Blacksburg Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Blacksburg, VA
Written July 2023
Blacksburg, Virginia, founded in 1772, is a small town nestled between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany mountains and is the home of Virginia Tech, the largest public university in Virginia. Blacksburg is also home to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the New River Valley.
As described on the church’s webpage,
“Unitarian Universalist Congregation is a free church in the Unitarian Universalist tradition. As such, we seek to keep our minds open to the religious questions people have struggled with in all times and places. Our worship services are a celebration of life, and of the Spirit of Life that sustains us. We gather together to engage in a shared search for truth and meaning.”
Reverend Jamie McReynolds is a community minister at Unitarian Universalist Congregation and the facilitator of the Community Conversations project. Community Conversations was a gathering of church members who participated in Living Room Conversations that met monthly from July 2019 to June 2022. A wide range of topics were chosen for these conversations, including Immigration, Climate Change, Political Stereotypes, Unity, Political Dysfunction, Race and Faith Communities, Listening Courageously, Freedom, Politics in Faith Communities, American Values/Ideals, Gun & Responsibility, Healthcare, and Status & Privilege. Conversations continued to be held virtually during the pandemic, and McReynolds utilized multiple of the COVID-related LRC conversation guides, including Life in the Time of Corona and Upcoming Election in the Time of Corona. McReynolds chose the topics based on issues he thought would be of interest to congregants.
McReynolds plans to resume the project and host Living Room Conversations for congregation members in September 2023. He explained, “Here in VA, we have local and state elections in November, so I’ll offer controversial topics like abortion, education, and transgender rights.”
McReynolds chose to become involved in the bridging movement because he was concerned about the political and cultural divide in America. This led him to become involved with the Braver Angels organization in 2018 and to attend an LRC event in 2019. He was interested in utilizing LRCs because the conversation guides made it easy to host conversations in his congregation. When asked about the goal of the Community Conversations Project, McReynolds explained, “My goal was community engagement and bringing in conservative views (because of his congregation’s liberal majority).” Although he noted, “Participants were surprised at the differences even among liberals.”
During the three years of monthly conversations, such conversations drew up to two dozen participants, depending on the topic, and McReynolds hosted a total of 27 conversations. We applaud him for such an accomplishment and wish him the best with his future conversation efforts.
- Welcome, Blacksburg, VA. Blacksburg.gov. (n.d.). https://www.blacksburg.gov/community/town-government/welcome
- About Us. Unitarian Universalist Congregation. (2018, January 1). https://uucnrv.org/about/
Written by Cassidy Weaver, Living Room Conversations Community Engagement Partner
Photo Credit: Newsletter Archive. Unitarian Universalist Congregation. (2021, May 10). https://uucnrv.org/
