Sharing Global Faith

Faithful International Partnering – Proceeding Carefully and Intentionally

 

A Memo: Connecting with Unitarians and UU’s Around the World, CAREFULLY

To: UUA Ministers and Religious Leaders

From:  Eric Cherry, UUA International Office
Cathy Cordes, UU Partner Church Council
Jill McAllister and Steve Dick, International Council of Unitarians and Universalists

Date: September 14, 2012

Dear Friends,

It is so exciting to see the many ways that our UU faith is connecting around the world – so many congregations and ministers are now making a variety of international connections! We are thrilled that UUA churches and individuals are looking beyond their own doors and even beyond their own geographic communities and connecting. The UUA, ICUU, the UUPCC and other organizations stand ready to support your outreach in a variety of ways. We invite you to contact us at any point where we can be helpful. We are writing today to offer some advice based on our joint experience working with UUs here and in other countries.

Much of this new activity is aided with new communication tools that make contact easier and keeping in touch possible. Social media programs such as Skype and Facebook make it easy to learn of possibilities and to meet people over the internet.

Our UU global community is growing both bigger and smaller! Bigger in the sense that people around the world continue to discover our liberal tradition and establish it in their own countries and regions, and smaller in the sense that it is so easy to connect with each other around the world. This gives us reason to both celebrate and pay close attention, for there are good ways to connect, not-so-good ways to connect, and ways to connect which can cause huge problems. (more…)

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Sharing Global Faith – September Reflections

Sharing Global Faith gathers Unitarian and Universalist voices from around the world in a unique devotional e-resource.

Reflecting on various aspects of faith life, participants share spiritual insight into the stories and thoughts that fuel their ministerial call.

Distributed monthly from April until September 2009, the publication seeks to deepen international connections and nourish the individual spirit.

In this sixth edition, four global U/U leaders explore the meaning of HOPE to our faith tradition, reflecting on Alicia Carpenter’s “A Promise Through the Ages Rings”:


We are honored to include contributions from:


  • Rev. Adeyenke Matimoju - is the minister of the First Unitarian Church of Lagos, Nigeria.

  • Rev. Iva Fišerová – has been an ordained minister of the Religious Society of Czech Unitarians for two years. She obtained her masters at Meadville Lombard Theological School. She also graduated from Institute for Spiritual Leadership. She grew up in a Unitarian family and after the Czech Republic broke with the communist regime in 1989 she put her heart and action into various church activities, which eventually resulted into her ordained ministry.
  • Rev. Fred Muir - is currently the UUA Ambassador to the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines and has served the UU Church of Annapolis since 1984. He is the author of three books: A Reason for Hope: Liberation Theology Confronts a Liberal Faith; Heretics’ Faith: A Vocabulary for Religious Liberals; and Maglipay Universalist: The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines.

  • Rev. Janne Eller-Isaacs - along with her husband Rob, as been the co-minister at Unity Church- Unitarian in St. Paul, MN since September, 2000. Janne has held many positions of leadership throughout the Unitarian Universalist movement, and is currently a member of the UUA President’s International Advisory Council.


Continue to read this month’s edition!


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Sharing Global Faith – August Reflections

Sharing Global Faith gathers Unitarian and Universalist voices from around the world in a unique devotional e-resource.

Reflecting on various aspects of faith life, participants share spiritual insight into the stories and thoughts that fuel their ministerial call.

Distributed monthly from April until September 2009, the publication seeks to deepen international connections and nourish the individual spirit.

In this fifth edition, three global U/U leaders explore the meaning of FAITH to our faith tradition, reflecting on the well-known admonition “Stand by This Faith” by Rev. Olympia Brown:


We are honored to include contributions from:


  • Bishop Ferenc Bálint Benczédi – was installed as Bishop of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church in March 2009 . Previously, he served as minister of First Unitarian Church of Kolozsvar and has worked in Unitarian ministry for over thirty years.

  • Rev. Fulgence Ndagijimana – is a former Dominican brother who left the Roman Catholic Church to become a Unitarian. He is now the president of the Assembly of Christian Unitarians of Burundi. A father of a boy, he is active in the local civil society and works for an International organization in Burundi.


  • Rev. John Buehrens – has served as the Minister of the First Parish in Needham since 2002. From 1993 to 2001 he was the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Long a leader in interfaith cooperation for peace and justice, he currently serves as national co-chair for Freedom to Marry, as Senior Advisor to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, as a member of the Needham Human Rights Committee, as President of the Needham Clergy Association, and as President of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association for the Mass Bay District.

Continue to read this month’s edition!

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