Why Join BridgesUU?
Celebrating Interdependence
THE PROBLEM
Unfortunately, the small church is dying, literally and figuratively. Far too many of our small UU church communities are aging and gradually shrinking away. Suffering from too much overhead, the base cost of doing business is often preventative to achieving our goals. Unless we turn this trend around and become sustainable, the small church, your church, could very well fade away. Due to the ever growing demands upon limited resources, most of our small churches are prevented from achieving our goals of deepening spiritual development, community outreach, networking, justice work, and more. We cannot keep up with the vast resources of the large or mega church, which many of us compete with in our local communities.
DO WE WANT TO BE A MEGACHURCH? NO!
At BridgesUU, we aim to help our small churches join forces, and build relationships between communities to help reach the critical mass and financial resources needed to accomplish our Mission and Vision. We recognize that many of our UU communities want to feel deeper connections that are offered in large and mega church settings. Our hope is that small churches can better serve these needs if they can become more sustainable. The question is, how?
WE HAVE A SOLUTION!
We will connect small congregations so that YOU can have a larger impact on our local community by building relationships, sharing resources, streamlining processes, and maximizing efficiency. In short, we maintain your small church community’s identity, feel, and connections, while utilizing an organizational model that is able to compete with larger neighboring churches.
How It Works …
Each congregation will pledge time, talent, and treasure into the network “community chest” toward bridge building. Each community covenant will be customized to meet the needs of the local community through the sharing of both local and Network resources. This will be rooted in covenantal relationship-building and equity. Some congregations may contribute more money than others, while others contribute more time or technical resources.
- Team Ministry
- Creative Arts
- LifeSpan Learning
- Justice
- Governance
- Administration
Team Ministry
Team ministry is key to our success. We recognize that ministers of small congregations are asked to do more today than ever before. We also recognize that in small congregations, our ministers are asked to be “jacks of all trades” and that a call to ministry in congregational life doesn’t mean we are experts at everything. Therefore, we will use a team approach. BridgesUU Communities and your memberships will have access to not one, but instead a team of ministers.
- Caring Ministry
- Caring Team
- Spiritual Direction
- Pastoral Care
- Rites of Passage
Creative Arts
We recognize that this may be a new term for you. At BridgesUU, we hope to center The Sunday Celebration and Experience as well as other gathering times for spiritual growth, inspiration, and challenge in creativity and innovation. We will be offering our BridgesUU Communities a variety of experiences ranging from thematics and outlines to fully prepared Celebration services. We also offer a variety of music options for services, understanding that some congregations will struggle to be able to hire music professionals to accommodate their needs every Sunday Morning and throughout the week.
- BIPOC Sanctuary Spaces
- Children’s Chapel
- Meditation
- The Sunday Experience
- Music
- Youth & Young Adult Gatherings
- Worship
LifeSpan Learning
At BridgesUU, we are committed to lifelong learning, and pivotal to spiritual growth and relationship building, we offer our BridgesUU Communities and your members a variety of learning opportunities through workshops and online learning labs. Each community is asked to commit to developing a youth and young adult centered program for learning.
- Community Building
- Diversity & Inclusion
- Leadership Development
- Our Whole Lives (Sexuality)
- Theology & Spirituality
- UU History
Justice
Operating as Progressive Interfaith Alliance (PIA), BridgesUU assists our BridgesUU Communities in transitioning your UU justice teams and committees into community hubs for justice. PIA calls upon community leaders to organize toward justice by bending the moral arc of the universe toward a recognition of the human dignity of all people as well as our interdependence with all creation.
- Civic Engagement
- Community Organizing
- Interfaith Dialogue
- UU Values & Modeling
- Youth & Young Adult Services
Governance
Modeling covenantal relationship building and shared ministry, BridgesUU’s governance is shared between three teams. The Vision and Values Team is composed of BridgesUU Community leadership. The Policy Team is composed of UU leadership from across the country with expertise in various areas of church administration. The Professional Team is composed of both paid and volunteer Religious Professionals.
- Community Safety
- Covenant
- Ministerial Health
- Policy Development
- Vision & Mission
Administration
The greatest distraction a small church faces is trying to manage “all the things.” Though many of us don’t like to think of this, it does require quite a bit of business management including employment, paying bills, managing websites and social media, managing member databases, and tracking contributions. All of this work often takes a toll on congregants, feeding into burnout, and often prevents members from being spiritually fed through participation in the life of the community. We offer our BridgesUU Communities support and alternative solutions by sharing resources and cross-pollinating best practices, processes, and workloads.
- Communications
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Operations
- Marketing
- Member Services