Mass Bay District Spring Conference Tomorrow

April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Friends,  tomorrow is the Mass Bay District Spring Conference.   If you are a reader of the UU Growth Blog and are attending, please make sure to introduce yourself.  Its always nice to put faces with names.   We had a great Ballou Channing District conference last week.  Fun to hop from that to this the following Saturday, especially given that we’re moving to Boston, MA this Summer.    I believe that presentations from the conference tomorrow – Shelby’s and mine – are being video taped with the intent to share.   Best, Peter

Using Social Media to Fuel Congregational Mission
The Mass Bay District Spring Conference

Location: First Parish Church of Weston
Date: Saturday, May 1, 2010
Time: 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM

Read full event description on the  Mass Bay  District website.

Websites * Facebook * Twitter * Flikr * Podcasts * YouTube.

Social Media

This dizzying array of social media is the cutting edge of communications in our 21st century culture, especially for youth and young adults. And yet we grapple with how to lasso this technology to serve the mission of our Unitarian Universalist faith and the purpose of our congregations.

MBD’s Spring Conference will introduce participants to a host of new technology and expand our imagination about how to use social media to support our faith. We’ll identify and reflect on the potential and limitations of social media to nurture spiritual depth, faith development, and community building, and we’ll explore the theological and ethical implications of this media.

Featuring presentations and leadership from Shelby Meyerhoff (UUA Public Witness Specialist) and Peter Bowden (Ballou Channing District Growth Consultant), both experts in new technology and its theological implications.

Workshops to discuss the ethical and operational issues that arise when using social media in particular roles for ministers, DREs, youth workers, and lay leaders.

Filed Under: Events, Social Media

Somecity UU Church, an imaginary church near you…

April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

For those of you hardly working on this Friday afternoon….

I’ve been doing more social media training and coaching with UU ministers and UU congregations lately.   To assist in these trainings I’ve set up an imaginary UU church to use as an example,  Some City UU Church.   Feel free to connect with Somecity UU online and interact with us when I am leading trainings.

Somecityuu.org
Facebook page
Twitter

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With:

Take charge of your congregation’s most valuable publication – your Google listing!

April 28, 2010 By 2 Comments

UU Leaders,  recently I was working with Google Maps trying to make all of our congregations display at once.  A search for Unitarian or Universalist produced this map.

Clicking around this map I noticed many of our congregations haven’t claimed and updated their listing on Google.   Your Google listing is a valuable asset!  You can not only customize the content, claiming your congregation as “your business” allows you to see who is searching for you and other data.

Here’s a video from Google on the power of taking charge of your listing:

Claiming your listing:

Go to http://maps.google.com/ and search for your congregation.

When the results come up, click on map pin (usually a red dot) to open the balloon with the location details.  In the balloon containing the location information click >>more Info. This will take you to the full listing. The example below is for the Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters in Boston, MA.

If the listing has been claimed already it will say Owner Verified. If not,  there will be a >> Business Owner? link.   Click the >> Business Owner? link.  This will give you the option to edit/claim the entry.  Google will then send a card to the listed address with a pin number you may use to verify you are the owner.

Click to see larger image

 

There are many benefits of claiming your listing.  You may see stats for searches resulting in your listing, you may enter videos/ photos, and other information about your congregation.  Below is an example of what a claimed Owner Verified listing looks like. See live listing. Notice how it lists information about interfaith weddings?

Your Google Search listing is probably one of the most important “publications” your congregation has.  Use it wisely.

Click to see larger image

 

Filed Under: Outreach Tagged With:

How to trap new church volunteers

April 28, 2010 By 6 Comments

At our district conference the issue of volunteers came up again.  I’m learning that many of the congregations in my district have a chronic problem with recruiting volunteers.  I repeatedly hear about tired leaders and people so focused on getting their job done that they don’t have time to invest in relationships with entry level volunteers.

As I’ve mentioned before,  people are smart.  They can tell that

  1. the job descriptions are to big for one person
  2. existing leaders are burned out and
  3. that their is a fear that no one will step up.

Once the need gets critical, all too often volunteer development and member participation is handled like we’re trying to catch a new volunteer in a trap – SNAP! You’re the new chair of the canvass committee.  Ha! Ha! Ha!

Their too smart for that.  You can’t trap them.  That’s why you’re in trouble.

Instead, we need to be connecting the work of the church to the gifts of our members, building passionate and exciting teams, and empowering people for ministry.   These topics and more we’ll discuss in the repeat offering of my Mobilizing Volunteers webinar, date to be set next week.

Stay tuned for a webinar update.

Filed Under: Webinars

We need a UU Faith Formation #hashtag for Twitter

April 26, 2010 By 1 Comment

Friends, given that there is so much discussion about the Faith Formation 2020 Report and, hopefully, more explicit talk about UU Faith Formation, I think we need to set a #hashtag for this topic.

