New Purposes and Principles...O My!

Or, Oh, no!

As Philocrites reports, the UUA Board has asked the Commission on Appraisal to review our current Purposes and Principles (the statements about affirming and promoting the worth and dignity of persons, and the sources of our Living Tradition) to see if they need revising.

The fact that our contentious and divided bunch ever came up with a statement we agreed on in the first place is one of the reasons I believe in God, and I don't think that we're likely to see that particular miracle again. So I'm stumping for the Commission to give the situation a look and decide that the Purpose and Principles are ok the way they are.

But as I commented on Philocrites, I do think that we need some of those short and snappy mission phrases which I see on the church websites I've been reading. For instance, the mission of the Northcoast Church which I'm planning to visit next Sunday in Oceanside, California, is, "Making Disciples in a Healthy Church Environment" Much better, in my opinion, is the mission of the Community Christian Church, "Helping People Find their Way Back to God."

These would probably not be our statements, but I'm sure you can imagine how centering and useful it would be to have such a thing of our own. In my own mind (I'm not sure my church even knows this, but it's powerful for me) the church's mission statement is "fostering spiritual growth in a diverse religious community"

Actually, this being the UUA, I'm advocating that we have five of them. Not only will more people find at least one of them appealing, but having five statements rather than one is walking our talk about diversity and freedom. I commented some more about this on the above Philocrites blog.

So...either for the UUA or for your local church, what would your mission statement be like? Leave a comment! (You can sign in as anonymous to avoid the hassle if you want, although this is a very safe Google-run blog).