I was recently reading UUA President Peter Morales’ article, “Embracing failure: The future health of Unitarian Universalism depends on all of us learning to embrace failure.”  Like Rev. Morales, I love triumphs and success – accomplishments to be proud of.  And yet, as he says, “if we limit ourselves to what we already know how to do, we will never imagine new opportunities and seize them.  Ironically, repeating past success will, over time, bring failure. But failures, the right kind of failures, will bring success.”

Two of our three First U goals are to grow the congregation and strengthen engagement.  In January, many of you provided ideas for how we might do this at our workshop, “Growing Our Membership, Together.”  Over the summer, I’ll be exploring those ideas (with many of you, I hope), checking to look for our innovative ideas.  Rev. Morales suggests that before we experiment we ask ourselves some important questions about those in our community who are “spiritually hungry”.  “What do they long for?  What is missing? If normal congregational life is not feeding them, what will?”  We know from recent calls to members who have drifted away that there are hungers that are not fed at First U.  Are these hungers we want to address as we seek to grow our UU community?

As we try new things, we will fail with some.  It is my hope that failure will not stop us, rather will serve to spur us on to look more deeply at how we can serve those who are in search of a spiritual and religious home like ours.

To read Rev. Morales’ complete article, click on this link in the UU World online: Embracing Failure

In faith, Nancy Pinson, Membership Team Lead