Finishing up a thought from last month. If you had to pick one part of the United States where — all else being equal — it would make sense to start a new church from scratch and with an external push (or airdrop) because there was relatively little support available nearby, where would you go? It would have to be sizeable city with no organized Unitarian Universalist presence.
I ran the numbers and one candidate rises above the rest: Lake Charles, Louisiana.
There are three small lay-led congregations — all organized in the Fellowship Movement era — within 100 miles. All together their membership is 40. The nearest residential parish minister is in Houston, Texas. And yet the Lake Charles metropolitan area boasts about 200,000 residents.
It’s a gap in the map. Just a thought.
I’d love to see a healthy UU congregation in that part of the country. Have several SBNR friends in the area that I’d love to send to a full-service UU church… but wouldn’t ask them to drive an hour or more to a tiny fellowship that might not even be meeting regularly anymore.