When a bluegrass song gets an intro like, “One of the least understood facts of theology is that Satan roams not only down here on earth but also in space,” you’re in for a treat.  Thanks, kermit_is. While “Satan in Space” has yet to be recorded, there are several great Packway Handle Band tunes available for free download.

I’m searching for an Open Source online scheduling solution for my church, and I’m having little luck finding it. I’m hoping someone out there in the blogosphere can help.

Here’s what we need:

• Ideally, it needs to work with Joomla. But if it does everything else in this list, I’ll use it anyway.
• It needs to show what’s going on and when for a congregation of 800 people (with around 20 rooms).
• It needs to let registered site users request a room and a time.
• It needs to have a back end where church staff can approve, disapprove and edit space requests.  (Currently, they get an email and have to manually enter the reservation themselves.)  Think of the emails and phone calls this would save.

Anyone have a solution?  Or a pointer to a solution?
Click to continue reading “Church scheduling solution?”

Yet Another UU has some advice for church marketing: sell the meal, not the plate.

A cool map of UU religious adherence shows, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the Northeast is the UU heartland, with significant outgrowths hugging the Great Lakes and the West Coast. There’s also some UU splotches on the Colorado-Wyoming line and the South Carolina-Tennessee line. Chutney took notice of two high percentage UU counties in Tulsa, the capitol of charismatic Christianity. (Hat tip and more maps.)

A friend’s service organization is throwing a benefit May 10 to benefit Hillside Hospital, Atlanta’s oldest charity. The event is at Fuego Spanish Grill, and tickets are $25 (only ten of that going to Fuego). You can sign up here.

Matt Kinsi has a post up about UUs’ obsession with knowing (and insinuating that all UUs should know) the minutia of our history.

Philocrites mentions Forrest Church’s book in the comments. It’s been a while since I read it, but it helped fill me in when I was trying to make a decision about making the UU plunge.

I think I’m probably hearing a couple of complaints hidden behind Kinsi’s post, and they’re worth filling out.
Click to continue reading “In search of a good, short UU history”