Video, Audio and Text resource icons

LeaderLab

Refine your search by selecting topic (e.g. growth, governance), format (webinar, training), or author.

Changing a filter will refresh results (and remaining options) immediately.

Displaying 1 - 50 of 1030

  • Stories, resources, ideas, and practices shared by congregations in the spirit of creative interchange, group learning, and emerging practices.
    Congregational Story | March 25, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Leadership Development
  • A 120 member congregation sets and meets a goal of a 20% pledge increase to bring their staff up to UUA compensation guidelines.
    Congregational Story | By Cedar Valley Unitarian Universalists, Cedar Falls, IA | March 15, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Benefits & Compensation for Congregations, Stewardship for Congregations
  • The practice of self-descriptions creates a more accessible and inclusive space for participants who are blind or who have low-vision.
    By Gretchen Maune | March 15, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Disability & Accessibility
  • Learn to work together to reinforce life-affirming and creative frameworks and use practical tools for welcoming and inclusion, connection and belonging, all as foundational to a membership journey in your congregation grounded in mutuality and consent.
    Training | By Congregational Life, Unitarian Universalist Association of Membership Professionals | March 15, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Membership Growth & Outreach
  • Worker classification is an important legal matter. Learn to determine which of your workers must be treated as employees versus who might be an independent contractor. Know the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act and whether each of your employees is nonexempt or exempt.
    Leader Resource | March 7, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Benefits & Compensation for Congregations, Staffing & Supervision
  • Books, training organizations, and other resources for congregations exploring Sociocracy.
    February 14, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Governance for Congregations
  • The Sermon of the Month series is an offering from your UUA Congregational Life Staff to help support small congregations with quality worship resources.
    Sermon | February 12, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Worship
  • Investing in real estate is a big decision involving strategic planning and fundraising for the project as well as increased operating costs.
    February 12, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Capital Campaigns for Congregations
  • BLUU Havens are Black UU social groups, valuable to the lives of the people leading and connecting through them.
    February 12, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: BIPOC Experiences, Emerging Ministries
  • Does your congregation want to grow but feels stuck? We offer resources to help you revitalize and grow your congregation to the next level.
    February 1, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Membership Growth & Outreach
  • Resources and guidance on how to adjust your budget and programming when your congregation has declined in membership and/or pledging.
    February 1, 2024 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Membership Growth & Outreach
  • Sabbaticals provide a much-needed time for renewal and reconnection with yourself and your reasons for doing the work you do. All of us deserve to have a chance to return to our whole selves from time to time.
    By Megan Foley | December 19, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Benefits & Compensation for Congregations
  • Property insurance challenges are becoming more common, from rate increases to policy terminations. While we can't make these problems go away, we can offer some suggestions.
    Book | By Safe Congregations Team, UUA Office of Church Staff Finances, Ministries and Faith Development | December 15, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Facilities Management, Records & Security, Finance for Congregations
  • The Peer Pastoral Care course on UU Institute is designed to provide skills to high school aged youth to be self-aware, supportive listeners who know who to turn to in a crisis.
    December 7, 2023 | From Youth Ministry
    Tagged as: High School-Aged Youth Faith Development
  • Tips, tools, and spiritual grounding for each stage of congregational life, from emerging, to membership, to thriving, to renewal, or to decline and possibly dissolution.
    Book | December 6, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Emerging Ministries, Membership Growth & Outreach
  • Make joining more accessible and inclusive by allowing potential new members to find their own way to membership.
    Congregational Story | By Nicole Duff, Unitarian Universalist Association of Membership Professionals , East Shore Unitarian Church, Bellevue, WA | November 29, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Membership in Congregations
  • In churches with fewer than 30 members, keep your policies simple and practical.
