Open and honest communication is essential between the board and the minister. Here are some guidelines and practices to help navigate difficult conversations.

Toward more inclusive and engaged decision-making with Sociocracy. This 12/3/2022 webinar recording offers an overview of Sociocracy and some real-life examples of it being used in UU congregations. This webinar was co-sponsored by Sociocracy for All. Some Theological Grounding for Sociocracy...

12/2/2022 - 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.

11/18/2022 - Keep worship from being a challenge for the lay-led congregation. You can make creating worship services less taxing and more satisfying.

The UUA offers a Congregational Salary Program as a service to congregational leaders. Our approach emphasizes process and values, with recommended salary ranges provided for six job levels in four congregational size profiles.

Ideally, policies guiding the minister, staff, and ministry teams come out of mutual conversations to create clarity around roles, responsibilities, and accountability. Ministry policies should feel collaborative and serve to guide ongoing programs and future decisions.

Safety policies are especially important to have in place before you need them, so they can be thoughtful without the anxiety of a current safety situation.

Many congregations are at a financial crossroads, but are our annual budgeting and financial planning processes up to the challenge? Build your congregation’s roadmap for a sustainable – thriving -financial future.

How committees and staff can create a dynamic and engaging stewardship element in a family’s spiritual life.

In UU congregations, conflict avoidance, a sense of urgency, and either/or thinking can make it difficult to engage conflicts well. We will learn to engage conflicts of various kinds in ways that lead toward Beloved Community.

Someone has just reached out to you with some critical feedback about the minister. What should you do next?

When your congregation has staff but no staff member is in a supervisory role, you will need to find a volunteer lay leader to fill that role. 

Problems can arise when staff fail to recognize the unique responsibilities and relationships inherent to congregational employment. 

11/04/2022 - When a congregation has no clear head-of-staff, the board needs to ensure that good staffing and supervision practices are in place.

Here are the latest insights, ideas, tools, and permission to do the work of the Committee on (Shared) Ministry effectively from Congregational Life Staff.

Help your people learn how to give helpful evaluations and so we can be much better ministers.

Conflict engagement requires engaging in healthy communication and modeling healthy boundaries.

One evening at a Board meeting, we came to a question about our definitions of membership....

The work of the Committee on Ministry (CoM) is shared ministry, which includes attending to the vitality of the congregation.

Being able to name harmful behaviors is the first step in being able to respond to them.