Church marketing 101

“Change something significant about the appearance of your church at least once a month.” –Standard advice from church marketing experts.

First Unitarian in New Bedford sits right at a busy intersection, the corner of Union and County streets. While you’re waiting on Union Street for the traffic light to change, your car is right next to a huge building made out of granite, with a sign saying “First Unitarian Church.” Yet over and over again, newcomers tell us, “You know, I’ve driven by this building for years and never really noticed it.”

We need to follow advice straight out of Church Marketing 101: change something about the appearance of our site and/or building every month, something significant enough that people will notice our building. Otherwise, our building blends in and becomes just another unnoticed historic building in historic downtown New Bedford.

Problem is, we have very little in the budget for this kind of thing. Even so, we have already managed to plan a few things that won’t strain our budget:

  • April: We hung new signs on our fence. The new signs are easier to read, and they (finally) have our Web site URL prominently displayed. Due to budget constraints, we had to go with relatively inexpensive plastic signs which we plan to replace in another fiscal year.
  • May: We’re planting bright spring flowers under the new signs.
  • June: We planted Dutch iris bulbs that should start flowering in June.

We’re also going to take a look at our other sign that’s right at the intersection of County and Union — maybe we’ll wind up hanging smaller seasonal signs under it, or perhaps displaying a rainbow flag for a month. It’s going to take some creativity to come up with ten or twelve inexpensive ways to change the appearance of our site and building!

Spring watch

Suddenly, two days ago, I started seeing the cormorants again. They disappeared from New Bedford harbor late last fall, were gone all winter, and then on Sunday I saw this big black bird pop up from swimming underwater: a cormorant, who was just as surprised to see me as I was to see it, and who immediately began swimming away from me, fast.

The day before that, Saturday, I saw three or four Red-breasted Mergansers. They came to the harbor last fall, and have been here ever since. But since then, I haven’t seen a one. It’s almost as if the cormorants and the mergansers traded places. The wintering waterfowl have gradually been leaving the harbor since March. The last time I saw a Common Loon was early last week, swimming around Fish Island, resplendent in his summer plumage. I have to say, I’m sad that they’re gone for the year.

It’s mating season for Herring Gulls. The gulls who live on the roof of the building next to our apartment have been getting noisy at night, so noisy that they have awakened me a number of times. One night last week, a terrible screeching squabble woke me up, then I heard something hit the roof — thunk! — and slide down, scrabbling and scraping. Mating season must be a rough time when you’re a gull.

May 26, 2007 — I’ve added a video showing a number of Herring Gull nests that I’ve discovered on the rooftops of New Bedford, including the nest on our roof.

Redundancy

Maybe it’s the flu, maybe it’s just another cold, but I’ve been less than fully functional for the past five days. I feel like I’m walking around in a world full of jello. People look at me and say, “What’s wrong with you today?” “Uh…,” I respond, “uh, I’ve got a cold or something.”

All of which brings up an interesting point in church administration. At eleven o’clock this morning I realized that I was doing little more than staring at the pile on my desk and the unread email on my computer screen. Then I realized that I have a really long day tomorrow. So I came home, had some chicken soup, and now I’m going to bed. And probably no one will miss me at church, unless someone calls and asks for me directly.

One design feature that every administrative system should have is redundancy. Any administrative system that is too dependent on just one person is too vulnerable — if that person resigns, or gets sick, the whole system grinds to a halt. Therefore, church administrative systems should be designed so that if one person has to step out of the system, the rest of the staff and volunteers can immediately step in and take over.

At the most basic level, this means that filing systems should be understandable to everyone, computer passwords stored in a secure but accessible place, etc. At a higher level, staff and volunteers should have basic knowledge of the jobs of people around them, and training in what to do in case of someone else’s absence.

The key concept in this whole discussion is that administrative systems are designed — which also implies intentional thought, overarching goals, and ongoing maintenance.

The implicit conclusion for all this is that smaller congregations (under 50 active members, which is determined by average worship attendance in my denomination) will have the most vulnerable administrative systems, because the absence of one individual will have a proportionately greater impact — which means that small congregations like mine really have to concentrate on designing a robust, redundant administrative system.

I hope this all makes sense. My brain feels like it’s full of jello, so I’m not sure if what I just wrote is nonsensical or sensical. Is “sensical” a word? I’m going to go take a nap.

