What should our future look like for MMUUF?
The Road Ahead process was chartered in Fall 2017 to help MMUUF to consider our future from the perspective of our recently adopted Covenant. The Road Ahead looked at how the Fellowship might grow membership, how to provide more spiritual nurturing and guidance, and how to evolve our beloved Barn. While growth, spirituality and space are intertwined, how should we focus and prioritize our energy, talents and resources?
The Road Ahead process included an online survey, three all-Fellowship meetings over the winter, and some committee work behind the scenes.
What did we learn from the Road Ahead process?
Most participants said they like our current model of being a lay-led Fellowship. Several members would welcome more spiritual guidance and mentoring from a UU professional in some limited capacity, for example coaching our members to give sermons, providing pastoral care to members in times of joy and sorrow, and to support our Religious Education teachers. We discussed different ways to bring ministerial support to the Fellowship. Some members support hiring a part-time minister while others would prefer ad hoc arrangements to fulfill specific spiritual mentoring needs.
Most people feel our current space is adequate and we should continue to make modest improvements to the Barn. We like the current schedule of having Services two Sundays per month and we don’t want to switch to a weekly schedule. And most people agree we would like to be more visible in the community to let more people know what MMUUF is all about, so that more people will choose to attend Services and become part of the Fellowship.
Next Steps
From April-September 2018, the Fellowship will focus first on growth and visibility, as we gear up for resuming Services next fall after our traditional summer break. Then, beginning September 2018 we will explore different models of spiritual support and mentoring.
This work will be grounded in our Covenant – “What do we need to do to live out our covenant?” and, “How would any new initiatives help us live out our covenant?”