Healthy Congregations: An Introduction

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Healthy Congregations An Introduction
Rev. Joan Van Becelaere Ohio-Meadville District
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Overview

• Today, we will look at Relationships in Healthy
  Congregations.
• Introductions
• Review of Basic Elements
• Dealing with Conflict
• Forgiveness
• Truth Telling
• Connecting
• Healthy Helping and Unhealthy Helping

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Review of Basic Elements

• All human beings live in emotional systems. The
  same emotional processes occur in all
  relationships.
• Emotional systems are automatic, instinctive,
  reactive and defensive. Driving these systems are
  innate forces that seek survival. The resulting
  behaviors are not learned or thought out. They
  are wired in, natural processes.

4
Review

• Every person functions within a context of
  relationships. Two needs influence these
  relationships the need to be separate, to stand
  alone and be independent and the need to be
  close, to connect and interact with others.
• Separation forces work to reduce tension
  associated with being too close to others and the
  need to affiliate.

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Review

• Closeness forces work to reduce the tension
  association with individual differences and the
  need to be distinct.
• Anxiety arises when individuals sense themselves
  to be outside their comfort zone relative to
  separateness and closeness.
• Automatic, survival based behavior (emotional
  reaction) issues from anxiety, limiting ones
  imaginative response to a situation.

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Review

• When driven more by emotionality, one loses
  clarity, direction, good judgment, discriminatory
  powers and resiliency.
• Critical to healthy emotional systems is the
  ability of leaders to self-differentiate, i.e.
  defining self to others while staying in touch
  with members of the group, even if the other
  members remain reactive and emotional.

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Review

• Self-differentiation directs energy to ones own
  functioning, ones own response to the situation
  at hand, and ones own contribution to the
  interaction.

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Relationships in Healthy Congregations

• In healthy congregations
• People respond graciously and truthfully rather
  than judgmentally or secretively.
• People develop caring relationships rather than
  willful transactions
• People empower others rather than try to
  dominate them or cure them.
• How do we, as leaders, help build healthy
  relationships?

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Conflict arises from peoples anxiety. When
  people engage in conflict, they are more
  automatic in the way they behave. They are less
  imaginative and thoughtful.
• Handling conflict is a great challenge for
  leaders. Therefore, they, above all people, need
  to manage their own anxiety in order to bring
  clarity, decisiveness, and justice to the
  situation.
• Peter Steinke

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Healthy Congregations are not always harmonious.
  We dont always agree with one another.
• Conflict is a way of dealing with anxiety in
  emotional systems.
• Conflict happens in healthy groups. The key is
  how it is processed 1.how we analyze the
  situation 2. what we do to address it and 3.
  our confidence in our ability and resources to
  work through it.

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Conflict is characterized by certain behaviors
• Less careful listening
• More extreme actions
• Less tolerance
• More censure, blame, threats
• Less reflective thinking
• More polarization
• Less imagination
• More covert activity, operating undercover
• Less focus on ones own contribution to the
  problem
• More willfulness
• Less attention to solving the problem
• More attention to relieving pain, cover it over,
  quick fix

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Avoidance and denial are attempts to relive the
  unpleasantness of conflict, but are also ways to
  aggravate the painfulness by prolonging the
  anxiety.
• All unhealthy forms of handling conflict have
  roots in avoidance or denial, the desire to
  restore homeostasis/peace/homeostasis.
• We try to restore comfort rather than reach
  solutions based on principles and respect.

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Comfort Seekers those who are likely to
  deny/avoid conflict
• The Idealists conflict is sinful
• The Bystanders passive, fail to act
• The Simplifiers minimize what is happening,
  resort to clichés (let bygones be bygones)
• The Wounded supersensitive to upset feelings
  due to pain in their own lives
• The Innocents see/hear/speak no evil
• The Power Brokers fear losing their influential
  position and play it safe
• At Risk anyone who stands to lose something (a
  job, friends, influence, etc.)

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Discussion

• Which kind of comfort seeker do you see in your
  congregations?
• Which kind of comfort seeker might you tend to
  resemble?

