Guest at Your Table

This year's program

UUSC offers congregations meaningful and simple ways to incorporate faith in action into their worship experience.

Connecting with UUSC's human-rights work puts into practice almost every one of the seven UU principles. Helping to defend human rights for all people means upholding the inherent worth and dignity of every person; promoting justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; honoring the goal of the world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; and celebrating the interdependent web of all existence.

This year's Guest at Your Table and Justice Sunday programs will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We will make human rights accessible, connecting the underlying values of UDHR to UU values.

Now is the time to plan for the next Guest at Your Table and Justice Sunday programs! Please save these dates on your 2008-2009 congregational calendar.

Guest at Your Table - Sunday, November 23, 2008

The Guest at Your Table tradition has built lasting connections to UU faith in action for more than thirty years. Join nearly every congregation in the country — and around the world — in welcoming a Guest at Your Table.

Guest at Your Table is for everyone. UUSC provides a complete intergenerational program with worship and religious-education resources, colorful boxes, and Stories of Hope that connect UUs to real people whose lives have been touched by the collective struggle for human rights.

Families and individuals learn about UUSC's global human-rights work, which puts our shared principles into action. Sharing our blessings through the Guest at Your Table box ensures that this human-rights work continues, while building UUSC membership. Our members and partners are the moral levers through which we move the world.

The suggested date for opening Guest at Your Table worship activities is always the Sunday before Thanksgiving. This year it is November 23, 2008. Resources will be available online and mailed to all congregations by September 1.

Join UUSC in advancing justice throughout the world. For assistance with either program, please contact us by e-mail or 800-388-3920.

How to order Guest at Your Table planning and program resources

UUSC will mail a planning packet to each congregation, and each UUSC local representative, by mid-September. Local representatives will be able to place an order for program resources, including boxes once they are available, via an online order form or by mailing in the order postcard to be included in their packet.

History of Guest at Your Table

Guest at Your Table has been an important part of UUSC and UU culture since 1975, when it first began. The program made its UUSC debut following a trip made by Warren Salinger, then UUSC institutional advancement director, to the Netherlands. While there, he was inspired by an organization's program "Gast aan Tafel" that educated supporters about its work, while raising vital funds. That program used colorful boxes that the whole family could enjoy. Salinger immediately began work with UUSC staff to adapt the idea for use in UU homes nationwide - and even worldwide! Each year since 1975 involvement in Guest at Your Table has grown, strengthening UU connections to our shared principles and helping to challenge injustice throughout the world.