Ready in November: Mistakes & Miracles UU Common Read Discussion Guide

Cover of Mistakes and Miracles: Congregations on the Road to Multiculturalism

The UU Common Read for 2022-23 is Mistakes and Miracles: Congregations on the Road to Multiculturalism (Skinner House Books, 2019). The book’s co-authors Nancy Palmer Jones and Karin Lin—a white minister and a lay person of color—are working with Susan Dana Lawrence of the UUA’s Lifespan Faith Engagement team on a four-session Discussion Guide that will be available for congregations in November.

The introductory section of the Discussion Guide, “Using This Guide,” is available now. Please use the information here to prepare and launch your Common Read group. Beyond scheduling and promoting your group, you will want to put in place support for participants who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color or hold other often-marginalized identities. Facilitators will want to become familiar with facets of leading an online group that may be new.

If you are already reading Mistakes and Miracles now, you can prepare for your group discussions by considering the reflection questions that close out each chapter. Another suggested preparation for facilitators, as well as group participants, is to watch the recorded Zoom workshop, We Can Do This: Faith, Conflict and Antiracism (Vimeo, 56:00), from the UUA General Assembly 2020 on-demand video library. Co-authors Jones and Lin moderate a discussion based on Mistakes and Miracles with Unitarian Universalists Aisha Hauser, Jimmy Leung, Rev. Bill Sinkford, and Rev. Marta Valentín.

Mistakes and Miracles can be purchased from inSpirit: The UUA Book and Gift Shop. Discounts are available on orders of 10 or more books.

Skinner House is working on an audiobook edition of Mistakes and Miracles. If you would like to be notified when the audiobook edition is available, or if you need the book in another format, please email UUA Publications Director Mary Benard at mbenard@uua.org.