Andy Pakula's Growth Scheme is now endorsed by the GA and available on the Unitarian web site. Check it out and see what you could do to remove barriers to growth.

Probably the least obvious barrier is the desire to grow without knowing why you want to grow. If it's just to get "bums on pews" that's not enough. It has to be because you want to include others in your beloved community and share the freedom you have found. You have to put your own house in order and deepen the spiritual life of your community before you can get others to join it. You have to care about an issue that's unrelated to growth, and inspire others to join you in your quest for social and environmental justice. And you have to communicate your enthusiasm to others, using all the media available to you (both online and print).

Unitarians don't proselytise. Well, OK, we'd like it if everyone had a liberal and tolerant attitude to diversity of belief, but we want to attract like-minded people. We want to share what we have. We have welcoming liberal spiritual communities where you can be yourself, and explore your spirituality in an atmosphere of openness and mutual support.

Problem is, hardly anyone has heard of us. Fearful of being seen as evangelical, Unitarians have rather been hiding our light under a bushel. But that is changing. It's hard sometimes to get across a more subtle view of religion than is purveyed by fundamentalists and evangelicals, but we are trying.

One example of the effort to encourage like-minded people to join us is a growth initiative created by Andy Pakula, which shows congregations how to be welcoming and to raise their profiles.

Unitarian communities, please sign up for his scheme. He writes:

I am happy to answer any questions posted as comments on the original blog post.

In addition, I will be highlighting online those congregations that have made progress along the steps of the scheme. Congregations, please let me know if and when you have reached any particular level. I will then add you to an online honour roll, which will also help seekers to find the congregations that are keen to have them!

A guest post by Rev Andrew Pakula.

The congregation that I lead - the Newington Green and Islington Unitarians - has grown extremely quickly over the past several years. What we have done is not magic. It depends on a variety of well-known and well-tested strategies. It depends on steps also that change attitudes from self-centred to 'other-centred' - an absolutely critical culture change.

I want to share what I have learned and what works.

I have outlined a scheme below. It offers a clear step-wise approach to congregational growth. It is important to note that these recommendations do not define the only path to growth, but any congregation that successfully follows this programme has a very good chance of achieving their aims.

Some of the more advanced steps may seem daunting. Any journey must be taken one step at a time. When climbing a mountain, it is best not to start out by focusing on the peak - focus on the natural next step for your congregation. Achieving the next step will give you a sense of accomplishment that will energize you for more.

And so, I offer this programme to you to do with as you wish. The programme is organized into four levels which correspond to levels of accomplishment in working toward growth.
If you want to use them, your congregation may choose to make achieving a given level a cause for celebration. I hope you will! Groupings of congregations (e.g. districts) may choose to adopt the scheme and create ways of recognizing and providing incentives for congregations that complete a particular level. You may use it as the road map for a growth group or growth leader.

I will also be very happy to answer questions and offer guidance and advice to any Unitarian congregation that is interested. 

Bronze

At least nine of the following:

1. A friendly and welcoming person is always available to greet newcomers as they arrive or enter the chapel
2. Signs at your building are clear and include welcoming language intended to draw newcomers
3. Worship is held according to a regular, publicly-available schedule
4. Newcomers are invited to attend at least one programme or event apart from Sunday services
5. Instructions (e.g. when to stand and sit) are offered during Sunday services spoken from the pulpit and/or in writing
6. Serve refreshments after services
7. A welcome message to newcomers is given from the pulpit at each Sunday service
8. There is a congregational web site, and it contains current, accurate information
9. Keep records of attendance and visitor numbers. Make these available to the congregation.
10. Evaluate the appearance of your building both inside and out with regard to how welcoming and attractive it is for newcomers.

Silver

Gold

At least nine of the following:

1. Develop a clear, compelling congregational purpose/mission statement with congregational approval OR prepare a consensus statement(s) of purpose/mission.
2. Keep the purpose/mission in front of the leadership and membership (e.g. printed in newsletters, spoken at meetings and services)
3. Place the challenges identified by the 'worshiper report' in order of descending priority. Take action on the top 5
4. Select a demographic segment of the local population and compile a report describing this group (e.g. tastes, lifestyles, media used, and interests) OR estimate the number and location of the people in your vicinity who are likely to find your current message and practices appealing.
5. Through a congregational process, develop and approve a set of expectations for how members of the congregation will be toward one another. Keep these expectations in the attention of the membership and leadership (e.g. in your newsletter and other appropriate literature)
6. Develop and approve a process for dealing with disruptive behaviour in the congregation OR have key leaders trained in conflict management.
7. At least one fourth of Committee members are new to the congregation (three years or less)
8. Put a process in place to ensure that visitors newcomers are spoken to by at least three people before and/or after the service.
9. Visitors to the Sunday service receive a welcome message (email, phone or post) by the end of the following Tuesday
10. Committee creates and commits to a covenant for its own practices. The covenant includes the expectation that all decisions will be made in the best interest of the congregation and its future.
11. The congregation is mentioned in the media at least four times in the preceding year.

