fdo-webinar-meet-the-uua-outreach-team-september-2016.mp4
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: Hello, everybody. This is the Faith Development Office's September webinar. And this month we're, meeting the UUA Outreach Office, which is Anna Bethea and Carey McDonald. I'm Gail Forsyth-Vail. I'm your host tonight. And Susan Lawrence is doing tech support. So welcome. We're glad you're here.
And I'm going to turn it over to-- well first, I want to say that Carey is the outreach director at the UUA, and Anna is that brand new outreach associate. Her most recent gig before coming to the UUA was as a religious educator. So she's from us, and we're glad to have them both here. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Anna for the opening words.
ANNA BETHEA: Thank you, Gail. Our opening words are an adaptation of the message from last week's Braver/Wiser weekly message series. So if you haven't heard about Braver/Wiser, we're going to talk about it a little bit later.
But last Wednesday-- we've already had one this Wednesday, too. But last Wednesday, we had a message from Reverend Jake Morrill, "Our Whole Life is Sign Language."
So an adaptation for opening words, we come to light one flame which represents all our individual celebrations, frustrations, sighs, and sighs and yippees. May we be ever mindful of the sign language-- the small gestures which signal what others are experiencing in their lives. May we continue to invite others to draw strength from and add sparkle to our shared light.
So our webinar today, we hope to share with you some trends and changes within religious life, within our society at large and within outreach. And then, we will tell you a little bit about Team Outreach, who we are and our approaches. And then we'll share some of our resources with you that we provide and create within our office.
So trends and changes, take it away, Carey.
CAREY MCDONALD: Thanks, Anna. And it's always a real pleasure to hang out with religious educators. Because when we talk about the ways in which the practice of church is changing or the ways in which our families are changing, it's always religious educators that I think are the group that seem to get it first and seem to be willing and able to try out creative approaches to faith development and religious community.
So it always is a good time, whether it's on the webinar, at Fall Con or at Star Island LRE week, or wherever we get the chance.
So we're just going to talk a little bit big picture to start. And I think that lots of you as religious professionals, you may have heard some of this material before. It may seem familiar to you, and that's OK.
But part of what we're presenting here also is the simplest version that we can do in a way that you could probably also take and use with the other folks in your congregation, the lay leaders or your colleagues who maybe aren't as familiar with it. So you can also watch it from that point of view.
So the first thing that we want to talk about, and why the UUA has been talking about outreach, and why it's important for your congregation is that the way people interact with religious communities, with congregations and churches in our country, is changing.
The big way that that's changing is that people are less likely to be affiliating themselves with religious communities. They're less likely to call themselves a member of a congregation.
There is a lot of research that all points in the same direction. This is my favorite graph of all of those, and it's from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. And it shows the percentage of adults in each age group that will tell you, I don't have a religious community. That doesn't mean just that they don't go to church on Sunday or synagogue on Saturday, but that they don't have any connection.
So the two things I want you to notice about this graph, one is that between each generation, it goes up. So the younger you are, the less likely you are to go to church or be religious. And I think that a lot of us know that.
And you can see also on this graph, however, that we have two surveys represented between 2007 and 2014. And that even within every age group in those seven years, the percentage of adults who have drifted away from church has gone up.
So even though this is a trend that's being led by young adults, by the millennial generation, it's something that's affecting people of all ages. All ages and all demographics, all educational backgrounds, all racial backgrounds are really less likely to be involved in a religious community compared to just a couple years ago.
And it even varies by which part of the country that you're in. There's certainly less religious participation here in New England where I'm calling you from than there is in the panhandle of Florida, where Anna is. So there is some variance, but the trend lines are the same across the country and across different groups.
So I think that's really important to keep in mind. And we're going to talk about what that means on the ground for your congregation, and what you might be able to do about it. Anna?
ANNA BETHEA: So the Sunday decision. for many of us religious professionals, there's really nothing to decide about whether you're going to a church or not.
But if you think about historically, some people call the good old days, back when you had societal pressures, and other family pressures or just expectations from others about going to church. And how for many people, it wasn't a choice. And the only choice really was which church do you go to.
Do you go to the church who puts on great potlucks, or do you go to the church who has great sermons? So back then, it wasn't really a choice.
But now, as you can see here, it's not just whether or not to go to church. I mean, you have all of these other options available for you on a Sunday morning, or any time during the week, really.
Places to find community at coffee shops, or to just find some peace out in nature after a hectic week, or to finally settle in with your book, or to catch up on your emails or your Facebook feed.
And I know from being a DRE recently that one of the big things that we talk about is that a lot of sports activities for kids get scheduled on Sundays now. And some of us are aghast, but it is a big trend these days.
So what does this mean about how we can help people to make a choice about whether or not to come to church? And if so, if they want to come to our church, our UU church.
So if we think about a spectrum of relationship, we're talking about building those connections, those deep connections, with the people who come into our doors, into our RE programs, the families that we serve.
How do we take them from a curious individual all the way through becoming connected? What does that look like for people to feel like they're really connected? And then also, how do they want to be approached to start to become engaged with what you're presenting with your RE program and your classes for the kids and also for adults?
And then for those few who want to become a leader, to start casting the vision of what your community can look like in the future.
So all of these steps require relationships one-on-one and as a congregation to these individuals to help them through this process. We can't just say, good. You're here. Thank you. We're so happy that you're here as a visitor, and then just leave it to them to find their own way.
I think that one of our great strengths is that we do allow people to choose their own paths. But at the same time, we have to provide enough guidance and not assume that they're going to be engaged just purely by what you have there for your membership at large.
And this shows on the left side of this screen here, the wider community, and realizing that people from all walks of faith, different backgrounds, different worldviews come into our congregations. And we'll talk a little bit in a minute about how to put your messaging out there for people to be able to become that curious individual as they come into your congregation.
And these three here show the breakdown of what these areas can look like. So engaging the curious individual and welcoming the visitor, that's the job of outreach. And welcoming within your congregation, there's a little bit of overlap as far as welcoming them, connecting them and engaging them. And then membership development is really essential for that piece to be there, too.
So all of these pieces are really essential for us to have. But we also need to look at what can we do to do that outreach out to those people? So this next slide--
CAREY MCDONALD: Can I just say one thing before we move on about the spectrum of faithful relationship, which is something that we worked on also with the membership professionals and really can map on nicely to things like stages of faith, because it just helps you think beyond the duality of member-nonmember.
And I think this is really important for Unitarian Universalists because as we talk about the bigger trends that we're all swimming in, on our last webinar, we joked that our hashtag should be the struggle is real. That yes, in fact, it's harder and harder to get people to show up for the programs that we invest so much time and energy in.
And I think what's important about Unitarian Universalists in that equation is that we are a faith of incomers, of spiritual immigrants. And that means that 85% of any given room of UUs didn't grow up UU. Most of us grew up Christian of some flavor, and found our way to our faith.
So we depended on there being people out there who are looking for something that feels kind of like church, the church that they grew up in usually, but is welcoming to atheists, is welcoming to gay people, and queer folks and gender nonconforming people. And that's been who we've been for a long time.
And as those in the slide about the Sunday decision, when we're not just the liberal church, but when there are so many ways that people can find ways to connect with meaning, and community and inspiration, yeah of course, we don't want to be the only place in town where you can be an out gay person and that's OK. So that part of it is good in the sense that our values are more widespread.
But it's really important for us then as UUs to think about, what is it that we're offering? Not just what do we provide safe haven from, but what is it that we offer? And all the more important that we have to focus on this relationship building, because that shows people what we can invite them to to deepen their faith with our communities.
And so obviously, religious educators play a huge, huge role in this at all different kinds of parts of the spectrum. So I just wanted to highlight that unique UU angle to this.
ANNA BETHEA: There is actually I want one more thing that I wanted to say , coming from the perspective of a religious educator. A lot of times, I felt that divide between what is RE and what is the responsibility of the larger congregation. And it's not like it's separate.
But a lot of times, as far as defining what your role is and making sure that you are staying within your hours, especially for a lot of us who are part-timers, it becomes a little bit difficult. And to decide what can you do within religious education that's membership development, that seems like this like, OK, well that's a congregational responsibility.
And it is, but I also encourage you to look at, how can you provide membership development within religious education ministry itself? What does it look like for somebody to become not just engaged, but become an integrated leader? What is it that they would need to make that step into a leader or from connected friend to engaged participant?
So looking at how people are navigating just within religious education is a really great way for you to be able to feel like you are empowered to make these pathways real for people. And by making it real within religious education, that makes it real within the congregation as well.
So talking about target audiences, who do we serve? Sometimes, it feels like we serve everybody. Who is it that we want to come into our doors? Everybody. Why wouldn't you love being a Unitarian Universalist?
