Growth

Including people with disabilities at church

EqUUal Access, the volunteer group charged with encouraging UU congregations to become more accessible and inclusive, recently posted a list of ways that religious communities can support people with special needs. The list was excerpted from a Huffington Post article entitled 7 Ways Congregations Can Embrace People with Disabilities.

The seven ways are:

  • Communication – Provide a resource person to listen to the needs of the person with a disability and their family to learn how they can work together toward full inclusion.
  • Accessiblity – To the extent possible, meet the physical needs of the individual.
  • Support – Provide an aide or peer assistant to enable participation in religious education, small group ministry, etc.
  • Leadership – If leaders of faith communities are committed to inclusivity then it is more likely to happen.
  • Participation – Invite people with disabilities to be on boards and committees and to take visible roles in congregational life.
  • Education – Congregations that educate their members on disability issues are more welcoming and better able to integrate people with special needs.
  • Love – Parents of children with special needs who experienced love and acceptance reported their congregations were sources of great strength and support.

In addition, UU World had an article on books to help UU congregations welcome people with disabilities in its Summer 2014 issue.

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Growth, Resources

Q and A: How to increase Facebook views

Q. I’ve taken many of the suggestions about doing church Facebook better (InterConnections, March 1, 2014) but am very frustrated by the rate of views allowed by Facebook algorithms. Last year I regularly got 100 views, sometimes 1,000 or more, and now they are very small. Someone told me that about one in five posts get through to the news feeds, more likely the ones with videos. I always have a photo. I can see the content is not reaching my own news feed. What can we do to change that? I changed the option on my website to receive notifications from the church website, but still am not getting all the posts.

—Sara Morrison Neil, membership program director, First Parish, Framingham, Mass.

A. Facebook changes privacy controls, news feed algorithms, et al. per its own business needs, not per the user’s needs. Only when user needs tie directly to its bottom line will Facebook suit UU needs, let alone any special interest group.

Sara’s not getting the traffic because she has no control, not only over what Facebook does but over how friends or followers to her page set their Facebook accounts. Unless everyone on both sides of the dialogue identifies each other as “close friends” or “followers,” there’s no way for her content to be viewed consistently by those she’s trying to reach. And therein lies the crux of the Facebook problem. Forget about covenant because the technology works against it. Even with the setting of “followers,” there’s no guarantee people will see her posts.

—June Herold, former executive of AOL, member of the UU Church of Arlington, Va., and author of REACH: A Digital Ministry Program.

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Growth

Church tips found through social media

For a look at how some Sunday morning guests might see us, read the account of a Texas blogger on her first visit to a UU church. She wrote of her visit:

“I’m not sure what to think of this service. I expected something a bit more like Unity, Church of Religious Science or Divine Science. I didn’t hear any mention of Jesus Christ and only found the word ‘God’ in a few of the hymns. Most songs were about the clouds, community and beauty, etc.

 

Though I’ve never been to a Native American service, I would think it would have the same general feel.

 

I’d call this church a true ‘feel good’ church. While I didn’t get much from it, I’m glad there are denominations like this that are welcoming to gay, lesbian and transgender people, who often find it difficult to worship openly with their partner in an environment filled with judgment.

The comments to her blog entry by church members are useful reading as well.

Over on Facebook, an item notes a new book, Real Good Church, How our church came back from the dead, and yours can, too, by a United Church of Christ minister in Somerville, Mass. The church grew from 30 to 150 members. The Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette writes, “It wasn’t one thing (that made us grow). It was 200 things: about signage, about stewardship, about advertising, about staffing, about creative worship.”

A few excerpts:

“Don’t privilege the people who have been at your church over the people outside your community who don’t even know about you yet.”

“Your work, as a pastor or lay leader, is to build up your own tolerance for disappointing people. Learn how to evaluate criticism for what it can teach you, don’t take it personally, and don’t let it slow you down or hijack God’s work.”

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Growth

UU email lists, labs promote sharing

Whatever project you’re trying to undertake in your congregation, you’re probably not the first to try something like that. Rather than inventing the wheel, learn from other congregational leaders by connecting with them on some of the 300 email lists sponsored by the UUA, plus the many UU “laboratory” groups on Facebook. On both these venues leaders share ideas and encourage each other.

