More than five years ago, I first wrote about a Unitarian effort about 110 years past for the creation of “lay centres” that in many ways anticipated the post-WWII Fellowship Movement.
There’s little I can find about this initiative apart from a few articles and a small worship guide. I intended to say more about the book — famous last words — but it is fragile and rare enough that I did not want to subject it to a flatbed scanner.
So I’ll pick up where I left off. A couple of years used my phone camera to first “scan” it, and then produced a version to share. This is part of my ongoing meditation what churches can do with less-than-optimal resources. So far as I know there’s a single survivor from that experiment: First Unitarian, Memphis, a.k.a The Church of the River.
Here are those articles listed in one place, to finally launch my review. Hope it’s helpful; comments welcome, below.
- A hymnal from Fellowship Movement prehistory (April 3, 2014)
- Inside the Lay Centers service book (April 4, 2014)
- List of hymns in the League of Lay Centers hymnal (April 5, 2014)
- “A Hundred Unitarian Sunday Circles” (1895) (April 6, 2014)
- A Unitarian Te Deum (July 15, 2017)
- Lay centers service book: first thoughts (July 17, 2017)
- There’s a link to a Google Doc with the book’s text in this article
What did they do about the eucharist/holy communion? Did they simply not attempt it?
I’d guess that would be reserved for visiting ministers, if at all.
I’d be interested in reading your thoughts on what modern churches with less-than-optimal resources could do about the sacraments, and what your underlying beliefs about those are, if you wish to share them.
Heading to the office, but yes, I love to talk about this subject.