“Lewisham Unity’s hashtag is #sacredmeetssocial. It’s about having our roots in Unitarian values and histories and our wings in the individual in community, that place where soul and activism connect. When we are thinking about what we commit and connect to — it helps to guide us. Tonight’s conversation is about where that is leading us as a small community growing younger, greener and more inclusive. Please join the conversation.”

After hearing Claire’s introduction to her congregation, we gathered in small groups in breakout rooms to think about what this means for us. It was a very interesting discussion for me personally, since Newcastle upon Tyne Unitarians have recently begun expressing our shared values at the start of each of our services with our values statement:

I shared this with others, several of whom said they agreed, so we must be on the right track! Let’s face it – you’ll never get every Unitarian present at any gathering to agree on something 😉 

I felt that ‘sacred and social’ captured very well much of what we all value about our communities, but that for me, to be complete, we need a third value – action. What do we do to express our values in the world, and serve our communities? I think this is the next big question facing all of us. Thanks to Bob and Claire for giving us the space to explore this!

You can see a recording here, and I’d encouraged Unitarians to view it: The Sacred and the Social