All systems need feedback loops and organizations like congregations are no different. Your Leadership Development program will be more responsive if you develop assessments and other tools to help you learn and adjust as needed. Things you might include in your assessments: How is the...

Effective Leadership Development teams focus on recruiting and relationship building. By using our suite of four leadership development trainings, you can spend less time on content and more on connection. All of our courses have discussion questions that you can use for in-person sessions.

Many congregations start the church year with a retreat for the Board of Trustees (including the Minister). Ideally, this retreat is held Friday evening through Saturday afternoon, at a site away from the place you usually meet. Perhaps you could go to someone's lake cabin or a local retreat center,...

Leaders must learn to model how to de-center the culture of the congregation from White identity and culture.

Congregational leaders today are facing challenges that have no easy answers or quick fixes. Developing practices that enable the congregation to use its collective wisdom to experiment with different ideas and approaches....

Congregational budget-makers frequently divide into two camps that approach the task in different ways. The first camp is likely to include children of the Great Depression, experts in finance, elementary school teachers, and persons anxious about their own money situation....

Are you planning a board or leadership retreat for the fall? Do you want something engaging and relevant to the challenges you are facing this upcoming year? Here are some ready-to use resources for you! Team Building Exercises...

All the world's a game....and we are just players... This paraphrase of the line from Shakespeare's As You Like It comes to mind as I am reading Jane McGonigal's book...

There has been a lot of press lately about Generation Y—often referred to as the Millennials—since they started to come of age around the year 2000. It’s a generation that doesn’t fit the old stereotype of rebellious youth that began with the Baby Boomers; articulated in the movie Rebel...

I've seen a disconnect between generations in our congregations when it comes to leadership. Baby Boomers, who populate the majority of our leadership positions, ask me how they can recruit more younger people for their volunteer positions. Younger Generation Xers and Millennials have a lot of...

What is the future of Unitarian Universalist congregations? Are we slowly declining, as hinted at in the article UUA membership and attendance declined in 2011 in the UU World? Or are we at the cusp of societal changes where we can be A Religion for Our Time? I believe that Unitarian Universalism...

As voluntary associations, dependent upon voluntary contributions of resources, churches need to weight the opinions of members in their decision-making, based upon members’ demonstrated commitment to the congregation in one or more of the resource areas.