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• In addition to denial, two other common ways to
  manage conflict are Scapegoating and
  Quick-fixing.
• To reduce anxiety, blame is laid on the most
  visible and/or vulnerable. (Often the minster.)
• Impatient and/or immature people demand immediate
  relief with a quick-fix, even though the action
  does not really fix anything.

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Emotional triangulation- another way we deal with
  conflict.
• When two parties are in conflict and cannot
  resolve it, one of them will bring in a third
  party
• We form healthy (and unhealthy) triangles all of
  the time.
• In a situation of anxiety, triangles detour
  anxiety but will not solve the original problem.
• Anxiety not addressed in one relationship is
  pushed onto another relationship.
• Interlocking triangles may then form.

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Secrecy increases when conflict expands (deceit,
  cover up, lies, shrouded truth, clandestine
  gatherings, etc.)
• divides a group into insiders and outsiders
• distorts perceptions
• exacerbates other unhealthy processes, keeping
  anxiety at peak levels
• gives the message that the problem cannot be
  handled
• locks in pain
• blocks change and challenge

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Congregations needs a sense of coherence to
  handle conflict successfully.
• Studies by Aaron Antonovsky show that a sense of
  coherence results from
• Meaningfulness-overall sense of purpose that
  enables folk to make commitments, get involved,
  and shape destiny
• Comprehensibility-making cognitive sense of what
  is happening, objectivity, clarity that allows
  for hope
• Manageability-confidence in ability to deal with
  life, belief in ability to control and influence
  events, no victims allowed (see article)

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• A solid sense of coherence leads to
• A more positive appraisal of the situation.
• An effective plan to handle the situation
• An increase in confidence that there are
  resources to deal with the situation.
• Ability to handle anxiety, stress and conflict.

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Conflict and Healthy Congregations

• Healthy churches respond to change and problems
  with resiliency, flexibility.
• They allow for change and control reactions to
  anxiety and stress with insight, reflectiveness
  and objectivity.
• They analyze, evaluate calmly and develop
  effective responses to acute anxiety.
• The leaders help the people reason through
  differences.

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Discussion

• Behavioral covenants do not stop conflict, but
  can help avoid the pitfalls of denial, secrecy,
  triangulation, quick-fix and scapegoating.
• Covenants may help shorten the time spent in
  conflict with processes that urge folk to engage
  in healthy discussion of differences.
• Look at the model covenants and discuss the
  questions at the end.

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Forgiveness

• Forgiveness is taking seriously the awfulness of
  what has happened when you are treated unfairly,
  it is opening the door for the other person to
  have a chance to begin again. Without
  forgiveness, resentment builds in us, a
  resentment which turns into hostility and anger.
  Hatred eats away at our well-being.
• Desmond Tutu

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Forgiveness

• Recent studies show that forgiveness increases
  health and lowers stress on the one doing the
  forgiving.
• Forgiveness is an act of release or removal or
  letting go.
• Forgiveness is an act of hope for the future.
• It is moving toward others without reacting
  emotionally in the same old way.

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Forgivness

• Living in Systems, we are emotionally connected
  to one another.
• Forgiveness is a not a private matter. A
  conflict between persons impacts the community as
  well as the individuals.
• Forgiveness takes one. Reconciliation takes two.
  Forgiveness may be extended and rejected.
  Reconciliation requires mutual interest in
  restoring a relationship.
• Undifferentiated people have a harder time
  achieving reconciliation.

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Discussion

• Fill out the Forgiveness and Reconciliation
  Check-up. See how you score.
• In what ways will relationships improve or heal
  if forgiveness is extended and received? What
  will be different?
• Can congregations be healthy if grudges and
  resentments prevail?

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If Time Allows

• Read the article The Sin of Forgiveness by
  Dennis Prager.
• What are your reactions?
• Must one ask for forgiveness in order to be
  forgiven?
• Is forgiveness a sign of a declining morality?
  Why? Why not?