    Book | By Darcey Elizabeth Hegvik Laine | November 29, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Bylaws & Policies, Small Congregations
  • Hear the story of how UU 2030 Young Adult Ministry grew from 4 to 40 active participants at Neighborhood UU Church in Pasadena, CA.
    Webinar | By Neighborhood UU Church of Pasadena, Pasadena, CA, Summer Albayati | November 18, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Young Adult Faith Development (ages 18-35)
  • Your directory or online membership database is a powerful connection tool for your members and friends. But it also has the potential to be misused or abused.
    Leader Resource | November 16, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Bylaws & Policies, Membership in Congregations
  • Safety policies help to prevent interpersonal harm as well as safeguards for your assets such as money and building.
    Leader Resource | By Sarah Gibb Millspaugh | November 15, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Bylaws & Policies, Professional Misconduct, Safety and Staffing in Congregations, Safe Congregations
  • While the requirements for membership are in your bylaws, you also need policies ithat define participation, financial support, etc.
    Leader Resource | November 13, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Bylaws & Policies, Membership in Congregations
  • Gift card — also known as "scrip" — fundraising is another opportunity for people to stay within their budgets while still helping the congregation's bottom line.
    By Renee Ruchotzke | November 10, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Fundraising for Congregations
  • A tiny church cannot have a dozen or so teams or committees that a bigger congregation has. Really, we can only do one thing at a time.
    By Darcey Elizabeth Hegvik Laine | November 2, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Small Congregations, Worship
  • What if the space we need to live our mission no longer matches the building we own? Could our building find a new calling?
    By Darcey Elizabeth Hegvik Laine | October 25, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Facilities Management
  • Involuntary terminations are never easy. Ensure the best possible outcomes for the congregation while offering kindness and respect to the employee. This is a chance for the congregation leadership to practice UU values.
    By Jan Gartner | October 24, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Staffing & Supervision
  • Anticipate and plan for how to respond to violent threats, vandalism, doxxing, and other forms of intimidation and harassment.
    Training | By Sunshine Jeremiah Wolfe | October 21, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Trauma and Disaster Response
  • A team from the UU Church of Akron, Ohio created this series of teaching videos to help others learn how to avoid microaggressions in their interactions.
    Congregational Story | By UU Church of Akron, Fairlawn, OH | October 18, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Welcome & Inclusion for LGBTQ
  • The UUA doesn’t dictate any particular governance model, but congregations have historically explored new models in "waves."
    By Renee Ruchotzke | October 16, 2023 | From The Congregational Handbook
    Tagged as: Governance for Congregations
  • When you’re a member of a vibrant congregation, you hope for a deep and radical welcome there. You want to be able to bring your whole self, and feel called to be your best self, accountable to the vision of beloved community the community shares. In these congregations, when actions, words, or...
    Training | September 21, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Covenant, Safe Congregations
  • Practice radical inclusion by assuming that at least one young person you know will experience a mental health challenge this year. There are plenty of trainings so you can skill up your support.
    September 18, 2023 | From Youth Ministry
    Tagged as: High School-Aged Youth Faith Development
  • Based on the theology of Creative Interchange, this training is for teams who have the honor of co-creating meaning while shaping the worship experience of the congregation.
    Training | By Erika Hewitt | September 13, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Worship Tips
  • If we thought of our congregations as a community of communities, rather than a family, we can shift our self understanding in way that is more inclusive and expansive.
    Video | By Paula Cole Jones | September 12, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Membership Growth & Outreach
  • Coming of Age Conversations from Threshold Project panels, writings, and more
    September 12, 2023 | From Call and Response
    Tagged as: Coming of Age, Coming-of-Age, Middle School-Aged Youth Faith Development, UU Theology, Professional Development for Religious Educators
  • When your congregation is developing or revisiting "guiding documents" for leaders that are endorsed by the congregation as a whole (e.g....
    Leader Resource | By Renee Ruchotzke | September 11, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Mission/Vision/Planning
