Tapestry of Faith: The New UU: A Program for Welcoming Newcomers to Unitarian Universalist Congregations

Implementation

Part of The New UU

The workshops are independent of one another, but are best completed as a series. They may be offered weekly over a period of six weeks, as a weekend workshop (Workshops 1 and 2 on Friday evening, and Workshops 3-6 on Saturday), or in other formats that your congregation can accommodate. Ideally, participants will attend all six sequentially. However, the only workshops that must be done in order are the first and last.

A half-day (3 hours and 5 minutes, plus breaks) workshop focused on membership alone could include the following activities:

Activity

Minutes

Workshop 1, Opening

2

Workshop 1, Activity 1: Introductions through Sentence Starters

10

Workshop 1, Activity 2: Introducing the New UU

15

Workshop 1, Activity 3: Cathedral of the World

20

BREAK

 

Workshop 2, Activity 3: Themes in North American UU History

25

Workshop 2, Activity 4: A Story of Our Congregation

20

BREAK

 

Workshop 3, Activity 2: The Wind in Both Ears

10

Workshop 4, Activity 3: Action-Reflection Model

15

Workshop 5, Activity 2: The Founding of the Dedham Church

25

BREAK

 

Workshop 6, Activity 3: Rights and Responsibilities of Membership

15

Workshop 6, Activity 4: Review of Parking Lot

15

Workshop 6, Activity 5: Joining the Church

10

Workshop 6: Closing

3

   

In this plan, one break might be an extended meal break. Consider asking the Membership Committee or other congregational group to provide the meal.

The New UU should be offered at least yearly. Large congregations may want to offer it as often as every other month to keep groups to a manageable size.