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Christmas worship 1: background thoughts

What should a Christian do at Christmas who, for whatever reason, is unable to attend a Christmas service? The reasons abound: church conflict, holidays with secular people, transportation difficulties, poor health or a lack of options locally, particularly where Christianity is a minority religion. Or perhaps Christmas is too much this year, and the typical celebrative service is more than you can bear. In this last case, search “blue Christmas” services locally, which are intentionally pitched for those in stress, depression or grief. (Many will have already been held this year, alas.)

But I think having a different approach to worship can go a long way to making a service — whether at a different church or broadcast — a better fit under these conditions. (A follow-up article will offer some suggestions about a private devotion with words.) Years ago I would attend a Christian Science service, more for the mood than the theology. For those unfamiliar, Christian Science services are made up mostly of hymns and readings from the Bible and “Mrs. Eddy’s textbook” in an entirely predictable fashion. The service is led by two readers; they don’t have clergy. I would sit in the back and let the soothing reading wash over me; the effect was almost hypnotic, and at times actually healing. A bonus: Christian Science churches are often architecturally attractive and grand, so it’s easy to let the eye wander, allowing the body and soul some rest. That’s the attitude to take.

And there’s something to avoid. It’s almost a Protestant tick: when in doubt, add more words. Add a hymn, lengthen the lectern or responsive readings, extend the prayer or let the sermon spread. Even that latter-day darling, the guided meditation, leaves me wanting to stay “shut up.” And since most of my readers are probably Protestant, that’s something we can fix, at least an an awkward Christmas. Resist this impulse. If attending a strange church, pick one (if possible) with visual interest, focus on a cross or nativity scene, generally ignore the body of the service, and focus on the reading of the gospel, and perhaps join in the Lord’s Prayer. Singing is optional. Put away your phone. Trust the space as being safe and welcoming: God is the host, the congregation are other guests. Take time to mentally review your life to that moment, but there’s no rush. Say or feel small prayers when the need arises. Pivot, perhaps after the gospel, to what lays before you. God has come to us in the birth of Jesus Christ, to save the world. You are a part of that household. Imagine or dream what that could be without rushing. There is nothing in this service you need to do for it to be correct, even if that’s not how you would ordinarily approach worship.

So for a broadcast worship service, I’d recommend something of the same. Consider an audio service, televised Christmas service or recorded sacred Christmas music as opposed to one that’s streaming and focus perhaps on a nativity scene or a candle. Treat it as a guide or context rather than a series of acts or instructions. If the thought of something so free form bothers you, keep a bible open to a nativity narrative with you to revisit. Just be with the service, hear the announced promise of God’s new age, and let Christmas be present to you in the spirit “which goes where it will.”

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Creative study for ministerial formation

A request from readers, whenever you find this.

Have you heard of creative ways that churches are training and forming pastors, both outside graduate seminaries and often-regional denominational schools for ministry (non-degree alternatives) to seminaries? Bonus points if the churches are more accustomed to the more establishment approach and are in the “mainline,” but are coming to terms with the affordability and practical issues those approaches bring.

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Request from readers

It’s taking a bit of effort get back into writing, and I would appreciate any requests for research, elaboration or commentary.

More thoughtful work takes more time, of course. I’m thinking about the tension between “denominational Universalism” (what I do here) and “neo-Universalism” (as I call it) which makes up the bulk of Universalist Christian interest today, and often comes with an Evangelical background. Also working on Christmas worship suitable for singles or couples. Not Universalist per se, but anticipating an unmet need: worship in a time of fracture and decline.

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Generative AI for Universalism

Explainer graphic as sample of generative AI

I’m more than a little suspicious about generative artificial intelligence: a mix of feelings about slop culture; the devaluation of mental work; the risks both to property rights and open culture; the risks to our economy; and the pressure on our environment, among others. Do the risks outweigh the opportunities? And will it assemble fantasy facts and spurious citations? Better to look, and review than wonder and let my imagination wrongly overvalue or undervalue it.

But where to begin? A few months ago, I used ChatGPT and a couple of image generators, but everything was vague or too uncanny. I came across a video produced by Google’s NotebookLM today, and thought I’d give it a try — with Universalism, of course.

My first attempt used a short prompt about the Winchester Profession. NotebookLM proposed a set of authority documents — one from one of my own sites — and I filtered out a couple of suspicious sources, but all the rest were denominational-adjacent. The results were disappointing, and the podcast-style audio was absolutely eerie. Because of the sources, Universalism was compared and contrasted with Unitarianism, which I hadn’t mentioned and attempts to filter Unitarianism out failed. The products reminded me of pamphlets — and a telling of liberal religion — that neither speaks to me, nor looks (as best I can tell) like the UUA today. If anything, it reminded me of pamphlets from twenty to fifty years past. Not useful.

So I asked for “Christian Universalism and not Unitarian Universalism” and this coughed up more theological sources: both patristic and current writers in a group I think of as neo-Universalist. The sources made the outcome, naturally enough. Generated audio and video is peppered with informal uses and verbal ticks which by definition is unnatural. I have a study guide that I’ll need to examine closely.

But this graphic looks pretty good to me. But Universalism historically has suffered a labor shortage, and the right tools may make more possible for its future, so worth more exploration and an examination of the risks and benefits.

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Pandoc for church work?

I’ve referred to pandoc several times over the years, so I’m just putting this out to attract interest, and before I review my current workflow. More a beacon and less an article, and a part of my ongoing conviction that church life needs to be increasingly resource conserving, both in labor and technology, to function under social and economic stress.

If you use pandoc — “a Swiss army knife for document file formats — and especially for church work, please leave a comment. I’ve used it to produce simple HTML pages, EPUBs for book e-readers and sermons to print for preaching (and thence to this site.)

