The religiously open-minded Unitarian Universalist Assn. will...

The religiously open-minded Unitarian Universalist Assn. will open its annual, five-day national convention Friday in Palm Springs, a program that includes workshops on animal rights, social justice, New Age frontiers, Native American and pagan traditions and a “humanist report on Russian atheism.”

Headquartered at the Wyndham Hotel, the convention will have opening-day worship services celebrating the mysteries of the desert. “Desert as Teacher, Desert as Prophet” is the theme of the morning service. A late-night service will draw on Papago Indian lore for “sounds and images” of “the unpredictable and enigmatic desert.”

The Rev. William F. Schulz, 38, elected president in 1985, will give a report on the 179,000-member, Boston-based denomination Friday night.

Brian Willson, an activist who was run over by a train in Northern California during a weapons protest and lost both legs as a result of the accident, will receive the Adin Ballou Peace Award during the Friday night plenary session.

Other speakers will include Mary Elizabeth Moore, professor of Christian education at the School of Theology at Claremont; Dan Wakefield, author of the recently published “Returning: A Spiritual Journey”; and the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, president of SANE/Freeze, based in Washington.

CONSECRATION

The Very Rev. Frederick Houk Borsch will be ordained and consecrated as the fifth bishop of the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese at 10 a.m. next Saturday in the Los Angeles Sports Arena, a site chosen to accommodate as many parishioners as possible. Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning of New York will be the chief consecrator in the tradition-bound ceremony. Processions will enter the arena at 9:30 a.m. and will include perhaps two dozen other bishops, including Bishop James Ottley of Panama, who will preach at the service, and a number of ecumenical and civic officials. A no-host picnic will follow on the nearby USC campus.

BREAKFAST

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) is scheduled to deliver the message at the 15th annual Los Angeles Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast at 8 a.m. next Saturday at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton. Gospel artist Andrae Crouch will provide the music. The event, which attracted 1,700 people last year, will also include actor Dean Jones, entertainers Rosey Grier and Pat Boone and Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Paul and Jan Crouch. Walter Beran, retired vice chairman of Ernst & Whinney, will read Mayor Tom Bradley’s proclamation designating June 18 as a day of prayer for the city. Breakfast Chairman Keith Phillips, president of the inner-city ministry World Impact (213-735-1137), said tickets are $11 apiece.

GROUND-BREAKING

The First Baptist Church of Van Nuys will break ground at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday for a new church complex in the Porter Ranch section of Chatsworth, a long-sought site that will cost nearly $20 million for the land, development and building, according to Senior Pastor Jess Moody. The location overlooks the 118 Freeway. Moody said a conditional-use permit has been received by the church and design work is under way. The church of about 10,000 members was rebuffed in an attempt to buy another Chatsworth site last year.