Using SnapChat to Expand Your Reach To Younger Folks Recently I shared this image, by Benjamin Schwartz that appears in the New Yorker Magazine: to Facebook adding "Imagine being the one trying to explain why churches and our office should be using it." In the comments, a number of folks asked ho...

In this 6-part training, the UUA Outreach team offers tips, tools and exercises to help extend the outreach of your congregation!

We're better together. You've heard this before. And often it is in the context of pooling resources to create something larger than we could offer as a separate entity....

People sense the energy at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County in Media, Pennsylvania—and they want to be part of it.

As a movement, we talk about thinking big. We also need to think small. We need mini-ministries. We need to encourage and equip people to create communities and experiences where they are and with what they have.

Last fall, I shopped for owl-print clothing online. I waded through countless options until landing on a grey dress with a big white owl at the hem; a dress made of fabric of covered with bright blue owls, and pink pajamas printed with brown owls. Meanwhile, Amy Johnson, MSW, the United Church of...

I'm a "stealth greeter" in my home congregation. I go up to newcomers after a service and strike up a conversation about what brought them to church that day, and then I listen. 

Newcomers to First Unitarian Church of Dallas arrive at our doors seeking a path. The Unitarian Universalist tendency to tell people they can believe whatever they want and get involved in whatever they want is both overwhelming and insufficient....

The 1970's heart-throb boy band The Osmonds provided a disservice with their ear-worm hit song "One Bad Apple." They sang, ...

How Smart Congregations Grow Members This summer at the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) General Assembly, our Youth Media Volunteers interviewed a number of youth about their personal histories with Unitarian Universalism. As I reviewed their footage, something stuck out to me....

Shifting to a New Way of Being in Religious Community What is shifting in you? What is shifting in your congregation? This 2019-2020 blog series by our Pacific Western Regional staff explores the ways Unitarian Universalism at its best shifts us away from individualistic, binary, fear-based...

As Unitarian Universalists, we have a traditionally operated under a model of church that doesn’t acknowledge the kept track of one aspect of involvement in church life, “membership”, which typically means signing a congregation’s membership book and making an annual pledge. But in reality,...

If we’re going to do effective outreach online, we need some insight into the experience of the large and slightly mysterious pool of people we call prospective visitors. Who are they? What do they want? And how do we design our websites for their positive UX?

Belonging to and being a part of a community is an important aspect of congregational life. Many of our members think of their congregations as a second home and think of the other members as part of their extended family. The relationships that we create and nurture by sharing the details of our...

The key to successful outreach amid the changing religious landscape, particularly with the unaffiliated or Spiritual But Not Religious sets, will likely be to speak to why people would want to show up in the first place, not just what can keep them there year after year.

Let’s get new people immersed in Unitarian Universalism! But how do we know what will delight them? What they’ll find meaningful?

We have many important entry-points for prospective Unitarian Universalists. Our literal front doors can be as important as our website.

Enthusiastic and growing, a lay-led Colorado fellowship invites its first minister.

Branch and Campus (sometimes called "satellite") models are the most common. They emerge as a congregation grows another site (campus) or reaches out to an existing congregation to offer support (branch). A "hub church" anchors the network, offering support to sister communities or creating a new...

Explore models of sharing resources in service of Unitarian Universalism