It Is You –Beverly Jordan, Membership Manager
Throughout Reverend Ed Brock’s interim ministry at UUCV he has emphasized that the congregation is the future of this church. When he first arrived he would say, “I know who your next settled minister is! (pause) It is YOU.” You as the congregation are the thread through each settled minister, each staff change, each building move and each evolution of growth. What do you envision for the future of UUCV? How would you define church growth?
I offer some thoughts on church growth borrowed from “Congregational Growth in Unitarian Universalism”, published by the UUA. I appreciate the broad, realistic and healthy perspective offered in this publication.
There are four distinct dynamics to church growth; maturational, organic, incarnational and numerical.
- Maturational growth is growth in wisdom. It is a stage when a congregation sees its life as a complex array of choices. Growth allows the congregation to challenge, support, and encourages each one of its members to grow in the maturity of their faith, to deepen their spiritual roots, and to broaden their religious imagination. Organic growth is growth in strength.
- Organic growth calls the congregation to strengthen the qualities needed to serve its essential purpose (mission) and to become equal to its future. Qualities and skills needed for this work include openness, flexibility and principled decision-making processes.
- Incarnational growth is growth in action. Recognizing the diversity of focus among congregants is important. There are multiple ways of authentically moving values into action thus there are different ways of being an active congregant. The key to healthy incarnational growth requires a trust in the wisdom of many types of action. For example, if a congregation is rich with activists, it must pay attention to keeping other types alive and vital.
- Numerical growth is growth in member numbers. One reason why numerical growth is valued is the recognition that our congregations are places of positive transformation. Our openness to persons of different spiritual journeys – our conviction that “we need not think alike, to love alike” offers welcome and encouragement to individuals seeking a spiritual home of diverse thought and free inquiry.
Each of these areas (maturational, organic, incarnational and numerical) relates to the others: as our congregation grows in health, maturity, and outward-focused values, we support our growth in numbers.
Considering these four areas, how would you comment on growth at UUCV? Where have we been, where are we now and where would YOU like to go?
See you in Church
In Faith, Beverly