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Truthtelling

• Deception arouses suspicious. Lying damages
  relationships. Without truth, trust between
  people is tenuous. Without trust, anxiety rises.
  When anxiety intensifies, objectivity, clarity,
  and discernment diminish. Truthtelling sheds
  light.
• Peter Steinke

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Truthtelling

• Truthtelling is not just about fibs, white lies
  and spin. Its about secret meetings, managed
  news, denial of bad news and suppression of
  reality.
• Half-truths or shaded truths can be as
  destructive to community life as no truth.
• It is difficult to confront hidden complaining.
• Some leaders try to stifle bad news, which
  increases fear and anxiety.
• Better to name the problem and their resolve to
  deal with it as part of creating sense of
  coherence

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Truthtelling

• Review Secrets (deceit, denial, lies,
  clandestine gatherings, etc.)
• divides a group into insiders and outsiders
• distorts perceptions
• exacerbates other unhealthy processes, keeping
  anxiety at peak levels
• gives the message that the problem cannot be
  handled
• locks in pain
• blocks change and challenge

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Truthtelling

• What conditions make it difficult for a
  congregation to confront its secrets?
• Rigid hierarchies
• Silence as a normal strategy
• Group loyalty above all else
• Fear of losses if the truth is known
• Happy face culture, one big happy family
• Leaders stonewall when mistakes are made
• Attitude of lets just move on
• Collective denial to protect someone
• Attitude that truth wont make a difference
• Past history of shunning truthtellers
• Others???

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Discussion

• Is lying more prevalent today as some assert?
• Is lying driven by poor values or high anxiety?
• What issue is difficult to talk about in your
  congregation? Why?
• Does the truth set you free? What happens?

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Connecting

• A congregation is a network of connections.
• Peter Steinke

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Connecting

• Systems theory teaches us that the fundamental
  essence of life is relationship.
• The separate self, the individual, must learn to
  relate to others in a healthy way.
• We learn to relate through
• playing,
• touching,
• mirroring
• and nurturing.

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Connecting

• Play connects people. If we can not connect
  through relaxation, spontaneity and letting go,
  then we use hostility and dead seriousness.
• Touch indicates support, care and comfort. We
  stay in touch verbally and physically.
• Our faces are mirrors to others. Mirroring shows
  how we regard others. We show who doesnt count
  and who is valued.
• Nurturing connects us at a basic level. One of
  our fundamental ways of nurturing is with food.

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Discussion

• What connects people in your congregation?
• How does your congregational play?
• How well does it touch?
• What does your congregation mirror to others? To
  visitors? To the community?
• How well does your congregation feed one another
  in terms of food for the body and food for the
  spirit?

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Healthy Helping

• In healthy congregations, care is freely given
  as a response of gratitude for the care first
  given us. But care is neither mindless nor
  boundaryless.
• Peter Steinke
• Healthy Helping Test Do those served grow as
  persons? Do they, while being served, become
  healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more
  likely themselves to become servants?
• Robert Greenleaf, Servant Leadership

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Video small groups

• How much responsibility does Mary have for Sue?
• How is it possible to get Sue to take
  responsibility for herself?
• How do you balance self-sacrifice with taking
  care of self?
• How can one put space into a relationship without
  cutting off from others?
• How do you distinguish intimacy from dependency?

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Healthy Helping

• Unhealthy helping (fixing and rescuing)develops
  when balance is lost in the relationship. Each
  side over-functions-helpers need to be needed
  those helped come to see self as victim.
• Unhealthy helping develops when the leadership of
  a congregation adapts to the weakest members.
  The result is a weakening of the whole
  congregation.
• Healthy leaders focus on goals, direction,
  mission, not the neediest voices. (Remember virus
  discussion)

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Healthy Helping

• Caring helpers need to be able to regulate their
  own anxiety, even their anxiety about the pain of
  others.
• Need to know where the line lies between helping
  others and enabling others to remain needy.
• Helping others requires good sense as well as
  loving care.

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Discussion

• If we have time, read the fable of The Bridge.
• In what ways has your congregation adapted to its
  weakest members?
• In what ways has your congregation NOT adapted to
  its weakest members?
• Could the leadership of a congregation find
  itself in the same position as Mary? How would
  they get into this position? How could they avoid
  it?

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Healthy Relationship Statements

• Working toward my own emotional calm and
  intellectual objectivity enables me to think more
  clearly and thus speak and act more
  constructively as well as providing a tangible
  contribution to the emotional climate of
  relationships.
• It is not necessary for me to take on the
  emotions of people around me. I have a choice.
• If I can remember to look for the anxiety behind
  the boundary intrusions of others, I can be less
  reactive, managing myself better around others.

