That’s a serious, unsnarky question. I’ve been looking at UUA.org for fifteen minutes and I haven’t so far found evidence of any congregations being welcomed. That was always my favorite part of the opening of General Assembly, but I would rather not have to dive into the streaming video all day to see.
Since the 80s, I’ve noticed that it has gotten harder and harder to get basic information about who has joined the UUA, or left, and which congregations have disbanded or gone inactive. That kind of information seems to me to be an organic, constitutive element of news. It also speaks to a culture that cares about one another and cares about growing.
So does anyone have some news?
Later. I found an answer to my question. Not a great answer, but an answer.
Four congregations affiliated. Evidently two (Pathways and Mosaic) affiliated at the Board meeting immediately before General Assembly because I can’t find a reference to their affiliating in earlier minutes. Reported memberships in parentheses.
- Pathways Church, Southlake, Texas (no report)
- Open Circle Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin (55)
- Mosaic Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Orange City, Florida (no report)
- Unitarian Universalists of Fallston, Bel Air, Maryland (37)
I also went back into the Board of Trustees minutes since the last GA and note that the Panthea Pagan Fellowship (Hoffman Estates, Ill.); Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Johnson County, Kansas; and the Unitarian Universalists of Northern Kentucky (Covington, Ky.) have either disaffiliated or disbanded. Others may have left, but the those most recent minutes aren’t available.
This is the first year I only attended the first plenary during the Opening Ceremony and only briefly attended regular plenary sessions. Since I am interested in Growth and manage the UUA’s PR email list, I find this very interesting and will pass it on to PR-L. Thanks for the info.
It’s bizarre to me that the Fallston Church has been around since that the 1950’s but is only getting around to joining the UUA now. I mean, they have a building and everything.
Yes, odd. Perhaps the original congregation disbanded or went dormant and this is more of a reorganization than a new start. There were two reactivations in recent years: All Souls Free Religious, Chicago, and First Universalist, Stafford, Vt.
The four congregations were honored at the opening plenary right after opening ceremony (as were the 7 or 8 last year). The Fallston congregation was founded in 1995 and had been associated with the Joseph Priestley District but not the UUA until this year.
Pathways I thought it was called Pipedreams.