This week I'm heading out to the States. Next Sunday (6th July) I'll be preaching at First Church Boston if I have any Boston-area readers that want to come and say hi. The weekend after I'll be in New York City, and was wondering where to worship. Any recommendations from anyone about good churches, UU or otherwise?
I'm glad Peacebang started blogging about this cos I was about to, and now it's like I'm joining in with a conversation rather than doing a big rant and having a go at Americans (though that is always fun ;-)). Why the hell do American (or is it just in New England??) UU churches take, like a quarter of the year off? In the summer they close. They CLOSE!! A church, closing. It's so bloody weird and wrong. Where does it come from? Why? Why? Why? Why do people need church less in the summer? Where are people supposed to go? Where is the Divine supposed to go? My church in Boston didn't close exactly, but moved to the smaller upstairs chapel, but the minister still had all that time off. Now I've spent most of my life around teachers and priests, both jobs where people think people don't put many hours in, when in fact they put in loads ('you only work Sunday mornings/9 to 3.25'). Teachers work hard and need their long holidays. Ministers work hard, a...
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All Souls, is the city’s largest congregation and has the highest public profile. This is the Church served so long by the great Forrest Church, who is still listed as “Public Minister” and continues to write and speak while gracefully facing terminal cancer. Of course neither Forrest nor new Senior Minister Galen Guengerich will be preaching the Sunday morning you will be in the city. According to their web site http://www.allsoulsnyc.org/ David Robb, Minsiter of Adult Education, will be in the pulpit.
On the more intimate level is Fourth Universalist Church, now led by another remarkable minister, Rosemary Bray McNatt. The congregation is about a tenth the size of All Souls. It still retains a distinctly Universalist tone within a Unitarian Universalist context. July 13 Associate Minister Beth Putnam will be preaching according to their web site http://www.4thu.net/