Borderlands Unitarian Universalist

Guests who COME to a Sunday Service want to know who we are and we want to know the same. If you continue to join us for Sunday Service, you’ll be invited to our other programing and this is the opportunity to CONNECT. There are many types of programing to appeal to your intellect, emotions, body and soul. When you engage in the programing that calls to you, you influence and change the people who are participating and we all take a step together to building bridges.

CONNECT can be a brief period or it can take years, the time it takes is unique to each individual, but we recognize that it comes to an end when a person shifts from feeling “I go to that church,” to “That church is mine.” When this shift happens we believe we will have established a mutual relationship and will want to invite you to officially COMMIT to membership.

This third step involves the sharing of time in service, talents toward the growth of programing, and treasure as a pledge to the financial sustainability of our congregation. While we have generic suggestions for how you might COMMIT, your sharing must be based on who you are and how you are currently capable of caring for what you feel is yours, namely our congregation.

These three C’s have led many to find a home in our congregation. If we were to end the path here, we might be a healthy institution, but as a Unitarian Universalist congregation, we are called to live in COVENANT. This for us stands in the place of dogma or creed, which are statements of right knowledge. COVENANT is right living.

It is our agreement and promise to support and challenge one another to live up to our aspirations. None of us can do this alone. COVENANT is the final C, but it also upholds the other three. It is more than the sum of our parts and is only realized through our support and struggle to live together as a beloved community.

Finally, the Path to Membership is not linear. It begins the first time a person attends on a Sunday, but it continues to be a part of membership each and every year. As all members grow and change in their lives, we hold the space for them to come back to the congregation with whatever new experiences they have had.

We recognized that everyone needs space to reconnect and to recommit too. We must all re-covenant from time to time, so that we keep the aspiration of being a living tradition. Instead of a cycle of membership, we believe the path is an upward spiral of growth for both each member and our congregation.