Why Join BridgesUU?
The Problem
Due to the ever growing demands upon limited resources, most of our small communities are prevented from achieving our goals of deepening spiritual development, community outreach, networking, justice work, growth, and more.
Unfortunately, the small church is dying, literally and figuratively. Far too many of our small UU communities are aging and gradually shrinking away. Suffering from too much overhead, the base cost of doing business is often preventative to achieving your goals. Unless we turn this trend around and become sustainable, the small church, your church, could very well fade away.
Do We Want to be a Megachurch? NO!
At BridgesUU, we aim to help our small communities share resources and build relationships to help reach the critical mass and financial sustainability needed to accomplish your Mission and Vision.
Our hope is that small communities can better serve the needs of their visitors and members. The question is, how?
We have a solution!
We will connect small communities so that YOU can have a larger impact 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 sustainable and creates space for growth.
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
Team ministry is key to our success. We recognize that many of our small congregation are not able to sustain a living wage for a minister. 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. Our communities and your members will have access to not one, but instead a team of ministers and support staff.
- 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 through creativity and innovation. We offer our communities a variety of experiences ranging from thematic 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.
- The Sunday Celebration
- Music
- Children’s Resources
- Outlines & Templates
- Scripts
- Multimedia Decks
LifeSpan Learning
At BridgesUU, we are committed to lifelong learning, and pivotal to spiritual growth and relationship building, we offer our communities and your members a variety of learning opportunities through workshops and online learning labs. These workshops and labs range from spiritual and personal growth to leadership development and congregational life programming.
- Community Building
- Diversity & Inclusion
- Leadership Development
- Theology & Spirituality
- UU History
Justice
Operating as Progressive Interfaith Alliance (PIA), BridgesUU assists our 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
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 congregational life. The Professional Team is composed of both paid and volunteer Religious Professionals. We will assist your community in developing and maintaining streamlined models of governance, leadership development and policy creation to suit the needs of your community.
- Covenant
- Vision & Mission
- Ministerial Health
- Policy Development
- Community Safety
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 communities support and alternative solutions by sharing resources and cross-pollinating best practices, processes, and workloads.
- Communications
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Operations
- Marketing
- Member Services