Hello I am Nancy Coombs-Morgan, 
Congregational Life Consultant  

in the Mid-America Region. I am based in 
Lexington, Kentucky and my pronouns are she  

her hers. In the last few months I've been 
receiving communications from religious educators  

as well as many other religious professionals and 
lay leaders asking how to adapt to a dual platform  

hybrid future that is inclusive for families and 
multiple generations. In planning for this webinar  

we decided that the conversation should focus on 
what you all need. Yet we also name the importance  

of having a Unitarian Universalist theological 
grounding. As a covenant-centered faith our  

promise to one another is that the theology 
of inclusion will not be an afterthought,  

but instead an organizing principle 
based on a vision of beloved community.  

Thankfully our shared UU values as indicated 
in our practices of hope, love, joy, justice  

making and courage have been evident during this 
time of profound adaptation and challenge. As a  

religious leader you may have internally groaned 
at how this constant adaptation has called you to  

perpetually pivot. That takes a toll of which we 
are poignantly aware, so be gentle with yourself.  

As congregational life consultants, no matter 
the region, our echoing refrain to congregations  

is to have frequent conversations about that which 
is at the center of your congregation. Your big  

why. The difference you're trying to make in the 
world, which we express as mission. So to go a bit  

deeper, I'm blessed to serve two regions of the 
association the Mid-America and Southern Regions  

and I bet some of you may be familiar with the 
Southern Region's intentional work around our core  

understanding that faith development is all we do, 
Unitarian Universalism is the faith we teach, and  

that the congregation itself is the curriculum. 
That is not a conditional premise for us, it truly  

informs every aspect of how we coach, companion, 
and connect with our congregational leaders.  

With that grounding, and perhaps for another 
conversation, it would be fascinating for your  

community to consider how each of your responses 
in this time of COVID 19 have demonstrated  

something about what you understand your community 
to be and what you are trying to religiously  

educate. I can attest that it has been deeply 
inspiring and moving to witness the myriad of  

faithful congregational responses from beautiful 
multi-generational virtual worship services  

to online times of fun and fellowship for people 
of all ages and moving virtual experiences  

which have allowed children, youth 
and adults to name their challenges,  

their joys and sorrows that they have been 
experiencing. Yet we must name that our current  

context of having been virtual communities 
have brought new distinct set of challenges.  

Curiously what I've observed is that it has also 
brought compelling opportunities to find again  

that which is central to your understanding of 
community. In our present reality with uncertainty  

before us, what can we actually achieve in 
adaptively creating a whole church vision  

of beloved community, a whole church vision where 
all ages and abilities have a voice at the table.  

Our theology of inclusion compels us to bring 
this work forward, not just as a problem  

to programmatically fix. As so many of us have 
heard from congregations over the last decade  

and how they have approached family ministry. It 
has often been from a place of we have to get the  

families involved, or we have to get them back, 
or we have to find that one magical program  

that will have them signing up in droves. Friends, 
all age inclusion, a beloved whole church vision,  

is not going to be mutually created from 
a mindset of a problem to be reactively  

fixed. Yet if we ground ourselves in our 
covenanted our covenant centered values  

in ways that people of all ages can participate, 
we may find one answer at a time especially ways  

that open up that center. Priya Parker, the 
author of the Art of the Gathering, writes of  

the importance for communities to collaboratively 
create collective meaning one event at a time.  

There is loving power in the potential of such 
mutual creation, but as leader leaders who I  

bet are involved in creating virtual impossible 
face-to-face programming for your congregations  

you may shudder at the thought of trying to 
create a culture of mutual multi-age creative  

collaboration when you're simply trying to get 
from one week to the next or even one day to the  

next. We hope that this webinar helps you get into 
deeper conversation with other religious leaders  

where you will find a part of the answer. 
A theological sustenance, an affirmation,  

a galvanizing awareness, that this is the time to 
be the voice that says at your planning meetings  

is what we are planning have dual platform 
opportunity for people of all ages and abilities?  

As congregational life staff we want to affirm 
how nimble and adaptive you have been as  

resilient leaders do continue to carry that nimble 
adaptation forward. But hit pause upon occasion  

and ask yourselves is this response true to our 
sense of mission and is it theologically grounded.  

If so, then also take the time to 
actually ask yourself are we focusing on  

what matters now with an awareness that each of 
you still have a full plate of adaptive responses  

that you're trying to manage, know that as 
regional leaders we continue to plan and hope to  

provide content that will be directly helpful. In 
that vein my beloved colleague, Natalie Briscoe,  

the co-lead of the Southern Region, has created 
a platform of original research on the dimensions  

of Unitarian Universalist faith development. 
We are pledging to get that information out  

to as many religious professionals and leaders 
and our Lifespan Faith Engagement Office has  

approved this content to be a Renaissance Module 
offered twice a year. I bring it up this evening  

for the dimensions of faith development provide 
a deeper understanding of how people of all ages  

develop in faith. And across these six dimensions 
there is a stream of content that is always  

needed. And that is your congregants' need to have 
a sense of safety and trust. They need to trust  

that they are a part of a community of care, which 
esteems relationships across the lifespan. Also  

throughout those dimensions it helps us understand 
that religious education really takes place from  

a place of soul-stirring narratives. Well what 
will your congregation's narrative be for 2020  

and 2021? What will your epic story say and 
how you opened your virtual circle of community  

for people of all ages and abilities? Will you 
be able to look back over the last year and know  

that you have been holding a whole church all age 
and ability vision? I bet that you will be able to  

actually remember many times where you have made 
that effort. So honor those efforts and honor the  

effort and honor the time that you have placed in 
that regard. So for this webinar know you are in  

the right place and remember you are truly enough 
and that the answers will collectively emerge.