This process can be run in a morning, afternoon, or a longish evening. The program works well with teenagers on up to seniors. Provide a variety of spaces for people to sit and work—some will want to work at tables, others may prefer comfortable chairs, and still others may want to sit on the...

Learning to practicie helpful and healthy behaviors allows us to act on our stated beliefs and values.

All congregations must understand that the instruments of congregational polity will vary with the size of the congregation. The practices of governance must be suited to the characteristics of the individual congregation.

An overview of how UU governance developed over time.

Governance is the system by which a congregation exercises its authority. A congregation may use any system to govern itself; it may change systems frequently or entirely ignore the systems it claims as its own, but as long as the congregation lives, it will continue to exercise authority.

The vision, mission, covenant and other guiding documents can be incorporated into the life of the congregation in an unlimited number of ways in order to keep them in front of the members. The following are some suggestions:

To keep your mission, vision, covenant and other guiding documents relevant, it's helpful to revisit them every 5-7 years.

Vision statements need to be useful to the leaders. Effective vision statements tend to have common characteristics.

A consensus decision-making model empowers participants to cooperate with one another in order to reach an outcome that is in the best interest of the group as a whole and that furthers the group’s stated purpose.