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Healthy Relationship Statements

• Staying in contact, maintaining one-to-one
  relationships with the individuals in my systems
  is important for me it provides a sense of
  groundedness I have in no other way.
• I am at my best in relationships when I can
  observe myself in a relationship pattern and
  change my part in it without expectations of the
  other.

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Next Session

• Healthy Congregations Develop Generous People
• How do we developing a culture of generosity of
• time,
• talent
• and treasure?

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Thank you for being here!
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Healthy Congregations An Introduction
Rev. Joan Van Becelaere Ohio-Meadville District
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Overview

• Today, well look at how Healthy Congregations
  Develop Generous People
• A Culture of Generosity includes our stewardship
  of
• time,
• talent
• and treasure
• Well discuss the power of language talk about
  money and why people give
• Well look at how we nurture and reward
  volunteers

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Review of Basic Elements

• All human beings live in emotional systems. The
  same emotional processes occur in all
  relationships.
• Emotional systems are automatic, instinctive,
  reactive and defensive. Driving these systems are
  innate forces that seek survival. The resulting
  behaviors are not learned or thought out. They
  are wired in, natural processes.

59
Review

• Every person functions within a context of
  relationships. Two needs influence these
  relationships the need to be separate, to stand
  alone and be independent and the need to be
  close, to connect and interact with others.
• Separation forces work to reduce tension
  associated with being too close to others and the
  need to affiliate.

60
Review

• Closeness forces work to reduce the tension
  association with individual differences and the
  need to be distinct.
• Anxiety arises when individuals sense themselves
  to be outside their comfort zone relative to
  separateness and closeness.
• Automatic, survival based behavior (emotional
  reaction) issues from anxiety, limiting ones
  imaginative response to a situation.

61
Review

• When driven more by emotionality, one loses
  clarity, direction, good judgment, discriminatory
  powers and resiliency.
• Critical to healthy emotional systems is the
  ability of leaders to self-differentiate, i.e.
  defining self to others while staying in touch
  with members of the group, even if the other
  members remain reactive and emotional.

62
Review

• Self-differentiation directs energy to ones own
  functioning, ones own response to the situation
  at hand, and ones own contribution to the
  interaction.

63
Interdependence

• Life is about relationships. Nothing is itself
  without everything else. A cell is a togetherness
  of organelles. Tissue is a community of cells. A
  body is a galaxy of tissues. As the body, so the
  body politic we are bound up with one
  another. As theologian Larry Rasmussen says
  All the createds are relateds.
• Peter Steinke

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Interdependence

• We live in a unified world. Everything interacts,
  influences and interrelates.
• Physicist David Bohm talks about the traditional
  virus of fragmentation in our society that rose
  from the Newtonian world view.
• Quantum physics shows that the world is
  interactive with overlapping patterns of energy
  where parts are always defined by their
  relationship with other parts.

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Interdependence

• Congregations were built on the Newtonian Model
  in pieces outreach, workshop, stewardship,
  education, pastoral care, etc.
• More attention is given to personal morality over
  social ethics.
• Congregations focus on the ministry of the
  individual clergy rather than consider the
  ministry of the lay folk, the whole congregation
  and whether or not it is effective.

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Interdependence

• Congregations need to learn to see their life as
  wholeness, integration, connections.
• Researchers note that a cosmic feeling of
  oneness with the universe, identification with
  the species, active compassion for a commonwealth
  of beings, foster altruism and faith that sees
  beyond self-interst.

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Interdependence

• Some theologians are rediscovering the
  relatedness and interdependence of all things.
• Larry Rasmussen Nothing is itself without
  everything else.
• Danah Zohar Everything is created out of
  relatedness, sustained through relationships, and
  thrives in interdependence.
• Matthew Fox The effort at community is an
  effort to imitate the universe.

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Interdependence

• Desmond Tutu Unlike westerners, Africans have a
  synthesizing mind set, as opposed to the
  occidental analytic one. That doesnt mean
  Africans are better or worse it just says God is
  smart. Westerners have analysis. We have
  synthesis. Westerners have a very strong sense of
  individualism. We have a strong sense of
  community.

