Statements of Purpose

Religious Growth: Our church is a safe, covenanted faith community that inspires religious growth by enabling us as seekers to connect, to dialogue and to transform ourselves, our community, and our world.

• Our Unitarian Universalist identity offers a path of love, hope compassion, and service.
• Our values transcend our church; therefore, we nurture faith-filled leaders who transform the world.
• As we walk together in our life-long search for truth and meaning, our religious path is both personal and respected in our whole community.
• Sharing our insights permits deeper commitment to each other and our greater community.

Worship and the Arts: Our congregants, friends, and visitors experience personal and communal transformation from a variety of worship and art experiences and energize and nurture spiritual growth and help us live our core values.

• Worship and the arts offer us pathways to the realm of the sacred.
• Our varied worship styles encourage freedom of interpretation and discovery.

Justice: Our ministry provides opportunity to live out our faith commitments in our daily lives and to actively promote a peaceful and just world community.

• We believe the world is radically interdependent.  Our commitment to justice calls us to open our hearts and minds as we accept the challenges of shifting from privilege to interconnectedness.
• The work of justice is a means to pass our values to future generations.

Caring community: Our faith community is a safe place to let our needs be known and our strengths be called upon.  We covenant to care so that we may grow spiritually by giving and receiving greater love, health, compassion, and peace.

• We believe all people possess innate goodness and, in a caring community, honor human goodness.
• The fabric of our community is greater than the individual threads we weave.   We are in a relationship with the whole fabric, and we care for ourselves and the larger community.
• Caring holds our community's door open to all.

Stewardship: Life is a gift, and how we share our gifts with one another and the world reflects our values; therefore, stewardship is a spiritual discipline.

• Our gathered resources support the church's vision, mission and ministries.  As a congregation we value contributions of time, talent and treasure from every person.   Members and friends of the church are expected to participate and contribute as they are able.
• Stewardship is a joyful opportunity for us to express our passions and explore our abilities in harmony with other congregants.  Embracing the ministry in any and every aspect of the church is simple: "How may I help? How may I give of myself?"

Institutional Integrity is the result of the integrated wholeness of our concerted ethical behavior.  With personal and institutional integrity, we have the grounding, the foundation, to do worthwhile work as a church.

• East Shore Unitarian Church adheres to the highest ethical standards in its representation to its congregants, its constituencies, the wider community and the public; and in its ministry and service; its treatment of all congregants and staff; its relationship with regulatory agencies and the Unitarian Universalist Association and its member congregations.
• Integrity is taught by example: Institutional integrity calls for our leaders to demonstrate personal integrity.

We accomplish these purposes by creating ministry teams
with other people who share our vision and mission of the future.

We believe, we act, we accomplish, and we will change the world.