Five things I would implement if I was in charge of starting a new UU church

This is not the post I promised about how my beliefs in God are moving my spiritual beliefs inline with Christian beliefs. That post will come next week.

I have already left a comment on the post Say no five times (sure to irritate everyone) over on fellow Unitarian Universalist Scott Wells’ blog Boy In The Band but I thought I would also come up with a list of the five things I would implement if I was in charge of starting a new Unitarian Universalist (UU) church. Here is my list just keep in mind that this list only reflects what I would ideal like to see in my dream UU church if I had complete control over things. This is a list of the five things in addition to what you could most likely expect to be included in a UU church. So here is my list.

• It would have Sunday worship services that would be experientially focused rather than head centred. This would mean the form that the worship cervices would take would be one that resembles greatly the one that is used by UU youth at their youth conferences and young adults at their camp weekends. These would be ones that are facilitated by the minister but put on by members of the church community interested in worship and its elements (ritual, music and readings ect). This worship service would be one that would leave the worshipers with a sense that their souls had been touched and that they had been moved spiritually.

• We would have an environment that encouraged lots of exploration of God. This exploration of God would happen in the Sunday worship services, the children’s RE classes, the youth group and the adult learning classes just to name a few. The mane porpoise of this exploration of God would be to bring the church goers closer to God as well as to make the church a place were his love over flows.

• Music would be a key part of the church. Not just through a church choir and the singing of a few hymns every Sunday in the worship service but, through music being a part of the full religious life of the church by being a central part of each of it’s attendees own spiritual lives. Loud and emotionally focused stiles of music would also be come part of the everyday mix including rock and modern country music songs plus other song don in thees styles, yes ones with lyrics that call the worshipper to be closer with God and be remind of his ever available love for them.

• The church would have church goers that put their religious life at the centre of their lives. That means ahead of spurts and other extracurricular activity like Scots ect.

• The church would be a central hub for the wider community it is located in. Yes the wider local community members would feel comfortable coming and hanging out at the church.

I will summarize what my church will be all about. It will be a God centred church. One with church goers who’s lives are centred on religion, their religious home and the spiritual growth and spiritual maturity of their fellow spiritual seekers. Thy will use ecstatic worship and loud emotional music to help them get closer to God and to help have his love pore all over them and their church. They will work at making their church a safe and loving place for them to hang with their fellow humans from the surrounding community.

A BC summer update

I enjoyed going into Kelowna not this past Tuesday but the one before that. I saw most off a Doc Walker show. It was being filmed for Country Music Television (CMT) here in Canada and Wilk-TV in the US. Wilk-TV was filming it in 3D. I won’t be seeing it in 3D because modern 3D uses polarized glasses which I fond out when I went to see Avatar this past winter and polarized glasses hurt my eyes. But I will try and catch it on CMT. I also finished a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9) book that same day called “Wrath of The Prophets”. It is only the second novel that I have read and finished, well that is if you exclude all the ones my mom has red to me and the ones I have listened to on audiotape. It was a good book staring the second in command from ST:DS9 Kira Nerys and Ro Laren from Star Trek: The Next Generation. On Saturday evening all of us here on the farm we went to the Komasket Music Festival on the Okanagan native reserve near Vernon. We all had a good time. The headliner was The Wailers of Bob Marley fame. I danced a lot at the fest, because it was just that kind of fest. On the farm I had been picking a lot of raspberries but I won’t be anymore because raspberry session is over. So now it is on to Apricot picking session. Also today marked the end of pea (shelling and snow) session with me poling out all the pea plants. Yes I am having a good time for the most part here in BC but I am looking forward to going to the young adult camp at Unicamp in southern Ontario in early September. That is all for now folks until the next update.

Crazy legs middle aged white man

There is this video that is up on YouTube entitled “Crazy legs middle aged white man”. It’s a video of my dad (Francis) dancing onstage during a Michael Jackson tribute medley. This medley was part of British R&B singer Estelle’s concert on the main stage at this year’s (the 2009) Ottawa Bluesfest on Sunday July 12. How it all came about? Well Estelle, she had just finished dancing with some invited guests form the audience and was about to launch into a Michael Jackson tribute medley when my dad yelled pick me or something to that effect. And before anyone new it he had been invited up and was quickly climbing on stage to shake his thing with her dancers. He danced along with the dancers during the whole Jackson tribute medley number. Then he made his excite off of the stage and back into the audience. He was cheered on be his favourite oldest son (me) and some of his Bluesfest acquaintances. It was a time to remember.

Not reading the Bible, rode the World Naked Bike Ride and am seeing some live music

I know I said I was going to try to read the whole Bible this summer, but I have not been reading for a long time now. I know it’s a bit of a feet but that is not the reason I stopped. The reason I stopped reading was that it was rather quite a violent set of books. Well I know that it’s only really mostly just the books of the old testament that are violent laden. But seeing as I am one who deplores valence and was taught in Unitarian Universalist children’s religious exploration classes to love all and be kind to all, I couldn’t handle it. Well maybe I will try and read more of it some other time, but not right now at least. Instead I will do more peaceful things like the World Naked Bike Ride which I did back in June.

Yes it was on Saturday, June 13th that I did ride for the second year in the Ottawa edition of the World Naked Bike Ride. I rode in the ride with my brother and we were 50 to 60 all with varying degrees of nakedness. It was some what more of a subdued group then last year, but at least the cops rode bikes this year instead of in cars. I went fully naked again this year, well except for my chalice pendent, shoes and socks, glasses and bike helmet that is. It was a wonderful time and I plan to do the Montreal edition next year as I will be living their starting in the Fall.

I have been seeing tons of live music this summer. Starting with the free festival held here in Ottawa in the neighbourhood of Westboro the vary same day as the World Naked Bike Ride. There I saw Prairie Oyster with my brother and on Canada day at Major’s Hill Park I saw with my dad, Alex Cuba among others. And me and my dad have this past week been hitting up the Ottawa Bluesfest. We have seen some good music like the The Road Hammers, Punch Brothers, Estelle (at her show my dad got himself invited up onstage to dance during a number along with her dancers) and Joe Cocker. But we have not seen all the same concerts. I also saw, Sergent Garcia, Ryan Shaw and, Loreena McKennitt among others and my dad saw Jackson Brawn among others. We are going to see more shows at Ottawa Bluesfest this week as well.

“Nobody Died” – a song about bullying

My favourite music group The Wilkinsons do a song called “Nobody Died” on their latest album Home. The reason I bring this up is it deals with the subject of school bullying in what I feel is quite an honest way. And so dos the accompanying music video, to which I think is really worth seeing. So here is the video for The Wilkinsons, Nobody Died.

So what do you think? Well I hope by me, The Wilkinsons and others addressing what in my opinion is one of the most serious issues of our time in frank and honest ways we might even find better ways of dealing with it.