About Circle Fellowship

The Membership Journey

Making New Friends & Keeping the Old

Fourth Program

>Greeting and Attracting Artists, Greens and the Intellectually Curious

Greeting Visitors

[ReaRae and Annie did three demonstrations (with some wonderful assistance from Mim on the third) of a greeter and a visitor interacting. Unfortunately it was ad-libbed and we did not record it so cannot reproduce it for you here.

The first "easy" visitor (played by Annie) the visitor was alone, but had left the seven kids behind "so as not to overwhelm you all with my first visit".

In the second demo, ReaRae played a very difficult visitor. When Annie introduced herself and welcomed the visitor to Fellowship the visitor shook her head, put her finger to her ear and started signing. Annie held her finger up (meaning one minute) and turned around and yelled "ReaRae"!

In the third demo ReaRae again played a difficult visitor talking to Annie after the service. She was quite upset that there were people obviously in pain (from Joys and Concerns) and no one had prayed for or with them. And there was no praying anywhere in the service, and no bible verses, etc. Annie struggled with this visitor and was not getting very far, and since Mim was about to climb over the chair in front of her, we had her come up to work with this visitor. Mim did a great job of presenting the ideas of our congregation in a way that helped the visitor get a better idea of what was going on.]

The gist of greeter suggestions are as follows:

Welcome the visitor
Ask about how they found us, are they familiar with UU
Ask for and get CONTACT information (not just name, but also email & address)
Greeter can connect by offering his/her own journey
Offer Visitor Pack
Offer that UU service may be different if visitor is not familiar with UU
Offer that CUUF service may be different even if visitor is familiar with UU
Recommend UUA.org for visitors new to UU
Note that there is no arranged seating--"please feel free to sit anywhere you like".
Orient to bathrooms, RE rooms, meeting room, invite to stay for coffee
Direct to literature rack for more information and encourage to take UU World or two.
Pass off to another member

What it takes to grow a UU Congregation; do we want to do the work to do what works?"

Attracting and serving Artists, Intellectually Curious, and "Greens" to CUUF - making our plans, setting our goals

From our Brainstorming Session:

Active in Crooked Creek Community Center (neighborhood involvement and like minded people)
Open Mic or particular performer coffee house (monthly?)
House available for community meetings
House available for performances
Publicize performances
Events
Art Show--Members and or non members--juried?
Back Yard Habitat Certification--get help from local experts
Interfaith Programs--participate or sponsor
Bird Habitat in yard--hummingbird, butterfly and landscaping

Where do we find Artists, Greens and the intellectually curious?

From our Brainstorming Session:

Colleges
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Herron School of Art
Indy Art Center
Music Stores
Abbey and other coffee houses
Bulletin Boards
Libraries

What do we UUs believe?

As we pointed out last week, Garrison Keillor says that we don't believe anything, or at least that we can believe anything we want. But we do have the Seven Principles. What does it mean that we can't tell people what the principles are? Or that we don't even think to mention the principles when asked what UUs believe? Are the principles that unimportant, so much so that we don't feel any need to know them? The more I think about it the more embarrassed I am that I can't rattle them off.

And then there is the question--do we live our lives by these principles? What would happen if we did? Leslie Becknell has written a short sermon entitled Learning the Principles by Heart that addresses these issues. It is an easy read, and quite thoughtful. We recommend it.