REGISTRATION FORM NAME:_______________________________ MAILING ADDRESS: _____________________________________ _____________________________________ TOWN:_______________________________ STATE:________________ ZIP CODE:_____________ TELEPHONE:____________________ EMAIL ADDRESS: _____________________________________ BADGE NAME:_________________________ Are you (please check one): Authorized Minister Layperson Cost (please check one): Saturday Only: $65.00 Friday evening & Saturday: $75.00 Please note the following before making your selection:  Saturday Event includes lunch and is open to everyone. (8:30 AM – 3:30 PM)  Friday Evening Event; Potluck and discussion with Diana Butler Bass is open to Authorized Ministers only. (6‐9 PM) Special Requests (please list dietary or special needs):________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Scholarship assistance is available for seminarians. Please email Jim at [email protected] for more information. Please send this form with payment to: Vermont Conference, UCC 36 North Main St. Randolph, VT 05060 The main event will take place at the Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee, and will include lunch and refreshments. Rooms available at a special rate for the event. To reserve a room, call the resort at: 1‐800‐423‐1211. Be sure to mention you are with the April 13 UCC event to get the special rate. The Vermont Conference, UCC Church Growth and Vitality Committee presents: Christianity After Religion: Exploring the 3Bs of Faith: Belief, Behavior, and Belonging Lake Morey Resort is located at 1 Clubhouse Road, Fairlee, VT, off I‐91, Exit 15 Norwich Congregational Church is located at 15 Church Street, Norwich, VT Register online. Follow the link at: http://www.vtcucc.org/general.html Featuring Diana Butler Bass Vermont Conference United Church of Christ 36 North Main Street Randolph, Vermont 05060 Phone: 802‐728‐4999 Fax: 802‐728‐4072 E‐mail: [email protected] April 12‐13, 2013 "Christianity did not begin with a confession. It began with an invitation into friendship, into creating a new community, into forming relationships based on love and service.” (From Christianity After Religion)
Every recent survey of American religious practice shows that conventional religion is in serious decline; at the same time, people express high levels of enthusiasm for spirituality. What does this mean for our own lives, churches and Christianity more broadly? April 12th 6‐9 PM will feature a Pastors only event with a potluck dinner and conversation with Diana at the Norwich Congregational Church April 13th 8:30 AM ‐ 3:30 PM – Christianity
After Religion: Exploring the 3Bs of Faith:
Belief, Behavior, and Belonging
During this event, we will explore the big picture of how the 3Bs, “believing, behaving, and belonging,” are changing as we discern the shape of emerging spirituality and the implications of these changes on faith, congregations and culture. Why Come? Here are some reflections from members of the VT Conference Church Growth and Vitality Committee: My friend Scott and I ( both relatively newly ordained) have formed The Grumpy Pastors Club because we are tired of hearing ‐on one hand ‐ the same old ideas about how the church should and does function, and ‐on the other hand ‐ the dreary "the church is dying, no one comes" conversations that spiral downward into despair. Diana Butler Bass offers a different perspective, clears our vision and shines a light on our new pathways. She helps us to see that we are in the midst of the most exciting of times, another Great Awakening, and that the opportunities are waiting for us if we are bold enough and faithfulness enough to be a part of something new. I can't wait. ‐ Rev. Cordelia Burpee Diana Butler Bass has given me hope! I hadn't been a pastor for more than a month when the realization that I had been trained to serve a church that doesn't exist hit me like a bolt from the blue. Over the past quarter century I've been trying to name what I intuitively knew to be the truth. Diana Butler Bass has done that and more. She has provided some guideposts and markers for us as we navigate this new terrain. ‐ Rev. Deadra Ashton As a member of the Sandwich Generation (those adults of an age to simultaneously care for aging parents while nurturing our still young children ‐ I recognize that I hold the same place in my church. How does my generation ‐ how do I ‐ honour the declining and dying? How do I help create a radically different space for the Divine in the lives of those who still need my mothering energy? Where and how do I receive my own sacred sustenance at the same time? Diana Butler Bass holds that trinitarian space of past, present and future for us and offers guidance on these questions to the Sandwich Generation of churches. Don't miss this event! ‐ Ms. Sonia Dunbar After a thoughtful, critical, memory‐filled, and loving analysis of the state of religion and the church, Diana Butler Bass offers a hopeful vision of a newly vibrant church. The essence of this vision: Practice. Study Scripture and practice. Pray and practice. Worship and practice. Do justice and practice. Throw open the creaky old doors and practice… The directions are simple. The challenge is vast, yet filled with hope and joy. This is why we do this. ‐ Pastor Alan Parker Diana Butler Bass hopefully and historically traces the first stirrings toward full fledged spiritual awakening as she examines "religious" trends over the last fifty years ‐ including what has been happening within mainline Protestant Christianity. She addresses in detail the need for a "great reversal": she suggests where we have been as teaching "from belief to behavior to belonging" and where we need to go: "belonging to behaving to (articulation of) believing." As a pastor, I believe the core of the urgent hard work right in front of us is in the remedial work of deeply engaging Bible study and the reintroduction of a kind of Pentecostal Spirit. Bass carefully and instructively offers us a road map to this inviting future. ‐ Rev. Karen Lipinczyk Please join us for what promises to be an informative event from which we hope you bring home new possibilities of how to 'be' church in the 21st century. Diana Butler Bass is an author, speaker, and independent scholar specializing in American religion and culture. She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of eight books including Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening (HarperOne, 2012) Her other books include A People's History of Christianity: the Other Side of the Story (2009), nominated for a Library of Virginia literary award and the best‐selling Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006) which was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY.