Our faith calls us to resist the temptation to weaponize words. This story shows how hard that can be.

Disability advocates remind us that multiplatform worship in real time, with the chance for some interaction, creates a meaningful experience for those participating online.

When you are depending on volunteers to care for your congregation, you will want to keep your ministry manageable, and provide relevant training for those providing the programming.

Right Relations Teams are lay leaders entrusted to help the congregation practice faithful communication and creative conflict based on values of mutuality and consent.

The following (from the Northlake UU Church in Kirkland, WA) is an example of a chater (or charge) for a Right Relationship Team (aka Healthy Congregation Team): Purposes: To facilitate the well-being of the _________ Community by fostering harmonious relations and mediating conflicts within the...

Choose members who are well respected and trusted based on their spiritual maturity and deep listening skills. Conflict transformation requires vulnerability, which requires trust.

Support and accountability for different aspects of right relationship lie within different parts of the congregation. 

Any time someone enters online or in-person congregational space, there are several opportunities for multiple connection points from which a long-term relationship can continue and grow.

A polarity is an interdependent pair of needs, values, or goals. Although the two poles seem to be in tension with each other, both are good and true, and they depend on each other over time. Neither can exist alone. Use Polarity Thinking to reframe competing needs as complementary.

Our existences are intricately woven with all life. When violence, oppression, and marginalization occur elsewhere in the world we are consciously and unconsciously bound to it, and vice versa.

Our covenants articulate our intention, but how do we live into the practice? Right Relations Teams are lay leaders entrusted to help the congregation practice faithful communication and creative conflict based on values of mutuality and consent. 

You can stumble across the small pieces of beauty, wisdom and truth that surround us all the time, but to find them in earnest takes training and intentionality.

Life is full of changes of all kinds. But each change includes some form of loss. This includes changes we face as congregations as well as individuals.

We usually think about giving generously, but we think less often about what it means to receive generously. Since we crave having our gifts seen, acknowledged, confirmed, it is an act of generosity to each other to receive each other’s gifts.

UUA staff presentation to support religious professionals in orienting youth ministry volunteers that includes group discussions following videos. Youth adult partnerships, roles and relationships, covenant, community building and safety are covered

BIPoC Leaders rooted in the Unitarian Universalist congregations are invited to take part in Taproot: A National BIPoC Space. This is a monthly, virtual gathering where participants will engage in rest and renewal, analysis building, and leadership development.

Our mandate as Unitarian Universalists is to build Beloved Community in our congregations, and learning to draw our circles of welcome wider and wider is a growth opportunity for our churches.

The need for our congregations to effectively engage with people online has never been greater! In this free five-session series, Peter Bowden shares video-based strategies to support online visitors, increase engagement with weekly worship themes, and amplify advocacy and witness efforts.

When handling sensititve information, leaders need to understand what they can share and what they need to keep confidential.

Congregations, like all organizational systems, need feedback loops.  Regular assessment of the ministry is essential to group self-awareness and growth.