So I know from personal experience, I got burned out thinking that way. One day, I was thinking about how to reach out to one kind of group of people. And then another day, I was trying to think about, how do I reach out to this other person? And then you're inundated with e-mails and worried about families. And a lot of this is overwhelming.
So when you're sitting down to write your newsletter article, or you're thinking about what can you put out there on Facebook to grab the attention of somebody who may have not been coming for the past few months, it's helpful to think about target audiences.
And this is something that we cover in some of the resources that we'll share with you a little bit later. But thinking about both obviously existing people who are within your RE program and also growth targets, who do you want to build those relationships with?
So these are just three examples of what we and the Outreach Office at the UUA use when thinking about growth targets, as far as who do we want to reach out to. And not just who do we want to reach out to, but what are we offering uniquely that meets the needs of these audiences?
So LGBTQ families, multi-faith families, free-range UUs, people who have been UUs for a while or identify as UUs, but aren't necessarily connected to a congregation, multi-faith families, people who may feel like they want to go to a church or a faith community, but the parents have grown up in different faith's backgrounds.
And how do they make sense of that? And how do they honor both for their children? And obviously for LGBTQ families, as Carey was talking about.
So these are what we use within our UUA Outreach Office. But these may not be the target audiences for you. It really takes a little bit of work to delve deep into what you're able to offer uniquely, and meeting the needs of people who are in your community.
CAREY MCDONALD: So before we talk about some of the strategies for dealing with all of this change in our communities, in our congregations, I just wanted to pause there and ask the folks on the webinar-- and maybe you can write your answers in the chat and we'll make sure those get shared out-- does this match what you're seeing where you are?
Do you see the changes in the ways that families spend their time, or are able to show up or willing to show up? Do you see certain kinds of people walking through your doors more than others? How do these match up with the trends that you're seeing on the ground?
Katie says, yep.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: Leah says you have a lot of home schoolers.
CAREY MCDONALD: That's good. So let me just pause there and just say about home schoolers. I can't remember what congregation it was that I was talking to, but I think it was a congregation that was trying to promote the faith development and weekly worship materials that they had on Facebook.
And they were trying to figure out what's a good proxy for people who will be interested in our church. And they came up with, I think home school and Montessori parents. And so home schoolers might be a group that if you don't already think about how could we be more known in the home school community in our area?
How can we do things that are more explicitly connected to that? How could we work those angles? Are there things we could tweak that would make us a little more home school friendly?
And so that's a really great example of something that could be a target audience for you all that is both you authentically serve them, you minister to that group, and there's a wider need. There's totally room for growth in your community, is my guess.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: And Leah says they're more likely to show up on Sunday as well.
CAREY MCDONALD: There you go.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: Susan talks about irregular family attendance, and Bob is talking about sports being disruptive to Sunday morning programs. And energy problems, limited time and energy for families with two working parents. Paul says they have good intentions, but limited time and energy. So people are agreeing that this tracks with what they're experiencing.
CAREY MCDONALD: Yeah. So the point about sports crowding out church I think is straight to the Sunday decision question in that there used to be a general cultural understanding that you can do things on Sunday morning. Even when I was growing up, I don't remember there ever being practices or games scheduled Sunday mornings.
And to some extent, that reflects a Christianity-centric culture. And so the fact there's probably some things that are good that that is maybe not so prominent. But it also makes it a lot harder to count on that time just being available for people. That's another good example.
Paul says, if we try to design family life around church rather than church around family life, we will fail. And I think that's a good point, Paul. I think that's well said. Or we're less likely to succeed, I think. I'll say that.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: And Susan is talking about families that come to summer camp, but not on Sundays. So I assume you're talking about a summer RE camp experience, like the UU equivalent of vacation Bible school, that sort of thing.
CAREY MCDONALD: And I see that more and more. We see Harry Potter camps, and we see all kinds of really fun, creative takes on that really embody a UU approach to faith development, but they're in a summer camp version. So Susan's got peace camp.
And see, I think that's a really smart adaptation to how the norms about when people are available. When you're not out of school, you're looking for stuff to do. Sports don't usually continue through the summer in the same way, or those other extracurricular activities, model UN, whatever it is.
So that to me is actually a great adaptation. And I don't remember anywhere near as many of those when I was growing up. So that's a good example.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: And Leah's talking about people bring friends for OWL in particular, that OWL is a huge draw beyond the usual contingent of people.
