I'm skipping church today! I love our little Unity Church, right in our neighborhood, but as soon as church begins to feel obligatory, I'm inclined to opt out for a while. This, after years of going to church because I felt I should (not to be saved, mind you, but because my husband wanted to go and it was good for family unity, blah, blah, blah). I have gotten over this.
We've been attending this Unity Church just a few months, and some of my blog readers have been wondering what a Unity church is all about. Unity is actually the Unity School of Christianity. Here are the basic beliefs/ideas, which I found on the www.unityonline.org website:
What are Unity’s basic teachings?We encourage you to explore and apply Unity teachings based on your own spiritual understanding. We believe this spiritual understanding is enhanced through reflective prayer and meditation. The five basic ideas that make up the Unity belief system are: 1) God is the source and creator of all. There is no other enduring power. God is good and present everywhere. 2) We are spiritual beings, created in God’s image. The spirit of God lives within each person; therefore, all people are inherently good. 3) We create our life experiences through our way of thinking. 4) There is power in affirmative prayer, which we believe increases our connection to God. 5) Knowledge of these spiritual principles is not enough. We must live them.
What I appreciate most about Unity is the focus on the positive. I've gotten myself very tired of hearing about sin and my sinfulness and how I need Jesus to SAVE me. At Unity you don't hear about these things. That doesn't mean we're all hunky-dory fine and no problems, but the FOCUS isn't on the problems but more on the solutions. And the solution is often *simply* to look at things in a positive light, at any "problems" as a learning experience, to move on and grow and not sit there feeling like a sinful victim all the time. Unity still talks about Jesus, but less as a Savior and more of an example, a teacher, and a light to the world whom God sent just as God sends us all to be a light.
Boy, this is hard to talk about religious beliefs! I'm not trying to impose mine on anyone. In fact, I don't even really feel a strong connection or membership in the Unity church--it's just working for me currently. I have been needing to hear its positive messages for a long time. But, not today even. Today I needed to stay home and drink tea and write my blog. And that's okay with me. No obligation for me, or anyone.
Now, I know all the arguments for why we should go to church, build community, stay with it even when it's not fun or doesn't "feel good" for us today. I can see the need for such communities to exist in our society. And heck, I was going to be a Pastor myself, for goodness' sake! I had to believe those things in order to get others to believe them in order for the church to go on in order for me to have a job and make a living!
I loved growing up Lutheran. I loved having my Scandinavian, Minnesota Lutheranism be a big part of my identity (it still is and I still do love it, in fact). I particularly loved going to a Lutheran college and then seminary. I felt so at home there. And I loved it so much I studied to be a Lutheran Pastor. However, this love and idealism that I held for the church also burned me strongly when things didn't work out quite the way I had hoped.
When I was an Intern Pastor in 1994-95, serving a church in northeastern Iowa, a major conflict broke out. One that had been brewing for years. And exploded right on top of me and my supervising Pastor, right in that one short year that I was a youthful 20-something, naive student Pastor. My heart was broken. It was an extremely painful time. The conflict was directed at the Pastor, my Supervisor, but I was right there in the middle of it.
The main "accusers" of the Pastor had befriended me in the few months I'd been in Iowa, and had become like family to me (they'd even introduced me to George, who would become my husband--read story below). But I had to make this huge decision. Who did I support? My friends or my supervisor? Well, I did what I thought was right even though in my mind there was no clear answer. I supported my supervisor. I lost friends. I had to stand up and state my allegiance in a crowd of people at a "special meeting" of the Church council and members. People were there who hadn't stepped foot in the church for twenty years because they didn't like the Pastor but had to come and see him "put on trial" as it were. And it felt like a trial! It felt like a witch hunt. Essentially it was. But nobody won. Nobody lost their life (except maybe me who suddenly lost any interest in what I had considered to be my life's calling), but nobody won much either.
The group of people who had a problem with the Pastor all left for the other Lutheran church in town (I guess that's why it's good to have two, even in a town of 3000!). The Pastor stayed on another ten years until his retirement recently. And I finished out the second six months of my internship, doing a fine job even as my heart became less and less in it as the year went on. I didn't return to the Seminary for my final year, but was now happily married. As I just love to point out, I got my M.R.S. degree out of the whole deal! ha, ha
So, why did I write all that? Well, it's a big part of what's landed us in a Unity Church. Also part of why I often don't go to church at all. Oh, for years I did. We lived in Iowa for three years after my internship ended. I wouldn't have dared to quit attending church while there. For some reason, "saving face" in the church was still important to me. And it stayed that way for several years after we moved to Minnesota, too, where we joined another Lutheran church and I begrudgingly attended every Sunday in order to "look good". George had become a Lutheran for my sake, after all! (No, I did not ever ask him to. He volunteered.) This gave me another sense of obligation. I had to attend church with my husband, who is generally devout wherever he's attending (he was raised Catholic after all, and he just likes church I think).
We found this little Unity Church with its different, positive focus but still talk of Jesus and it felt/feels comfortable for me most of the time. George loves it, too. He also needs to hear about how GOOD he is, not how bad. And about how positive thinking, rather than worry, can get us just where we want and need to be. It's wonderful!
But it's not perfect. Nothing is. My take on religion/religions is that they're all ways we humans with our limited minds here on earth can talk about God/god/Goddess/Spirit/the Divine/etc. And that is all mainly based on a feeling many of us have that this just isn't all there is. That we're not alone. And, for me, that there's a positive, loving Presence in the Universe who we're missing very much.