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Exercise

• 30 minutes
• How did you find that things, people and events
  connect? How do things influence one another?

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Interdependence

• Walter Brueggeman The concept of covenant
  implies a shared life. The ongoing process of
  life is coming to terms with people who are
  other than us and to practice mutuality with
  them. This is the essence of covenanting.

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Discussion

• Look at the list of Newtonian and Quantum World
  characteristics. How is your congregation
  Newtonian? How is it Quantum-like?
• As Unitarian Universalists who honor our 7th
  Principle, what can we do to foster a Quantum,
  Interdependent World View?

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Stewardship

• Stewardship is a way of life. It is a framework
  for living. Everyone is a steward. But each one
  has been given different gifts, resources,
  valuables, properties, and assets to oversee.
  Each one participates by contributing what one
  has to the benefit of the whole.
• Peter Steinke

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Discussion

• List 10 words you associate with the word
  stewardship.

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Economic Leadership
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Stewardship

• Steward comes from the Old English words Stig
  (house) and Weard (keeper).
• One who cares for the life of the household
  members.
• In the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, a steward
  is a
• provider,
• decisions maker,
• administrator,
• foreman,
• servant,
• a keeper of something belonging to another.

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Stewardship

• European history a steward was one who guarded a
  kingdom while those in charge were away or
  governed for an underage king.
• Shared responsibility-Spanish translation.
• Stewardship managing ALL aspects of shared
  responsibility, not just money.
• Modern definition of stewardship a sharing,
  generous, accountable way of life. A full partner
  in the life of the congregation.
• All members of a congregation are stewards and
  mutually responsible for our shared life.

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Stewardship

• Self-Differentiation is a form of stewardship.
• The first thing we learn to manage in mutual
  responsibility is ourselves.
• Responsible for our own balance between
  separation and closeness forces.
• Responsible managers of self in relation to
  others neither too dependent on others nor too
  distant from them.
• Responsible for our ability to deal with our
  anxiety and the anxiety and reactivity of others.

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Discussion

• Review handout on Differentiated Functioning.
  It lists traits of those focused on separation
  and those focused on closeness. In the middle
  is the balance of self-differentiation.
• A self-differentiated person is a responsive
  person. There is less reactivity in people who
  can differentiate well. How would a
  self-differentiated person approach stewardship?
• What is your mental model of a steward or
  stewardship now?

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Small Groups

• Read the handout titled Factoids.
• What 3 conclusions can you draw from the list?
• What strategies or approaches would you use to
  address these conclusions?

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Money Talks

• Please share with me your checkbook, your credit
  cards and your tax forms, then Ill understand
  your faith and your view of stewardship. But
  money is rarely discussed in the church and
  related to faith. People go to great lengths to
  avoid talking about moneyJesus talks about money
  almost as much as anything else. He knew how it
  affected peoples lives and how they approach
  God. We say that money talks, but can we talk
  about money.
• Peter Steinke

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Money Talks

• Memes beliefs, ways of doing things, stories,
  theories, language and other forms of
  information.
• Like genes, memes replicate they are copied and
  passed on and imitated.
• What are our memes related to money? Scarce?
  Abundant? Evil? Measure of success? A means to an
  end? ?????????????

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Video

• In the video, five different memes are seen.
• In your small group, how would you describe each
  of the five views or memes of these people?
• Cody (age 42) Melissa (40)
• Audrey (38)
• Rick (28)
• Slade (58)
• David (65)

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Video

• Peter Steinke notes five different reasons or
  motives for giving
• Fear, guilt, grief, anxiety
• Sense of obligation to a special group, an
  affiliative necessity
• Sense of fairness, justice
• Self-aggrandizement, self-promotion
• Gratitude, faith, love
• Which of these reasons are found in the lives of
  the people in the video?

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Money Talks

• More reasons we give found by UUA Stewardship
  Consultants
• Out of a sense of gratitude for all that we have
  in life.
• To add meaning to our lives.
• Because we believe in the organizations mission
  and want to be a real part of it.
• Because we like to help people.
• In response to people we trust.
• Because someone asks!
• Other reasons?????

