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.

    But now e-mail and access to the Internet
makes 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 sit down at your computers and 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.
 

And now a little history.
    It may 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 online 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 is called the WWCC.
This could stand for the World Wide Cyber Community
or the World Wide Computer Church.
All other suggested names will be considered.
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 this set-back, planning has been slowed,
even down to nothing in some years.
People have expressed interest in joining the organization,
but the mailing list was not maintained
because it was not used
and people keep changing their e-mail addresses.
Nevertheless, there seems to be a strong, positive response
to the idea of having a service that distributes
the very best in UU thinking.

    The next step is getting about 20 UU thinkers
to agree to propose at least one cyber-sermon per year.

    The Present and the Future

    In November 2008, our Facebook Page was established,
which gave new life to the organization.
By the end of 2008, 65 people had become 'fans'.
The total number of members increases every week.
See our Facebook Page.
Go to http://.www.Facebook.com.
Search for:
First Unitarian Universalist Church of the Internet.

    As of this revision of this Introduction to FUUCI,
10 people have agreed to propose cyber-sermons for FUUCI.
When we reach the proposed 20 thinkers,
we can begin to operate.

by James Park, webmaster. revised 7-2001, 12-19-2007; 1-4-2009; 7-19-2009

More introductory information about FUUCI
will be found in the Frequently Asked Questions.

Return to the beginning of the home page of the
First Unitarian Universalist Church of the Internet


 
 
 
 
 
 
 


The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.