by Harold Rud

Saturday, February 18, 2020, the Unitarian Universalist Network of Greater Houston held its annual Leadership luncheon. About thirty members from the eight Houston area UU congregations attended. The theme of the luncheon was “Spreading Our UU Voices”.  The luncheon delivered information on the history of the UU Network, Examples of Congregation methods of communication, social media outlets to broadcast communications to a wider audience, information about how to use the UU Network Website  for greater affect and linking UU Congregational websites and calendars.

Round table discussions put forth ideas to enhance growth of congregations through the use of these social media venues.  It was brought to our attention that people looking for a place of worship often key in “words” in their search that capture the essence of what they are looking for in a church. Examples would be LGBTQ, Trans, Science friendly, progressive and expressions that enforce the respect of inherent worth and dignity.  Few of our UU churches pass this simple search. As a congregations, we need to increase this visibility on our websites to make them attractive.

At the Fellowship, our main resource for communication is Face Book. Although Face Book is regulated to “ old people’s “ media, it is the most popular form of social media. Face Book is great for use to scheduling events, but it can be used to be more engaging.  It is important to engage the audience and not just post pictures. Questioning the audience with inquiries expressing feelings engages them to respond and has the potential to encourage healthy dialogues. As a Congregation we also need to explore other social medias like twitter or Instagram. All can be complimentary.

In addition to the use of social media as a means to engage the public to be interested in Unitarian Universalism, it is important for us to be visible in the public.  People need to see us doing positive things.  Our Fellowship participates in lunches at Turning Point, MAM collections and the Spring Branch Area Food Bank. This is all and good but visually we are not seen by the general public. It was suggested that we need to become engaged in problems local to our Fellowship area. Each congregation needs to find its own way and perhaps each of us can follow suite just as Jimmy Dunn is organizing a meeting to address Income Inequality.

There are also opportunities to participate in cross congregational projects. Texas UU Justice Ministry is one of them and their events can be found on the UU Network Website. The UU Network is also working to rekindle the UU Voice 4 Justice (UUV4J). This program will automatically notify you when there is a call for action, but you need to sign up. To do so, text UUV4J and type in 313131 to get future action alerts. Of course the way to be seen as a group is to look like a group. The UU “ Side with Love” t shirts have proven to be that unifier and identifier in the community.

In the near future, I hope to be able to post more site addresses to enable each of access to more places that can help us reach our goals.