I know the subject line sounds snarky however I'm serious. I'm a lifelong (it's starting to feel like a long life) UU. I recently attended a workshop at a neighboring UU church. A member there greeted me and she was wearing a name tag that had a bold "10 year member" banner along the bottom. It evoked a visceral "I don't belong" here reaction in me and I suppressed an urge to flee (and I'm an old white guy).

Until recently, our church had a color-coding system for name tags (members had one color, visitors another, etc) which inadvertently created a "we're 'in' and you're not" vibe. We also use jargon (eg. "join us in the back lounge after the service") that's not easily understood by newcomers.

What does your congregation do to not welcome newcomers? I'm hoping to trigger awareness and perhaps change where needed.

(I posted this a week ago and Reddit removed it as possible spam. Kudos to any spammer who would write such a detailed, topic-specific message. I'm posting it again in hopes that it will survive.)

Our congregation, UUFRC, (UU Fellowship of Redwood City) restructured our Religion Education program and Sunday Services to deepen connections among generations and congregants as well as integrate newcomers more quickly.

We're now in our second year of the new structure. Here's the intro to a description of what we did and why:

“This is the most energy I have felt at church in a long time. And I don’t just mean since the pandemic, I mean in a really long time!” That’s what Cyndi said during coffee hour. The room bustled with people intent in conversation after our second “Action Sunday” workshop.

Here's the full write-up: https://pcduua.org/news/uufrcs-action-sundays-deepen-connections/

Personally, as a 60+ year UU, I've felt we need to find new ways to meet people's needs and spread our values as a church and a denomination. This new structure shows promise.

A member of our Fellowship reflected on why it is important for all children to see themselves represented in childrens literature. She's a librarian and educator who has thought about this topic for many years.

She reads a commonly-banned book at the beginning of the video (until January, when our permission to include that reading expires). Set aside 15 minutes and watch the video. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/A8IjBv3RnDo