Listening Sessions: Building The Church Community We Want
During the spring of 2023, your Board of Trustees facilitated a series of listening sessions to collect information on what’s most important to our fellow congregants about our church. This was done to help the board with goal setting and budgeting.
These conversations generated ten pages of notes, which we’ll excerpt below, but what came shining through page after page was our members’ desires to maintain connections, to restore pre-COVID practices, and to find new avenues for greater involvement.
As Circuit Writer articles go, this one might be a bit longer than usual; but, when you get a bunch of UUs together, thoughts and words tend to flow.
The conversations followed a general course in answer to the following nine questions, the first three of which were focused on current satisfactions:
- What does First UU do well?
- What brings you to church and/or makes you want to participate in its activities?
- What are the most important programs/services currently provided by our church?
The next two questions focused on future programming:
- What programs/services would you like to see added?
- If our church was not doing or providing X in the future, it would be a big loss for me.
The third set of three questions focused on fund-raising, without which no programming would be possible:
- How do you decide how much to pledge?
- I would pledge more money if X .
- To help our church become what I envision, I am willing to assist in the 2024 stewardship campaign.
And, finally, there was a request for any other observations that were not captured in the proceeding queries.
Reported StrengthsWithin the first group, the most frequently reported strengths were with Sunday services, including the message, the music, and RE. Similarly expressed were appreciation for our church community, its care, communications, work in the larger community, and group activities among church members. These dovetailed very closely with why members come to church, many expressing their feelings of gratitude for a sense of belonging, inspiration, and opportunities for relationship-building and service. Similarly, congregants highlighted Sunday services, music, OWL, Soul Matters, and Green Burials as the programs that were most important to them.
The questions regarding the future of the church, programs to be added, and those that must not be abandoned generated a very long list. At the root of these was a desire for connection. On Sundays, members wanted to spend more time with the minister, have greater opportunity to discuss the ideas highlighted by the service, and see a greater focus placed on sharing joys and sorrows/concerns. A much longer list of individually raised items included those focusing on a desire for more intergenerational, social, and social action activities. Many expressed how much they had previously enjoyed auctions, home dinners, and service activities. We are certainly never short of good ideas!
The expressed fear of loss followed most of the same lines with people again expressing their appreciation for the programs and activities previously mentioned. At the center, two comments stood out very strongly: “Our Church…if it didn’t exist, I wouldn’t live in Wausau.” And “Caring Committee is critical…if we don’t have it, what is church about?” When it came to identifying what is being missed, the responses again spoke to community-building: children up front for a story during Sunday service, lay announcements, greeters, and the fact that many friends no longer come on Sundays.
So much of what was expressed speaks directly to the desire for community. However, in addition to one’s presence, one’s monetary gifts are essential to support the institutions around which community grows. Most of the responses were singularly expressed, but many said that matching gifts were helpful. There were frequent expressions that giving was limited by income, inflation, and competing demands from the rest of our personal lives and community engagements. It was said that expanded giving would likely occur with a more structured stewardship drive, more activities with a fund-raising component like the auction and rummage sale, and a clearer explanation of needs.
Under Other Comments, the conversation of pledging continued with references to our sister congregation in Fox Valley’s operations, and the usefulness of one-on-one pledge requests. With regard to all areas of our common endeavors, surveys of members and the posting of volunteer opportunities were also identified as helpful practices. Of the twenty-eight people who participated in the listening sessions, six volunteered to help with the stewardship campaign.
Over the last year, many of us have been in conversations wherein we have expressed a sense of loss for what we valued in our relationships during “the before times.” There is nothing new in this. People have always looked back on their own pasts wistfully with a feeling that something has been lost. In this case, however, the changes brought on by the pandemic occurred quickly and they profoundly altered our habits. Many people now feel a loss for a past that is very close to the present. It is always good to reflect upon the past, but the challenge that lies before us now is also the opportunity to purposefully decide what we truly value and determine how we can build the church community that we want.
Thank you to all who participated in these listening sessions.