Why Dying and Rebirth are Essential Components of Growth Congregations that aspire to be vital, strong and growing follow a constant cycle of birth, aging, death, renewal and rebirth. This session will look at several theories around the life cycles of congregations and will suggest the critical...

Five Ways of Growing Your Congregation. Mark Bernstein discusses five ways of growing strong, vital and lasting Unitarian Universalist congregations. 2012 Additional Resources Five Types of Growth (doc)...

The most common symptom of this dreaded “disease” is focusing on only one aspect of the membership experience, i.e., visitors and newcomers. But there is a whole lifecycle of the membership experience that calls for creative and effective engagement by the membership committee. Those involved in...

Rev. Meg Riley, senior minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship From Dawning Future, November 2015...

What Holds UUism Down and Prevents Us From Rising? Introduction to morning presentations from Dawning Future 2015 Rev. Tom Schade of "the lively tradition"...

Theme-based ministry is happening in more and more congregations throughout the Unitarian Universalist movement. Theme based ministry, sometimes called theme based church, helps create multigenerational connections, as people of all ages explore common themes in age-appropriate ways....

Small congregations offer intimacy and inclusion, but can sometimes feel exclusive to newcomers. How might you bridge that divide?

Faith traditions are all in a time of transition and the UU faith is no exception. As we struggle to consider what our faith will look like in the world of congregations and beyond, let us come together to consider some new perspectives on the traditional ideas of membership. In this webinar, we...

Does your congregation have fewer than 100 members? Do your leaders burn out quickly? Do you get first time visitors but not many repeat visitors?  This training is for you!

All congregation sizes based on certified membership at the time the stories were shared.

Shifting from a humanist fellowship to a more spiritual and inclusive community helped them reach the goal of owning their own building.

Making welcoming part of everyone's responsibility, and putting energy into small group ministry helped this congregation achieve sustained growth.

They chose to give up a historic building they dearly loved in order to build a new, larger home as their gift to the future.

A multiracial congregation offers a liberal sanctuary in a conservative area.

This congregation thrives because "This congregation says 'yes!' "Newcomers feel warmly welcomed, there are lots of activities aimed at getting people together, people feel their talents are appreciated.

They moved beyond their former mentality of scarcity and invest in new facilities, programs, and personnel, and…we needed to become a fair compensation congregation.

A church where people grow spiritually, and then out of that give to the larger world.

The congregation's leaders said there were seven values that sustained and guided them: we value everyone's voice; it's okay to ask for help; we value the advice we receive; we value the generosity of angels; we value the growth of liberal religion; we value social justice; and we value fun.

A family-oriented and welcoming congregation

This congregation grew from 250 to 500 members and its budget has grown from $144,000 to $740,000 in ten years.