Renew Your Faith

We are a people of Faith. We at Horizon are a church, and a part of a religious denomination -  Unitarian Universalists. Yes, as we often say we don’t have to believe in exactly the same answers to some of the big questions like those about God, afterlife, and eternity. But we do have faith, and it’s a Shared Faith at that. 

We have faith that as we move and work together towards our common goals and according to our covenant (agreement on how we behave together), our fellow Horizon members will do likewise. We have faith that working together we can make a difference, and that staying in - or returning to - our covenant will help us move harmoniously. We have faith that our efforts will help, and that humanity is worth serving and saving. We have faith in the better world and future that we are working towards.

That faith that we have gets tested, strained to the breaking point even, by the tumult of the world. Our faith in peace and the decency of humanity is challenged by war, by scoundrels, by tyranny. And still we renew our faith, even in the darkest moment, when all seems lost and hopeless, even as we are overrun, we have faith that better times are ahead, that our sacrifice is building something better.

One way we at Horizon show and renew our faith is by putting our money where our mouth is. Our pledged financial contributions to this church are a sign of our faith in each other, in the work we are doing together. And renewing our pledge each year is a renewal of our commitment to the values we cherish and hold up, to the dreams we have in common, to the faith that Beloved Community is not only possible but worth a sacrifice, worth the investment of our time, and, crucially, our money.

Another way we are renewing our faith at this time is by working on an explicit Horizon-wide behavioral covenant. We have always had a broad general agreement of how we treat each other, and we have an aspirational statement we speak in service on Sundays. However, up to this point, the only specific covenants we have had are those we create in small groups. Each religious education class (classes of all ages), each team and committee and task force, even your Board of Trustees, work together each year to come up with a covenant that we then use to guide us in our regular activities. We as a church, led by the Committee on Shared Ministry (CoSM), are now engaged in the work of creating a behavioral covenant for the whole congregation.

On behalf of the Horizon Board of Trustees, thank you for your faith, for your sacrifices, for all your contributions, for your participation in and support of our covenant, and for making this church better by your presence in it. Renew your faith, despite the challenges of the present moment, and look ahead to all that we can and will accomplish moving forward together.

We are a people of Faith. And we have faith in you.

– Michael McKee, Horizon Board of Trustees