Rev. Roger Butts
Phone: 719-433-3135
Click here for the latest blog post from Rev. Butts.
Important Message from your Minister, The Reverend Roger Butts
Evaluations were recently provided to Reverend Butts by the Committee on Shared Ministry and the Board of Trustees of Prairie. Reverend Butts also put together a self-evaluation. These are shared with the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee. These are available R.Butts eval – CoM, R.Butts eval – Board, and R.Butts eval – Self.
Visit Reverend Roger
During Office Hours
Reverend Roger is holding office hours during the month of October. If you’d like to discuss topics regarding Prairie UU, or if you need pastoral care, or if you just wish to catch up, he will be available every Thursday from 11AM until 1PM at the Parker Library. October 6th, find him in a 1st floor study room; October 13th, 20th, and 27th, he will be in a second floor study room. He looks forward to seeing you!
For the rest of 2022, Rev Butts intends to preach at Prairie UU on the following dates:
7/24 Rev. Butts, The Spirituality of Summer, at Bayou Gulch Park, an informal gathering, and Reverend Butts will be speaking on The Spirituality of Summer – briefly. You are invited to bring your thoughts on Summer spirituality as you see it!
7/31. Rev Butts and Rev Hinnant, What is a Progressive Faith? At UCC Parker Hilltop (10926 Democracy Road, Parker, CO) Rev Butts will engage in a dialogue sermon with Rev Dr. Olive Hinnant, pastor, Parker Hilltop, on what exactly is a progressive faith?
8/7, The Poetics of Now, Reverend Butts with Denver poet Andre O Hoilette. André O. Hoilette is a Jamaican-born poet living in Denver, Colorado. He’s a Cave Canem alumnus
9/11. Rev Butts, Parker Library, The Other 9.11. Let’s talk about Chile and what we lose when we ignore important matters, like the US role in overthrowing a democratic government in Chile.
9/25. Reverend Butts, Parker Library, Deep Community. What is community? How is it realized? And why does it matter?
10/9 Reverend Butts, Parker Library. Dorothy Day and the Impact of Love on the idea of Community.
10/23. Reverend Butts preaching. Parker Library. Sermon to be determined.
11/6. Reverend Butts preaching. Parker Library. Sermon to be determined.
11/20. Reverend Butts preaching. Parker Library. Sermon to be determined.
12/11 Reverend Butts preaching. Human Rights Sunday. Eleanor Roosevelt and the idea of the United States and a world come of age.
12/24. Christmas Eve. A vibrant and powerful Christmas Eve service. Location to be determined. Time to be determined.
Reverend Butts will be gone from 9/16/22-9/22/22 and will be unreachable.
Reverend Butts led a successful book group earlier this year on The Transcendentalists. He is most interested in getting your feedback on the following possible Fall topics for a class. It will be held (again) at Books Are Awesome in Parker.
Essential Spirituality. Based on over twenty years of research and spiritual practice, this is a groundbreaking and life-changing book. In his decades of study, Dr. Roger Walsh has discovered that each of the great spiritual traditions has both a common goal and seven common practices to reach that goal: recognizing the sacred and divine that exist both within and around us. Filled with stories, exercises, meditations, myths, prayers, and practical advice, Essential Spirituality shows how you can integrate these seven principles into one truly rewarding way of life in which kindness, love, joy, peace, vision, wisdom, and generosity become an ever-growing part of everything you do.
How Democracies Die. “Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies have collapsed elsewhere—not just through violent coups, but more commonly (and insidiously) through a gradual slide into authoritarianism… How Democracies Die is a lucid and essential guide to what can happen here.”—The New York Times “If you want to understand what’s happening to our country, the book you really need to read is How Democracies Die.”—Paul Krugman
Defund Fear: Safety Without Policing, Prisons, and Punishment. A groundbreaking new vision for public safety that overturns more than 200 years of fear-based discrimination, othering, and punishment
Will you write me and let me know what you might prefer, or suggest another one? I know my preference, but I would love to hear yours! minister@prairieuu.org or rogerb@prairieuu.org
I welcome the opportunity to sit with you, for spiritual direction, for pastoral care, for conversation, or just to talk about the church. My phone number is 719-433-3135. Call or Text. My email is rogerb@prairieuu.org.
In faith, Reverend Roger Butts
Reverend Roger Butts is the new contract minister at Prairie UU Church in Parker. He holds a Master of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary in DC (on the campus of American University). His ministry was initially sponsored by All Souls UU Church in Washington, DC. His undergraduate degree is in political science from Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina.
He grew up in Galesburg, Illinois, and is a big fan of the poet Carl Sandburg. His essay: Why I Dedicated My First Book to Carl Sandburg recently was published by the Carl Sandburg Historical Society.
From 2002-2009, he was the minister at the Unitarian Universalist church in Davenport, Iowa and from 2009-2012 he served High Plains Church in Colorado Springs. For one year, after High Plains, he worked as a faith-based community organizer for Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. From 2014-2020 he served as Associate Minister at Unity Spiritual Center in the Rockies in Colorado Springs. From 2014-2021, he was Staff Chaplain at Penrose St. Francis Health Services in Colorado Springs.
Currently, he spends 10 hours a week as Transitional Minister for Pastoral Care at All Souls UU Church in Colorado Springs and is serving Prairie 20 hours a week. His office hours are 11-1 on Tuesdays and 3-6 on Thursdays at the Parker Public Library.
