I was blown away.
When I left the Frederick church I was pretty emotional. I wrote in this piece, Scottman Has Left the Building, about how I came to find that church and have been involved in almost every aspect of it (except doing a sermon - i'm still too shy for that part (yes, really, I'm more shy in person)
The Austin church had no idea Scottman was among their congregation (though I wore a tie-dye shirt from the Frederick church it was the one I tie-dyed, not the one tie-dyed and signed by others. This was the one that prompted my nieces to ask:"did you throw paint on yourself?"
Ok, enough stalling, Scott, tell them about the service and such:
The good news is quite good: Good church, nice congregation, incredible amount of activities (as in not just one book club but several based on your areas of interest). And remember how I tried, often without much success, to have a church movie discussion? They have their own series of movies which they will discuss. It's like there's been a twin of me here and boy has he been busy!
When I left Hagerstown I left behind an international current events group behind called Great Decisions. Not only did I find one in Austin but it's at the church.
I immediately spotted three events I want to attend there next Sunday. Specifically, the church is starting some new Convenant Groups including one for single people (raises hand), one for people looking for free things to do in Austin (raises other hand), one for (uh, oh cant type with both hands in the air).
Later I was told what they are calling convenant groups is what the Frederick congregation called chalice circles. I've been in one of those for about three years, sometimes as the co-facilitator.
I only had one criticism: My favorite ritual of the faith, the listing aloud of Joys and Concerns (usually accompanied by the lighting of candle) was not part of the service. Instead people could light candles silently and list Joys and Concerns in writing.
After the service I complimented the minister on the service and sermon but asked about the Joys and Concerns. He explained the congregation had grown too large for it. That was interesting. For what it's worth I have a joys and concern online ritual set up here.
And the sermon, Scott? How was the sermon? Now it's not really fair since a) I usually missed the sermons in Frederick because I was off doing education work during the service (I haven't yet asked about doing that at this church, figuring I should first get, say, a job, and move into my apartment) and b) I've only seen one sermon here.
But the one I saw was a doozy. It was by Ron Phares.
Before the sermon there were delightful performances, first by a choir of kids aged about 4-6 and later by one aged more like 7-9 years age.
This is how the sermon was summarized in the church bulletin this way:
"Sermon: The Death and Life of Free Will. Ron Phares. Free will is dead. The enlightenment killed it. Do we seek to resuscitate it? Do we want to? Do good and evil still mean anything? Is it possible to live a spiritually significant life without it? Where do we go from here? All these questions will be answered if the uninterrupted chain of causation and consequence determines that this sermon do so."During the course of the sermon he alluded to Malcolm Gladwell and said the words - yes, I took notes - "yes, Virginia, there is free will."
And I'm not sure how he came around to this topic - maybe I can convince Ron to post a copy of the sermon somewhere - but he had a great anecdote. I have a theory that ministers and church leaders, be they Ron talking about Free Will or Jeff talking about Springsteen, have a list of anecdotes that they pull from.
Anyway, he spoke of trying to teach a big word (synthesia, if memory serves) to a child. Later he asked the child to name the biggest word he knew. The child thought about this and then replied: "the sky."
How cool is that? He used that to make a few comments about looking at things from a different perspective (say, this is my pitch, not his, a department of peace.
I knew I was watching something wonderful when he managed to summarize an entire principal of UU - "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." (a real mouthful - try saying that one fast)
as, essentially, the "butterfly effect." Anyone who has ever seen a dozen sci-fi movies or tv shows has heard of the Butterfly Effect.
There is often much gnashing of teeth by adult uu's about how best to summarize their beliefs and talk of how to give their "elevator speech" (i.e. summarize the beliefs in a few minutes.) And I'll never forget one teen, when asked about this, why he'd do that as he never encounters elevators.
Anyway... yeah, if he can concisely summarize an entire principal in two words
then i bet Ron can make a dang concise elevator speech.
Guess I'll stay tuned and find out.
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