Supporting the Online Visitor’s Self-Guided Research Journey
Today, most people visit your congregation online long before they walk through your doors. This session helps you strengthen your digital presence to welcome and guide potential visitors at every step of their journey. Learn how to help online visitors pre-qualify themselves for membership a say YES to visiting your congregation.

Growth Doesn't Happen Automatically, We Need to Lead It!  
Small groups aren’t just a program — they’re a powerful engine for meaning, connection, and membership development.

In this session, we cover a specific approach for designing intentional growth groups (small groups that grow) within existing small group ministry programs. 

Helping Visitors Move from “Just Visiting” to “I Belong Here”
Are visitors slipping away before they truly connect? This training explores why traditional welcome approaches often fall short and what to do instead. Learn how to help newcomers quickly build resonance, foster belonging, and transition into deeper engagement — all while supporting diversity and long-term stewardship.

How to Use AI Tools to Save Time, Spark Creativity, and Support Your Mission
In this no-tech-skills-required session, discover how AI can support everything from sermon brainstorming and small group ministry to communications and strategy. We show you how to work with tools like ChatGPT to accelerate your process, amplify your creativity, and navigate change with intention and integrity.

How core UU Growth strategies covered work together.

This module offers an integrated review of top strategies we've discussed during 2025, from building a digital path to membership to launching intentional growth groups.

Live session and on-demand training recorded in June 2025.

Live session completed. An enhanced on-demand training will be shared shortly. ~ Peter

This session is dedicated to helping you plan the video content that will serve your outreach and membership development efforts throughout the coming year.  Think of this as ministry “pre-production” for the Fall and beyond.  

We discuss two specific videos I recommend making in detail: First Time Visitor Page videos and Meet the Minister videos. 

I explain the exact content I'd include and why.  This is specific, strategic, ready to implement video ministry and membership development strategy!

A reminder that a core UU Growth Lab principle is that people do their own self-guided research to determine if a congregation is right for them before they visit. Video content is how you show up fully online as a greeter, a leader, a minister, and support that process.

This session is designed to help you think through the Fall with a UU Growth Lab visitor and membership development mindset! 

We discuss Fall planning, from August through October and beyond, naming emotional dynamics, key opportunities for connection, and small shifts that can help newcomers feel seen, guided, and welcomed into your community.

Ideal for ministers, staff, and lay leaders planning for the months ahead.

An enhanced on-demand training will be shared the following week incorporating questions, issues identified, and crowdsourced insights from the live session.

This training is designed to help congregational leaders, staff, and volunteers create and sustain small group ministry programs that are welcoming, growth-oriented, and deeply integrated into congregational life.

Drawing on my decades of experience, including founding the UU Small Group Ministry Network and supporting congregations across the U.S. and internationally, this training offers practical strategies and tools to design healthy group systems, nurture authentic connections, inspire meaningful action, and amplify your congregation’s ministry impact.

Join me, Peter Bowden, and the UU Growth Lab community for a strategy session on redesigning how Unitarian Universalist congregations communicate, connect, and grow in today’s fractured world. 

We’ll explore the barriers in our language and structures that inhibit our potential and growth.  I’ll share changes in leadership, language, and programming that centers belonging, accessibility, and the spiritual infrastructure our communities need now.

• How current language like “faith formation” and “small group ministry” and “church” as a substitute for congregation and our community unintentionally exclude the very people who need our communities most.
  
  
• Why traditional pathways to connection are failing — especially in states and regions where safety and inclusion are urgent concerns
  
  
• How a layered small group ecosystem and language redesign can promote connection and meaning for members, friends, and your larger community at scale.    
  
• Practical steps your congregation can take to implement this shift right now.