At the recent board retreat, I led a discussion on church size — family size church vs pastoral size church. I don’t have the column space here to delve into a compare and contrast essay, but I wanted to share with you some of the things that I have been thinking about since that discussion.

We have this year begun three new groups to meet emerging needs in the fellowship. We have Chair Yoga and a Connections sharing group, both of which meet weekly, and a monthly Caregivers Support Group. We have continued two Beloved Circles for the summer with the anticipation of doing a longer series of Beloved Circles in the fall. There are plans being made of inviting members to do a common read of a new UUA book titled “Love at the Center,” also in the fall. And there are plans underway of having a folk concert series at the fellowship and the Social Justice Committee is planning a larger concert in March 2025 which we hope will be welcoming for members of our various community relations.

All of these activities plus the ones we have quasi-institutionalized: Share a Dish suppers, Joyful Jammers, Knit ‘n Chat, Book Club discussion group, Great Decisions, Social Justice Committee activities, and several board-related committees place us at a tipping point of growth into that pastoral size church. We are a growing congregation, and this is exciting.

There are challenges. We have a growing number of members and friends who only access us via Zoom. How might we better integrate Zoom participation in the life of the church? How might we continue to be relevant to this group? What might membership look like for them?

Then there is the value of pluralism. I love the concept of this value in our faith. But it, too, raises questions for us in who we are as a fellowship. How do we minister to people on a Sunday morning who come not only from a variety of backgrounds and life experiences, but also from a variety of spiritual disciplines and philosophies? It is a question I ask myself every week as I plan the worship service. Not everything in the worship service is going to meet everyone’s needs. Not everything in the worship service is going to resonate with everyone in the room and on Zoom. It is a moment of profound grace if everything resonates for you. But perhaps this week it will only be the chalice lighting words, or the postlude, or maybe just a brief paragraph in the homily that resonates with you. Trust that others are being fed by other things in the service.

There are other elements that we can add to the service to have the service meet other needs in our fellowship. But there are questions we need to answer for ourselves. Are we willing to put in the work to make these other elements of worship happen? What is our intention by adding an additional element to worship? Who do we hope will be reached by this element?

I ask myself, how do we create a service that will signal to families that we want to be their home as well as home to our elders? I know that Time for All Ages does not speak to everyone. But I heard this fellowship say that they want to be a multi-generational fellowship. If this is true, then I need to include stories on the theme of the service that might engage our youngest attendees when they attend. We need to already be a welcoming space for families. They need to feel in their bones that they are embraced and belong here with us. If that is who we want to be, multigenerational, then let us figure out how to be that and proud. But if we do not want to be multigenerational, then we need to ask ourselves who do we want to be? Who do we want to serve?

But know our value of Pluralism includes all ages of people.

Blessings.