One of the first things that visitors see when they walk into the building of the Westside Unitarian Universalist (UU) Congregation in Seattle is Westside’s Covenant of Right Relations. The covenant, a set of guidelines designed to create “a welcoming, respectful, safe, and vibrant spiritual...

Q: We’re doing some housecleaning at church and we have a question about how long we should be keeping our legal and financial records. Is there a recommended time period that a church should hang onto its financial records? A: This is something each organization needs to decide on its own, says...

Congregational leaders wanting to keep up with changes and proposed changes within the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) should know of the effort underway to create transparency in the actions of committees, commissions, and task forces, as well as the UUA Board of Trustees....

All of us are welcoming. Right? Visitors come on Sunday morning, and as soon as they step in the door they feel the love, not only from the official greeters, but from everyone else....

What does our congregation need to do to grow? Should we be more welcoming, or is it a matter of adding more ways to integrate folks? Or should we really be focusing on outreach? It can be hard to know what to do if you're part of a membership committee....

Sometimes a new building is just what a congregation needs. Sometimes, if you build it, people will come and fill it. There is nothing worse than having to turn away people because you don't have room for them. And sometimes there are alternatives to a new building. Before you embark on an...

People complain about someone to a third person. Resistance to change, turf wars. Rampant gossip, secret meetings. Calls for resignations. Email and telephone cliques that exclude some people. Abrupt changes in support of and participation in congregational life. Committee on Ministry is...

Q. Our church has just gone to two services and had our first congregational meeting after the second service. We wonder if we are disenfranchising those who attend the first service since few people return for the meeting....

Q. We had an awkward situation recently when our church sold a piece of furniture that a member had donated. The member felt we should have kept it. We felt that once it was donated it was the congregation’s to do with as it wished. Do other congregations have policies covering donated items? A.

Many congregations earn extra income by renting their facilities to outside groups. But is there a point at which such income might jeopardize a congregation’s tax exempt status? And what about renting to for-profit groups? The Rev. Ralph Mero, the Unitarian Universalist Association’s (UUA’s)...

If you dropped into a meeting of the executive team at Unity Church-Unitarian in St. Paul, MN (787 members), you might wonder who was in charge. The team is composed of the two co-ministers, the Revs. Janne and Rob Eller-Isaacs; director of resource development Louise Wolfgramm; and director of...

Q. One of the things we struggle with as a congregation is cultivating enough leaders. Our current leaders are getting burned out and there aren’t enough new ones coming up to replace them. We’re getting frustrated. A. Try the following ways, says Eunice Benton, district executive for the...