Learning from Evangelicals

Shout out of thanks to a prominent Unitarian Universalist religious education professional who recently sent me these book recommendations: Contemplative Youth Ministry and Growing Souls, both by Mark Yaconelli. The recommendations came in response to my plea for religious education resources. I’m looking forward to reading them.

Both books are Christian. Here’s the description from the Zondervan (a Christian publishing company) website of “Contemplative Youth Ministry”:

Youth ministry isn’t about what to say, what to do, or how to be; it’s about serving the needs of the students God has put in your life. This book is an attitude overhaul that creates a more organic approach to youth ministry that helps you create meaningful silence, covenant communities, and contemplative activities that allow your students recognize the presence of Jesus in their everyday lives.

“Meaningful silence, covenant communities, and contemplative activities” describes a spiritually challenging community for youth, whether they are UU or not. Basically, substitute “the Spirit” for “God” and “Jesus,” and I can imagine a UU version of this youth ministry model.Of course, reading work from another tradition and applying it to one’s own is never as simple as just substituting one word for another. There are values and theology that infuse a religious group or individual’s whole approach to life’s problems, and to really understand the approach, one can’t dismiss the values and theology as interchangeable with those of another faith.

But that doesn’t mean we (religious liberals, and Unitarian Universalists more specifically) don’t benefit from learning about how evangelicals are “doing church.”Church marketing and technology use are two areas that I am passionate about, and some of the most worthwhile resources in this area are produced by evangelicals. Here are a few of the fabulous evangelical resources that I read and/or listen to: Geeks and God (a podcast focusing on church website development, design and use; with a focus on listeners who are not techy savvy and/or are interested in learning about the Drupal content management system), Church Marketing Sucks (a blog that covers a wide range of marketing issues, from the graphic design of paper materials used by churches, to church website strategies, to congregational advertising campaigns), and the Blogging Church (a book on the best practices for congregational blogs).

All three of these resources were recommended by Anna Belle Leicherson, a UU web developer who writes her own blog about internet technology, Happy Web Diva, and who used to write Faith and Web.

In addition to our own “home-grown” resources that are produced by Unitarian Universalist writers and leaders, we can learn a great deal from the conversations going on within other faith traditions about issues in congregational life. I mentioned here resources from evangelical Christians because sometimes I find those the most difficult to engage with; evangelical Christianity is arguably the dominant group within American religion today, and even though it is not a monolith, it is a generally far more socially and theologically conservative group than Unitarian Universalists.

Yet, I find striking similarities between the problems they face in congregational life, especially in the areas of marketing and technology use. I think if we as UU’s are going to excel in those areas too, we need to not only invest in our own home-grown resources, but also venture far from home in our reading, listening and learning.