Monday, July 6, 2009

A viable plan for church growth is based on core values and a sense of purpose


Every church needs a plan. Where are we going? Where do we want to be in 2, 5, 10 years? What is our mission? What is our collective ministry? What difference do we make to ourselves, to our community, to our world? Who is it, as a church, we want to become?

So many questions and without answers we are adrift. As W. Edwards Deming said, the great total quality management guru, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, in their book, Built To Last, described visionary organizations as having a "core ideology" which is made up of organizational values and mission, a sense of purpose.

In thinking about BUUFs core values I would say a commitment to spiritual growth and satisfaction of its members and exuding compassion toward the world. It is spiritual satisfaction and compassion which will drive BUUFs development and life.

BUUF's purpose is to provide an opportunity for spiritual growth and sustenance in an ennervating environment.

Right now these are my answers to these questions about what are BUUF's core values and purpose. What are yours? Together we can combine our energy and do great things. Jesus said, "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be." and St. Paul said, "If God is with you, who can be against you?"

At the Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, as with any church, we need to plan our work and work our plan.

Where do you want Unitarian Universalism to be in 2, 5, 10 years? Leave your comments on the blog.

This is article #7 in a series on birth of a congregation.

2 comments:

  1. Interestingly enough I have repeatedly asked Rev. Peter Morales, now UUA President Morales, to present his credible and realistic "business plan" for just how he intends to "grow" Unitarian*Universalism from the "tiny, declining, fringe religion" that he acknowledges it is today, into "the religion for our time" within *our* time, let's say 25 to 30 years or so at most. . . To date he has not responded in any way whatsoever to this legitimate question, or indeed any of my other pertinent questions which were posed to him in comments on his "obsolete" 'Along The Campaign Trail' blog and elsewhere in the U*U blogosphere.

    It seems that Rev. Morales was "personally advised" not to answer my serious questions by his fervent supporter Martin Voelker if I am to believe Martin Voelker's own testimony posted in a comment on a Denver Post article about Rev. Morales' election as President of the UUA. Blogger is not allowing me to copy and paste text so I cannot create direct links to the article and comments here. The article title was 'Unitarians elect golden pastor to presidency'. My take on it with links to the article and comments may be found in recent Emerson Avenger blog posts. In fact I posted a brand-spanking new TEA blog post once again asking Rev. Peter Morales to present his "*realistic* business plan" for how he intends to make *The* Tiny Declining Fringe Religion into the The Religion For Our Time just yesterday. Of course, as I have pointed out before, President Morales has yet to even explain exactly what he means by "the religion for our time".

    I would like to see Unitarian*Universalism become a much more credible and respectable religion than it is today within a few decades. Like President Morales I would like to see it become a much more multicultural religious community than it is today. I had hoped that if the U*U religious community supported Creation Day as a U*U sponsored inter-religious event that it might have attracted many people from diverse cultural backgrounds to join the U*U religious community but we all know how U*Us fell all over themselves to allow intolerant and even bigotted "fundamentalist atheist" "Humanist" U*Us to slander Creation Day as a cult. I have being saying for years that the failure of the U*U religious community to firmly and forthrightly confront the anti-religious intolerance and bigotry of the "fundamentalist atheist" subset of Humanist U*Us is a major contributing factor as to why U*Uism has not only failed to attract more "people of color" from diverse cultural backgrounds but has even made itself less than palatable to most God believing Americans more generally. Unless this "major problem" of Unitarian*Universalism is responsibly addressed by UUA President Peter Morales his dream of U*Uism becoming "the religion of our time" will never even come close to being fulfilled. U*Uism will remain a "tiny, declining, fringe religion" as long as intolerant and abusive "obnoxious atheists" are allowed to run roughshod over believers in any number of U*U "churches". President Morales absolutely has to responsibly address this important issue and work to eliminate this "major problem" of the U*U World if he wants U*Uism to have any chance of being "the religion of our time." God believing people have better things to do with their Sunday mornings than attend a U*U "church" where they are greeted with incredulity, condescension, and even outright hostility and contempt by intolerant and abusive "fundamentalist atheist" U*Us.

    ReplyDelete
  2. David are you aware that you have a Scientology ad at the bottom of this page?

    ReplyDelete

Print Friendly and PDF