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Money Talks

• Myths about Stewardship in Anxious Times
• People in low-income households dont give money.
  Low-income people give time instead.
• During economic downturns, people dont give to
  their congregations.
• People suffer information overload and dont care
  to know how their money is being used.
• If people understand the dire financial straits
  of the congregation, they will feel guilty and
  give more.

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Money and Anxiety

• The word misery comes from the word miser.
  To hold onto everything you have is to invite
  unhappiness. Hoarding isnt obviously healthy. To
  give freely isnt always easy. Giving arouses
  emotional effects. One worries about security,
  self-preservationEmotionality greatly affects
  the motivation and conditions under which people
  withhold or give their money.
• Peter Steinke

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Money and Anxiety

• We all experience anxiety, especially if
  triggered by survival concerns.
• Three parts of the brain have specialized
  functions
• Amygdala Survival Processes Reptilian
• Limbic System Emotional Responses Mammalian
• Cerebral Hemispheres Conscious rational thought
  - Neocortex

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Money and Anxiety

• If anxiety is intense, we move to a reptilian
  response, self-preservation.
• The reptilian brain wants a rapid reaction to
  potential danger. It wants a quick fix to
  uncomfortable situtations.
• The mammalian brain interprets whether something
  is painful or pleasurable.
• Strong anxiety can push the brains reaction to
  love or hate in the extreme.

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Money and Anxiety

• The thinking brain has the potential to regulate
  the mammalian and reptilian brains.
• A mature, differentiated person has the capacity
  to regulate reactions and respond creatively,
  thoughtfully to anxiety triggers.
• If we are intensely anxious the lower brains can
  overwhelm the thinking brain.
• Certain issues, triggers, can bring out emotional
  reactions in more undifferentiated people/groups
  that bypass the thinking brain.
• Money is a major trigger of anxiety.

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Discussion

• What is your happiest memory in connection with
  money? Your unhappiest?
• What role did money have in your childhood? That
  attitude did your parents have toward money?
• What was your attitude toward money as a
  teenager? As a young adult? As an adult? Has
  this attitude been changing?
• Do you take risks with money? What kind?
• Do you give away a proportion of your money? How
  do you feel about this?
• Do you feel anxious when talking about money?
  What do you think triggers the anxiety?

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Money and Anxiety

• Unfortunately, anxiety about money is often fed
  by anxious congregations.
• Anxious congregations tend to talk about
  membership in terms of receiving, not giving.
  (does the Sunday service entertain, does it meet
  our needs, what can it give us to bring us back)
• Theologian Shirley Guthrie says that anxious
  congregations see their purpose is to meet our
  needs, solve our problems, answer our questions,
  give us whatever we happen to want most.
• Anxious congregations dont ask us to do the hard
  work of supporting a larger mission or covenant
  with one another to create beloved community.

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Discussion

• Review the Best Practices from the UUA
  Stewardship Consultants group.
• Which items seems most appealing?
• Which seem problematic to you?
• Which items do you think will resonate with your
  congregations members?
• Which would cause anxiety? Why?

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People are Resources

• Stewardship includes ones responsibility for
  every aspect of individual and community life. It
  is managing every gift one has to offer.
  Individual gifts are resources for the well-being
  of allHuman nature is communal and
  interdependent. We are created to share our
  gifts, resources, and selves with others.
• Peter Steinke

100
People are Resources

• In most churches the laity belongs chiefly to
  the audience and is engaged in what we call
  church housekeeping. Unfortunately, the
  laypersons own congregation may have given
  her/him this limited image of her/himself.
• Oscar Feucht, Everyone a Minister

101
People are Resources

• Our UUA Stewardship Consultants found that many
  people give volunteer out of a sense of
  gratitude for all that they have in life.
• Grace, Gratitude and Gladness are related. They
  come from the same family of words in Greek
  Charis (grace), Eucharistia (thanksgiving), and
  Chara (joy).
• Cicero said Gratitude is not only the greatest
  of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

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Discussion

• Do you agree or disagree and why
• Faith shares a larger agenda than prompting
  ones own private world. Faith engages ones idea
  that my wealth and talent are gifts of which I am
  a steward. Life in covenant advances a bond of
  care for others.
• Adapted from Peter Steinke

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People are Resources

• Research shows that there are a number of
  concrete benefits that correlate with an attitude
  of gratitude.
• After hearing the list, do you have any
  observations you would ad?

