To the founding of the early christian church. We came to this country looking for religious freedom as people who question some inherited truths of the predominant christian teachings of the day. Both really found a home here in the United States early in the founding and then in 1961 like a bunch of denominations found they had a lot of shared beliefs and agendas. So in 1961 we became the Unitarian Universalist. What are the core values that we would find in a church or society . I go i would say through time it would be being willing to question inherited truth not saying that as a betrayal but all holy sacrament so that you are constantly revealing your own mistakes and coming to a full expression of truth together and the other piece would be always asking who have we left outside the circle of love. It is because of inherited small heartedness and how do we make that embrace of love wider. Inclusive . Yes. You welcome everybody to the table . Yes. Overtime that has meant different things. In the most recent 50 years it has meant really believing that there is truth to be had in many different forms and places. Of god so loved us, all of humanity, he sends out truth in many places. And look to poetry and science as a place where we draw some with them about how to live good lives. What are the basic beliefs about god . Probably, i wonder in the congregation i served now, half are humanists or atheists or agnostics. I just cant know if there is a god or my notion of god is so expensive that im not sure would agree with someone elses notion of god. I think our sense is that we want to connect to something universal and bigger then all of us yet present within each. And then there are people who really reject the idea of a traditional god and we all have to live under the same religious freedom. Where do you find your unity as a denomination if there are all these differences. That is a great question. Our unity is around practices. We are engaged in the search for truth and in the work of justice and compassion together and that we are open to listen broadly to others personal experiences as a way to gather our own truth. There is a set of shared, we call them principals. They are basic. We believe in the work and dignity of all. There are some real basic principles we agreed to. Those are really a foundation to the larger conversations we have around belief and commitments. There is a history of social activism. Say a word about that. Yes. I think when you question inherited truth and ask how the human heart can be bigger you are seeing people who are excluded and then you are called to fight for their right to be included. That has put unitarians and universalist both at the forefront of every Major Movement for social reform. Everything from abolitionists to civil rights to fair treatment of the mentally ill were treated we have treated them like human beings. It puts us in the middle of every fight for dignity. We will hear more about that in just a moment. Welcome back to mosaic. Our guest with us today is pastor vanessa southern. She is the senior minister at first united darien universal society in San Francisco. We are learning the history of your denomination. Have you always been a part of this . What led you to be pastor . I was raised like so many people unchurched. My father was raised Southern Baptist and my mother was raised dutch reform from the netherlands. Both fell away from those denominations. They could not find a place that they felt at home. I was actually in new york city riding a bus home and i saw these people coming out of churches and synagogues. They all look 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 enriched these peoples lives so much. We went to the University Terry and church. That is where we found a home easily. That was the beginning. Then you were called to ministry. How did that evolve . I go i would say a friend of mine there was a statement that says one step i bless you. And that really feels like that was my journey to college. There was a philosophy class that i took which raised questions about what is happiness and the good life, what is love, all of those big questions. I felt drawn in and then i started taking classes in religious studies and i loved that and overtime my premed classes fell away and i would say there is a long story but the short story is that the idea that you spend a life deeply searching for meeting and doing it with other people and Building Community and doing justice work, it just appealed to me. And here i am. I know you served in a church in new jersey. Then you have been in San Francisco for 18 months. You are a new pastor here. What is it like to serve here in the bay area compared to the east coast. Do you see similar issues . I think this is a completely new world in so many ways. I would say that the first three things i noticed about San Francisco or how beautiful it is. It is lovely to be in a stunningly beautiful state. Its naturally beautiful and the city itself on so many levels. The other things i noticed were the incredibly large homeless problem which i now know is connected to Affordable Housing in the city. I had lived in mumbai, india for two years. For me to notice this tells you just how extreme it is even compared to places where we think it might be worse. I also noticed the low percentage of people that were africanamerican. It is a very diverse city in so many ways except for that way and i am a impacting the history of that and wondering about that. Is it more challenging to be church here in San Francisco. There is a long tradition of church on the east coast. Yes. I have heard it said that this is one of the most secular cities in the United States with low attendance rates. I think Building Community in San Francisco is clearly important. So many people seem to come from some other place. There is a yearning for people to come together. And i think there is, because of progressive questioning, established churches are a little bit suspect that we just celebrated the jim jones massacre. We know why religion is suspect. We dont talk about all the good of religion though. I would hope we could draw people back in powerfully. One of the good contributions that universalists 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 worked on that in new jersey. I did a samesex marriage at west point. Is little known that we were the largest representing denomination in selma. We lost two. A minister and a layperson. They were both murdered because of that. We are willing to take risks and someone needs to do that. Yes. I also read that your denomination was one of the first to ordain women. Right. 1863 we did that. On the forefront of many issues become before they come to light. Yes. Women braved that. Do you like serving in San Francisco . I love it. People here are really 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 that. I think people came here because they were not welcome in their towns oforigin. So that is truly important. Okay. We are going to learn more about the ministries when we come back. Welcome back. Another pastor is with me, vanessa southern. We need to say a word about your founder. He is well known. Yes. We have a sarcophagus in our property. We have the remains of thomas starr king. He was a founding pastor of the church you only served from 1860 to 1864. Mostly advocating for states to stay a free state and not be a free state. He was under 40 when he passed away. That is your founder. What when was the congregation establish . 