good morning, welcome to mosaic. i am delighted this morning to welcome our guest, vanessa southern, she is the senior minister at first unitarian universal society in san francisco, and we are going to learn about your denomination. unitarian universalist. first, give us a little bit of history about your denomination because many of us don't know about it.>> sure. founding beliefs date back to the christian church, but we

came to this country like so many did, looking for religious freedom as people who questioned some of the inherited truths of the predominant christian teachings of the day. and, both found a home in the united states early in its findings, and in 1961, like a bunch of denominations, they found they had a lot of shared leaves and agendas. so they joined. so we became the unitarian universalist. >> and, what are the core values that we would find in a church, or a society? >> i would say, through time, it would be, be willing to question the inherited truth, not as a trail but as -- the trail but as a holy sacrament.>> you are coming together as a

full expression of truth, and the other piece would be asking who have we left outside the circle of love? because they would be small heartedness or bias, and how do embrace of love wider in our work of love and justice. >> okay, so you are an inclusive denomination. you welcome everybody to the table.>> yes, i think over time, that has questioned different things, and in the most recent 50 years, it is believing there is truth to be had in many different forms of places. if god so loved us, he is sending out truth to many places. so not to restrict any information, even looking to science as a place where we draw some of our wisdom about how to live good lives. >> what are the basic beliefs about god that we will find in

the denomination? >> probably half the people identify as humanist or atheist or agnostic. theywoulbe people that say i just can't know if there is a god, or if my notion is so expensive that i'm not sure it would agree with somebody else's notion of god. so i think our sense is, we want to connect to something that is universal, that is bigger than all of us get present with each. and there might be people who really reject the idea of a traditional god. and we all have to live under the same religious roof.>> where do you find your unity as a denomination? if there are all of these differences? >> that is a great question, it might be better said that our unity is around practices, that we are engaged in the search of etmeaning we op to sten broadly to personal religious

experiences, as a way that we gather our own truth. but there is this set of shared principles. they are very basic. that we believe in the worth and dignity of all people. that we commit to the interdependent web of all existence of which we are apart. so there are some really basic principles we agreed to but those are the foundation to the larger conversations we have belief and commitment. there is a history of social activision -- activism, talk about that.>> when you're asking how the human heart can be bigger, you are always seeing people who are excluded and you are called to fight for their right to be included. so that has unitarians and universalists both, at the forefront of every major movement for social reform. so, everything from abolition

to women's rights, civil rights, fair treatment of the mentally ill, it has put us in every fight for human dignity.>> we are going to hear more about that when we get back to our mosaic show this morning. welcome.

>> welcome back, our guest with us today is pastor vanessa southern, she is the senior minister at first unitarian of san francisco, have you been a part of the denomination as always?>> iraised so many people increasingly, as you know, without church, my mother came from the netherlands, she was raised dutch reform, and both fell away from those dominations -- denominations as young people. they didn't find a place where they could feel at home individually, or as a couple. i saw all these people coming out of churches and synagogues who were doing their hebrew

school, and they all looked so happy and chatting on the street, and i went home and i asked my dad if we could go to church the next week because i wanted to see what seemed to enrich these people's lives so much. we went to a unitarian universal church, it was the church my dad's best friend went to, and that is where we just found a home, easily. so, that was the beginning.>> but your call to ministry, how did that evolve? >> a friend of mine, there is this traditional statement that says one step i bless you, and that feels like that was my journey, i went to college, there was a philosophy class i took as a freshman, it raised all the questions about what is happiness? what is love? all of those big questions. what is truth.

and i felt drawn in, and i started taking classes in the religious department, and i loved that. and over time, my premed classes fell away and i would say there is a long story but the short story is that, this idea that you spend a life deeply searching for meaning and doing it with other people and building community and doing justice work, it appealed to me. and here i am.>> i know you served in a church, and you've been in san francisco for a year and a half, first unitarian universalist society in san francisco, your pastor -- you are a pastor here, what is it like to serve in the bay area? do you see similar issues? different issues? >> i think this is a completely new world in so many ways.

