Introducing
the
First Unitarian Universalist Church of the Internet
Many
UUs are scattered
to the four corners of the world
—sometimes
thousands of miles from the
nearest UU group.
And many Earthlings do not know about UUism.
But now electronic communications
make it possible to create an online
community of UUs world-wide.
And besides the convenience of being any
place in the world,
members of the cyber community can participate
in the activities
whenever it suits them—any time of the
day or night,
not just on Sunday mornings.
When you are ready to take part in the
communication,
you use your electronic devise to log-on to our Facebook presence.
You can see the other members, the published cyber-sermons,
and join the discussions in
whatever degree suits you.
At each visit, you can vote for the cyber-sermon of the following month.
And now a little
history.
It might seem strange for
an organization
just getting off the ground (into cyber-space)
to write a history,
but sometimes such origins quickly become
lost.
This Facebook organization
was originally conceived
as an online community for UU young adults
world wide.
Planning began in the fall of 1998.
FUUCI has no physical location.
We are a Facebook Page and a website.
The original list of members all
heard about FUUCI on
the Unitarian Universalist Young Adult
Network List (UUYAN-L).
Even the first 15 people on the first
e-mailing list
included one living in Japan and one living
in Mexico.
The idea of a computer
community quickly caught on.
And people began sending in their e-mail
addresses
even before the FUUCI web page was established.
There was obviously a need to communicate
with other young adults,
even if they were on the other side of
the world.
And electronic communication
—which was just catching on in the 1990s—
was the most obvious means.
The home page was started
in November 1998.
The UUA established
the e-mailing list, called WWYAC-L,
with about 25 charter subscribers in September
1999.
But at Thanksgiving
1999 this decision was reversed.
The UUA decided not to host the mailing
list
for this organization because it might
be confused
with the official young adult efforts
of the UUA
and because the UUA does not host mailing
lists
for any of its 1,000 local member congregations.
This led to a change
of name and constituency:
The new name was left flexible
so that people who join later will have
a say in what to call it.
As a temporary measure, it was called the
WWCC.
This could stand for the World Wide Cyber
Community
or the World Wide Computer Church.
Other names were suggested.
But a new start-up name was selected in December 2007:
The First Unitarian Universalist Church of the Internet.
The UUA mailing list
for our on-line community was abolished in January 2000.
Since then, the UUA has become much more open to electronic
communication
for groups that are not anchored in one geographical location.
Since this set-back,
planning was slowed