1850. Union square is named because he would preach there in favor of the union. On a sunday morning, what time is worship . I dont 11 00. You can sleep in, read the paper and then come. So if we came to worship at this church, we going to find your church the same thing we find it many other churches . You actually yes. There are variations among all the denominations. You would probably find a lot of what you would find in most protestant churches. We have opening words and hymns and shared statements of faith and readings and what might be different is that the reading may not be drawn from the bible. We choose readings from any number of sources. The sermon is important . Yes. The word. The sermons are 15 to 20 minutes, definitely the heart of worship in many ways. Increasingly we are having more more rituals but the sermon is the anchor. Eight choose on some piece of what we are struggling to make sense of in the our lives and in the world. It sounds very practical. Yes. I hope every sermon has a dropping point where the bigger question we bring in is something people can practice in their own lives. Given that you have people of different faiths and no faith, they are all in the congregation, are they all there on sunday morning in worship . Many of them. That is a good question. We have a center that has a lot of programming opportunities. We actually have a humanist group that meets after church and some of those people also come to worship and some only go to the humanist group. That is there church. We offer different opportunities to connect. We have one Community Though that decides how to be together and be of service. We have 200 people on an average sunday. There are a lot of friends. Being in the city most congregations have people that connect but are not members. They consider themselves members but we dont know them as members. The name of the congregations first Unitarian Universalist society. Is it a church, a congregation . All those things. History of why society was chosen. In other communities the word church can be a block for people who are raised jewish. Many people come from mixed marriages. One could be christian or jewish or hindu. So for some of them the word church can be like barbed wire. So oftentimes congregations choose words that push away some of those boundaries so that everybody can feel welcome and older traditions are welcome. What are the issues that the society is working on these days . We are in the process of doing a mission review. We are beginning to ask which pieces of our history and dna carryforward and what do they ask us to do in this place in the city in this time. Its a very generative time to ask the question about the truth that we need to challenge in the way we can be of service to the city. So in many places we have the largest progressive voice. Asking how you can be of service in this city is a question we are just beginning to unravel. Historically it has meant that we were of support to those who had asylum in the u. S. And came to San Francisco. We had mentors. How to get a job. They needed to find a home in the United States and San Francisco, the home and families they left behind often in fear of murder, persecution. You have a variety of ministries. What are some of those that people might want to explore . We always have social justice ministries. A whole group that looks that the environment. If we dont figure out how to save the planet no other ministry will be of any value to our children and grandchildren. We asked questions about how to become an antiraces force that builds a real multicultural society. So the internal work that we each have to do to understand the water we swim in and the air that we breathe and how to make ourselves a more whole and welcoming community and how to do that in the world. That is why people would come to the society to worship and grow and become a better person . Yes. I think that is true. I realize that we also need to be a place where people can just be together and have fun. We will be back and we will talk about ways people are together in just a minute. Welcome back to mosaic. You left us on a fun note. It is advent season, right before christmas which can be a wonderful and meaningful time in churches and societies. I bet you have a wonderful Worship ServiceChristmas Eve. Tell us about it. We do. We have a service at 4 30 where we pull out all the stops. It looks a lot like a lot of Christmas Eve services. We tell the story and have the pageant. We have candles and a small homily and time to reflect on the magic of the season and what is the story of jesus and what does that mean for us. The promise of birth and the ministry. The sunday before we have a service where we have to hold up for people where christmas is more complicated. We look at a story of Holding Families other than the holy family. What are the stories of the families in our midst . To tell their stories is to hear the sacredness in every families story and its origins and that is particularly good when families are under steege a little bit. And who our families are and how they got here. It will be a chance to reframe what is a holy story of origin. And christmas time is a wonderful time to visit your church or the first unitarian church, to be a visitor. We expect visitors. We are extra where. Are people coming for the first time to experience Worship Services . For st. Marks we have a lot of worship having to do with christmas and the christmas story. Christmas eve at 5 oclock we have a pageant. 7 00 and then a service at 10 30 and then Christmas Day we have a 10 am service. This year we are celebrating Christmas Day services with Calvary Christian church. That will be at st. Marks. We went to encourage people to worship during this christmas time. Churches are very welcoming and expect visitors during this time of year. That is a great chance to reflect and unless you carve out time to do that it is difficult to find. Yes. The commercialism is maddening. And it is shallow and you will find a different experience if you go to first universalist on Christmas Eve. Yes. They can then go to your 10 00 service. Yes. Many opportunities to worship. Seek out your neighbor heard church. Go to worship. I recommend this society. Thank you. We especially are grateful for all the people who support this show, especially my cohost an hour late producer. Blessings to you during this christmas time. Wild thing, you make my heart sing wild thing i. Think i. You know what i think . I think you owe us 48. 50. Wild thing. If you ride, you get it. Geico motorcycle. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Live, the cbs bay areas studios, this is kpix 5 news. Another fire in vacaville. Violent crashes between pro and antitrump groups in San Francisco injuring three Police Officers and sending several Police Officers to the hospital. And family demanding answers this morning after two people were shot dead outside a home in modesto. Good morning its sunday, october 18. Lets start with a check of our weather. We broke records all over the place yesterday in the bay area