For my own reference, here are links to the General Assembly workshops and events that I wrote up for the UUA Web site. Two of the events I covered are definitely worth reading about, and I’m listing those first. The rest of the links appear after the jump.
Toward a Safer Congregation The dramatic story of how one Unitarian Universalist congregation survived when a beloved member of the congregation was accused (and later convicted) of child molestation. If you are a leader in a congregation, you must read this!
Home Grown Religion William J. Doherty, author of Take Back Your Kids: Confident Parenting in Turbulent Times, happens to be a Unitarian Universalist. In this lecture, he talks about the inadequacies of Sunday school, and he begins to outline what you families can do at home to pass on religious values to their kids. Anyone concerned with the current sorry state of religious education in Unitarian Universalism should read this.
More events listed in order of presumed interest.
The Theology of Peacemaking Bill Schulz and Sharon Welch both proclaim that in this world, force can be necessary to promote peace.
Emerging Models of Small Group Ministry A good summary of some interesting new models for doing small group ministry.
Islam and Gender A few interesting points.
Service of the Living Tradition I actually received final fellowship at this year’s Service of the Living Tradition. I could have participated in the service, but I decided I would rather report on it instead — so when my name was called, I was down in the front row, laptop on my knees, typing away. What a hoot!
Open Space Technology: Domain Convergence 2 Not worth reading, really.
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Cool. If I ever get final fellowship, I might have to do the same.
I ran across this post in a search. I appreciate the information about Home Grown Religion. As a “homegrown UU”, a parent, and religious educator, I’m interested in learning more about The Family Chalice Project, but couldn’t find much online. I see he did a workshop about it during the 2004 GA, but there was no report. By your report, apparently he’s still looking for those ten congregations. I wonder if he considers “family” as the relatives that live in the children’s home (it seems that he does) and on the other hand, it’s about church community, too. Does the project consider members (particularly the elders) in the congregation that can serve as substitute grandparents and aunts/uncles as extended family?
I had previously looked for blogs about GA using “uuga07” but I see you’re using “uuaga07” which probably means I have many more posts I could find on the subject. :-)