what was happening back then have been heard, I do believe, since the 1961 merger.  When I first became a Unitarian Universalist in the mid-60’s, I was one of the walking wounded, relieved to find a church that would welcome a heretic like me.  I was a staunch humanist back then, an agnostic, who had thrown out Jesus and the Bible and was reveling in my new-found freedom in this church of like-minded people who were out on the streets protesting The War.  This church transformed my life and I continue to be grateful every day for finding my way to the Arlington Street Church in Boston so long ago.  In the decades since then, however, I have witnessed a major transformation in this faith of ours.  At least the faith that I am living in the congregation I serve in Franklin, Massachusetts.

In March we held a series of Focus Groups in which we asked people to reflect on what they wanted from our church, what feelings they were hoping for, what they wanted our congregation to mean in the larger community, and to then share times when they felt really good about our congregation.  Almost half of the adults in this congregation took part in these conversations.

Most people talked about wanting a spiritual community where they would be accepted and respected for who they are, for what they think and believe, where they could find some support and friends.  A spiritual community in which they felt like they really belonged.   Many wanted an opportunity to deepen their spiritual experiences, to explore new ideas, to ponder the meaning of life.  A place where they could grow into a deeper understanding of who they are and what they’re to be doing in life.  Some wanted a place where their children would be safe and loved and where they could grow into youths and adults with solid ethics and morals.  Some wanted to put their beliefs into action in the larger community and to contribute to something bigger than just themselves.  They talked about peace, kindness, comfort, compassion, gratitude, hope, joy, even love.  .   But the overwhelming response when we asked what they were hoping to find was the experience of belonging to an authentic spiritual community where they would be valued for who they are.

This is different from what we heard a generation or two ago when so many were fleeing an oppressive childhood religion, had rejected the doctrines & creeds they’d memorized, and were in rebellion against the authority of scripture, of tradition, and those who would impose conformity.   It was freedom that was longed for.  The freedom to believe that which was consistent with experience and knowledge.  The freedom to explore new ideas, to ask questions.  There was such relief in finding a church filled with skeptics, with heretics even.  This is what so many were looking for a generation or two ago.

But things have changed dramatically since then as we’re all aware.  I don’t need to go through the litany of all that this post-modern world has unleashed, but I will name that so many of the people coming into our churches are lonely and are seeking meaningful relationships.  They are, perhaps, fearful, confused, empty, and are hoping that there is more to life than what they’ve been experiencing in the secular world.  They want depth experiences, they want to hear words of wisdom whether it be from sacred scripture or the poets or the mouths of their ministers.  They want to have their hearts lifted and to feel gratitude and joy.  They want a wider perspective and more informed understanding of what is happening in the world, and to feel that somehow they can help shape what is unfolding.  They want their lives to have meaning and to make a difference.

They don’t want corpse-cold Unitarianism but an experience of the Holy that is spirit-filled, soul-moving, and even emotional, just like those Transcendentalists so long ago.

The church I serve has evolved into this kind of community for most of the folks who have joined us.  It is a place that often rings with laughter, a place in which tears flow freely, and where we lift our voices in song in order to awaken our spirits as well as light candles as we share the things that are closest to our hearts.  We are under-staffed, under-funded, overly-dependent on volunteers, but when you walk into our meetinghouse on Sunday mornings the place is vibrating with energy.

I don’t know where the advancements in technology fit into all of this.  We have a web-page, we communicate by email, a lot of us are on Facebook, we have a professional sound system and lighting suitable for theatrical productions and concerts in our eight year old meetinghouse, and sometimes we even project images onto the ceiling or a scrim during worship.  But these are just tools and, in my humble opinion, are not all that important in creating an authentic spiritual community in which each person can feel that he or she belongs.

 

Rising to the Challenge– The Video!

Thought you would be interested in our latest project in Newport. Yesterday we posted our first Channing Church video to youtube!

 

Response to “An Emergent Rev. X”

Response to Tony Lorenzen’s “An Emergent Rev. X”
Rev. Amy Bowden Freedman
Greenfield Group~ UU 2.0: Emergent Church and New Media
April 1, 2009

A Generation X Reverend Emerges

Like Tony Lorenzen, I am part of Generation X.  However, our paths to ministry are quite different.  My father discovered Unitarian Universalism on his Saturday morning drives from the suburbs to the YMCA in Cambridge.  En route he listened to WCRB, a local radio station and was captivated by the weekly broadcasts by the Rev. Ed Frost.  Now even though the Rev. Donald Lothrop, minister of Community Church in Boston, officiated at their wedding my parents had not yet realized that there was a liberal religious community inclusive enough to embrace an interfaith couple.  So, in 1973 my father who was raised Jewish and my mother who was raised Catholic, decided to attend First Parish in Waltham, MA.

