There was an extraordinary range of personal beliefs among the participants in my 2003 small group workshop in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. They were the delegates, staff and visitors attending the annual meeting of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists....

Several years ago, I spent an evening discussing Covenant Groups with members of a New England church who were interested in starting a small group ministry program....

In July 2003, I went on an eight-day spiritual retreat at a Benedictine monastery in Wisconsin. The night before I left Chicago to drive to the monastery, as preparation for the journey, I made a series of decisions about what kinds of clothes I would need while on this retreat. I was thorough. I...

By Rev. Elizabeth Buffington Nguyen, Leadership Development Associate for Youth and Young Adults of Color. When I was 24, my father gave me a new name. I was learning Vietnamese in graduate school....

"Honey, those girls were being chased for at least half a mile once school got out," Ms. Myra recalled. I shook my head knowingly. We had just walked out of the subway station across the street from Boys and Girls High School and were listening to the owner of Cafe 258, one of our original safe...

The Highlander Research and Education Center is an 80-year-old popular education center in the mountains of East Tennessee, which serves as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement-building in Appalachia and the South....

Attributed to Aesop, Greek fabulist, c. 620-564 BCE. A shepherd boy, watching a flock of sheep near his village, grew lonely. He devised a way to get some attention and companionship by playing a trick on the villagers. One morning he yelled: "Wolf!...

Dr. Anthony Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He serves as a trustee of Meadville Lombard Theological School. This article is abridged, with permission, from one published in Religious Humanism (Winter-Spring 1998)....

In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States. Milk grew up in New York, quiet about his homosexuality. He studied mathematics and graduated from New York State College for Teachers in...

Transgender individuals face much discrimination in the United States, in part because their struggles and their journeys are not well understood. In the spring of 2007, a public battle arose in Largo, Florida, around the struggle of one transgender person. Susan Stanton, then known as Steve, had...

It was the first gathering of a newly formed small group. The eight people who gathered in Ann's living room recognized one another, but had no real connection, except for the two married couples who were there....

This is the story of Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister who was determined to do whatever he could to end slavery in the United States. His powerful sermons were legendary. This is also the story of Millard Fillmore, whose actions earned him the contempt of Theodore Parker and abolitionists...

Read the story aloud, and ask the questions as they come up to encourage interaction and deeper thinking about the concepts. Or, if you are familiar enough with the ideas, tell the story in your own words, being sure to emphasize the four themes: freedom of thought, or noncreedalism; on-going...

Excerpted from Cathedral of the World. Copyright 2009 by Forrest Church. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston. Imagine awaking one morning from a deep and dreamless sleep to find yourself in the nave of a vast cathedral....

Five people wearing blindfolds were once brought into a room in the middle of which stood an elephant. Each person was directed to a different part of the animal, and then all five were encouraged to explore and discover whatever they could.

A contemporary painter named Debora Jones-Buck has what many consider an unusual approach to her work. She prepares a canvas and then paints a picture on it. Then, when the paint has dried, she paints an entirely different image on top of it. And then another, and another. Eventually she puts the...

After many years of being out of shape, he decided it was time to do something about the state of his body. With great excitement and enthusiasm, he went to the local gym, got a membership, and began a circuit-training routine. He felt good. And he kept at it, going to the gym several times a week. ...

After many years in a congregation, she’d had enough. Knowing the people as well as she did, she knew that what they said on Sunday and what they did on Monday did not always equate....