RevCyn

When I was a child, I went to a UU church that was a larger-sized church for a church in our movement.  The church religious education program was large enough to have paid staff, and a different classroom for every two grade levels through 7th grade, an eight-grade class of its own for coming of age, and an active high school group.  But a church that size often comes in a larger metro area, as was the case with Birmingham Unitarian Church in Bloomfield Hills, MI.  And so, in my school, I was one of only a small hand-full of families with Unitarian Universalist children in our school district of Ferndale, and in my grade there was only one other UU.  I was lucky--I think my two sisters had no other UUs in their grade in our school.  When I got to High School as a freshman, there were still the two of us UUs in a graduating class of over 300, and three UUs that I knew of in the school, although I later found that there were two sisters who went to another one of...

The UU World reports that the latest UUA numbers show that our movement is in decline.  They say: A year ago UUA membership declined by 132 members for a total of 156,015 adult members. This year membership dropped 267, a decline of .16 percent. Total adult membership this year is 155,748.  And also: Religious education enrollment dropped 1,262, for a total of 55,846 children and youth this year. A year ago it dropped 809. In 2002 it was 60,895. Now people are quick to point out that we're in a recession.  And that churches report their numbers to the association, and then, for all small and mid-sized congregations, the UUA bases their fair-share dues on the number of members they have.  Our UUA and district dues last year were $76 per person.  So therefore, in a time when our congregations are having financial troubles, congregations will naturally want to trim every member off their rolls that they possibly can. This is true.  But I think that we al...

My apologies for getting so behind on this. I promised you a post last week, and I didn't post at all last week. At long last, now, here it is, my further thoughts on church growth. Red Sphynx said: But I look around my metro area and see at least 4 UU congregations that are dying. Five years ago, all five had part time ministers. Now none of them do. Do you recommend some readings or some wisdom for turning the tide in those congregations? Red Sphynx, I'm not a growth consultant, and I hesitate to comment on any particular church's situation. And having read lots of growth literature and gone to dozens of workshops, I'm not sure that any of them really have helped me, personally, turn growth around in any congregation. So, no, sorry, I have no advice to give you, sadly. I'm somewhat familiar with some Texas congregations, having served in Houston for half a year, but that was already seven years ago. At that time, Jonalu Johnstone was the Growth Consultant for the...

Like every small church, we spend a fair amount of time talking about growth, and have for years... and have not grown. We've gone to growth workshops, brought in growth consultants, sermonized and read on growth... and have not grown. We are not, at the moment, a breakthrough congregation. And yet... and yet... There is still hope, there is still trying, there is still desire for growth. We have our obstacles. We are at a natural plateau in size, where to grow we would have to move out of family style church and into the next size group: pastoral. We have a small sanctuary, small parking lot, and small religious education spaces, each of which is a limiting factor on growth. We're in a rural location in a community that may not have much potential for growth. The Rev. Peter Morales , one of the candidates for president of the UUA, once said this : Why does a movement that says it wants to grow and that has hundreds of thousands of people ready to join it stay so small? W...

I just returned from a minister's retreat. While we were there, we broke into small groups, and I met with a group of other ministers of small churches. This was an "appreciative inquiry" retreat, so we focused on what the positive things about being ministers of small churches are, and what skills and resources we bring to our larger group. We came up with a wonderful, appreciative list. I don't want to share it with you, because I'm not sure of the confidentiality rules around that, but I want to ask any readers out there to respond with the strengths, as they see them, of small churches. It's time to appreciate ourselves!

At the Heartland UU Minister's Association meeting, a few of us met in a small group to talk about being ministers in small churches. We developed a list of what strengths we bring to the larger group of UU ministers. This same list could also be a list of the strengths that small UU churches bring to the UUA. As my memory serves, these are some things we mentioned: We know how to work collaboratively, because we've had to. We know about We have a proportionally huge impact in our communities, for those small UU churches in small towns.

This is a cute video with some good lessons on Membership for any church.