The Smart Church #11

What is the congregation’s ministry?

Whom and what do we serve? Do we know our surrounding community well enough to know the deepest need? What do we teach? Who do we teach?

“As we seek to discover the true meaning of ministry… we do well to bear in mind that… we are all in this search for meaning and this struggle for wholeness together…”
Kortright Davis, Serving with Power
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Many of our congregations are working to create so-called Covenants of Right Relations, intentional statements of what behaviors are conducive to the health moral, physical, emotional, and spiritual of our members. These arise in part out of an awareness that the diversity of expectations about how to behave in a group can lead to unintentional injury or even violate our core principles. We’re also aware that sin is real. Some persons who may come to our congregations can be profoundly broken and act in ways that threaten individual and group safety. It is a ministry of compassion and justice to ensure our members are not violated in any way.  Of particular concern is how we safeguard children and youth among us. The Unitarian Universalist Association has joined the New England Adolescent Research Institute [NEARI] to offer a free on-line course, Balancing Acts: Keeping Children Safe in Congregations. Here’s the course description:   

This ground-breaking course developed in collaboration with the Unitarian Universalist Association offers information, policies, and procedural suggestions to create a congregation where children and youth will be safe from sexual abuse. If you are part of a faith community and plan to address the issue of sexual abuse, this course will provide you with the essential tools needed for a comprehensive approach to safety and prevention. Cost: This course will be free of charge thanks to a generous grant from the Unitarian Universalist Funding Program.

You can enroll by going to: http://courses.neari.com/