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People are Resources

• Research also shows that those committed to
  serving others or their communities shared many
  general traits
• Being seen, accepted and respected when a child
• One publicly active parent
• Growing up in a home that was hospitable to the
  outside world
• Living is a safe, diverse neighborhood
• Having contact with committed adults
• Participating in religious activities
• Engaging in youth groups
• Using mentors for personal growth

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People are Resources

• The concept of compassion is centered on the
  awareness of the interdependence of all living
  things, which are all part of one another and all
  participate in one another.
• Hasidic story about Rabbi Rupchitz
• Spouse Your prayer was lengthy today. Have you
  succeeded in bringing it about that the rich
  should be more generous in their gifts to the
  poor?
• Rabbi Half of my prayer I have accomplished. The
  poor are willing to accept them.

106
Discussion

• Look at the Giving Tree handout.
• Fill out the roots and branches and instructed.
• Share what you learned with your table.

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108
People are Resources

• We find 3 levels of mutual responsibility/stewards
  hip in our congregations.
• STANDARD VOLUNTEER JOBS
• Duties, time and skills clearly defined
• Very specific tasks what needs to be done and
  when
• MORE RESPONSIBLE VOLUNTEER JOBS
• Task is generally spelled out.
• Time and skills required are defined.
• Lines of accountability are indicated.
• MOST RESPONSIBLE VOLUNTEER POSITIONS - LEADERS
• Broad areas of responsibility and authority.
• Has responsibility, not specific detailed tasks.
• Able to negotiate time and personnel needs.
• Skills and abilities required are defined.
• Room for initiative and creativity in carrying
  out the responsibility.

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People are Resources

• Asking makes all of the difference in creating an
  environment where volunteers are generous with
  their time and talent.
• How do we ask?
• Face to face
• Personal letter
• Nominating or Leadership Development or Human
  Resource Committee
• Volunteer coordinator

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111
People are Resources

• Check List for Asking for Volunteers
• Review the description of the task or position
• Have a written description to give.
• List where and how to identify person(s) to help
  with the task.
• Decide how to ask
• Describe the plan for ongoing support
• How will the task or volunteer be evaluated?
  What constitutes success?
• Recognition and reward?

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Discussion

• How does our congregation find invite people to
  participate and be generous with their time and
  talent?
• How do we remove blockages to their
  participation?
• How do we currently empower, support and mentor
  volunteers and new leaders?
• How can we strengthen our support of volunteers
  and leaders?

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People are Resources

• Core Practices of Life Affirming Leaders
  Margaret Wheatley
• Know they cannot lead alone.
• Have more faith in people than they do in
  themselves.
• Recognize human diversity as a gift, and the
  human spirit as a blessing.
• Act on the fact that people only support what
  they create.
• Solve unsolvable problems by bringing new voices
  into the room.
• Use learning as the process for resiliency,
  change and growth.
• Offer purposeful work - necessary for people to
  engage fully.

114
Resources

• Visit the UUA website www.uua.org and Google
  search Giving and Generosity and
  Congregational Stewardship Services.
• Congregations can use UUA marketing materials and
  resources www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/mar
  keting/congregational/index.shtml
• OMD Website now contains a lot of material about
  stewardship and money and economics.
  http//www.ohiomeadville.org/
• economy/index.html

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Resources

• Beyond Fundraising A Complete Guide to
  Congregational Stewardship, by Wayne B. Clark,
  2007, UUA. This book outlines the Forward
  Through the Ages (FORTH) program of year-round
  congregational stewardship.
• The Abundance of Our Faith, edited by Terry
  Sweetser and Susan Milnor. Inspirational sermons
  and reflection questions for small group
  stewardship conversations and worship planning.

116
District Resources

• What District resources are being used by your
  congregations?
• What has been most helpful?
• What needs more work or energy?
• What resources would you like to have?

117
Thank You For Coming!!!!!!