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A Unitarian among the Esperantists

My natural interest in the subject led me to scan the pre-1961 Unitarians for interest in Esperanto after yesterday’s post about the Universalists. I don’t think there’s much more interest overall. While the American Unitarian Association published tracts in a variety of languages, there was not a word I’ve found in Esperanto. Articles were usually neutral. But the Esperantists did have a champion among the Unitarians.

Glenn P. Turner (Wikipedia link) was a Madison, Wisconsin lawyer, radio announcer and sometime Socialist politician. Based on his letters to the Unitarian magazine Christian Ledger — usually to stoke interest in the language — he was well informed about the workings of First Unitarian Society there, so presumably a member. (Of note, in one of his letters, there was a tiny postwar worship group of Esperantists among the British Unitarians.) On the Esperanto side, he ran a book service for many years and participated the first (1953) United States congress of the rival, reformed and current national organization. (S-ano is short for samideano, a title that literally means “a member having the same idea” and means “fellow Esperantist” but reads with a touch of “fellow-traveller.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used today non-ironically.)

Not noted in the English Wikipedia article, but cited in the Esperanto version is that he owned the Sherlock Hotel in Madison, the headquarters of the United States Esperanto congress in 1928.

Later. Somehow I missed this from the report of the 1953 congress:

Sunday, July 5

Two special Sunday services were held in the modernistic Unitarian Meeting House — the first was conducted by S-ano Sayers in English, and the second conducted in Esperanto by S-ano Lewine. The Congress photo was made at the Meeting House which, delegates were interested to learn, was built largely with money contributed by Dr. Charles A. Vilas, Secretary of the Wisconsin State Esperanto Association in 1909.

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Finding a Universalist among the Esperantists

Well, I finally found a reference to a Universalist — in fact, a minister — in an Esperanto setting, and I wasn’t even looking. With the online publication of the main Universalist publication — alternately titled the Universalist Leader or the Christian Leader — I was able to look up question I had about the little-documented World War Two era. But I found a different answer

I took a family trip to New York last year, and we stayed in the Hotel New Yorker. Wasn’t there a Universalist conference there? So I searched for it by name. No Universalist conference during the war years, but the 1939 Esperanto Association of North America (EANA) had its annual meeting there, and the Rev. Cornelius Greenway, minister of the All Souls Universalist Church, Brooklyn (now incorporated in the All Souls Bethlehem Church) gave the sermon for the July 1 non-sectarian service there.

Was there more to learn? While the EANA went extinct decades ago, its rival, Esperanto-USA (formally the Esperanto League of North America), keeps copies of the EANA newsletter Amerika Esperantisto online because of its historical importance. The whole sermon was reprinted by request in that issue, but there are two odd things to note.

  1. Even though it was a non-sectarian service (nesekta diservo) Greenway cited the first two of the “Five Points” declaration in furtherance of his theme.
  2. Oh, and the sermon is entirely in English. Seems he and his family learned some Esperanto in his youth in the Netherlands but forgot it all. Not terribly auspicious, but then I may be the only Universalist minister with a working knowledge of Esperanto, and I wouldn’t dare preach in it. And Greenway’s experience in post-WWI peace negotiations would have meant a lot to the conference participants, two months before the European war would start.

So you can read the sermon (and an outline of the service, much of which was in Esperanto) in the newsletter, all in English, starting at page 3. It’s not a work for the ages, despite its reception at the time.

Other references to Universalism in the Leader convey half-hearted hopes for its use in peace work; its use as a metaphor for something of universal interest; and — oddly — a quotation to advertise (a sample) the then-denominational St. Lawrence University. It seems Universalist knew about Esperanto, but didn’t know it and certainly didn’t use it for church work.

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I’m blogging again, I guess

Am I getting my blogging voice back? Time will tell. But two things are true and are worth noting:

  1. I am grateful for the kind words of support and earnest inquiries for more information I’ve gotten over the years and to this day. I also appreciate those of you who take time to read my posts and make comments.
  2. Universalist Christianity — or anything worth having — won’t prosper in the walled (and manipulated) gardens of corporate social networks. I’ve been able to speak freely over the years because I have this little patch on a server that I pay for myself, and some 22 years of posts may be found here. (Try that on Facebook.)

    To that end, and if you know how, you can also read the posts here by subscribing to the RSS feed or by subscribing to @admin @www.revscottwells.com [remove the space] through one of the distributed Mastodon nodes. (I think that’s right.) I don’t advertise and don’t worry about site hits, so read this as you want.

If you do want to help me, link to my site here, or refer people over. Thanks.

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The Open Hymnal Project is back

Like looking for a liberally-licensed Bible, I take collections of public domain hymns seriously. I went back to a site I often enjoyed but has been dormant and read

09 Oct 2025 After a long absence, I am restarting activity on the Open Hymnal Project.

with activity as recent as last week. Go ahead and bookmark it, and even if you don’t share my interest in public domain and freely-licensed hymns, the materials for Christmas (PDF) should get your attention.

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Orders of service from US Japanese internment camps

I was looking for some mid-century orders of service — more about that later — and found a trove of orders of service at the Internet Archive from Protestant union churches at some of the internment or concentration camps for Japanese Americans during the Second World War.

Such a terrible time in the nation’s history and a great hardship to those caught up in that dislocation, presumption of guilt, loss of civil rights and economic hardship. And then there are these documents, which in many ways are very ordinary and typical of the period. Did they have a role past the outline of the service or sharing church news? To maintain normalcy, project it, something else? I’ll leave it to those who have experience in the material to say. But they’re a worth a look, especially in the notices which describe the prisoners comings and goings — and their faith and values.

Link (Internet Archive)