The Sermon of the Month series is an offering from your UUA Congregational Life Staff to help support small congregations with quality worship resources.

A tiny church cannot have a dozen or so teams or committees that a bigger congregation has. Really, we can only do one thing at a time.

The Sermon of the Month series is a monthly subscription service that provides recorded sermons congregations can download and use for worship. Along with a transcript of the sermon, each month’s offering will include suggested readings and hymns.

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.

Is your congregation overwhelmed? Confused about how to move forward towards some in-person ministry? Facing too many options? This post is for you.

With the advent of built in Zoom Live Transcription, any congregation with a Zoom account should be able to turn on captions for any event or meeting. While the transcription isn't perfect, and a live captioning would likely be more accurate, it does open up your video streams to more people.

New ways UU congregations are considering moving towards multi-platform congregational life especially focused on Sunday morning and all ages inclusion.

Think about the different needs of both the in-person and online participant for Worship, Concerts, Theater, Poetry Readings, etc.

Come hear three real life examples of smaller congregations from around the country sharing worship with neighbors and collaborators. This is a recording of a webinar.

What's the best way to organize your congregation for using Zoom services? This guide will help you determine your needs.

Wondering how to handle your congregation's celebration of upcoming holidays this fall and winter?

Our faith is changing and we need innovation in worship, in leadership, and in new communities. How do we support the innovators and risk-takers among us? What can we learn from them for our own congregations?

Sometimes circumstances call for special material—and the current pandemic is one such circumstance. We're grateful to the people here who have written and shared worship resources for worship in the time of Covid-19. "Tiny the God," a story by Becky Brooks "In These Hard Times," a song by Linda...

Understanding copyright law is not a normal part of church leadership! Here are some tips to help you navigate what music you can use and how to secure permissions.

Rev. Darcey Laine’ serves two of our small congregations. Because of her idea, congregations across upstate New York and northern Pennsylvannia have started “buddying up.”

A script and video sample for explaining why church is moving online to her congregation's children by DRE Helen Rose

Zoom is an affordable paid service that has both streaming and meeting capabilities. It is used by the UUA, its affiliates and many member congregations.​ At minimum, you will need a laptop computer, a webcam, Wi-Fi, and a Zoom account....

Online meetings and streaming worship don't work well for everyone. Here are some tips and tools to make your online programs more accessible. Suggestions that we can add to this page are encouraged! Closed Captioning for Video The He… Loss Association of America has recommendations for Closed...

Today's technology gives our congregations many options to connect our members and friends!...

The easiest way to stream a worship service is to use a phone or tablet, Wi-Fi, and Facebook Live, which is the simplest streaming system to use. (YouTube is also simple, but they now require that your YouTube channel have at least 1,000 subscribers to be allowed to stream from a mobile...

Which technology you choose for streaming video depends on your budget, how much you want viewers to be able to participate, and how much help you will be able to give congregants who are having trouble participating....

Your Unitarian Universalist (UU) congregation or organization can hold meetings and training sessions over the Internet if it’s hard for you to gather in person.

Overview of the Context and Premises for this Training Model West Shore’s worship associates team was established in 2001. Most years the team had as many as six people, serving overlapping two-year terms. People had to apply for the program, and understood they could only serve two years. The...

Planning to Show a Film? You are legally and ethically required to follow public performance laws.

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.

Small congregations with little or no professional ministry help can still have good worship services. This webinar gives you some tips.

Thematic Ministry Presentation From Dawning Future, 2015 Presented by the staff team of the Washington Ethical Society - Rev. Amanda Poppie, Robyn Kravtiz, Melissa Sinclair and Bailey Whiteman...

Worship service from Dawning Future, November 2015 Presented by the Washington Ethical Society Staff Team.

The Worship Backpack - This video is a recording of a workshop presented at the Leadership Day for the Metro NY District, 2013. The theme of the day was: Wonderful Ways to Worship: Leading Your Congregation from the Edge of Awe.

Learn how to tell a story that a multigenerational audience will enjoy and remember! Learn storytelling structures and techniques, basic mime skills, memorization tips, and how to project.

We will look at a number of theme-based church models and discuss how we can tweak those models to fit our own settings. Our focus will be practical, not just theoretical.

Why should congregations consider theme-based ministry (TBM)? Depth, Community, Collaboration, and Resilience!

Like many Unitarian and Universalist ministers of yore, I’m a circuit-riding preacher: a perpetual guest minister. (Not many 19th century traditions merit revisiting, but this is one of them.) On any given Sunday, I pull up to an unfamiliar UU congregation, meet in person the lay leaders I’ve...

Is it hard to find a place to sit on Sunday morning? If YOU think so, think how newcomers must feel. Studies show that newcomers are much less likely to return if the sanctuary or fellowship hall feels too crowded. Plus longtime members may feel they aren’t needed and they may stay home. If...