When we tell our story from deep inside, and we listen with a loving mind,
And we hear our voices in each other’s words, then our heart is in a holy place.Hymn #1008 Singing the Journey
A constant theme over the past few years in reponse to disruption after disruption has been to remind ourselves that we are living in liminal time. The old ways of doing things aren't working any more. We aren't sure if what we are doing now is going to be a new way, or just a transition until a new way emerges. Congregational consultant Susan Beaumont writes, “You cannot resolve liminality by planning your way through it. You must learn your way through it. Guide your leaders through cycles of observation, experimentation, adjustment, and iteration.”
Having your congregation become a learning community will help it to become more resilient and adaptive, and better equipped to respond to the next set of challenges around the corner. Taking leadership trainings together creates a common language and understanding around spiritual leadership and systems thinking.
We can leverage our resilience by creating a wider community of learning communities, all willing to share what they are doing well, and what didn't work out as hoped or planned. Sharing stories and learning from each other's experiments — whether successful or not — is one of the best ways for congregations to support one another. Often our role as UUA staff is to help connect you with one another so you can share those stories, as we do below in the interviews with lay-led congregational leaders, and as we will be doing at the December 10, 2022 Lay Led Congregation Convergence.
Rev. Renée Ruchotzke
Central East Region of the UUA
First Unitarian Society of Ithaca, NY
A 350 member congregation that — when they suddenly found themselves without full-time UU professional ministry — devised a creative solution of sharing the ministry among teams of lay leaders and other professional staff.
Ithaca's Shared Ministry Reference Documents
UU Church of Reading, MA
A 225 member congregation who found themselves without a minister last year. This is the story of how they supervised and supported the other staff.
East Shore UU Church, Kirtland, OH
A 145 member congregation had just completed a 5-year-long developmental ministry, and was devasted to not be able to find another minister. A "cloud of ministers," comprised of local chaplains and a retired minister, provided pastoral care and support as the congregation discovered its own resilience.
Sample Memo of Understanding for "micro" ministry support
Olympic UU Fellowship, Port Angeles, WA
A 75 member long-time lay-led congregation that has robust participation in congregational life, and consistent, high-quality worship services.
UU Church of Midland, TX
A 54 member congregation that had just been through an exhausting year of being lay-led learned that their ministerial search did not result in a match, and also realized that it would be unlikely that professional ministry was in their near-term future. How might lay ministry be an option?
Skagit UU Fellowship, Mount Vernon, WA
A 48 member congregation transistioned from a single paid "music & worship director" to a team of paid positions to plan and coordinate worship.
First Universalist Parish of Chester, VT
A 22 member congregation had been sharing a minister with another congregation, but that arrangement ended. They moved to a rotating minister schedule with a lot more lay leader involvement.
