I know I give the Church of the Larger Fellowship a hard time about being a “legal fiction” or an exception to every rule a congregational-polity association should have, or about useless for Christians. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think they belong, or are doing a good thing.
In fact, I think the CLF is one of the few institutions in Unitarian Universalist-dom that works programaticly to help small congregations meet their Sunday-to-Sunday needs — as opposed to long term planning — though their Church on Loan program. Go look at it.
Looking at their budget (income for those enrolled in the program) it seems the CLF has about two dozen congregations in the program. That’s quite a mission, especially since it isn’t very high on the Unitarian Universalist radar. I can imagine that in coming years, with the financial realities of the ministry, that more and more small churches will become aware of this program, and will enroll.
But the fact that CLF material (or at least as they are now) never get past the occasional Christian-flavored topic means that the small and fragile Christian churches (or those that might become small and fragile) will be effectively unserved by the CLF. Also, it means that a new Christian church “of opportunity” that might benefit from a transitional period using CLF materials, won’t.
I’m not suggesting that the CLF needs to be everything to everybody. I am suggesting there needs to be similar ministries for those unserved or under-served by it.