Greetings Unity Community. As a trustee of Unity Church in Albany and a member of the Prosperity Committee, I write to you now to give you an update on this committee’s progress. Our committee has, in accordance with the Unity tradition of spiritual discernment, focused on developing a more current version of three simple yet profound written statements that describe who we are as a Unity community:

1. The Mission Statement, 2. The Vision Statement, and 3. The Welcome Home statement that appears in every church bulletin and on our website. Spiritual discernment was a prayerful way for this group to work together and, in a heart-led way, to accomplish the task of creating viable drafts of Mission, Vision, and Welcome statements.

Often, these statements are created through an intellectual, dry, and tedious process. Not this time. Instead, this process was uplifting,rewarding, and fun.Below, please find a working draft of each of these statements, which will be put before the congregation for its own discernment and refinement in the upcoming period, before being formally adopted.  Here is a preview of this committee’s attempt thus far:

Mission Statement:
The mission of Unity Church in Albany is to awaken to and embrace the Divine essence of all beings, through prayer and service.

Vision Statement:
We celebrate Oneness with Spirit and with the Divine Nature of all.

Welcome Home Statement (from inside the church bulletin):
Welcome Home! We are a center of loving kindness, open to all who seek to deepen connection to the Divine by embracing Life in all its forms and manifestations.

In our spiritual family, we know there are many paths that lead to God. We believe that Spirit led you here this day.Our desire is to share God’s love with genuine heartfelt warmth. We are a gathering of all kinds of people with various backgrounds, life-styles, and life-stories. Growing together, we worship, we serve, we laugh, we cry, we learn, and we reach out to our world with life-transforming truth. Our name says it all. We celebrate Unity, oneness with Spirit and the divine nature of all. If you’ve been searching for an inclusive spiritual community and a place to belong again—Welcome Home!

Please feel free to contemplate the words found in the above statements. Let them percolate within you. Look for whether there is resonance or dissonance as you contemplate these statements, and then seek out a member of the committee to share your thoughts.

Yours In Unity,
Samuel House & The Prosperity Committee,
with Karin Reinhold, Dennis Ryan, Dottie Frament, & Heather Diddel