Learn to work together to reinforce life-affirming and creative frameworks and use practical tools for welcoming and inclusion, connection and belonging, all as foundational to a membership journey in your congregation grounded in mutuality and consent.

Does your congregation want to grow but feels stuck? We offer resources to help you revitalize and grow your congregation to the next level.

Resources and guidance on how to adjust your budget and programming when your congregation has declined in membership and/or pledging.

Tips, tools, and spiritual grounding for each stage of congregational life, from emerging, to membership, to thriving, to renewal, or to decline and possibly dissolution.

If we thought of our congregations as a community of communities, rather than a family, we can shift our self understanding in way that is more inclusive and expansive.

A summary and commentary of the UU congregational results of the Faith Communitities Today (FACT) 2023 survey that was conducted this past February-April. 

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.

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.

Learning to understand human communities (and in our case, congregations) as systems has been an ongoing learning process for the past several decades for family therapists, organizational development consultants and social scientists....

Membership committees may feel the need for feedback if there seems to be a "revolving door" of members joining and then leaving. It may be helpful to track the reasons why some members decide to leave. 

This is a recording of a workshop on The "inviting" process form first visit to ultimately leadership positions from the CER Delmarva Cluster Annual Gathering in Fall of 2020. Panelists: Rev. Renee Ruchotzke and Rev. Linda Peeples To view all the workshops and worships from this event, visit our...

This is a recording of a workshop on What affects visitors and new members in the new Virtual world from the CER Delmarva Cluster Annual Gathering in Fall of 2020.

This is the first is a series of four webinars focused on small congregations. Learn how your congregation can be bold.

Membership in UU Congregations is an intentional process of commitment and covenant. This guide provides practices and tools useful in training membership teams and/or professionals.

“We want to look more diverse but we don’t want to be more diverse.” While it may not be said, it’s a sentiment often lived out in our congregations. We’ll explore the subtle ways in which our congregational systems keep ourselves in place and what we can do differently.

How do you prepare people to lead within and beyond the walls of your congregation? Learn about Faith Forward, a path for engagement that nurtures UU roots,inspires participants to give of themselves, and prepares them to engage sustainably in the world from a spiritually grounded, faithful place.

Be strategic about your communications via email, including what to share and how often.

No one fact says more about a group of human beings than its size. Dan Hotchkiss shares some of the differences in dynamics.

Unitarian Universalism is faith that welcomes people from all walks of life into community with their local congregation, community, and the wider Association. If you are part of a community that is interested in joining the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) we encourage you to contact us.

When thinking about needed or wanted change, congregations can sometimes feel stymied. And, let’s face it, human systems like religious communities don’t tend to like to change. In a way, we need to trick the system in order to allow in energy and creativity.

How might we see the impact of our hospitality with “fresh eyes?”

General Assembly 2019 Event 266 Program Description Whether we consider faith formation, growth, social justice and/or dismantling white supremacy, Unitarian Universalists could use an identity update. This presentation embraces who we are and challenges who we think we are. Seeing ourselves as a...

Congregational growth is about many things—not just numbers.

Making the decision to add an additional worship service, or even considering such a thing, is a major undertaking in congregational life. As institutions (and even as members of institutions), we don’t always embrace even the smallest changes easily, and alterations in our worship...

Adding services can provide a wonderful, invigorating climate for growth of all sorts, both individual and institutional. But large-scale change without adequate planning not only may doom the change but also may create additional problems. Therefore, ...

Some useful points to consider and remember as the congregation faces the addition of a service and the consequent growth.

Adding a worship service inevitably means more work for the congregation’s staff, both professional and support. The leaders of worship and religious education must not only repeat the service, create a separate special focus, and oversee another religious education program but also do more...

One of the key challenges in adding an additional service is providing religious education for children. What is needed, what will be offered, and how it will be done are large questions that need and deserve special consideration. The process of determining the answer to these questions runs...

A congregation might choose to add an additional worship service for many different reasons: Some are from the needs of the congregation, and and others are driven by needs of individuals not yet within the congregational walls.

Three sample surveys that can be modified easily for your specific situation.

Any change is difficult for an organization, but the change in number of worship services seems to prompt some particular fears and feelings. They need to be articulated, recognized, affirmed, and responded to so the change can move forward effectively. The following are some common concerns and...

Adding an additional service will have a real impact on congregational life. Once the decision to add a service is made, the designing and implementation stages begin. Here are a list of questions to help guide your planning:

Some tips from congregations who have added a second service.

Our congregations have come a long way in welcoming visitors and new members but they still struggle to engage and keep them for the long term. Learn some tools that will be helpful on how to begin to see the membership path in a new light.

An accessible, attractive and efficient office space makes staff, volunteers and visitors happy and productive!

A sea-change is happening in American religion, and spiritual needs have only grown more intense. Take home tools to attract new people, successfully integrate them into community, and nourish their faith for the long haul.

Out of space? Good for you! Here are some things to think about and plan for.  Going to two services offers advantages beyond solving space problems.  It offers choices in service timing, for instance.  This might seem like a small matter at this point, but congregations who shrink from two services to one often find that their attendance shrinks by about 10% when they do.

Video, based on the book Taking Your Church to the Next Level: What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Gary L. McIntosh

(Atlanta, GA, 2000) Following a morning worship service, Alban Institute consultant Alice Mann was introduced to lead the day's learning experience on "Navigating Change in the Midsize Congregation." Mann, the author of "The In-Between Church," is an Episcopal priest who has been involved in...

Why Dying and Rebirth are Essential Components of Growth Congregations that aspire to be vital, strong and growing follow a constant cycle of birth, aging, death, renewal and rebirth. This session will look at several theories around the life cycles of congregations and will suggest the critical...

Five Ways of Growing Your Congregation. Mark Bernstein discusses five ways of growing strong, vital and lasting Unitarian Universalist congregations. 2012 Additional Resources Five Types of Growth (doc)...

The most common symptom of this dreaded “disease” is focusing on only one aspect of the membership experience, i.e., visitors and newcomers. But there is a whole lifecycle of the membership experience that calls for creative and effective engagement by the membership committee. Those involved in...

Rev. Meg Riley, senior minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship From Dawning Future, November 2015...

What Holds UUism Down and Prevents Us From Rising? Introduction to morning presentations from Dawning Future 2015 Rev. Tom Schade of "the lively tradition"...

Theme-based ministry is happening in more and more congregations throughout the Unitarian Universalist movement. Theme based ministry, sometimes called theme based church, helps create multigenerational connections, as people of all ages explore common themes in age-appropriate ways....

Small congregations offer intimacy and inclusion, but can sometimes feel exclusive to newcomers. How might you bridge that divide?

Faith traditions are all in a time of transition and the UU faith is no exception. As we struggle to consider what our faith will look like in the world of congregations and beyond, let us come together to consider some new perspectives on the traditional ideas of membership. In this webinar, we...

Does your congregation have fewer than 100 members? Do your leaders burn out quickly? Do you get first time visitors but not many repeat visitors?  This training is for you!

Is your congregation's attendance flat or declining? Are the results from your stewardship campaign disappointing? Are you dipping into an endowment to help cover your operating expenses? Are you thinking about cutting the budget by reducing the working hours of your program staff?

The UUA Outreach team offers tips, tools and exercises to help extend the outreach of your congregation!