Minister's Column

Dear Ones:

Welcome to the 2026-2027 congregational year of the Unitarian Universalist Society East Manchester, CT – our 58th year as a congregation! (Wait?!? Didn’t we just celebrate our 50th anniversary? I guess this means we have to start thinking about an extravaganza for our 60th!)

I am really looking forward to the year. As many of you have heard me say, I feel blessed to serve as minister to a congregation as healthy as UUSE. And just as importantly, I feel blessed to have work that I genuinely love: preaching, worship planning, pastoral care, teaching, collaborating with talented leaders, performing weddings, memorials and child dedications, community organizing, social and environmental justice work. I love all of it!

I know why I love it. At the heart of any successful ministry lies relationship. I love the relationships I have built at UUSE and in the wider community over the years. As I contemplate the coming congregational year, I am thinking a lot about relationship-building. In the coming year, I’d like to meet one-on-one or in small groups with as many of you as possible. Whether you feel you have a strong relationship with me, or barely any relationship at all, I want to extend the invitation to meet with me. Reach out and ask for a meeting. I imagine no agenda other than getting to know each other more than we already do. I try to meet with people in this way every year, but I want to prioritize it this year. I suppose this is my response to the chaos in the world—authoritarianism, climate change, war, etc. We respond in more healthy ways to the chaos when we’re in relationship with others.

Of course, when I speak of relationship-building, I’m not only referring to your relationships with me. I am also referring to your relationships with each other as members and friends of UUSE. How can you build relationships in new ways at UUSE? How can you get to know more of your congregational peers? What common ground do you share? What common work do you want to engage in? There is so much potential. I urge you to consider how you can best deepen your relationships at the meetinghouse. It will make a difference. As our friends in organized labor say, we are stronger together!

I want to make one last point regarding beginning the year with a focus on relationships. I’ve been dedicating some of my summer study leave to learning as much as I can about Artificial Intelligence (AI). I have a lot to say about AI (you can expect it to show up in my preaching this year). I am, to say the least, angry and disappointed with Big Tech. I am a budding Luddite in the best sense of the word. The big AI companies promise so much, and yet very little of what is promised turns out to be real, while real human beings are losing jobs and the quality of products and services is declining rapidly. Yes, there are remarkable things AI can do, but it’s also a lot of hype, and a lot of harm. This is why relationships matter. And this is why healthy congregations aren’t going away. Healthy congregations offer real-life, flesh-and-blood, meaningful human relationships. AI will never be able to do that. Never. Welcome to our 2026-2027 congregational year. Welcome to a year of building relationships.

With love,

Rev. Josh

#SeptemberNewsletter