Coffee Hour

At the UUA on-line membership certification of congregations we're up to 25 congregations certified.

Here are the numbers so far:

Net increase in adult membership: 146

Percentage increase in membership: 6.5%

Two biggest gainers: The Valley UU Church and the West Valley UU Church both located in Arizona, who reported growing by 37 and 31 members respectively.

Several inches of snow have slowed things down where I live, meaning I get a chance to do a mid-day update. Even though only a dozen UU congregations have certified, there are some interesting things going on.

Twelve congregations have certified. Those twelve congregations have reported a net gain of 116 new members. (13.6% increase in membership)

Of those congregations, 3 have reported membership equal to the previous year, 6 have reported gains of 1-10 members, and 3 have reported gaining more than 10 members. So far, zero congregations have reported fewer members!

Special mention goes to the UU Area Church, Sherborn MA with +14 members and the UUs of Transylvania County in Brevard, NC who grew by over 25%, a net gain of 19 members.

And then, in an entirely different class, there is the Unitarian Church of Underwood, MN that has reported adding 65 new members to grow from 35 to 100 members. Hmmm... does anyone know what is going on in Underwood? I'm going to let it stand in my count for now, but I'll admit that part of me is puzzled.

As of this afternoon, five congregations have certified at the UUA on-line certification web-site. Between them, these five congregations have reported a membership increase of 8 members. Doing the math, that's a growth-rate of 1.8%. But, as we learned on election-night, the numbers don't mean much with < 1% of the "precincts" reporting. We'll have to wait until late January to get a clear sense of what the numbers will say.

The ultimate Early Bird Award goes to the UU Congregation of Santa Rosa, California who certified their membership less than 48 hours after the system went on-line. Talk about responsive leaders!

While I roll out this column and wait for the data to roll in, I'll ask my readers (assuming somebody is reading this) some methodological questions:

• Is membership a good measure of anything really worth measuring?

• If you are a leader in your UU congregation, what system do you use to figure out what your membership is?

• What statistic would you be interested in having congregations measure?

I've got my own answers. What are your thoughts?

For administrators, ministers, and committee members it's that time of the year again... time for the UUA's annual on-line certification of congregations. And for number freaks, it's a chance to observe in real time as congregations claim whether they've grown, shrunk, or stayed the same size in the past year. It all happens live in front of your eyes.

This year, I, the "Avaricious Numerical Accountant" have bravely volunteered to track the numbers as they come in, offering thoughts and comments along the way. Who am I? I'm a UU minister serving a rapidly growing congregation in one of the plain states. While I'm certainly no statistician, I'm kind of keen on figuring out how to use spreadsheets.

Please welcome another Coffee Hour author! RevThom, a frequent commenter here and at Philocrites, will be setting up a table here in the parish hall to share some news and commentary about growth trends and challenges in the UUA. I'll let him introduce himself, but I'm delighted to welcome him to the crew.

In other Coffee Hour news, I'd like to announce that our own blog reviewer, Chalicechick, is preparing for her December 5 wedding, so while she wraps up the thousand and one things that go into a wedding (and take her away from reading all your excellent blog entries) please feel free to turn this thread into a round of congratulations.

Better yet: Let's make this an open thread for sharing favorite wedding toasts, blessings, and readings. What words make (or would make) a wedding especially perfect?

At Across, Beyond, Through Rev Sparker declares that he needs a mission for his blog to keep writing it.

Could someone please give him one, because seriously kids, his blog is good stuff, with well-written and thoughtful posts.

I vote that he write about liberal religion and trends in the denomination, but that plays well to my sympathies.

The latest entries in at Call and Response are about, essentially, the transition from a leisurely life to a useful one. Points well taken, though that transition need not happen all at once and there is time for leisure even in useful lives. Or maybe I’m just rationalizing because I haven’t given up watching Buffy or surfing on the internet.

Chutney’s recent posts about the meaning of apology have hit home to me. A close male friend, an academic, recently pulled the well-known masculine trick of insulting a woman, then claiming she’s oversensitive for being insulted. I’m sure other gender combinations do that, but I’ve only ever seen it man to woman and I’ve seen it a fair amount.

People who can’t apologize fascinate me. I see myself as a massive ball of screwedupedness and can’t imagine going a week without at least saying “Oh, I put that badly. I didn’t mean to say…well…anyway, sorry” at least once.

My experience is that academics are the worst about that. I think graduate school does it to them.

Rick’s Rants offers some hope to people depressed by the election.

CC