  • For congregations that own a parsonage, consider the possibilities as well as implications for structuring a ministerial agreement.
    Leader Resource | By Sean Griffin, Jan Gartner | August 29, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Benefits & Compensation for Congregations, Support for Ministers
  • In this seven-part series, participants are introduced to Spiritual Leadership and its five practices: Covenanting, Tending Our Tradition, Doing Our Inner Work, Centering in Gifts, and Faithful Risking. The series centers on questions faithful people are asking: "How can we more actively imagine,...
    August 21, 2023 | From New England Region
  • The Sermon of the Month series is a monthly subscription service that provides recorded sermons congregations can download and use for worship. Along with a transcript of the sermon, each month’s offering will include suggested readings and hymns.
    By Congregational Life | August 21, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Worship
  • Our spiritual communities are at their best when we support one another. In order to support young adults with mental health issues well, we need to fight the stigma, watch for signs, reach out proactively, and maintain healthy boundaries....
    August 11, 2023 | From Youth Ministry
    Tagged as: High School-Aged Youth Faith Development, Mental Health
  • This “next level” training for boards goes into its roles as fiduciary agents, spiritual leaders, strategic thinkers, and change agents.
    Training | By Congregational Life | August 1, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Governing Boards
  • A few weeks ago, I joined Joe, Meck, and our Region’s Spiritual Leadership for Culture Change Community of Practice (join anytime!) for a conversation on Tending Our Tradition through Reparations. We were looking at how this practice of Spiritual Leadership invites us to bring forward the gifts...
    By Hilary Allen | July 27, 2023 | From Tending to Tradition
  • Ministry is a complex profession with a lot of regular duties that are not always apparent. Here is short summary of what parish ministers do.
    By Jonipher Kūpono Kwong, Sarah Movius Schurr | July 25, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Support for Ministers
  • The seventh in our Skill Up series was a BIPOC panel with Rev. Marisol Caballero, Ayanna Kafi, and Mackenzie MacDade in June 2023. The webinar explored the intersectionality of being BIPOC and neurodivergent. Both of these identities require navigating systems that were not meant for them....
    Webinar | July 14, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Disability & Accessibility
  • It’s that time of the year again, when new leadership joins congregational boards. Summer is a time of transformation for some congregational leaders. I often receive questions around this time on how to hold a board retreat. Last year, Pat Infante and I held a webinar on holding a board retreat.
    By Sana Saeed | July 10, 2023 | From Better Together
    Tagged as: Governing Boards, Leadership Development
  • [This post is a follow up to "When We Wonder Together" (Practice Makes Possible - March 7, 2023)] In March, the theme for the bi-monthly gathering for our community of practice Spiritual Leadership for Culture Change (SL4CC) was "Discernment for Faithful Risking." We distinguished discernment fro...
    By Meck Groot, Joe Sullivan | June 21, 2023 | From Faithful Risking
  • Pledging trends show that the most efficient methods in stewardship are rarely the most effective.
    By Mark V. Ewert, Stewardship for Us | June 14, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Stewardship for Congregations
  • On top of managing the “logistics” of a staff member’s departure, you will need to manage the emotional component. Congregants may have a whole range of feelings and reactions. It’s important to acknowledge all feelings.
    Book | June 9, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Staffing & Supervision
  • Boards, especially in congregations with 100 or more members, find that delegating part of their fiduciary work to committees and/or task forces helps to free them up for big-picture and visionary discussions.
    Leader Resource | By Congregational Life | June 9, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Governance for Congregations
  • Personnel Committees don't hire, manage or supervise staff. Instead they advise the board and the senior minister on best practices.
    Leader Resource | June 9, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Staffing & Supervision
  • Policies and procedures are a way of telling future boards “this is our best thinking and guidance on this subject.” 
    Leader Resource | By Congregational Life | June 8, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Bylaws & Policies, Governing Boards, Governance for Congregations
  • Bylaws guide the congregation’s board in governing by articulating board structure and key fiduciary committees and processes for key decision-making.
    Leader Resource | By Congregational Life | June 8, 2023 | From LeaderLab
    Tagged as: Bylaws & Policies