My name is Suzette and I am a member of First UU Church of San Diego where I also work as the Director of Community Life. It is my joy and
my job to help people find ways to connect with each other while
traveling their unique path of religious freedom and spiritual growth.
First Church is a thriving heart of social justice and liberal
religion. In fact, we have been an active and alternative voice in San
Diego since 1873.
I became a member of this church in 1995. I have served as a committee
chair, pledge drive volunteer, and on the board of our liturgical
drama group. I have attended our district (Pacific Southwest)
Leadership Training and have worked with our Leadership Development
Committee to write a four-week “correspondence” course on leadership
called “Leadership 101 The Un-Class Moving from a Religious Consumer
to an Active Participant.” I have taught two and three year olds in
Sunday school, and adult and youth classes for our Religious Education
programs. I periodically join the cast of our Looking Glass Theatre
and occasionally contribute to worship services through story-telling.
I was hired on staff in 2002. I continue to serve as a hub of
communication for ministers, committees, board and congregation and
serve as an ambassador to visitors and guests, both on Sunday and
during the week. I am the staff leader for the Community Life Ministry
Team which means I directly support several of our church groups. I
assist people in becoming church members and hopefully help folks find
meaningful connections within in this congregation, our faith and the
wider world.
In addition to working fulltime, I share my life and co-parent our
eleven-year old son with my partner of 20 years. She and I were
legally married in the summer of 2008, much to our son’s delight. I
regularly volunteer in my son's cooperative charter school and serve
our church’s Earth-Centered Spirituality Circle. My partner, Tree,
works full-time as a landscape gardener at Sea-World.
If there’s any time left in the day I read fantasy and science
fiction, write essays, create art, pretend I’m a good vegan and
memorize the lighting designs for episodes of Firefly.
From the essay Outreach–Inreach:
The Value of Social Strategy and Spiritual Design
I contend that while outreach is imperative in order to grow membership, increase income, and change the world, the heart of outreach is a place of healing . . . and the heart of outreach isn’t outreach at all, but inreach.
I believe that outreach not only serves a social strategy, but within the context of our liberal religion, outreach does three important things: It raises awareness about our church and faith; it helps us serve the larger community; and it brings wholeness to our lives.
To be meaningful, the relationship between individual and church needs to be active. This relationship must exist in addition to weekly worship consumption. There needs to be dialogue and conflict and fun and intimacy and doubts and joy and life outside of committee work. When church is meaningful, the congregation begins to grow and sustain a spiritual community. Outreach is the front door and at the very inner core, inreach.
Our church cannot sustain membership without a healthy inreach program. We can have the most successful outreach program in the county but without the ability to welcome, develop relationship and spiritually feed our people, we will have, as they say, the proverbial revolving door. And we won’t only lose visitors and new members . . . we will lose lifetime UUs in the process.
Inreach serves a spiritual design. It provides opportunities to deepen one’s faith, create genuine relationships, and make church part of one’s life. It is through the act of inreach that we truly connect with others. It is that spark of connection that serves to create the energy of transformation…of healing. That is what I mean when I say “outreach brings people into church, inreach brings church into people.”