Although it was the minister who brought them through the door, the religious community is what held our family over time.  Even after our move to Cambridge, our membership continued in Waltham because of the deep connections with the people of that church.  I was blessed with caring Sunday school teachers who taught the importance of moral values, asking questions, and a direct encounter with both modern and ancient teachings.  My parents became involved as leaders in the church and the wider Association.  By offering the Welcoming Congregation Workshop series as a young adult, I discovered that personal sharing and collective commitment can lead to transformation—an opening of our hearts, minds, and front door.

For me, there is no other religious movement to which I could possibly ascribe.  My Judeo-Christian identity and interest in Buddhism makes Unitarian Universalism the only religious path that embraces my heritage while remaining open to other traditions and new revelations.  Our commitment to justice, equity and compassion is an expression of our faith in the inherent goodness of humanity and our ability to bring about positive change.

The Emergent Frontier

Although I found Tony’s reflections on Emergent Christianity thought-provoking, I do not agree with his premise that the movement is our “closest competition”.  Perhaps more liberal-minded young adults will find a home in an Emergent community than in a Fundamentalist Mega-church but I believe that more young adults are drawn to spiritual practices like Yoga and meditation without ever joining any religious community.  Increasingly people without any religious affiliation are more likely to find a support group online than to seek out a local congregation.

As a sign of the times, the radio station through which my family discovered Unitarian Universalism has since been bought out by an entertainment conglomerate.  So, the question that I grapple with is “How can we use internet tools to draw people in who have no idea that a religious community such as ours exists?”

This is one reason that Peter and I created “You’re a Uni-what?” a video with a light touch that dispels some of the misconceptions about our movement while lifting up the value of belonging to a liberal religious community and encouraging people to check out their local congregation.  This video has become an introduction for newcomers posted on church websites and also a non-effacing way for members to share our religion with friends, colleagues, and neighbors.

At the time that we posted the video, the UU presence on YouTube was mediocre at best.  There has been significant improvement in this area as more ministers and congregations are using this tool more effectively.  However, instead of a haphazard smorgasbord of offerings, I would like our movement to have a more professional and deliberate online video presence including:

• Educational Tools
• Worship Imagery
• Leadership Development Seminars
• Documentaries about our History and Theology
• Children’s Programming
• Interviews with Unitarian Universalists engaged in Social Justice

Video equipment is now affordable and easier to use.  However, it takes time and skill to produce high-quality material.  How can we make this a part of our ministry?  Until professional Unitarian Universalist production emerges, we need to organize media teams on the local level and generously share our resources worldwide.  As a church following a nineteenth century model, it is a challenge to find time and energy to adopt new practices.  However, I believe that it is part of our mission to let people know that a pluralistic community such as ours exists and to spread our message of love and understanding.

Emerging Unitarian Universalism

I agree with Tony that we need to move beyond bureaucracy to community-building and active engagement.  One of the ways that I see this trend emerging in our congregations is through Small Group Ministry.  Instead of an amorphous “search for truth and meaning”, small group participants are challenged to articulate their personal beliefs and experiences.  The practice of sharing and listening in a supportive circle has made real our third principle “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.”

By meeting in members homes every other week, members are not constrained by the church calendar or room availability.  Small Group Facilitators expand the church’s span of care by fostering mutual support among group members.  In order to keep small groups from becoming social cliques, our groups change every semester continually fostering new connections and thereby strengthening our larger community.

All small groups are required to undertake a service project together.  When we first launched our program, there was resistance to this assignment.  Over time, there has been a shift in our church culture where people are actively seeking ways to be of service: supporting existing church programs, enhancing church life, and joining initiatives in the local community.  This outward focus has broadened the view of what it means to practice our faith.  “Service” is no longer just something that the Social Justice Committee does, but an integral part of our shared ministry.

Here I Stand…

One of the reasons that I became a Unitarian Universalist minister is that I am a traditionalist.  I believe in the power of the spoken and written word.  Ritual, meditation, and prayer help to center our lives.  There are few places where people listen to live music and sing together.  These practices are more important than ever in our increasingly fast-paced society.

I tend to romanticize our religious ancestors.  Especially on the days when my office and cell phones ring at the same time and church members are embroiled in heated conflict over email, I am ready to pack up for Walden Pond or Fruitlands or to start up another Brook Farm.  Sighing, I imagine a simpler life lived at a slower pace with time to read, reflect, write letters, and commune with nature and other people in a harmonious environment free from technology.

There are benefits and pitfalls of these new technologies.  I remember when the Internet first made it possible to work from home wearing your slippers.  Since then, I find myself needing to create boundaries around my time online so that pastoral demands do not completely overshadow my private life.  I have also learned that although email is convenient, it does not always foster better communication.  One of my roles as a spiritual leader is to help people understand the importance of meeting in person to talk about meaningful subjects.

At Channing Memorial Church, we are about to launch a Podcast.  Several years ago we abandoned the practice of audio-taping of services, but this idea took a while to implement.  A Media Team is also emerging.  I believe that our ministry can be enhanced as we use new media to educate, organize, provide inspiration and make public our liberal religious movement.