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Minister's Message

Barry Vennard

Click here to learn about Mission Centric, Integral Ministry and Holacracy at Unity Church of Omaha.

Namaste Dear Friends,

If you've been attending Sunday services this month you know that the focus for August, 2008 has been the UCO Core Values. It's the Core Values, Mission and Vision that make up the consciousness of the church.

VISION: UCO joins with the International Association of Unity Churches holding a world centric vision: "Centered in God, we co-create a world that works for all."

MISSION: Our UCO mission is outward and vision focused. The short version is: "The spiritual transformation of as many people as possible and caring for each other."

CORE VALUES: Our Core Values are the foundation blocks upon which we evolve: "Love, Oneness, Integrity, Service and Stewardship.

UNITY AND POST-MODERN SPIRITUALITY

Contemporary philosophers and spiritual teachers, Dr. Don Beck, Spiral Dynamics; Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Spirituality; and Ken Wilber, Integral Theory and Spirituality; attest that most of us drawn to Unity and New Thought spirituality are at the "Post-Modern" stage of spiritual and cultural development.

The Post-Modern stage is characterized by a deeply felt urge to address life from a "wholeness" perspective. That stage seeks to transcend earlier stages of "Mythic Membership" found in traditional religions and the cultures that emerge around them. That earlier stage often excludes all but their own believers and, in many cases, is racist, sexist and can even be aggressively violent. Post-Modernism opens us to a greater experience of our inner divine potential; the ageless message of many, many mystical and spiritual teachers. Post-Modernism has sought to eliminate the oppression and exploitation of others that often happens when individuals gain hierarchal dominant positions of power.

The Post-Modern stage seeks to transcend the Modern stage of development, a stage characterized by an exclusive and isolating focus on the material/physical/scientific world. This can be seen in the practice of medicine when it only address isolated aspects of the body and the disease. Post-Modernism seeks to integrate body, mind and spirit. It seeks to address the lack of fulfillment that occurs when people focus exclusively on material well being and wealth accumulation; a focus of the Modern stage that often becomes exploitive of the world and other human beings.

Post-Modern emergence in culture and spirituality has broken down many barriers and has opened us to a greater understanding of wholeness and the need for Unity in our minds, bodies, lives, environment, cultures and relationship with God and each other. It has done this by focusing on the divine truth that we are all born of equal inherent worth; not born in shame or defectiveness that has often been the message of the past. It has sought to heal the divisiveness in human culture and consciousness that has created so much suffering. It replaces those beliefs with a spiritual focus on the divine sense of self as the one beloved child and presence of God, proposing this as the ultimate truth with the potential to unite humanity.

IS POST-MODERN SPIRITUALITY IT?

You can see that there are many gifts from the emergence of the Post-Modern stage of culture and spirituality. Yet, each stage of spiritual or cultural development also carries the tensions that motivate and inspire humans to heed a deep evolutionary impulse for further transcendence; the "becoming/creative" activity of God.

Because Post-Modernism has focused so much on the "self," the tension that motivates us to seek a greater spiritual reality (you may not like this….I didn't at first) is narcissism!

Post-Modern Narcissism is a"self" focus that was essential to the emergence of the Post-Modern evolutionary stage but has now become dysfunctional. It doesn't mean there is something inherently wrong with us any more than incomplete toilet training is evidence of defectiveness in a young toddler. It simply means that in the unending story of evolutionary emergence, there will always be a tension that motivates humans to seek the next higher stage of development.

A new spiritual book hitting the market is an example of Post-Modern narcissism. It's about, you guessed it, "The Law of Attraction." The authors say it will answer all of your questions! And, what are your questions? Here they are quoted from the promotional material; (see if they sound narcissistic).

"How do I go from feeling bad to feeling good? How can I feel better right now? How can I live abundantly? How can I free myself from debt? How can I regain my health? How can I get in harmony with my desire?

Having not read the book, I don't know what the proposed answers are. But, I do know that the Post-Modern narcissistic, excessive focus on self, and its resulting dissatisfaction, creates a huge market for books like this. As you know there have been many of them and some have become best sellers.

According to Beck, Wilber, Cohen and many other contemporary spiritual teachers, the next step in the evolution of human consciousness, and the answer to the longing created by Post-Modern narcissism, is the Integral Stage of Cultural and Spiritual development. That's what our renewed UCO Vision and Mission is about. Our church's focus on Integral Spirituality, Integral Ministry and on Holacracy as its organizational practice is how we are moving forward on the unending evolutionary journey. It's exciting as we continue our awakening to the "Being" nature of God within and amongst us, and, as we continue unfolding the "Becoming" nature of God in the stories of our own lives and in the stories of our lives together as our church and as our world.

If you would like to know more about "Integral" I recommend The Integral Vision by Ken Wilber. It's available in our bookstore. Also, you might want to consider joining www.integralnaked.org. (This is not a porn site!)

If you would like to know more about Holacracy at UCO, you can obtain DVD copies of the "Holacracy Workshop" presented in May, 2008. I highly recommend reading the paper, "Organization at the Leading Edge, Introducing Holacracy" the white-paper at www.Holacracy.org.

There is fairly new magazine on the market focusing on Evolutionary Spirituality called , "What is Enlightenment" edited by Andrew Cohen. Information about it can be found at www.wie.org and it may be available in our bookstore soon. And, beginning on Wednesday, August 27th at 7:45 p.m. following our 7 p.m. meditation service, we will be presenting portions of a DVD by Dr. Don Beck and Andrew Cohen called "Leap Into the Future" that focuses on Spiral Dynamics Integral and Evolutionary Spirituality.

I feel blessed and privileged to be with you at UCO during these exciting times.

Blessings,
Barry