Among the UUA’s most popular email lists are ones for congregational administration, Church-Admin-UU; software, ChurchMgmtSoftware; communications, Newmedia-L; finance, UU-Money; religious education, Reach-L; general questions, UU-Leaders; and membership, Memb-L. There are also email lists specifically for small and large congregations. All of the lists can be found here.

Worried about getting overwhelmed by emails? You can choose to receive emails from these groups as a daily—or every few days—digest, rather than as individual emails.

There are around twenty UU labs on Facebook where participants discuss specific topics, including social media, growth, and worship practices. Among the most active ones are UU Growth Lab, UU Social Media Lab, UU Young Adult Growth Lab, and UU Media Collaborative. A list of these groups is here.

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Growth, Resources

Welcoming in the Age of Social Media

From April’s InterConnections feature story, now online at UUA.org:

As recently as five or ten years ago, visitors to our congregations showed up full of questions—and brought with them some apprehensions about what Unitarian Universalism might be.

Times have changed. Thanks to the Internet and social media, today’s Sunday guests have a pretty good idea of what they’re getting into by the time they make their first in-person visit.

Peter Bowden, a Unitarian Universalist media consultant who often gives workshops on the relationship of changing culture and social media to ministry, wants congregations to adjust their thinking when it comes to welcoming. 

Go to full article.

 

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Growth, Resources

Encourage first-time GAers with cash, support

The UU Congregation of Princeton, N.J., typically sends five to eight adults and several youth to General Assembly each year. Over the years most of them have tended to be “GA regulars,” folks who had attended several previous GAs.

Like many congregations, UUCP longed to interest new people in GA but hadn’t had much luck. This year the membership committee tried something new to do just that. Since cost is typically a major deterrent to attending GA, the committee raised $800 to pay much of the cost by soliciting donations at two Sunday brunches. It also promoted GA through the congregation’s website, newsletter, orders of service, and from the pulpit. It let it be known it wanted to send someone “new” with the money it had raised.

That person turned out to be Kevin Trayner, co-chair of the Religious Education Council at UUCP.  He and his wife, Lisa, began attending five years ago “for the kids” but quickly found their own places in the congregation. He was recruited as an RE teacher and both continue to teach, including OWL, the UUA’s sexuality education program.

“I think that the experience of attending GA will give me a better grounding in the overall UU experience,” said Traynor. “It will be valuable to me to connect with other UUs from different backgrounds, and to share that experience with others. Part of it, also, for me, is to educate myself so that when I talk to newcomers I can better speak to ‘who are we.’”

Several congregational leaders, including the Rev. Bill Neely, met with Trayner to fill him in on GA and help him register. He’ll attend GA sessions related to welcoming guests and integrating people into the life of the congregation.

“We plan to meet with him after GA to discuss what he learned that can help us with welcoming,” said Lisa Roche, co-chair of the membership committee. “We’re hoping that because he’s active in RE, this will also lead to closer ties between the RE council and the membership committee. And we want to work with him on welcoming in his role as RE co-chair.”

Roche offers the following tips toward encouraging GA attendance:

  • Start promoting GA in the fall.
  • Talk it up among other committees.
  • Raise a substantial amount of money.
  • Show videos of events at past GAs.

She said the committee hopes to try again in coming years to recruit others to attend GA.

Another option for help with GA costs is the Davidoff Fund for Lay Leadership. It offers grants to lay leaders whose congregations have not been represented at GA by non-clergy in the past three years or more. Two scholarships remain this year.

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Events, Growth

Tips for recruiting volunteers

The UU Growth Lab in Facebook recently featured an article by Karin Hurt titled “How to Recruit Leaders in Your Volunteer Organization.”

Among Hurt’s tips:

• Create “bite-size” roles so volunteers won’t feel overwhelmed.

• Set term limits so people know when their service ends.

• Don’t micromanage once someone has accepted a role.

• Communicate volunteer opportunities widely, not just among a select few.

There are also useful observations in the many reader comments to the article. The article, dated January 13, 2014, also can be found on Hurt’s blog, Let’s Grow Leaders.

The UU Growth Lab is a useful place to find and discuss a range of topics relating to growth issues in congregations. There is also a UU Young Adult Growth Lab. Both can be found by searching for “UU Growth” in Facebook.

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Growth

Letter: What to do about lack of volunteers

My name is Dan Kirchoff and I’m a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast, Maine. I’ve been enjoying the Interconnections e-mail newsletter, especially a recent article (or perhaps I should say chain of articles) about the digital congregation. I’ve been working with others to form a Communications Committee in our church and we’ve been studying the initial article as well as all the blogs, tip sheets and such with great interest. I very much appreciate you folks providing us with that.

