The UUCville board facilitated Listening Circles to discuss Developmental Ministry Goals on September 21 and 26 and on October 10. Forty eight people participated.

Congregants spoke with appreciation for each other and many aspects of church life including:

How well staff and many volunteers have kept us together and thriving during the pandemic,
Our music ministry,
Our RE program,
Our strong interconnected community,
Pastoral care,
Small group connections,
Improved stewardship,
Spiritual connections,
Social action in our community,
Our fellowship and commitment to each other,
The compassion we show each other and the world, Our courage and progress through the pandemic, and How we assume good intentions in each other.

As we talked in depth of goals we might have for our developmental ministry years, participants spoke with hope and passion for how we can move forward to a more powerful and effective presence with each other and the broader local and world communities. Of course, given that we are UUs, there were many points of views. Nevertheless, it was heartening to feel the love and care we have for each other and our church. Below, we have tried to summarize points into several goals. We need to have more conversations to reflect on the points raised in these initial conversations. We will continue to refine our goals and return to discussions with the congregation before we submit the final goals in the application for a Developmental Minister.

A few recurrent themes included:

Our need to work on becoming an anti-racist, more diverse community and a more relevant presence in the Charlottesville and UVA communities, while continuing work on many social justice and environmental issues.

Our continuing need to covenant with each other to care for each other, treat each other with respect, develop healthy ways to engage in conflict, and to connect more deeply with each other spiritually and socially. We seem to avoid talking directly about conflict and how to resolve our differences.

Many people expressed a need for reconciliation after the difficult years prior to the pandemic.

Our need to continue on the path to excellence in comprehensive stewardship of all our resources financial, building and grounds, volunteers, staff, leadership, and community connections.

Our need for connection with each other and consistent, transparent communication with the board, staff and the whole congregation.

Our need to connect with the larger UU Community and the UUA, especially returning to being a fair share congregation within the UUA.

Our need to examine our governance to ensure that we have adequate management, accountability, and big picture vision.

We attempted in combining the numerous comments and opinions into the following goals:

We need to understand our identity:

Who are we?
Who do we want to be?
What is the community we serve?
Who do we want to be in the larger community?
Who are we with respect to anti-racism?
Who are our members and what does membership mean?
What size of church is UUCville and how do people connect to our church?
What is our shared history?
How can we foster love, compassion, and forgiving vs judging?
What is our covenant with each other?

We need to rebuild trust in each other and heal divisions:

We need help with reconciliation after the divisions of the past years.
We want to build a sense of deep and supportive love.
Spiritual connection and social connection are very important
Pastoral care of one member to another is important.
We need to build the capacity to deal with conflict.
How can we build a healthy culture that embraces abundance vs competition where we strive for a feeling of being one community where we work together?
Do we need to review our recent history so we can have a more complete understanding of divisions?

We need to determine our Mission:

Why do we exist?
How can we be more relevant in the Charlottesville community? With UVA?
Why do people want to be members?
How much do we focus inward and how much is it important to focus on the larger community so we can reach more people?
What is our role in the larger community?
What is the role of our minister in the larger community?
What is the role of racial justice in our congregation?
What is the role of other social justice issues (environmental deterioration, women’s rights, abortion rights, poverty, criminal justice and more)?
We need to continue and expand our efforts to address racism, classism, and poverty.
Can we make sure that we are respectful of our differing priorities and be true to our principles and values?

We need to strengthen our Foundation:

How can we strengthen our stewardship?
How can we attract more congregants to leadership (especially younger people)?
How can we be an anti-racist congregation and attract a more diverse community?
How can we strengthen our volunteering?
How can we strengthen our relationship to the UUA and be a Fair Share congregation?
How can we strengthen our connection to UVA? Especially outreach and relationships with students?
How can we re-imagine management, vision, accountability and leadership in our congregation governance?
What is our whole and encompassing understanding of ministry?
Small groups are important to strengthen our foundation.
Spiritual ministry is important.
Our music program is important.
Excellent sermons are critical to many people.
What are our expectations of our minister (personal and professional ethics, acceptable boundaries, management skills, understanding of governance, relevance and connections in the community, interpersonal warmth, excellent sermons)?
It is important to pay our staff generously.
How can we be a more energized congregation?
How can we improve communication and transparency in the whole church?
How can we improve interpersonal communication?
We need to appreciate the passion, wisdom and eloquence among our very-elders.