i would say, to be honest that the first three things i noticed about san francisco are, first of all, how beautiful it is. it is lovely to be in a stunningly beautiful city. naturally beautiful. and the other two things i noticed were the incredibly large homeless problem, which i now know is connected to affordable housing issue in the city, and i have lived prior to coming here in india for 2 years. that tells you how extreme it is even compared to places that we might think are worse. then i noticed the very low percentage of people who are african-american coming from cities i served in like dc and new york. it is a very diverse city in many ways. i'm beginning to unpacked -- unpacked the history around

that. >> do you find it more challenging to be a church here in san francisco than on the east coast?>> yes. i've heard it said that this is one of the most secular cities in the u.s., with some of the lowest attendance rate. i think building community in san francisco is clearly important. so many people come from other places and they left their families behind. there is this yearning for people to be together and create unity. and, i think because of the city of progressive questioning, there are established places of worship that might be a little bit more suspect. we just celebrated the anniversary of the jim jones massacre. there are so many things in the press about it. but of course what we are not talking about is all the good of religion, even the jim jones

temple, this radical racial inequality. i hope we would drop people back into that more powerfully in the city. >> what would you say about those good contributions that unitarian universalist have contributed to society recently? >> that is a good question. i think we are almost always willing to put ourselves out for issues that are not yet mainstream. so the fight for marriage equality, we were on the forefront of that. i did the first same-sex marriage at west point. i think it is little known that we were the largest represented denomination in selma. we lost o , and i think we are willing to take risks, and somebody needs to be willing to take risks at each point in

which there is to our larger sense of ourselves as a nation. >> i also read that your denomination was one of the first ordained women way back in the 1800s.>> yes, 1863. >> on the forefront of many issues before they became mainstream.>> yes, you and i are the benefactors of all of the women that came before us who braved that glass ceiling.>> absolutely. do you like serving in san francisco?>> i love it. people are very warm and generous with each other. i think they are willing to be of service. i think they came here because they felt like this was a city that was going to ask a lot of them, and they wanted it to ask a lot of them. i think people came here also because they weren't welcome in their homes and towns of origin, so here to be welcomed

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senior minister of first unitarian universalist society in san francisco. we need to say a word about your founder because he is well known.>> yes, in fact i think we have the only sarcophagus on the property, we have the remains of thomas king, one of the early founding pastors of the church who served from 1860 until 1864, spending his time advocating for the states to stay a free state and not be a slave state.>> he was very young when he passed away, under 40. so that was your founder, when was the congregation established?>> in the 1850s. it was on a different location,

and union square is named because that is where he would preach in favor of the union and we moved up to our current location on franklin.>> on a sunday morning, what time is worship? >> it is at 11, so you can read the paper and sleep and if are your church the same thing we would find at many of the other churches from your denomination?>> yes, there are variations, but i would say, you would probably find a lot of what you would find in most protestant churches. so, we have opening words and hymns and shared statements of faith and readings, what might be different is the reading wouldn't be drawn from the bible every week. we don't have a lectionary, so we choose the readings from any number of sources. >> and the sermon is important

on a sunday morning.>> yes, the sermons are 15 to 20 minutes, definitely the heart of worship in many ways. increasingly, we are having more rituals as a part of worship, but we are chewing on some piece of what is hard in our world. i had a dropping point, where the theoretical or the bigger question, we try to bring it home to something people can practice in their own lives.>> given you have people of different faith and no faith, in the congregation, are they all there on sunday morning in worship? many of them? >> that is a good question.

