Adult Fellowship and Faith Development

Exploring religious truth, meaning and experience is central to our Unitarian Universalist faith, and faith development is central to our liberal religious education. In our communities and as individuals we seek lives of meaning anchored by values and a commitment to promote principles of justice, love, trust, safety, tolerance and encouragement. We want to deepen in spirit and nurture our souls; we strive to contribute to and shape the wider world for the greater good. We recognize that we are part of an interdependent web of life.

We believe that all religious education starts with the premise that we are all lifelong learners. We endeavor to make our educational opportunities holistic and transformational.

We offer classes, workshops and retreats that illuminate the mind, enliven the body and enrich the spirit. In doing so, we explore this wonderful Unitarian Universalist faith and why people through history have dedicated their lives to its life-affirming principles.

GROUNDWORK: RACE, CLASS AND COMMUNITY

A 4-part co-sponsored by the MCUUF and the Hood River Commission on Families and Children, Fellowship/Community workshop series to explore difficult and timely issues for our country and community related to race and privilege.

Rev. Joseph Santos-Lyons, a lifelong Unitarian Universalist and UU Minister will be facilitating all workshops. He is a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and the University of Oregon. Joseph completed his ministerial internship with the UU Church of the Philippines. As Director of Campus Ministry and Field Organizing for the Unitarian Universalist Association, Joseph was responsible for unprecedented growth and leadership development in the young adult community, including youth and young adults of color. His professional interests center on the intersection of liberal religion and people of color communities, with focus areas in multiracial families, anti-racist identity development, youth, young adults, and spiritual growth concerns.

As Unitarian Universalists (UUs), we are called to fight for justice and equity in our world through our principles and our ancestors who came before us. We have a North American culture, in which Western European culture is the norm and standard, and from which anything else is can sometimes be perceived as deviant. Our liberal religious faith calls for wholeness and justice in our lives and anti-racism transformation is at the heart of building healthy relationships, between humanity, creation and the sacred universe.

As a path to racial and cultural diversity, it is important to develop our own individual and congregational anti-racist identity, in partnership with strategies that welcome and receive People of Color. Through the GROUNDWORK series (sermons and workshops) we seek to explore ways we might transform our world into an anti-oppressive, anti-racist, and multi-cultural community.

Groundwork: Race, Class, and Our Community

Workshop session topics will include:
The Color of Wealth Sunday September 7 12:00 – 2:00
Race – the Power of an Illusion Saturday October 4 3:00 - 5:00
Mattering and Marginality Sunday November 9 12:00 – 2:00
Transforming our Community Saturday December 13 12:00 – 2:00

Incorporating personal experience, video, brief assignments, and Rev. Santos-Lyons’ own scholarship in the area, the series will also connect to a 4-part Sunday sermon series, by Rev. Santos-Lyons.

Children’s programs will be provided during workshops and Sunday sermon sessions. To register for the workshops, or for info contact mcuuf1@gmail.com


Focus Group
...An Adult Religious Exploration Study Group...

Overview: The Focus Group is a comprehensive Adult Religious Program combining three methods proven to be effective in adult religious education—reading and study, reflection and journaling, and supportive sharing.

Purposes:

  1. To broaden and deepen our individual and collective religious experience.
  2. To expand our knowledge of religion beyond our current collective level.
  3. To provide interpersonal support for our search of religious experience.

Dates: Specific dates to be scheduled starting January 2009.
Time: Tentative for Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9 PM.
Tentative Session Outline

Series 1 Religion ala Wikipedia
Session 1 Religion Overview
Session 2 gods, goddesses, and God
Session 3 Religion and Mythology
Session 4 Religion, Evil, Death, and Eternity

Series 2 Religions of the World
Session 1 Primal Religions
Session 2 Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism
Session 3 Judaism
Session 4 Christianity and Mysticism

Series 3 History of Religions in the U.S.
Session 1 Colonial Religion
Session 2 George Washington and Ben Franklin
Session 3 Tom Jefferson and James Madison
Session 4 U.S. Constitution and First Amendment

Series 4 Religion and Philosophy
Session 1 The Nature of Religion
Session 2 Religion as Experience
Session 3 Faith vs. Reason in Religion
Session 4 Religion and Language
Perspectives on Islam:

Workshop and Sermon series

Schedule TBA (Tentative for January and February 2009)

The Rev. Craig Moro lives in Salem and has been a visiting minister to our fellowship. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California. He has studied music, language, and religious expression in India, Singapore, and Thailand. Rev. Moro developed an abiding interest in Islam during the worldwide controversy over the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses. This led him to an intensive study of Arabic and the core texts of Islam. He has taught courses on Islam at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and Illinois Wesleyan University, as well as at several churches in California, Illinois, and the Pacific Northwest. Craig recently spent four months in the city of Leiden in the Netherlands, a center for the study of Islam in the West. He is currently studying Biblical Hebrew at Willamette University