His first book, Seeds of Devotion (GraceLight, 2021) is available now. His second book, Praying the Poets, is expected in 2022.
He is a member of the International Thomas Merton Society, the Carl Sandburg Historical Society, the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, and the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association.
He is reachable at rogerb@prairieuu.org and 719-433-3135.
Roger also provides spiritual direction. He was trained at the Mercy Center in Colorado Springs. He charges $40.00 an hour to the general public (nonchurch members and friends).
A STATEMENT ON WORSHIP
11-26-2021
Rev. Roger Butts, Contract Minister
Prairie UU Church, Parker, CO
About Worship
Worship is the work of the people. It is something we do together. We sing together. We sometimes read together. We light candles together. We keep silence together. We explore important matters together. Sometimes we are comforted. Sometimes we are challenged.
In Unitarian Universalist contexts, we know that there will be many different approaches to life’s deepest moments and questions. I like to think that in our worship services we tell folks where to look, and maybe even how to look, but we don’t tell them what to find. That is for each person to come to in their own way, in their own time. So why do we gather together? To seek together, to encourage one another, to cheer each other on as we make our way. And to pool our resources to make a place of exploration and fellowship and support and care. And to bear witness together to our deepest values—radical equality, compassion, and a just and fair world.
In many Unitarian Universalist congregations, in most actually, you’ll find some common relics.
A flaming chalice.
A common hymnal.
Candles of Community.
The flaming chalice is the most common symbol of the Unitarian Universalist tradition. The flame is a representative of the light we seek, the light of reason, the light of peace, the light of justice. It is several decades old.
A common hymnal, well now two—a gray one and a turquoise one—so that the songs that say most about our approach to the world and to life can be sung together. Every generation has its favorites: Morning Has Broken. Spirit of Life. Now Let us Sing. Blue Boat Home. It is said that one can learn a whole lot about a congregation by what it sings.
Candles of Community is what Prairie calls the sharing of joys and sorrows and concerns with one another. In many congregations, you will have this time of sharing. It is how we lift up together our celebrations and our worries. The Quaker tradition has a lovely saying: I’ll keep you in the light. Candles of community are kind of like that.
Most UU congregations follow a pretty Protestant order of service. Call to Worship. Hymns. Special Music. Readings. Sermon. Pastoral Prayer or Joys and Sorrows. Benediction. If you travel to any UU congregation, you’d see some variation of that.
I speak of God or Spirit. Unless I am reading a quote from someone long ago, I would never gender the name of the divine. And I use many different names from different traditions for the divine. Why? Well, I think of God as love and as inhabiting the heart of all things. And so I don’t think of God as personal like many of our friends and neighbors do. I don’t think of God as intervening in the affairs of the world. I do think of God as having names and as having many of them. The world religions have all tried in various ways to name God. I like Spirit of Life. I like God of All, I like Goddess. I like Great Spirit. I like Mystery beyond imagining. The more we are free to use our imagination to try to come up with names for God, the more we are free to see the holy in all kinds of ways, new and old. When I speak of God, and if it doesn’t translate to you, I invite you to consider my children. They are now all teenagers. But when they were younger, Marta and I asked them: What do you think of when you think of God. One said: the earth. One said: Love. (The third said: What they said.) Marta and I could not have been prouder of them. So if God isn’t your cup of tea, think earth or love or goddess or tree or ocean. Often I will mean some mystery that is beyond even our wildest dreams (but always on our side and always loving).
I pray. And I meditate. Why do I pray if I do not believe that there is a God who will intervene in history? As a hospital chaplain for 7 plus years, I learned the value of grabbing hold of someone’s hands in their time of need and just praying with them. The words don’t much matter. The gesture and connection do. I think of prayer in the same way I think of say the Sermon on the Mount. The words point the way to something deep and powerful, even if they will never quite be realized. Public prayer helps us to name what is important. Mostly, I believe in the human side of prayer. Prayer may not change things by itself, but it can change people and people can change things. It is important to say that if others don’t pray, I have no problem with that. Think of public prayer as a chance for meditation and quiet.
When I say that I believe in the human side of prayer, that is an important thing to note. At the end of the day, I count myself a follower of the human Jesus, that Rabbi with such wisdom. I’ve long been a member of the UU Christian Fellowship—two decades pl I count myself as inter-spiritual, finding meaning in a variety of religious traditions (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhist, primarily) within a UU context. And I think of myself as theopoetic, finding meaning in the rich poetic traditions of all religious and spiritual journeys. All of those in service to the here and now. In that way, I am a humanist, just very open and very inter-spiritual and very poetic in my language and imagination.
On this last point, about some people being into prayer and some not. For me the most important thing about all of this is balance. If I preach 30 times a year and every sermon is on social justice, I am not providing balance. There are social justice and current affairs that must be the focus of services. But there are other things as well: history, faith development, spiritual growth, ethics, philosophy, and so on. I want all of those things to be in balance. And when it comes to radical equality and social justice, I believe that social justice should be woven into all of the things we do together in church.
The arts. I use a lot of poetry, a lot of visual arts, and a lot of contemporary music to make points about what we are trying to learn. My seminary had a Center for Religion and the Arts. There is something about the arts that hits us in the heart in ways that words simply cannot.
The head and the heart. Action and contemplation. Joys and sorrows. Individual and communal. It is all in play in worship and we learn together what works and what doesn’t. It is all balance, at least that is the goal.
I am grateful to be your minister.
Roger Butts