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...

When Carol Hosmer found it necessary to temporarily drop out of her church ten years ago to deal with some family dynamics that were consuming much of her time, she discovered something uncomfortable. It seemed that no one missed her. She explains: “It was a mid-to-large-size congregation and one...

Ever wonder why friends and members leave your church? The Membership Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (UUCB) in Kensington, CA (526 members), did and went to the trouble of conducting exit interviews. It’s a process that can tell you a lot about whether people feel...

There are people for whom going to church is akin to visiting a hazardous chemical site. The experience can induce severe allergic reactions. These people suffer from what is sometimes called multiple environmental sensitivities. For these folks someone’s perfume, the chemicals used to clean the...

When a minister announces plans to take a sabbatical it can strike fear into the heart of the congregation. The prospect of being leaderless for months can be daunting. But to congregations that plan with care, a sabbatical not only gives the minister time for rest, reflection, and renewal, but...

Danvers, MA (221 members), gather for a service honoring "memory and tradition." The service includes awards for church and community service, a naming of those who have died (including dropping a stone for each into a bowl of water), a short sermon, and a meditation period....

Rev. Jacqueline Ziegler, interim minister at the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg, PA (281 members), holds an annual service where members and others may come to remember an animal companion. People are invited to bring pictures of animals that have been part of their lives. At the service they are...

Q. I have always understood that the check-in process should be brief, personal, and without interruption. Is it possible that some of the objections to the process are due to sometimes letting check-in become too lengthy and more interactive than it should be? Many of us may have a totally...

Every congregation has lots of visitors who come once, twice, even sign up for the newsletter, but never return. We wonder if we did something wrong, if no one spoke to them, or the coffee was bad. If we have our act together we have someone from the membership committee call all visitors within...

For those small congregations which aren't able to muster many volunteers for the Membership Committee, here is one that operates with just three leaders....

The Caring Committee at the UU Church of the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel, CA (234 members), once sandbagged a member's house to protect it from a flood. Last year it secretly delivered 31 Easter baskets to people who needed a boost. Another time it weeded an elderly woman's garden....

We see them under our coffee cups at social hour. They are the little people darting around our kneecaps. Or they are the teenagers and young adults lurking on the edges of our congregational gatherings. We see them but we don't always have much to do with them, busy as we are with our own...

When visitors come through our doors most of us are pretty good about making them a nametag, introducing them around, and making sure they know where coffee hour is held. But once they become members, sometimes we're a little less sure of how to relate to them....

Q. We had a disturbing incident at our church in Ohio this weekend. A member got an early morning call from a man who claimed to be connected with the church, but was in fact an impostor. In most convincing terms he said he'd been beaten and robbed in San Francisco and needed someone to send him...

How many of these vignettes sound like your congregation? At your last annual meeting, twenty-seven of your 181 adult members showed up. The budget and a proposal to hire a part-time bookkeeper couldn't be considered for lack of a quorum....

Helping volunteers to feel good about what they're doing is one of the best ways to keep a congregation moving forward. What works best?Respecting volunteers' time is a good way to show appreciation, says Martha Osgood, membership co-chair at The Unitarian Universalist (UU) Church in Eugene, OR,...