Happy New Year!

Our Soul Matters theme for January is “Living Love Through the Practice of Story.” Now, I’m a storyteller at heart, so in some regards this a constant running theme for me. I tend to view a lot of life through the lens of story. Story has great power in the ongoing process of creation. The stories we tell shape our progress through the world and can serve to transform us as a people. Our Unitarian Universalist principles are not only a list of values, but also an aspirational story that we tell ourselves about the people we want to become and the world we hope to build. Our new statement of values is much the same. On a congregational level, our statements of mission and vision are generative stories about our purpose and our hopes for the community.

Some stories, however, are not written quite so concretely – or at least not as publicly available. Every organization has stories about “the way we do things here” that may or may not match its mission, or stories about people past that might take on the patina of legend over time. I call these the implicit stories. One of those implicit stories we carry here at UU Berks is the story of covenant: a story about how we promise to be with one another. It’s a story implied by the values we share as Unitarian Universalists, by the words and songs we share in worship, and by some of those unspoken “the way we do things” stories. Indeed, “covenant” is referenced in our foundational documents, including our church policies. But that covenant has never been made explicit before. But it’s now time to get that story written down.

Part of the Unitarian Universalist story is the idea that since we’re not a people with a creed, it is our covenant that holds us together. Indeed, we can trace our roots back to the early Pilgrim churches, including the church at Plymouth colony that placed the opening words of its covenant on its walls – “We purpose to walk together in the ways of the Lord [or Love], made known and to be made known to us.”

The congregation has endeavored in the past to put our covenant into words. Sadly, like so many things, the pandemic hampered the project’s momentum. When I arrived, it was clear that this covenant work was “unfinished business” that would need attention at the start of my ministry with you. As we begin 2025, we will once again take up the work telling the concrete story of our covenant. We’ll begin this month by putting together a steering team for the project. Some of you will be hearing from me directly with an invitation to join the team. However, please don’t wait for my email. If the work of building covenant sounds interesting to you, if you’re reading this and think “I feel called to take this on; I think I can serve this way” please don’t hesitate to come and talk with me. This will be a challenging and rewarding way to make a difference in the life of 1st UU Berks. I’m excited for us to tell this story together.

❖

Some of you have connected with me on Facebook over these past few months, and I’m grateful for those connections. However, with the end of fact-checking and the turn rightwards that the parent company Mets is taking, I’m feeling a need to spend much less time there. I won’t be deactivating my account, as it’s still a great tool for connecting myself and the congregation to the wider Berks County community, but I’ll be refraining from personal posting for the time being. In addition, I’ll still accept friend requests as it’s a great way to stay current with your lives.

I’ll be spending more time on Bluesky from here on out. You can follow me there at 

@jcullinan.bsky.social

Hope I’ll see you there!