So wow, a long post. A difficult topic. But somebody asked! (On another, more brave day I'll talk about how I'm really more of a Pagan now than anything, and about the Second Sight.)
We've been attending this Unity Church just a few months, and some of my blog readers have been wondering what a Unity church is all about. Unity is actually the Unity School of Christianity. Here are the basic beliefs/ideas, which I found on the www.unityonline.org website:
What are Unity’s basic teachings?We encourage you to explore and apply Unity teachings based on your own spiritual understanding. We believe this spiritual understanding is enhanced through reflective prayer and meditation. The five basic ideas that make up the Unity belief system are: 1) God is the source and creator of all. There is no other enduring power. God is good and present everywhere. 2) We are spiritual beings, created in God’s image. The spirit of God lives within each person; therefore, all people are inherently good. 3) We create our life experiences through our way of thinking. 4) There is power in affirmative prayer, which we believe increases our connection to God. 5) Knowledge of these spiritual principles is not enough. We must live them.
What I appreciate most about Unity is the focus on the positive. I've gotten myself very tired of hearing about sin and my sinfulness and how I need Jesus to SAVE me. At Unity you don't hear about these things. That doesn't mean we're all hunky-dory fine and no problems, but the FOCUS isn't on the problems but more on the solutions. And the solution is often *simply* to look at things in a positive light, at any "problems" as a learning experience, to move on and grow and not sit there feeling like a sinful victim all the time. Unity still talks about Jesus, but less as a Savior and more of an example, a teacher, and a light to the world whom God sent just as God sends us all to be a light.
Boy, this is hard to talk about religious beliefs! I'm not trying to impose mine on anyone. In fact, I don't even really feel a strong connection or membership in the Unity church--it's just working for me currently. I have been needing to hear its positive messages for a long time. But, not today even. Today I needed to stay home and drink tea and write my blog. And that's okay with me. No obligation for me, or anyone.
Now, I know all the arguments for why we should go to church, build community, stay with it even when it's not fun or doesn't "feel good" for us today. I can see the need for such communities to exist in our society. And heck, I was going to be a Pastor myself, for goodness' sake! I had to believe those things in order to get others to believe them in order for the church to go on in order for me to have a job and make a living!
I loved growing up Lutheran. I loved having my Scandinavian, Minnesota Lutheranism be a big part of my identity (it still is and I still do love it, in fact). I particularly loved going to a Lutheran college and then seminary. I felt so at home there. And I loved it so much I studied to be a Lutheran Pastor. However, this love and idealism that I held for the church also burned me strongly when things didn't work out quite the way I had hoped.
When I was an Intern Pastor in 1994-95, serving a church in northeastern Iowa, a major conflict broke out. One that had been brewing for years. And exploded right on top of me and my supervising Pastor, right in that one short year that I was a youthful 20-something, naive student Pastor. My heart was broken. It was an extremely painful time. The conflict was directed at the Pastor, my Supervisor, but I was right there in the middle of it.
The main "accusers" of the Pastor had befriended me in the few months I'd been in Iowa, and had become like family to me (they'd even introduced me to George, who would become my husband--read story below). But I had to make this huge decision. Who did I support? My friends or my supervisor? Well, I did what I thought was right even though in my mind there was no clear answer. I supported my supervisor. I lost friends. I had to stand up and state my allegiance in a crowd of people at a "special meeting" of the Church council and members. People were there who hadn't stepped foot in the church for twenty years because they didn't like the Pastor but had to come and see him "put on trial" as it were. And it felt like a trial! It felt like a witch hunt. Essentially it was. But nobody won. Nobody lost their life (except maybe me who suddenly lost any interest in what I had considered to be my life's calling), but nobody won much either.
The group of people who had a problem with the Pastor all left for the other Lutheran church in town (I guess that's why it's good to have two, even in a town of 3000!). The Pastor stayed on another ten years until his retirement recently. And I finished out the second six months of my internship, doing a fine job even as my heart became less and less in it as the year went on. I didn't return to the Seminary for my final year, but was now happily married. As I just love to point out, I got my M.R.S. degree out of the whole deal! ha, ha
So, why did I write all that? Well, it's a big part of what's landed us in a Unity Church. Also part of why I often don't go to church at all. Oh, for years I did. We lived in Iowa for three years after my internship ended. I wouldn't have dared to quit attending church while there. For some reason, "saving face" in the church was still important to me. And it stayed that way for several years after we moved to Minnesota, too, where we joined another Lutheran church and I begrudgingly attended every Sunday in order to "look good". George had become a Lutheran for my sake, after all! (No, I did not ever ask him to. He volunteered.) This gave me another sense of obligation. I had to attend church with my husband, who is generally devout wherever he's attending (he was raised Catholic after all, and he just likes church I think).
We found this little Unity Church with its different, positive focus but still talk of Jesus and it felt/feels comfortable for me most of the time. George loves it, too. He also needs to hear about how GOOD he is, not how bad. And about how positive thinking, rather than worry, can get us just where we want and need to be. It's wonderful!
But it's not perfect. Nothing is. My take on religion/religions is that they're all ways we humans with our limited minds here on earth can talk about God/god/Goddess/Spirit/the Divine/etc. And that is all mainly based on a feeling many of us have that this just isn't all there is. That we're not alone. And, for me, that there's a positive, loving Presence in the Universe who we're missing very much.
So wow, a long post. A difficult topic. But somebody asked! (On another, more brave day I'll talk about how I'm really more of a Pagan now than anything, and about the Second Sight.)
Comments
Whew! I need a stiff drink after all that! Anyways...aren't church stories interesting?
Glad to know I'm not the only one!