like you, we have a center that has a lot of programming opportunities. so we have a humanist group that meets in the afternoon after church, and some of those people also come to worship and some of them only go to the humanist group, that is their church. we offer people different opportunities to connect, but we are bound in one community that discerns how it is going to be of service in the world, how to be together. but, we have to hundred people in worship on an average sunday, it is a robust showing. there are a lot of friends, i think being in the city, most congregations have that experience of people who connect with us but aren't members. but who consider themselves members. but we don't know that they are members.>> the name of the congregation is first unitarian universalist society, is it a church? are you a congregation? >> all of those things. and you made me realize the

history of why society was chosen, it is a great question. i know that in other communities, the word church can be a block for people who, for instance, are raised jewish. another might be muslim or hindu, for some of them, that word can be like barbed wire. they feel like they are betraying their heritage by entering. so, oftentimes, congregations will choose words that push away some of those boundaries so that everybody can feel welcome and their families are welcome and their traditions are welcome.>> what are the issues that first unitarian universalist society is working on these days? >> we are in the process of doing a mission vision review. so we are really beginning to ask, which pieces of our history and our dna carryforward and what did they ask us to do in this place, this city, and this time?

it is a very generative time to ask this question, about the truths and the ways we can be of service to this ty and of coue, it we are one of m so asking how you can be of service in this city is a question we are just beginning to unravel. historically, it is meant for instance that we were of support to folks that had asylum in the u.s. and they came to san francisco. we had a big guardian group ministry to mentor folks. so that they could find a home here in the u.s., here in san francisco, the home that they left behind, families they left behind often for fear of murder , persecution. >> and you have a variety of ministries at the society.

what are some of those ministries that people might want to explore?>> we certainly always have active social justice ministry, we have a group that is looking at environmental ministry, which we all know, if we don't figure out how to save the planet, none of the other ministries we do are going to be of value to our children and grandchildren. we dig deeply into that, and we ask questions about how to be antiracist, anti-oppressive, to really build a multicultural society. so we have to look at the internal work to learn how to make ourselves a more whole and welcoming community. >> that is one of the reasons why people would come to the society to worship and also to grow and become a better person. >> and increasingly, i'm realizing that we need to be a

stay together and have fun. >> we will be back in just a minute.

welcome back to mosaic, you left us on a fun note, it is adamant season, right before the christmas season, which can be

a wonderful, meaningful time in churches, societies, and i bet you have a wonderful worship service on christmas eve. tell us about it.>> we do, we have a service at 4:30 on christmas eve, and it looks a lot like a lot of christmas eve services, we tell the story, we have the pageant, we have candles and a small home only -- time to reflect on the season and what is the story, what is the promise of this birth and what does this ministry mean for us. i will say that the sunday before, we have a service where we have to hold up for people whom christmas is more complicated, we are going to look at, what are the stories of holy families other than the holy family?

what are the stories of the families in our midst and tosto the sacredness in every family's history and its origins and particularly a time when families are being split up and the stories, the various american stories of who our families are and how they got here. i think it'll be a chance to reframe what is a holy story of origin. >> wonderful. and christmas time is a wonderful time to visit your church, your neighborhood church, or first unitarian church to be a visitor because we expect visitors. we are extra-aware of visitors, and people coming for the very first time to experience these worship services. st. mark's, for example, we have a lot of worship, having to do with christmas and the christmas story.

christmas eve at st. mark's, 5:00 we also have a pageant. 7:00 and a service at 10:30, and on christmas day, we have a 10 am service. this year, we are celebrating with calvary presbyterian church, so we are combining together, that'll be at st. mark's. we want to encourage people to worship during this christmas time because churches are very welcoming and we expect visitors during this time of year, as i know you do.>> it is a great chance to reflect and the season offers less and less space for you to reflect, unless you go and carve it out for yourself.>> the commercialism this time of year is frustrating and shallow and you will find a different experience if you go to first unitarian universalist on christmas eve. 4:30 is the pageant. >> yes, and then they can go to

your service the next day.>> go to worship during christmas season, and i recommend fit unitarian universalist society. during this time of year, we especially are grateful for all of the people who support the show, especially my cohost and the late producer. blessings to you during this christmas time.

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. the recent rain giving live to a deadly menace ahead to avoid a highly taxic type of mushroom. >> another major staffing shake- up at the white house. the prereacting to the latest turn in the russia investigation. >> we need to have our housing near public transportation and near jobs. >> and saturday senator joins phil weir. we are talking about housing and homelessness.

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