General Assembly 2025: Meet the Moment
Tim Versteeg, Director of Lifespan Religious Education
As an online participant of this year’s Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly, I wanted to share a number of reflections about the event as I experienced it. Some of the following details are direct quotes from presenters, some are “ahas!” and some are conceptual frameworks that I find, challenge, and reconsider existing paradigms in useful ways.
Early on, in a Whole Church presentation, the presenter used a quote I have encountered a lot recently, which encapsulated the centrality of religious education/exploration in UU churches:
Faith Development is All We Do.
Unitarian Universalism is all we Teach.
The Congregation is the Curriculum.
This way of “doing church” is something that resonates with me strongly…combining concepts of lifespan learning, multigenerational connection and how we are in the world as UUs into a praxis of faith in action.
How we invite others to join us on this journey was also a big part of the conference theme. Rev. Ashley Horan reminded us that “People organize based on values more than issues…” Put another way, “people join people, not causes.”
Inspiring UU speaker CB Beal, whose work focuses on radical inclusion reminded us that as UUs in the present historical moment we are tasked with “moving fear out of the center and replacing it with love”. The Meet the Moment video used by all the caucus groups on the third day spoke into the historical moment suggesting that “the value that our faith calls us to right now is transformation” and that “we have to be each other’s partners in HOPE.”
The Ware lecture presented by Imara Jones on Saturday night was inspirational, complex, eye-opening and aspirational. Grounding her talk in an understanding that Christian Nationalism is a distillation and more virulent form of its predecessor Christian Fundamentalism, she reminded us that for this portion of the right the attack on Trans rights is “not just politics, but bedrock belief”. And that a community of less than 1% of the population had been targeted by the MAGA movement to see just how much erosion of individual rights and freedoms the American public would accept and relinquish to their government. The lecture has not yet been posted on the UUA website, but a biography of Inara Jones and past lectures can be found here: https://www.uua.org/ga/program/highlights/ware-lecture
Sunday morning worship, which I hope many of you viewed online, managed to live the theme, as world events on Saturday once more shocked each of us and called us to meet the moment once again. Worship leader, the Rev. Nicole Kirk challenged the co-opting of freedom currently at play in right wing circles by reminding us that “Freedom isn’t the absence of restraint; it’s the presence of love.” Finally, though, we were reminded to look after ourselves and each other while we engage in what must be done. “Unitarian Universalism,” Rev. Kirk stated emphatically, “must be both a rallying cry and a refuge.”
This was my GA this year.
Tim Versteeg
Director of Lifespan Religious Education