Religion, People, Values

First Unitarian Society

Originally uploaded by psdlund

The Executive Committee of the Prairie Star District Board had it’s end-of-the-church-year meeting last weekend at the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis. I couldn’t help but notice the banner that FUS has next to it’s main entrance. I’ve seen banners here before (I believe they had the “Civil Marriage is a Civil Right” one up for quite some time), but I was especially impressed by this one since it does so well something that I think is crucial for a congregation to do in order to get it’s message out: the words on the banner offer an easy to remember, easy to understand proclamation about what First Unitarian Society believes. It follows nicely the basic threefold pattern for a memorable message: Religion making sense, People making connections, Values making a difference. And it doing so, it emphasizes both sides of the vital components of this congregation’s beliefs–religion, people, and values on one hand, reason, community, and change on the other. I wish that every member of every UU congregation in the country would able to tell a stranger what their religious community is all about in a similar clear and straightforward way.