While we take great pride in our uniqueness of congregational polity, we have much in common with other denomination organizational issues. We may not be as uncommon as we would like think. “Organizing Religious Work for the Twenty-first Century: Exploring Denominationalism”, which began in 1997.
Roozen and his colleague James Nieman edited, Church Identity and Change, and it contains historical introductions, sociological case studies, theological essays and theological reflections on six mainline US denominations as they confront unsettled times of postmodernity, technology and growth in diversity. It shows that many denominations today are experiencing “defacto congregationalism.’ In denominations [and in Unitarian Universalism] congregationalism results in a national staff that “can no longer assume any … simple set of congregational models… it becomes much more difficult for anyone in the system to be aware of the needs and aspirations of congregations across the multiple contexts, much less develop the necessary diversity of resources for them.”
It is unrealistic to expect the UUA to be aware of the needs and aspirations of our very diverse UU congregations. I hope the new format at GA called Open Technology will provide a place for dialogue. Although it may be more like a group monologue. See the pdf file Open Technology . But it is a step in the right direction.
Nancy
http://www.uua.org/documents/courtergini/070301_openspace.pdf
Above is the correct link for the document on Open Space
Posted by: Nancy | May 22, 2007 at 07:59 AM
Can you check that last link? it seems to be a mailto not an html.
Posted by: Scott Wells (Boy in the Bands) | May 22, 2007 at 12:07 AM