Being in covenant together is a lot like a dance. There is give and take. Occasionally you step on someone else’s feet or they step on yours.

How do Committees on Ministry function? Rev. Nancy Bowen shares an overview.

"Your actions are speaking so loudly, I can hardly hear what you are saying." This is a quote from a http://lp.citrixonline.com/102213-NA-G2W-MKT-WBR-SM?ID=70150000000ZOrx"… on the presence of leaders that I took recently. A leader's presence reflects their underlying values—it's how they wear...

Are all of the members and friends of your church aware of all of the outreach ministries of your church? Is the wider community aware of who you are serving and how? Churches need to tell their stories, advises a r… article in the Christian Century. Author George Mitrovich explains When my...

Congregational leaders are often tempted to go through the motions of creating mission, vision, planning and covenant documents without taking a holistic view of the process.  Do the congregations systems support the process?  How do we reflect the core values...

Assessment of a congregation's ministry is a very important aspect of religious leadership and is one of the roles of a Committee on Shared Ministry. assessments....

In my last blog post I wrote about the Baby Boomers and the Millennials.  I received a few requests to write about the generational cohort labeled Gen X (rough birth years 1960-1985), sandwiched between the two and much smaller than either.  Most of the ministerial settlements...

An intercultural framework can help us be in community across difference.

Church leaders that I work with are often frustrated with the slow, almost glacial speed of change in congregational life.  What might take a month or two in the workplace takes a year in the church. ...

Unitarian Universalists tend to use a lot of words when we attempt to explain our religious beliefs and values. We have a complicated faith that does not fit into typical questions about religion from outsiders. This makes sense at a national level. We have a big tent that makes room for a lot of...

Usability Tip Choose images that enhance your story: engage your reader with faces or meaningful imagery. Use the text of your article to list participants and describe activities.

Well-organized website content improves usability and search engine optimization, which reduces user frustration and fosters feelings of goodwill among your site's visitors.

Your mission is what is hanging on the wall, Your system is what is happening down the hall....

Here are some more tips for the savvy leader to learn how to recognize and respond to drama both in themselves and others. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about making sure your pages are well-formed: for the search engines like Googleemploying devious techniques will hurt you in the long run. Review "10 Google Dont's" for some sure-fired ways to hurt your search ranking....

Web links catch the eye (or ear) and tell a user a lot about the nature of your content; be sure to maximize their potential and avoid user confusion by following these tips.

Because of our strong attachments in our congregational communities, emotions can run high during times of change. The energy produced can be creative or destructive.  The savvy leader learns to recognize emerging drama both in themselves and others—and more importantly, learns...

As we head into the holiday season, it's a good time to bring attention to the practice of self-management. Time together with relatives often elicits old memories and deep emotions. The practice begins by first becoming self-aware when ugly emotions start to swell up and our amygdalaevideo by...

As I watched the election results roll in on Tuesday night and the responses of the various commentators, it became apparent that many of the Republican leaders and spokesmen (e.g. Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich and George Will) were flummoxed by the results that conflicted with their...