Hashtags are tags used in Twitter to tag a Tweet as being on a certain subject.  For example, last year at General Assembly the hashtag #UUAGA2009 was set for people Tweeting about GA.  Having a unique tag for this subject, UU Faith Formation, will make it easier for us to have association wide conversations and sharing of resources on this subject.

A few suggestions have been made.  Below is a poll where you can vote on the tags you like. You may also suggest new ones.  I’ve listed the ones with UU in them as I want a tag for our UU Faith Formation conversation.

Filed Under: Event Reports, Faith Development, Twitter, Uncategorized Tagged With:

Unitarian Universalist Faith Formation and Growth

April 26, 2010 By 7 Comments

Friends,

We had a fabulous Ballou Channing Spring Conference.  The sermons delivered by James Ford, Sue Sinnamon, and Erik Wikstrom worked together beautifully.

Again, our conference was using research from the “Faith Formation 2020 National Initiative” of  LifelongFaith Associates (lifelongfaith.com), specifically the following reports:

Thirteen Trends and Forces Influencing the Future of Faith Formation in a Changing Church and World (PDF)
Four Scenarios for the Future of Faith Formation in 2020 (PDF)

The take away from the day?  We covered *so* much in one day. Hard to encapsulate. For me the following are some key highlights I’ve been thinking about following the conference.

  • We can’t assume that we understand what speaks to different groups in terms of worship style, music, and so on — we have to engage with them and ask.  We can’t just add a second worship service with rock music and casual attire to appeal to post-boomers.
  • There is much to be hopeful about in the trends we looked at.  More people are “spiritual, not religious,” post-boomer faith is in many ways a UU style meshing and mashing from various sources.  Younger generations want more freedom and autonomy within an engaged spirituality.  We have much to offer those who are oriented this way.
  • But, we have to change.  You, Me, Us – we’re going to have to give up things we love, things we’re clinging to.  Erik Wikstrom delivered his sermon in three parts.  Rap style, more traditional heady-UU, and then a rousing evangelical close.  In part III of his sermon he had us responding to “Do you love Unitarian Universalism!?” and other questions with the group responding with cheers (with my help) of YES!  This built up to his exclaiming,  “Than you’re going to have to give up something you love…”  We can’t move forward without moving out of our comfort zones.
  • Sue shared what, to me at least, was a very compelling picture of Unitarian Universalism built on a foundation of multi-generational worship and life long faith formation.  Examples were shared of congregations where all come together for worship followed by a myriad of classes and other opportunities for faith formation.   Others where there is worship for all up to the time for the core message, children and adults split for an adult sermon and childrens message, followed by multi-generation classes, and then a final celebration service.  I love this concept.  Sue affirmed that we shouldn’t get rid of things that are working, we can add on new offerings.
  • To offer more we’re going to need to do far more in terms of staff and lay leaders empowering others to serve, gift based ministry, and LAY ministry.  It wasn’t discussed at the conference, but one of my favorite church authors, Carl George, writes that staff should be evaluated based on the number of new leaders they cultivate each year.  Imagine staff reviews where the primary questions asked were things like how many people have you intentionally been mentoring over the previous year?  Who have you trained in a capacity building way this quarter?  and As a result of your ministry, how many new leaders/ministers do we have?
  • How do you institutionalize ministries to/with people repelled by organized religion? We talked quite a bit about four scenarios discussed in the Faith Formation 2020 literature.  In this material a matrix is presented with two dimensions – interest in organized religion and spiritual hunger.  Someone who is drawn to organized religion and is spiritually hungry is going to be quite interested in what we have to offer.  However, this is a rapidly shrinking portion of the population.  There are far more people who are “spiritually hungry” but do not have an interest or comfort with organized religion.  Is there a way for us to engage with this population?   I’ve been thinking we need to launch a campaign whereby congregations have members facilitate small group ministry style groups, not in the church or for existing members, but as a form of outreach in the larger community.  Not UU sessions, but amazing sessions about life, spirituality, and the like.
  • More to come…
Filed Under: Event Reports Tagged With: , , ,

Faith Formation 2020 Report

April 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Update:  With the release of the new Faith Formation 2020 book, it appears that the previously posted summary PDF files have been pulled from the web.  The PDF links in this post are therefore no longer valid.
Tomorrow at the Ballou Channing District Spring Conference we will be discussing significant social, cultural, and  technological trends in America that are creating both challenges and opportunities for our congregations.
We’ll be drawing from research conducted through the “Faith Formation 2020 National Initiative” of  LifelongFaith Associates (lifelongfaith.com).  This research identified Thirteen Trends and Forces Influencing the Future of Faith Formation in a Changing Church and World”  (PDF) and “Four Scenarios for the Future of Faith Formation in 2020” (PDF).

