By UUCF’s Coordinating Team, 2022-23
Over the last few years, UUCF has responded to unprecedented times by shifting away from traditional strategic planning to emergent strategy planning. This reframe of strategic planning helps up make a series of shifts from:
- Knowing to not knowing
- Inward focus to outward focus
- Slow and deliberative to nimble and experimental
- Comprehensive and unanimous to targeted and personal
- Knowing the “right” path to taking risks and learning from success and failure
In this spirit, UUCF’s ministers, staff, lay leaders, members and friends have been at work over the last year to envision and embody a short-term plan for UUCF as we emerge from the pandemic. This is not a formal 5-10-year strategic plan. The Emergent Strategy Planning Team is working on concepts for a longer-term method of planning. Rather it’s a manifestation of a short-term emergent strategy, and we are excited to share all the ways this plan is at work on our campus and in our community this year.
Welcome Forward
The UUCF story of uphill/downhill (adults/Religious Exploration) no longer serves the need for multicultural and intergenerational connection. Congregational leadership are now intentionally building a multigenerational community that will help all congregants learn and grow. This work is now being intentionally woven throughout all of UUCF’s ministries and programs under the new heading of Family Ministries.
You’ve seen this effort at work through worship in the round, flexible seating options in the worship space, intergenerational worship, mixed-age RE classes, family ministry, Sunday afternoon music and fellowship programming, re-opening art spaces in the Sanctuary Building, post-worship “Delving Deeper” conversations, Soul Circles small groups forming this winter and so much more. The new What’s on Your Heart box in the Sanctuary invites us all to be in open, vulnerable communication with each other about our experiences and needs.
Reaching Outward and Building Multiplatform Community
As the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) says, “The most critical strategic information about a congregation’s future lies in active engagement outside of its walls.” As UUCF welcomes people back into our buildings for worship and activities, we are ensuring that the UUCF experience is available both in person and online. Worship Services are streamed on Sundays and restreamed three times a week. More than 100 people join the service via livestream each Sunday. Weekly sermons are also available on YouTube and in podcast format any time. The Owl camera technology makes hybrid meetings engaging for all. Communication strategies are shifting, with an increased social media presence that reaches both UUCF members and the wider community. And the 9-week Inquirers Series is helping leaders reimagine the concept of membership and membership rituals and models to meet current and future needs.
Advancing Transformation Through Social Justice and Bringing the 8th Principle to Life
The Coordinating Team (CT) is working with staff, the Board of Directors and other lay leadership to weave the UU 8th Principle and other inclusion-oriented programs into UUCF policies, procedures, actions and activities. Below is a partial list of targeted efforts:
- Land Acknowledgement Project
- Teaching Truth Campaign
- Banned Books Project
- English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
- Reproductive Justice Initiative
- Review of UUCF Policies and Procedures
Strengthening UUCF’s Stewardship of Property and Budget
These are difficult times for religious communities in the U.S., and no less so for UU congregations. But there is energy here at UUCF and we are utilizing that passion to refresh our landscaping and grounds usage to reflect the needs of our campus, which sees significant activity 7 days a week. Staff and the Property Stewardship team are proactively planning for needed facilities updates, including the replacement and modernization of HVAC systems as current equipment comes to the end of its useful life. The Generosity Team is working hard to secure UUCF’s financial future through a well-planned annual Auction and Future Giving program, which replaces the congregation’s Legacy program. And the Potomac Partnership is playing a role as well, as the three UU congregations start to experiment with a shared staffing model for social justice coordination.
The activity level here at UUCF has been amazing in the beginning quarter of this congregational year. The CT is actively working with other entities in the congregation to address challenges, maximize gifts and continue to do what we can to support the vital work of UUCF’s mission.
UUCF Coordinating Team – Rev. David A. Miller, Rev. Christin C. Green, Bill Braband, Adrian Hendricks and Gina Wells