SERMON-OF-THE-MONTH
In
part because most rural and small-town Unitarian Universalist
congregations
do not have ministers, this service was established in June 2001.
The Rev. Sarah Oelberg supplied one sermon each month for two years
to the e-mailing list for rural and small-town UU congregations,
RURAL-L.
In November 2003, this service was formalized into a
process
by which the subscribers of RURAL-L
select the next Rural Sermon-of-the-Month
by voting on 1 or 2 proposals submitted for that month.
(When there was only one proposal, no vote was needed.)
In January 2007, RURAL-L was merged into Smalltalk,
another UUA mailing list serving congregations of 150 members or fewer.
Monthly written sermons continue on Smalltalk.
Anyone who is on the mailing list may propose a
sermon.
(And anyone may join the mailing list, Smalltalk
by sending a blank e-mail message to:
Smalltalk-subscribe@lists.uua.org. )
Proposals for the Sermon-of-the-Month
consist of a synopsis and/or outline of the proposed sermon.
Send your proposals to the SOM coordinator:
James Park, e-mail: PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU.
Authors of proposals are not identified
when their proposals are voted on by the subscribers to Smalltalk.
Each proposal submitted to the subscribers is by a different author.
Subscribers may vote for either proposed sermon or
for both.
When they vote for both, they indicate their first and second choices.
If both proposals are popular, they are both published,
beginning with the most popular.
When the winning Sermon-of-the-Month
is published on Smalltalk, the author is fully identified.
Proposals that do not win
may be proposed again after 12 months or more.
The same authors may propose different sermons for the next month.
Subscribers are welcome to respond
to each Sermon-of-the-Month
by writing to the whole list:
Smalltalk@lists.uua.org.
Once published, Sermons-of-the-Month
are placed in the Library of
Sermons-of-the-Month
,
where they may be read and appreciated by anyone.
Past Sermons-of-the-Month illustrate the format
that makes these sermons easy to read on computer screens
and easy to present to small UU congregations.
The Sermons-of-the-Month are also organized by
subject.
The original authors retain copyright to their
creations.
But they may be freely used by UU congregations without payment.
Please inform the author of the time and place where the sermon was
used.
And in the same e-mail, please inform the SOM coordinator,
so that these uses can be added to the history
at the bottom of each Sermon-of-the-Month:
James Park,
e-mail: PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU.