Welcome, welcome to our shared value of generosity, making it real with myself, Rachel Maxwell, and Mark Ewert. We are both stewardship for us Unitarian Universalist consultants helping UU congregations across the country. I, Rachel Maxwell, am joining you from my home office in Edmunds, Washington. And uh, this is the land of the Co Salish peoples here in Edmunds, specifically the Stilaish, the Skykomish, and the Snohomish peoples came here for resource collection. I use she, her, or they, them pronouns. And I am a white woman with very short graying hair and glasses wearing a black uh mock turtleneck shirt. Thanks, Rachel. And I'm Mark Ewert. I use he him pronouns and I am in Washington, DC. My home congregation is All Souls Unitarian and I am on the unseated lands of the Native American Anacostia tribe that was unrecognized by the state or the federal government.

We will begin our session with the chalice lighting and that chalice lighting will be done by the Reverend Tandy Rogers, director of the spiritual direction formation and certification program at the Meadville Lombard Theological School. So we are very happy to have Tandy with us.

a prayer for generosity.

Spirit of life who pulses in every act of kindness, every offering of time, care or coin.

Remind us that generosity is not just a good idea but a holy practice.

In a world that tells us to clutch and compete, let us instead open our hands.

Let us remember that we belong to one another, not as rivals or resources, but as kin.

May our giving be rooted not in guilt or obligation, but in trust. Trust in abundance. Trust in community. Trust that what we offer will ripple outward in ways we may never see.

Make us brave in our generosity. Let us give as if the world depended on it because in some small sacred way it does. Let our giving sing of a truth deeper than scarcity that love is real and we are enough. Amen. And may we make it so.

Thank you Tandy. This session will be in three parts. We will talk about the world we live in now. Essentially grounding us in where we are and what is the stage if you will upon which we can play. And then we will ground us in our unitarian universalist theology. Where does how are we thinking about generosity? What does this mean in terms of our shared values? What is this? What is our theological grounding as we enter into this conversation? And then we will share putting generosity into practice. We will give consideration to what does that mean in our lives, in our congregations and in our communities. So, we invited Asia Howser, who is   part of the lead ministry team for the Church of the Larger Fellowship uh and a renowned religious educator in Unitarian Universalist circles to give us a beginning set of thoughts around our setting the stage. Where are we now? Our current context.

We are in a moment of chaos, literally and figuratively, globally. And here in the United States, we have fascism. We have an attack on who we are as people who put love at the center and who work for liberation and equity. We are dealing with on top of the literal attacks and chaos of fascism also climate change which for decades I know unitarian universals have committed to fighting. We are called as you use to lean into generosity and generosity of spirit and literal generosity sharing of resources. I heard recently that adding up all of the endowments of member congregations as part of the Unitarian Universalist Association, adding all those endowments up equal over $1.1 billion. So we are maybe about a little over 160,000 people who declare themselves Unitarian Universalist. They have about a thousand member congregations and when you add all of the endowments that exist that is 1.1 billion. What can we do with that money? What ways can we shift thinking of ourselves as individual congregations? And what would happen if we leaned into the imagination of what we could do with those resources? Expanding our imaginations to meet this moment in the ways that we are able and with the resources that we do have collectively is what we are called to do in this moment. Beloveds,

Thank you, Asa, for speaking to us in the truth of our moment.  , this is a time we have just completed the general assembly of 2025 and   and we are sitting in a time where wealth is part of the conversation in a lot of different ways.   but one of the ways is that we are currently living in a moment when there is the greatest anticipated and occurring transfer of wealth happening. Uh because the baby boomer generation is selling their businesses, people are dying and wealth is being transferred to later generations. It's a big change because as the baby boomers   age, huge amount of money moving in the world right now. and uh and in lots of ways and we're in one of the ways is because we are in the middle of this big challenge to our democracy where we are seeing the governing people trying to move money away from the many to the few. And we've  watched this happen   over the course of a long period of time which has made our current situation where there are many people who do not have enough   to provide themselves with adequate shelter with adequate food with adequate health care and education. So, so the   so there's a lot of uh income inequality in the world in which we live right now. Uh there's a lot of uncertainty in the world we live in right now which lends to a higher sense of insecurity of there's a lot of fear.  , and right now we have more people visiting our congregations than we have had in years and years. And we are having more younger people, more families, more young adults walking through our doors. This time, this moment in history is an enormous opportunity for us to live into our Unitarian Universalist values because when there is so much being sort of stirred around in the world, all of this change that gives us a rare opportunity to make radical change in the world and move it toward what it is we value most. So I encourage you to step into that space. What is the world that we can create?

Thank you, Rachel. So now I invite you if you'd like to pause the video for a couple of minutes. If you're with a group, you can discuss. If you're watching it alone, you may want to make some notes.  , I am in Washington DC. It's one of the places in the country where the things that are happening are quite close to home and quite intense. But wherever you are, there may be effects that you are feeling and perceiving where you are, either in the congregation or in your community or in your state.  , so based on that, how is your congregation responding to this moment? What is your response? Aside from kind of business as usual, it's a lot of work to keep congregations moving.  , but aside from all of that, how are you responding to this moment? And then when you think about where we are now, what messages about this moment might be most generative in your communication to the congregation about generosity? So, how do you think you might communicate out to the congregation that would inspire people, that would move them towards action, would really engage them? So, you may want to just pause the video for a moment and either discuss or make some notes.

Great. Rachel's going to talk a little bit about generosity as a value for viewers. So, we have a statement of shared values and we have all of those values are centered around love. One of those values is generosity. And here is what our statement says and our covenant is that we make with each other around generosity. We cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope. We covenant to freely and compassionately share our faith, presence, and resources. Our generosity connects us to one another in relationships of interdependence and mutuality.

Our shared values also go on to talk about resources in the statement on equity. So in our statement on equity, we say we declare that every person has the right to flourish with inherent dignity and worthiness. And we covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.

So Rachel as part of our theological grounding was just talking about our shared UU values.   these are also some   theological grounding around generosity that we inherit from our ancestors and from other religious belief systems.   I won't read through this whole slide for you.   obviously each of these is just a little snippet of a deep and rich   religious tradition. And within each of these there are lovely stories, teaching stories. There are lessons. There are uh wonderful statements about how to think about generosity and how to think about the use of money and other resources. As well as these, we might also consider Darwinism, social psychology, and other sources to educate ourselves and engage our members around how to think about how they might be generous in their own lives in order to balance their values, faith, and love with the resources that they have. So another thing to be thinking about is how will we recognize when we become a more generous culture within our own congregations. And   there were three pillars of generosity culture that were articulated by Reverend Tandy Rogers whom you heard earlier and the Reverend Jan Christian who both uh together ran a   a set of workshops for congregations in the Pacific Western region some years ago. But they named these three pillars and we felt that they were important to look at. The first pillar is moving beyond shame and blame and learning to talk about money and I would add other resources in ways that are life affirming that that will nurture generosity. And they look at conflict as understanding that conflict is simply a part of building and sustaining beloved community is a piece of generosity culture that we can when we can engage conflict in conflict in healthy ways and a and hear each other and let the conflict deepen our experience and move us forward.  , that's a piece of generosity culture. And always inside of a culture of generosity, we hold a shared sense of purpose. So, we have shared values. We understand what we are here to do, to be together. and that imbues everything. So this is a way to think about when do you have a real strong culture of generosity. It is when you can understand your resources in life affirming ways. It's sort of that moving away from the understanding of resources as only scarce and something in a funny way to be afraid of. We often are   and recognizing that we will have conflict and allowing it to give us something to move toward to learn from. So those are I think really important pieces of the puzzle in terms of a generosity culture. And we're now going to hear again from Tandy   in in her explaining to us around what our theology is in terms of generosity. Generosity for Unitarian Universalists isn't just about giving. It's about living from a place of deep abundance. We affirm that every person holds inherent worth and dignity and that includes the power to bless the world with our gifts. Our theology tells us that we are interdependent, that we belong to one another, and generosity is how we make that belonging real. In a world driven by capitalism and competitive interdependence, excuse me, competitive independence, practiced generosity becomes a radical spiritual act. It's a refusal to believe the lie that we are only what we produce or what we accumulate. Generosity breaks open the myth of self-sufficiency and dares to say we need each other. It's countercultural. It's liberating. It asks us to trust not in markets but in community, not in scarcity, but in the sacred enoughness of a shared life. When we give freely our time, our money, our energy, where we are participating in a holy dance of reciprocity. We are saying yes to a world where everyone has enough and where community is sustained by mutual care. Generosity is a spiritual practice that reminds us we are not alone and we are not meant to hoard. We are meant to share, to risk, to trust in the larger whole. To be generous is to say with our lives, love wins.

Thank you, Tandy. So, now we give you another opportunity to pause and think about your own situation, your congregation situation, the situation in your community. Here are a couple of questions if you want to stop the video for a couple of minutes to discuss with each other or stop and make a few notes for yourself. How do your faith and your values prompt you to act in generous ways? So, what is the what is the source of that for you? Where does that impulse come from? And what might enable it to grow? and how do you manifest love in your congregation and your community? So, take a few minutes, think about that, write some notes for yourself or with each other. So, now we start a new section and this is about making it real.  , how do we put these things into practice?  , how do you what does this look like when your congregation is actually doing this?

Part of it is this conversation.  , when Rachel and I are working with or other consultants are working with congregations, it's often an opportunity for people to actually talk about the topic rather than having a fundraising campaign. It's an opportunity to talk about what generosity is and what it looks like.   that that makes it uh an a visible and obvious thing in the congregation. So just occasioning this conversation is already putting it into practice. Sometimes those conversations are hard to have because   resources are stressful for people particularly in uncertain times.   people consider it   some people consider it the deepest part of their private life. And so we need to approach it tenderly. But there are certainly ways particularly when you're not asking people to do anything or to give anything when we can convene a conversation about it.   and because it is often a source of stress or fantasy for people, I find that people are often really interested in having this conversation and interested to hear each other.  , and to me that also allows us to gather together as communities of economic diversity because as we know, not talking about it does not allow for actual diversity to reside comfortably or be celebrated. It's actually when we talk about it that we get to know each other and understand each other and can step outside of either the admiration or the judgment that often comes in this area. And part of that is challenging some assumptions about who we are together or who we used to be and who we expect the people coming after us to be. It can challenge the some of those assumptions. You will probably find a lot more economic diversity in your congregation now than you realized. And it may dwell that diversity may dwell in different places across the economic spectrum. You know, it may be that that you have people in the congregation that are   more strained in their resources and you may have people who have significantly more resources than you expected.   so having this conversation just helps with that.   that's a first step in kind of putting things into practice. Rachel, do you want to talk about some other topics to consider?  , yes. I'm actually going to share a list of topics with you that you might talk about inside of your own congregation. So these are   topics that can bring some really rich discussion around what it means to express our faith in terms of our generosity. So one of the one of the powerful topics that we have I have been hearing about in in different congregations is reparations and what does that mean? What I mean just one has to sort of start there because I think in many ways there are a lot of assumptions about reparations just being sort of a monetary transfer. But there are many different pieces of what reparations means and is and can be. And how is it that we are thinking about uh about making reparations for past   past and current   oppressions, inequities, and terror?   the have we talked about that transfer of wealth that I was sharing about that's happening right now? What does it mean to transfer wealth? What how is that manifesting inside our own lives and our own congregations? What are these economic disparities that we're talking about? The sort of   what has happened in terms of losing a middle class like we and what is middle class? that those are conversations around what that all means. Because there has been   a change in the way the world has been during the course of my adulthood that we had a much more uh equal meaning economically wealth and income way uh in the 1970s to now. Now we are very unequal in terms of our wealth. That shows up inside our congregations. Often I hear congregations worrying about the fact that there are just there are a few people who give lots and lots of money and then there's loads of people who give less and that is simply a reflection of the way the world is. So, it's a it's important to think about these things. And then and then what does it mean to be welcoming today? What does that call us to be? And in what way is that connected to generosity?   uh and that and what does that mutuality that Tandy was talking about that can enliven us that can that enriches our lives? What does that mutuality call us to do, be to behave like what does that mean for us in terms of our interdependence?   there's been a lot of conversation around generational differences. A lot of that in terms of   the generosity of the time resource that that appeared to be much more there was much more time for women to give to churches in the past which may or may not be exactly true but it's there's a lot of conversation around that sort of time change, generosity differences, but let's move that as well to what are the economic differences across generations. What's happening? We're we have we see people coming up even with the millennials and younger who have they have huge debt burdens based in education and in housing. like there the economic differences in terms of buying a house from my mother's experience to my children's experience is so radical that it should be talked about.   and then how we use our money here where it says the just use of money. I think when I read that, I think about that's about how do I actually use my money?  , and in some ways I think about all the people who have said, well, I'm not buying ever again from Amazon or I'm not buying a Tesla or I'm divesting from all of these things. And if I have stocks   that I that I think are doing bad things for the world, these are things to be considering and having explicit conversations about even though they can sometimes feel very private. I think there's a tremendous amount of power in having these conversations inside your congregation. Like what would happen if you had say start with a panel discussion about the transfer of wealth? What would who would you call upon to be three people to make a brief statement and then have a discussion at Q&A? Can you do that about mutual aid and financial interdependence or just a guided conversation inside your congregation? So take a screenshot of this and have some conversations and put together uh some sessions, some workshops, some ways to talk about these things inside your congregation.

Thanks Rachel. So   we are in our in the part about making it real. So, how to   help manifest generosity in your congregation and in the mission activities of your congregation beyond your own walls. And so far, we've been talking about occasioning conversations about the topic to understand what it is,   what our context is, etc.  , you may also be thinking, okay, how do we what does that look like on the ground? Like how do we actually do that? What is what does the doing look like? And Rachel was just talking about that with this topic.  , you know, that there might be ways that you can convene people to occasion this conversation. That's a doing. But I want to also introduce you to the Reverend Allison Palm who's going to speak more about putting generosity into practice. Uh Reverend Palm is the minister at the Yuyu Church of Nasha, New Hampshire.   and I worked with them around a capital campaign that was quite successful and they   have continued. They haven't completed that project. It was a very ambitious project that they took on. So here is Reverend Palm. Hello, my name is Reverend Allison Palm. I serve as the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Nasha, New Hampshire. I've been with this congregation for about 10 years. And in that time, we've done a lot of work around stewardship and generosity.   Particularly, most notably recently   we held our first capital campaign in living memory.   which no one thought we were going to be successful at and   and we were.   and I think that is because the congregation has done a ton of work in building   stewardship over the last 20 years.   this is not a congregation that has a history of being really amazing at stewardship. Uh in fact   just 20 years ago uh they weren't talking about money hardly at all in the sanctuary.   They were one of the few congregations that didn't even take an offering.   and I think one of the first things they did that kind of opened the door to generosity is that they started taking an offering.   but it was an outreach offering. So, it was not given to the congregation   but given to organizations in the community. And we have now been doing that outreach offering for over 20 years. Uh the congregation gives away about $35,000 a year with that. And   even though that's not money that's benefiting our congregation, I think that it has taught people how to be generous and that that generosity now extends to their giving to the congregation as well.  , people are really proud of the outreach offering and of the money we give away. And they feel proud of themselves and they feel proud of the way that we're part of the community in that way.  , and that has, I think, helped to nurture a culture of generosity.  , we have had to do a lot of work to extend that into generosity to the congregation. I know that work started even before I arrived.   I think one big piece of that is   is communicating a ton.   we are uh really clear and transparent with folks about where things stand with finances.   letting us know letting people know what the potential is if we raise more money, what the drawbacks are if we raise less money.   and communicating kind of overcommunicating communicating a lot about that, letting people know where we're at  every moment.   and how far we have left to go.   and also letting people know uh what we're missing out on if we don't raise a particular amount.   so a lot of communication, a lot of transparency.   really I know the budget   really well and I talk about it with folks   and let them know what different things cost and I think people really appreciate knowing that and feel some more ownership over the congregation and over the congregation's finances when they understand them more   and understand their part in it.   I think we have also uh done a lot of work around gratitude.  , we have uh a gratitude practice in our staff meetings every week where we think about who we are appreciating for the week and we thank them for the ways that they are contributing to the congregation. Usually those aren't   monetary ways. Uh but I know but it is stewardship, right? It's the time and talent piece of stewardship.   and we try to extend that into other places as well. I know our stewardship team   handwrites thank you cards   for every gift that we get.   and I think that goes a long way. We don't get you don't get a lot of handwritten notes in the mail anymore.   and   we wanted people to not get not just get mail from the congregation that's asking for money, but also mail that's saying thank you. Thank you for being a part of our congregation. So I think gratitude is another piece.   and   we also uh have been pretty systematic about how we do things. We have a plan and a timeline. We do stewardship the same time every year. So we've been able to develop some routines and   and we know how the cycle of the year goes and when we need to start things.   and we don't change things up every year for stewardship. I have really appreciated the advice to that it's okay to have the same theme for a few years running and to build on that theme rather than to try to reinvent the wheel every year.   so some of it has been kind of building on what we've done before. And then I think the last thing I'll say is that   we have really worked on being bold in what we ask for.   and I think this is really true in our capital campaign. Folks were really wary about doing a capital campaign. we had we hadn't done one here in living memory and uh I think people thought I don't know that we can do this. There was a lot a lot of trepidation about it and   as our board was discerning   how much we should try to go for in terms of   and ask for that capital campaign. Should we go the more conservative route and the amount we knew we could raise or should we go the kind of stretch goal?   we decided that   we wanted to do the stretch goal. We really wanted to   name what it was that cuz we wanted the stretch goal amount so that we could really fulfill the vision of   of our congregation of our congregation's building.   and if we didn't ask for it, then we weren't giving people the opportunity to really rise to that challenge.   and so from the beginning we said this is the amount we want to raise.   and we know that's a big ask and we need everyone to be a part of it.   and we not only fulfilled our goal   we actually surpassed it.   and that wouldn't have happened if we had been less bold about our ask.   so I think uh and then that we repeated that again a year and a half later we had to raise some extra funds as it goes with building projects.   and once again we were able to not just fulfill our goal but actually surpass it.   because we were bold and we asked for   the amount we really needed to fulfill our vision.   and then the last thing I say I would say is that we are always going back to our mission. We're always going back to what it is we're trying to do as a congregation. And whenever we're asking for money   or asking for time or asking for anything   we're talking about how it serves our mission.   and I think especially in our capital campaign that was that was really important. People were really able to connect   this building project with better serving our mission which inspired them to give more generously towards it.   so those are some of the ways we have worked on generosity in our congregation and I hope it is helpful to you. Thank you Reverend Palm. just full of good ideas. And a couple of things I really appreciate is that she was talking about cultural change and   generosity as developmental in the congregation. So it came from somewhere and it's you know you have an opportunity to influence change in the congregation in this area. But also some very practical things. Here are some really practical things that you can do.  , and I particularly appreciated her statement about being bold and that if we if we don't ask for it, we won't give people the opportunity in this case, the opportunity to fulfill their vision.  , and so that pointing back towards the mission and the vision, I think, is really important. So, here's another opportunity for you to pause.   and think about where you are now and what you would like to do. So, you can pause the recording and make some notes for yourself or pause the recording and chat with other folks about it.   how do you make the value of generosity show up in your congregation? And what did you hear that you want to try? And I would add to that, and what ideas has this   video prompted for you? They may not have been ideas that were in the video, but in the middle of it, you might have thought, "Oh, I should do such and such." So, just take a moment and grab some of your own ideas before we wrap up the workshop so that   you can capture those. So, we just wanted to leave you with some resources. One resource is the team at stewardship for us. You can email us at teamstewardship4 us.com and   and we will respond. And if you have ideas, we would love to have you share those with us as well as any comments or questions that you have. We highly recommend looking at the Leader Lab Learning Center on the UUA website.  , and we think it could be useful for you to sign up for our blog and emails.  , you can do that by using the QR code right here or you can go to stewardship for us.com, click on blog and you can sign up there.  , we will be running a wave cohort on stewardship and generosity starting in the fall of 2025. And if you sign up for our blog and emails, you will get notification of that and an opportunity to be part of that, which we would highly encourage you to do. There are also all sorts of different resources available on our blog. So, so we are so happy you are here and we are so very grateful uh to Tandy, Reverend Tandy, to Asia and to Reverend Allison for sharing their ideas and their thoughts on this with us as well. So, thank you for being here and for thinking about generosity and who and what you can be. We will end with the words that Tandy uh spoke to us or some of them at the beginning. Let us give as if the world depended on it because in some small sacred way it does. and let our giving sing of a truth deeper than scarcity. That love is real and we are enough. We thank you so much for being here with us. We are grateful and happy that you have been part of this with us and thank you for all the great work that you do in your congregation to bring generosity. Really appreciate that. Be well and hope to see you all soon.