Hospitality and Belonging: Membership Matters
Welcoming requires attention, intentionality and practice!
"We had greeters at the doors, a welcome table for visitors, nametags, packets we mailed to people and lots of activities for adults and children. Extroverts can pretty easily find their way into our community. But when we heard from two different visitors that no one talked to them when they came, we realized we weren't as friendly as we thought. It's no comfort to know, from visiting other UU [Unitarian Universalist] churches, that we're not alone in finding this a challenge."
—Sharon Blevins, Uncommon Denomination media campaign test coordinator for All Souls Unitarian Church in Kansas City.
Tools for Assessment and Planning
Some preparation for your efforts:
Before You Begin
As an individual who cares about providing hospitality to guests and a sense of belonging to newcomers, you probably have insight into the way your congregation welcomes and includes new people. Complete the Before You Begin questionnaire and submit it to us by email. We encourage you to conduct this brief look at your congregation, and let us know what you find!
Assessing Your Hospitality
After completion of the Before You Begin questionnaire, and before you begin your congregation's marketing outreach, invite leaders in your congregation who have responsibilities that interface with marketing outreach to take time to use our tool, Assessing Your Hospitality (Word) (PDF). This tool will help indicate who from your congregation would participate and what it's all about. See below what Sharon Blevins has to say about using this assessment.
Sharon Blevins, Uncommon Denomination media campaign test coordinator for All Souls Unitarian Church in Kansas City, observed,
"Before the campaign, we were asked about our welcoming and new member integration processes. We confidently said 'yes' to everything on the checklist. But we've since learned that welcoming takes intentionality and practice. We learned to be intentional and honest in our assessment of how well guests really are welcomed and new members included. The Assessing Your Hospitality process [which users of these resources are being asked to complete before using the resources] encourages both. We learned to be more intentional, careful and consistent when it comes to numbers. The numbers we gathered are all about being welcoming and we know more about who is coming to our congregations."
For more information contact marketing_outreach @ uua.org.
Last updated on Friday, October 2, 2009.