Platinum

At least eight of the following:

1. Make a practice of asking new visitors for their honest impressions either in person, by phone, or using a written survey
2. Begin at least one new programme/service/event geared specifically toward the preferences of newcomers
3. Hold occasional newcomer orientation events intended to help them understand and feel more connected to Unitarianism and the congregation.
4. Train welcomers to help newcomers feel comfortable and connect to the congregation
5. Evaluate your congregation in light of your understanding of your target demographic group and list any identified challenges in descending order of importance. Take action on top 5.
6. Identify and alter 3 long-standing customs that do not foster growth
7. At least one third of Committee members are new to the congregation (three years or less)
8. Hold at least one workshop directly addressing resistance to growth.
9. The congregation is mentioned in the media at least six times in the preceding year.

(originally posted at Andy's blog, Throw Yourself Like Seed)

The UU Growth blog has a fantastic collection of resources to help congregations grow. There is a similar section on the GA's Unitarian website called Congregational support.

When I was a child, I went to a UU church that was a larger-sized church for a church in our movement.  The church religious education program was large enough to have paid staff, and a different classroom for every two grade levels through 7th grade, an eight-grade class of its own for coming of age, and an active high school group.  But a church that size often comes in a larger metro area, as was the case with Birmingham Unitarian Church in Bloomfield Hills, MI.  And so, in my school, I was one of only a small hand-full of families with Unitarian Universalist children in our school district of Ferndale, and in my grade there was only one other UU.  I was lucky--I think my two sisters had no other UUs in their grade in our school.  When I got to High School as a freshman, there were still the two of us UUs in a graduating class of over 300, and three UUs that I knew of in the school, although I later found that there were two sisters who went to another one of the metro area UU churches.

Now I'm in a smaller church and a smaller city, and the situation is very much the same.  We have a smaller church school, with K-5 in one class.  As I think about our UU children and youth, I don't think we have any two families with grade-school children in the same school.  I think we have children in Jackson schools, Columbia schools, Hanover-Horton schools, Grass Lake schools, and a couple more school districts further north of Jackson, but no two children in the same school from different families.  At the High School level, it's possible that we have more than two families with children in the same school district, if we count members who are not active in the church and whose children don't come to religious education classes, but our few active teens are all, I think, in separate school districts.

What these two examples tell me is that the vast majority of UU children and youth grow up fairly religiously isolated in their school lives.  Before we get to college, where we're in educational systems with thousands of students, we don't have enough critical mass to, for example, form high-school-based religious club.  And it also means that our children in religious education classes pretty much only see each other once a week.  Occasionally strong friendships can form--some of my daughter's best friends are her church friends--but it's harder for our children to make friends with children from their own religion.

There are positive things about this, of course.  It means we raise flexible, tolerant children, who are good at being allies and bridge-builders.  It means our children learn quickly and early how to relate to people of other religions and appreciate and embrace that diversity.

But it has its drawbacks in terms of support for our children when they face religious intolerance, which they sometimes do.  And I think it's also a factor in retention.  My child wants to go to church so often for the primary reason that she loves the other children there and doesn't get to see them any other time of the week.  But if she hadn't made those strong bonds there, there would be much less drive from her to go to church.  And, as we see, our teens often start to get to be reluctant to go to church, and we lose them.  I continued to go to church as a teen despite any strong friends who were active in my youth group, because we had a strong program--it had a sizable group, it was fun, and it was engaging. But if you have a small group, and no strong friendships, it's a rare UU youth who will prioritize religious education in a busy teen schedule.

Unfortunately, this means rocky roads for most UU religious education programs -- there's simply no magic formula to making friendships happen so that children will want to come to church. The best answer I have is this: One of the primary reasons someone comes to a UU church for the first time is because the person has been invited by someone that person knows.  What better person to invite than the parent(s) of your child's best friend?  If it works, you gain a friend at church, your church gains a member, and your child gains a reason to want to go to church. 

I can think of no better way to help our children be less religiously isolated, to help grow our religious education programs and churches, and to build the drive in our children and youth to want to come to church.