One issue I’ve see come up in our church, as well as my previous UU church in Rockland, Maine, is volunteer overload. Perhaps you’ve already had articles on this subject that I’ve missed, but it might be well worth re-running. All too often the need for volunteers at church outstrips the available manpower and a new member who is willing to do something gets overloaded with requests to join multiple committees, special tasks forces and councils. I’ve seen others (and felt the urge myself) pull back from participating in church as a result of this overload of requests. It’s as if the church “powers that be” discover “we’ve got a live one” and it’s all downhill from there.
Not too long ago, I was part of a cooperative art gallery in our area of Maine and while things can be hectic with 30 artists all trying to work together, they had some very good ideas. One exceptional requirement for membership in the gallery was that everyone was expected to participate on ONE committee or take on ONE task in the gallery’s function. We had full participation, lots of diversity of ideas, and complete ownership of what was happening there. I’ve often thought of how this might be extended to the functioning of our church in Belfast.
My thought is if everyone in the church’s congregation was encouraged to do just one thing—even if it’s just to join the choir—then we would have an abundance of participation and the diversity of thought and ideas and action would be rich indeed. The idea is not to have one person do five or six things (although since there are members with lots of time and energy on their hands, it also would not necessarily be discouraged) but to have five or six people all doing one thing each. Is it impossible? I wonder if other UU churches have been able to do this, thereby breaking the chain of overuse of a few qualified but very tired people.
I have yet to convince our church council to embark on such a mission, but I’m still working on it. We could even have entry-level, new-member participation slots such as greeters, hospitality and the choir (I’ve found that you make more friends in church just by joining the choir). Then these now-seasoned participators can move up to committees and task forces, eventually ascending to leadership positions. So far, I’ve heard of no such UUA church volunteer initiative, but perhaps it’s time we had one.
Perhaps if you have information on this topic, it could be shared.
Thanks for your attention and I appreciate any feedback you folks might have.
Dan Kirchoff
UU Belfast, Maine

 

Editor’s Note: Dan, many congregations make it clear to new members that the congregation can only function if everyone helps out in some way. They point out that giving of one’s time is an important aspect of membership. Often this happens in new-member orientation courses, but there are other ways to make this point as well. InterConnections will be happy to publish responses to Dan’s question.

 

 

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Growth, Uncategorized

UUAMP supports membership professionals

When Marie Murton became responsible for membership functions at Fox Valley UU Fellowship at Appleton, Wisc., in 2005––her title is now Congregational Life Coordinator––she spent months combing the UUA website searching for membership resources. It wasn’t long before she began compiling those resources on Fox Valley’s website.

They have since been moved to UUAMP.org, the website of the UU Association of Membership Professionals. The association was founded in 2011 to help paid and volunteer membership professionals in UU congregations find the resources and other support they need.

The mission of the organization is to develop and support the ministry of membership through professional development and collaboration. Said Murton, “We want to help grow Unitarian Universalism––not only through numbers, but through spiritual depth and connection.”

The organization meets annually at General Assembly and has smaller gatherings around the country. It also brings members together through webinars, book discussions, a monthly newsletter, mentoring, and an email list. Membership in UUAMP is $40.

 

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Growth, Resources

Reaching out to the nones

The Rev. Renee Ruchotzke has a three-part essay titled “Could the Nones Become Unitarian Universalists?” on the UUA blog Growing Vital Leaders. She notes, “Young adult ministry has been a challenge for congregations of all liberal protestant denominations for decades but the game is changing in ways we couldn’t have imagined back in the post WWII church-building boom.”

Many young adults find conservative churches too restrictive, she says in Part 1. And liberal ones have not articulated a compelling theology. In Part 2 she ticks off reasons why young adults leave churches. The reasons include not developing a close friendship with anyone, and not getting help with discovering their own mission in the world.

In Part 3 she highlights congregations like First Unitarian Church of Rochester, NY which have created small group programs that lead to deeper engagement and spiritual development.

Growing Vital Leaders is a good blog for congregational leaders to bookmark. Other recent topics have been on cohesive leadership and making members and the larger community aware of your congregation’s outreach ministries.

Ruchotzke is Leadership Development Consultant for the Central East Regional Group (CERG), of the UUA.

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Growth, Resources