Are you an emerging Unitarian Universalist congregation, that is, a UU congregation in the process of formation? If so, this website is for you. Our mission is to let you know you are not alone, and to serve you by gathering into one place information that will be of help and support you.

Resources

There are surprisingly few resources created specifically for emerging UU congregations—hence the idea for this web site. Yet there are a few good basic resources:

There is one basic new congregation development resource that provides the best place to begin. It is available on line at http://www.uua.org/documents/congservices/newcongdev.pdf

Three other good basic things from the UUA include:

“Starting a New Congregation from Scratch,” by Don Skinner. Good basic article from the Fall of 2007 describing the experience of three emerging congregations and giving links to a number of resources.

“Becoming a Member Congregation." This includes a brief description of the membership process, along with application deadlines and links to some very helpful and more specific resources such as one on writing by-laws.

“Congregational Membership In the UUA.” This includes in depth description of the membership process and links to all the application materials.

UUA.org has a growing general online resource library for leaders. By playing with a variety of search terms, you will find good material. Be persistent. For example, while searches on “publicity,” and “welcome” yielded little, a search on “membership” yield a variety of good things.

On the broader subject of resources, any UU congregation emerging today will find itself in an amazingly fortunate time. The Web has become an amazing source of free, downloadable material. A little dexterity in searching will turn up a wealth of worship resources including complete services and sermons from other congregations (ask and give credit). Increasingly, emerging congregations make use of sermons (either written or pod-cast) posted on the websites of established congregations.

Historically, one of the best resources for emerging congregations has been the Church of the Larger Fellowship. Founded to serve UUs who are not near UU congregations, the CLF has many resources that might be useful for emerging congregations. The bulk of these are only available by subscription ($129.00 per year) or by joining. A sampling of materials is available for free including a basic online introduction to UUism class. Their Religious Education materials are particularly strong for very small groups and for support of parents providing education to their children.

The UUA online bookstore has a wealth of very good books and pamphlets.

Recently the UUA has been producing, and distributing free or at nominal cost CDs and DVDs on lots of useful topics (Contact your district office and you may well be able to get some of these free).