CAREY MCDONALD: Yeah, I totally hear that. And this may come up a little bit more as we talk through some of this stuff, but I'm not someone who would ever say that church is going away. I just think that there's so much more competition for people's time, and their talents and their treasure.
But OWL is such an amazing program that if you can get enough people participating and get it off the ground, I think it's so compelling that it can really attract more people.
When I was the director of youth and young adult ministries for the UUA, I would always hear stories about the best way to build up a youth group is do the back-to-back OWL, and then coming of age. And those kids will be so bonded to each other. There's no way they're going to drift off if you can just invest a little bit of time and advising in there.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: I remember when Facebook was new, and there was a Facebook group called "I Learned About Sex at Church," or something like that. They were OWL graduates and AY-- About Your Sexuality, which was the predecessor for OWL.
And it had huge numbers. This was in the early days of Facebook. That Facebook group had huge numbers of people. And those were all the free-range UUs, pretty much. So there you go.
So Paul is saying one of the most vibrant UU family communities he knows of is at a UU family summer camp. Many are free-range not connected to a congregation. So that's a whole other population that's being served by our summer camps and conference centers
CAREY MCDONALD: Yeah. And I think that one thing I guess that I want to say about this is I don't know if any of you are familiar with the 21st Century Faith Formation materials, and trainings and literature out there, which is largely Christian. But they talk a lot about different ways that churches can make experiences available to people, even if they're not providing it themselves, ways they can curate different things.
And so I went to one of these trainings, And one of the things that I realized is that the things that we count, that we actually count, the things that the UUA asks you to report, the things that you are basically held accountable for by your religious education committees, or by the board or whoever, is often not the whole picture.
And when we think about who counts as a UU, we often just don't think that those summer camps count as really people who are-- yeah, maybe they are sympathetic, but they're not really UUs because what counts is showing up on Sunday mornings.
But those summer camps that you've got people participating in can be just as transformative. They can even be self-sustaining. They can pay for themselves because there's a better way to charge registration there.
So I just want to hold up that there are some really valuable experiences that may not be as central to what we have understood in the past as the UU faith experience, but that are really meaningful in people's lives.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: And just a couple more comments. Leah's saying they don't charge extra for OWL visitors. Paul is saying to the extent that church can improve the quality of family life, we will succeed or have a better chance.
And Joanne wants to affirm that doing OWL and then COA has worked really, really well until the stress of the senior year in high school. I think you're hearing affirmation from what you two are saying.
CAREY MCDONALD: Anna, anything you want to add?
ANNA BETHEA: Well, I don't know if you're going to go into this [AUDIO OUT] I've heard you say, and has really helped me probably in the last two years of being a DRE is that we have to realize that families are making the best decisions that they can for their families, and the best decisions.
And sometimes, we feel snubbed because, well, they're not coming to whatever I'm putting on, or whatever the church is doing or they're signing away. But we have to realize that that's the decisions that are best for their families, or that they perceive are best for their families. So we have to meet them where they are.
And I think that's one of the biggest things that I think that we can do when thinking about outreach is meeting them where they are.
CAREY MCDONALD: Yeah, that's so well said, Anna. And that's a great segue into this point that I want to make here. In outreach, we talk about designing for a visitor or a guest experience. And those are all key words there, right?
"Designing" meaning we're approaching this with intention and with care. "Visitor" meaning we're trying to see it from the perspective of someone who's not already a part of our congregation.
And "experience" meaning we're paying attention to the whole experience, all the details of the way that someone interacts with our congregation from the building itself, to the words that we use, to the social vibe, to what they see online, and whether they can find the directions, and where to park and all that.
So we talk about designing for the visitor experience. And that the key to that, the absolute foundation of that is building empathy, and as trying to, as we said, see it from someone else's perspective. To get inside their head and their heart as best you can and imagine what they're reacting to, and what they're hoping for. And that's the only place you can ever start.
And so I think the same is just so true when we're trying to design for the member experience, or for the family experience in our congregation is we have to start by building that empathy with people. And yes, believing not that we're sad-- just believing that they're making the right choices, and not just silently or to ourselves or in any other way blaming them for that.
And that doesn't mean that they never want the things that we offer. But it means that sometimes there may need to be a little more give and take than we sometimes think about. We have this assumption that if we build it, they will come. And I don't necessarily I mean the people on this call.
But us as a faith movement, we have people who are church leaders. And it's not just us, right? It's the United Church of Christ, and the Methodists and all of our sort of mainline cousins that are in the same boat here.
And if that's not always true, that's not just because we're doing bad stuff or the wrong things. It may just be because of this current that we're swimming in.
But by building that kind of empathy, and starting with the real listening and willing to adapt, I think we can get much, much further. And so we're going to talk about some strategies for how to do that.
And before I go on, I just want to remind you all who we are here. And I'm Carey. But also in the middle here, you see the Reverend Erika Hewitt, who is our worship web coordinator. And she's also the editor for the weekly Braver/Wiser series. And so the three of us together do outreach.
We also just brought on a field ed student from Harvard Divinity School named AJ van Tine, who will be working with us this year, and some other offices in the UUA. So we're small, but we're scrappy. And we work with folks across the country just like you. And we are always hungry to collaborate, and really eager to hear the stories that you have of what you all are doing, and how we can help.
Paul cashing in the $20 that I paid him before this call says, you guys rock. But no, thanks, Paul. And we've done a lot of different kinds of projects with the congregation in Kensington and Berkeley, California. And they've been doing some really great things, so you guys rock, too. That's what I would say.
So I want to tell you about some of the strategies that we use to build that empathy, and to understand how to translate that into the programs that we design to do outreach, which is now talking to non-UUs, people out there in the wider world, that I think are really applicable to the job of creating, maintaining, promoting, revising, developing a weekly religious education and faith development program.
And the first goes straight to the heart of our purpose here, which is that what we sometimes call "join our cause" versus "join our club." And this is all about framing. This is about how you enter into ministry with people.
And often, we have talked about ourselves as UUs by saying things like, all are welcome here. And that when you're talking to everyone, you're not really talking to everyone. You're being scattered and not paying attention to your blind spots.
While people do stick around in congregations only when they feel like they belong to a part of the community, usually we know from surveys, our own and wider ones, that the reason people get involved to begin with is because they have a spiritual hunger. And that's something that we need to speak to and something we need to meet.
And so we always want to lead with that mission first. We don't want to lead with the, hey, we're a friendly group of like-minded people. Any church can say that.
What I see when I'm walking down the street and I see a sign on a Catholic parish-- and I grew up UU, so I'm not at all Catholic-- and I see a sign that says "all are welcome," I say, well, that's nice. It's nice that they won't kick me out. But that doesn't mean anything about why I would want to go in in the first place. So always lead with mission first.
This is how we got ourselves the Standing on the Side of Love Campaign. That's leading with the cause, not leading with the club. It's not the UUs for Standing on the Side of Love Campaign. That doesn't mean we are not above board about who we are. That's totally clear. But we always want to lead mission first.
And so that's true for everything from teacher recruitment and what you're going to get out of a course to Pat's membership classes and everything else.
The second-- and I alluded to this a minute ago-- is that the experience of how people participate in our programs and our ministries matters sometimes just as much or more as the background intent or the planning.
If we talk to all the right people and get all the teachers recruited up, and then we fall down or somehow one of our committee members drops the ball on making sure that the curricula are ready to go for those teachers, and they have a really crappy first week experience, then that can scuttle all the good work that we've done.
And so I think we probably know this. Religious educators have to deal with details, the forest and the trees at the same time. But this is true with visitors to congregations as well. It's not just, is the sermon OK, although it's good to pay attention to.
But was it easy to find the bathrooms? Did anyone talk to you at coffee hour when you took the yellow mug which they told you to take if they want people to talk to you? So those things matter, even though they're not the things that we always think about and plan in advance. So getting down to that level of detail is really important for having a good experience all-around.
And just another little thing about that experience is we usually think about having positive experiences and things going smoothly. But sometimes, surprises are good, too, and delight, and unexpected little pieces of joy or glitter. Tandi Rogers is the best at this-- is those little moments of delight and joy.
That's about paying attention to the real experience. That has nothing to do with the planning and the goals. That's all about just making sure people have a lovely experience.
We want to think outside in, not inside out. So that's that whole sense of whose perspective are you putting at the center of your work?
Are we as religious leaders putting our own institutional and organizational goals at the center, or are we thinking about what this immediate, right now spiritual needs of the people I'm trying to work with, and how I speak in that language always? How do I understand what they're seeing and experiencing about what we're putting out there?
And so to make use of that sense of empathy and perspective, we need to create clear entry points. We need to say, this is where you start. This is how you get involved. We need to make sure that those entry points are accessible.
I think in the early 2000s, there was a push to raise the bar on membership. Being a part of a religious community needs to mean something. And sometimes, that just ended up creating barriers for folks. We need, as the spectrum of faithful relationship shows, yeah, we need opportunities to go deeper. But we also need to be able to start.
And it's the job of us as religious leaders to help invite people to the next stage of faith development, or the next stage of leadership, or UU identity or involvement. So we always want to make sure that there are good entry points, good ways to begin that journey, and that those are clear, and accessible and set up for success.
The reality of the world that we live in the way it's going is that it's online. We can't certainly at the UUA do our work not online. We're online right now because we couldn't all afford to fly to be together in person. And so the thing that I think is important about this is to figure out how the online experiences and he in-person experiences can work together.
We're not going to replace the power of a worship experience, of Sunday morning services, with something online any time soon. But at the same time, maybe we don't need to have as many committee meetings, if we can do more by email, if everyone gets comfortable with that, if we had some virtual meetings. Maybe if we could edit some Google Docs together.
So ironically as our time becomes more precious, as it's harder to get together, we want to make sure that the time we do have together, which is so valuable, is well-spent, and not spent on things that could be done online. We want to make sure that we buttress, and support, and echo and follow-up online with the stuff that we do in person.
So we really want to be able to live online and be comfortable with that, and have that seamless transition of being online and in person. And I'd be happy to talk more about that if that's helpful.
But I think the challenge is usually just that churches are analog institutions, mostly. We live in the physical world or the spiritual world, but not necessarily the online world. So making good use of that I think is really key.
And then finally, I just want to say that today right now in America, we are more conscious of the struggles of race and gender than I think we've ever been. And UUs understand this. And not just race and gender, but class and economic inequality.
And we understand the call for justice that's happening right now. And the congregations that I see that are most on fire, that just have the electricity running through them are the ones who are getting connected to this. Climate, environmental justice, there's no shortage of need to get involved.
But that's not just about the Social Justice Committee. I think that's becoming more and more an orientation of our whole faith. And that when you get people excited about that, suddenly details that we argued about fall away. And things that seemed impossible to get people to show up for, you've got overflow.
We were at the Faith Development Innovation Roundtable that the UUA's Faith Development Office hosted last spring. And there was a congregation in Minneapolis, I want to say, that had the usual spotty attendance.
Well, Jamar Clark was killed by a police officer in Minnesota, and they would release the tapes. And the church offered a program on a Saturday that was about how to talk to your kids about race. And wouldn't you know it, of course, it was standing room only.
They were packed because that may not have been in the original curriculum for the year. But that moment in time, they realized, this is what people need to be talking about, what Unitarian Universalism needs to be able to speak to. And they were able to pull that off.
And I think that's the great promise of building the empathy and responsiveness here is that we can do things like that. So I don't want to lose sight of that as we talk about all the mundane aspects of organization. But it's really important that we're able to find our voice today.
So Anna, do you want to talk through some of the resources and tools we have available?
ANNA BETHEA: Yeah. So I've been on the job for a little over a month, and it's been fascinating getting to see the other side of creating what comes out of the UUA Office of Outreach, and also to work alongside people in the FDO office, too.
So I am hoping that we have a little bit of time at the end here, because I realized that one of my biggest questions is, what do religious educators want more of? As we're talking about meeting the needs of the people that we serve and the people that we want to serve, that's my biggest question for you all.
So let's go through the listing of all the stuff that we're working on and we're excited about right now. And then maybe towards the end, we can hear a little from you alongside with your questions, some suggestions for things that you would like to get from us.
So Worship Web, if you haven't heard about Worship Web, go and check it out. Here is the website, uua.org/worship.
And I was really fascinated with how we've revamped some of our uua.org websites. And as you can see here, this is a little screenshot from there. Worship Web will help you find words for openings, and closings and even whole sermons in there.
So if you want to go digging in there for inspiration, or you just need to grab a quick word to open up RE committee meetings, or classes or whatnot, just go and poke in there. And there's a really nice search function that you can use to drill down to whatever it is that you need.
"Love Reaches Out" is a three-session workshop packet that you can use. There's a leader guide, and there's also some slides. Each session is 90 minutes.
And this will help your congregation overall, or if you want to work on it, I think it'll be really fascinating if like an RE committee just goes through some of these sessions to look at these changes, the changes that we've been talking about in this webinar, and also to look at who we are, what we do, why it matters at your congregational level specifically for you within your community.
And then where to start, where to find those sweet spots where you can meet the needs of the people that you're reaching out to. So if you do that, please let me know. I'd be fascinated to hear what that looks like within your congregation and within your RE ministries.
The UUA website template, if you haven't heard about this, go to uuatheme.org This is a really easy way for congregations to revamp their websites. So if you've privy to any conversations in your congregation about, we need to put a new face out there, or wanting to reorganize a website or whatnot, take a look at this and send it along.
A lot of the work has already been done for you. There's research that's gone into the menu listings, and what people usually look for and how they look for it. So a lot of that's already been done. And we talk a lot within religious education circles about not reinventing the wheel. Well, here we are.
This isn't the end all be all, but this theme continues to have updates to it. So it makes it really easy for your congregation to just plug in your information and roll from there.
Carey, you want to tell us a little bit about Defying the Nazis?
CAREY MCDONALD: Oh, do I. I've been working on this project for a couple of months now. It's a documentary by Ken Burns and also a guy named Artemis Joukowsky about two Unitarians who during World War II helped hundreds of people escape from Nazi Europe.
And it's a really inspiring story if you haven't seen the movie or earlier versions of it. And most excitingly, it was broadcast on PBS nationally last Tuesday, September 20. And it's still being broadcast on your PBS stations. So if you haven't seen it, make sure you get out there and see it.
But we've been helping people across the country, UUs across the country, take advantage of this and get out there and do projects and events and build partnerships the carry on the legacy of Waitstill and Martha Sharp here.
Because there's still hatred and bigotry to defy in our time as well, particularly around the anti-Muslim bigotry that we have in so many communities in this country. And I don't know if you all are aware, but right now, we're globally experiencing the biggest refugee crisis, the most refugees since World War II.
And so if your congregation is doing something about those issues or is connected to the film, you can add yourself to the map. There's a great congregational action guide with faith development resources. You can get connected to the refugee and resettlement resources that the UU Service Committee has.
The Fahs Collaborative at Meadville with Mark Hicks and Jenice View put together a great interfaith dialogue curriculum. So there's a lot of amazing resources about that. We're right in the right time to use that.
I think we need talked about Braver/Wiser earlier. But one cool thing about Braver/Wiser is that we designed it intentionally with that visitor experience in mind, in the sense that we want it to be a valuable and wonderful thing for people who are UUs and not UUs alike.
So it really is about daily life as a Unitarian Universalist, and what that leads you to think about, or reflect on or bring to bear. And so we hope people will forward this to their non-UU friends. And then maybe some of those free-range UUs will be able to sign up and get a little dose of Unitarian Universalism straight into their inbox.
So go to uua.org/braverwiser to sign up, or you can sign up on Facebook at facebook.com/braverwiser.
ANNA BETHEA: And we also have religious educators contributing to Braver/Wiser.
CAREY MCDONALD: Yes, that's right. Today's Braver/Wiser was Teresa Honey Youngblood.
In development, a couple things that are coming down the pike, one is a promotional tool kit for congregations with guides and graphics like this that you'll be able to use for your congregations. So stay tuned for that.
And we're also working on building up a network of people doing outreach in congregations, focusing on that left side of the spectrum of faith through blog posts, and webinars like this, and other kinds of resources, by helping them connect with each other through community, community building and mutual support. And then giving them some key tools and templates to customize for their congregation that happen.
So like I said, stay tuned. Hopefully we'll do our job reaching out, and you'll hear a lot about them.
So I think we have a few minutes for question and answer.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: So if you would like to take your questions in the chat box, I will toss. And there we go.
Leah asks, Wouldn't it be great to have kid-friendly resources for social justice projects that span an entire season or a whole year? This might be a question for FDO. Yes. I can take that back. And I don't know, Carey and Anna, if that's been part of your work at all.
CAREY MCDONALD: Well, let me ask a clarifying question there, Leah When you say "kid-friendly resources for social justice projects this an entire year," does that mean that you're looking for materials to give to kids about projects that are happening the whole year, or that you're looking for resources to make projects that are year-long happen that can include kids?
Yeah, OK. So I don't know that that's been a specific thing that we focus on, but I'll just say it's something that we've talked about in my home congregation, where surprise, I'm on the Outreaching Membership Committee.
And we last year planned three different family-friendly service projects. And for us, that's been something that has been a great way to get out there and get noticed. We did a diaper drive, and that got a lot of shares on Facebook.
So we think of that as an entry point, as something that both helps us understand our faith in action, but also helps us connect with new people in the community, because it's a really cool and easy thing for people to participate in.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: And also to mention that there's a Tapestry toolkit book called Creating Justice Together, which is full of multigenerational social justice projects. And you can get it at the UUA bookstore.
Robin asks, when do you think the outreach network will be ready? I love the idea of graphics and other resources.
SPEAKER: Your line is now unmuted.
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CAREY MCDONALD: Anna, what do you think? Are we ready to put a date on that?
ANNA BETHEA: I don't know if there's a date. I'm still working on the outline so that we can pitch it to some people. So we are at the very beginning stages. But I'm really excited about it. Carey's excited about it. So we are going to be pushing forward with it in the fall. But yeah, I don't think we have a date quite yet.
But I do look at the feed all the time, and the religious educators. We love creating things. We love sharing it so that we don't have to recreate it. I remember blessing of the backpacks, I just grabbed something that Courtney McKinney had made and just customize it with my dates. And I'm like, wow, I'm winning right now.
So that's what we want to be able to provide for you, those really quick and easy wins. So we'll keep you updated. Just listen in and we'll let you know when it's coming out.
CAREY MCDONALD: Before the holidays. You will hear from us about this before the holidays. Even if we can't do everything at once all at the beginning, we know we got to get rolling, because there is demand. Look, it's here right now. So you'll hear from us.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: Joanne asks about workbooks for kids to use at home that reinforces UU values.
I can just tell you that there's a brand new version of the Cub Scout Love and Help which has actually been written so that it's applicable for the Cub Scout Program, but also for home schoolers or for small RE programs. That's a UU identity program, and it's a workbook. It should be out in December. It has drawings and so on. So that's coming. But that's not coming out of Carey and Anna's office. That's coming out of FDO.
Either questions? Start the network. Well all contribute, says Robin.
ANNA BETHEA: Thanks, Robin.
CAREY MCDONALD: Robin, don't think I'm not going to remember. I'm going to remember that.
[LAUGHTER]
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: Yeah. So we've got about one minute. Is there anybody who wants to sneak a final question in under the wire? OK. Well that being said, why don't we slide to closing words? There you go, Anna.
ANNA BETHEA: This one's also from Braver/Wiser. Sweet all that is. I don't believe in signs. But I don't have to believe in them to have experienced one today. Thank you for your mysterious ways of reminding me that I'm not alone. That's what we want you to know. You're not alone. Please, please contact us, outreach@uua.org, and we'll be happy to help.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: I love the name, too. Can you just quickly say how you got the name, Braver/Wiser, since we got a minute?
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CAREY MCDONALD: Gosh, how did we get the name? Not without some struggle. We talked about a lot of different names. I think I'm a big fan of brainstorming about 50 more names than one could possibly ever use.
And by just getting really clear and clear about what the real vibe and the message was, and who we wanted to make sure this would resonate with, think I think we just got there, Erika and Sarah Gibb Millsspaugh and I, we did a little bit of testing, ran it past some folks.
But I also think that the colors, and the shapes and the little logo here really helped bring it to life. So I'm just really excited at how it's turned out. And the reflections have been really beautiful so far. We've only had a couple of weeks, but I've had a sneak preview at some of the ones coming. And I can just say they're really, really well done so.
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: And really shareable.
CAREY MCDONALD: That's right, that's [INAUDIBLE].
GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL: So what I want to do at this point in time is to thank Carey and Anna for having been here and done this webinar, and to thank Susan Lawrence for being the tech person. Thanks, Susan. And again, I'm Gail Forsyth-Vail.
I'm going to tell you that the upcoming webinars are our October one has a little bit different dates. Monday, October 24 at 9:00 PM and Tuesday the 25th at 1:00 PM, we'll meet the UUA's Office for Standing on the Side of Love.
Caitlin Breedlove and Nora Rasman will update us on some really cool things that are going on there. They've really clarified their mission, and they're acting on it. So that will be a fascinating webinar.
And then the November one is I'm working with Karin Peterson and perhaps someone else-- we're working on that-- about spirituality and aging. And Karin is the author of Hindsight, Humor, and Hope, which is a curriculum about spirituality and aging. That'll be Tuesday, November 15 at 1:00 and Wednesday the 16th at 9:00 PM.
The recording of this webinar is going to be available at the website you see there. And I think it's time at this point to thank you all for being here, and thank Anna and Carey again, and to say good night.
ANNA BETHEA: Thanks and good night.
SPEAKER: Your line is now unmuted.