Here’s a quick overview of the trends:

Trend 1. Declining Participation in Christian Churches
Trend 2. Growth in No Religious Affiliation
Trend 3. Becoming More “Spiritual” and Less “Religious”
Trend 4. Influence of Individualism on Christian Identity and Community Life
Trend 5. Increasing Social, Cultural, and Religious Diversity in the U.S.
Trend 6. Growing Influence of Hispanic/Latino Religious Faith
Trend 7. Identifying a New Stage of Life: “Emerging Adulthood”
Trend 8. The Rise of a Distinctive Post-Boomer Faith and Spirituality
Trend 9. Changing Structures and Patterns of Family Life in the United States
Trend 10. Rediscovering the Impact of Parents and Families on Faith Practice
Trend 11. Living in a Digital World
Trend 12. Educating in New Ways
Trend 13. Increasing Numbers of Adults 65 and Older

I’m looking forward to discussing these trends with fellow UUs.  

Filed Under: Demographics, Events Tagged With:

Facebook “LIKE button” will soon be everywhere…

April 22, 2010 By 5 Comments

Facebook has made a huge move to expand its reach across the web.  Now websites can display a Facebook “Like” or “Recommend this” button which Facebook users can click to recommend the site.  When you visit a site your friends have visited your friends faces may be displayed showing that they like the site.

Okay, its a little creepy…

But imagine the power for churches. A newcomer visits a church website and on the sidebar there is a LIKE button and next to it a line saying “Three of your friends like this site”  with their pictures displayed. Also, now when we go to a fan page it shows both the number of people who “like” it AND the number of my friends who “like” it.

Here are a few examples with #s as of this post.

UUA Fanpage:  128 of my friends like it,  14780 total like it.
uuplanet.tv Fanpage: 58 of my friends like it,  813 total like it.
NPR Fanpage: 35 of my friends like it,  761,293 total like it.

Church webmasters can learn more about this feature on the Facebook Developer site at
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like

Read more about Facebook global domination on this official Facebook Blog post.

Filed Under: Facebook, Social Media Tagged With:

UUA Video: “A Building Campaign for All the Right Reasons”

April 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This just in via the UUA’s New Media List. – Peter

Video #3 in UUA’s  “A Religion for Our Time!” video series

Read more about series.

Episode Three, “A Building Campaign for All the Right Reasons,” spotlights the building campaign of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Elkhart (UUFE). In a small Indiana town that has been battered by the recession, the members of UUFE knew they were the only liberal religious voice in the area. That knowledge made them determined to go ahead with a building campaign, and a very successful one at that!

Please consider sharing this video on your congregation’s website or blog, and through social media.

If you would like to embed “A Building Campaign for All the Right Reasons” as a YouTube video, the video (along with embed code and options for sharing it on Facebook and other sites) is available at

If you would like to download “A Building Campaign for All the Right Reasons,” right-click on this link — Download Episode Three (mp4) and then select “Save Link As…” or “Save Target As…”

“A Religion for Our Time” highlights inspiring work in Unitarian Universalist congregations, including innovative projects relating to worship, social justice, membership, and fellowship. Thank you for watching the third episode in this series and sharing it with others.

Filed Under: Video

UU Congregation gives $5,000 to members to distribute to “Make a difference in the city of Newport, RI”

April 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Friends, the following is a press release from Channing Church, one of the congregations in my district.  If your congregation is a member of the Ballou Channing District and has news you’d like me to help promote via this blog, please  email me your ready to post press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Channing Church * Newport, RI
Sunday, April 11, 2010

Make a difference in the city of Newport.  That’s the challenge members and friends of Channing Memorial Church were given, as envelopes of money were distributed to everyone attending the April 11 Sunday service.   According to Rev. Amy Freedman, “The purpose of Channing is to be a caring church family that works together to make the world a better place.”

The initiative, named “Neighbors Helping Neighbors,” grew out of a desire to involve the congregation in deciding how best to distribute a bequest designated to serve the poor and needy of Newport. Using a small portion of the bequest, the church’s Social Action Committee organized the distribution of $5,000, divided at random into amounts ranging from $20 to $500.

Each envelope was numbered and tagged with a slip of paper on which the matching number was written. Recipients were asked to write their name on the tags, which were then collected and recorded.   The goal of “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” is to encourage creative thinking about ways to make positive change in our city of Newport.  The choice of what to do with the money is up to the individual. Some recipients may decide to donate individually, and others may choose to pool their money to make a larger gift.

Parents are encouraged to help their children think about the idea of making a difference in the world, and organize a family project around deciding where to make their donation.   Six weeks after the surprise “Neighbors Helping Neighbors”   distribution, Channing members and friends will have the opportunity to reveal their choices.

On May 23, the church will host a celebration, where those who wish may share their experiences, and talk about how, or whether, the experience of giving has affected them.

Photo by Matthew Cohen Photography
Filed Under: Social Action Tagged With: ,
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