Increasing social connectivity in this corner of the blogosphere

Discover Magazine has a great, short piece on the connectivity of the blogosphere:

The blogosphere is the most explosive social network you’ll never see. Recent studies suggest that nearly 60 million blogs exist online, and about 175,000 more crop up daily (that’s about 2 every second). Even though the vast majority of blogs are either abandoned or isolated, many bloggers like to link to other Web sites. These links allow analysts to track trends in blogs and identify the most popular topics of data exchange. Social media expert Matthew Hurst recently collected link data for six weeks and produced this plot of the most active and interconnected parts of the blogosphere.

Link with incredible graphic. (Thanks, Techyum.)

And who’s at the center of this vast social network? Daily Kos, BoingBoing, Michelle Malkin, gadget freaks, porn lovers, and sports fanatics. Good grief. People who blog about religion and culture don’t even show up. Which doesn’t surprise me — bloggers in my tiny corner of the blogosphere don’t talk to one another much, we don’t link to one another’s posts, and basically we don’t exploit the potential of social connectivity that exists in the medium of blogging. To change that a little tiny bit, here are some links to the best blog posts I’ve read recently:

ck at Arbitrary Marks posts a thoughtful video commentary on women blogging without having to deal with stalkers and crazies (I’ve already commented over there, no need to repeat here): Link.

Will Shetterly is moving “It’s All One Thing” from Blogger over to Live Journal. He promises less religion, which probably means more science fiction. That works for me. I’m liking the new cat story: Link.

Jeremy at Voltage Gate provides links to dozens of bloggers who have bioblitzed over the past week. I’ve been following his links to some very cool ecosystems from Ontario to Panama, and enjoying citizen science in action: Link.

Abby at Children and Books has a great post about teaching, where one of the kids she’s teaching gets a complicated concept. Short as it is, this post is really sticking with me, and I’m still mulling it over: Link.

Blogger BioBlitz 2007 final list

Today was my only day off this week, and I had planned to do my Blogger BioBlitz survey today, trying to find how many of each different species — plant, animal, fungi and anything in between — live within the small area I chose to survey (the garden at First Unitarian in New Bedford). We had heavy downpours most of the day, so I had to cut the survey short. In between rain squalls, I took as many photos of living things as possible; I also relied on photos and notes I had taken earlier in the week when I was surveying the area. Unfortunately, the weather meant that I didn’t have time to search out many animals (e.g., I wasn’t able to dig up some soil and look through it for invertebrates, etc.).

My identification of many plants was hampered because it’s still early in spring and many plants have just begun to emerge from dormancy or sprout from seeds; and only a few of the flowering plants were actually in flower. I’m thinking I may continue with this survey of living things over the course of the summer, to see if I can do additional identifications.

I’ve included my list of organisms below, arranged in rough taxonomic order. Over the next week, I’ll be working on further identifications as well as filling in the taxonomic order, and when done I’ll update this entry. (Final update, 28 April, link to final data sheet included.)

Video tour of the site.
Photos from field work.
First post on Blogger Bioblitz 2007.
Second post on Blogger Bioblitz 2007.

Continue reading →

Axiocentrism, whatever that is

Browsing the articles at the excellent Religion Online Web site, I came across a 1979 article about Unitarian Universalism by Robert Tapp. It’s fascinating to read an outsider scholar’s view of our denomination, written at the moment when we were about to start growing (very slowly, but growing at last instead of declining). I found the second-to-last paragraph especially interesting. While we haven’t seen that theological convergence with humanism, the emergence of liturgical innovations in the 1980’s (flaming chalice, joys and concerns, etc.) makes the comment about feeling and acting like a minority group seem prescient. And the idea of “axiocentrism” just might be useful in our ongoing attempts at defining ourselves:

What of the future [of Unitarian Universalism] — if we assume that membership shrinkage has stabilized, that fiscal stringencies have been effected, and that a theological convergence toward a religious humanism has not only occurred but has at last received official recognition? A possible pattern is that of the Quakers — smallness, integrity and influence. But the Friends’ ethos and ways are difficult and must be learned — a kind of orthopraxy. A pattern of orthodoxy — precise beliefs, precisely enforced — seems even less likely. A third communal pattern could be based on shared values, both explicitly and implicitly religious — an “axiocentrism.” This model seems to characterize today’s UUs. Many of these shared beliefs and values are by-products of modernity and higher education. To the extent that U.S. culture is now tilting toward conservatism, those who hold such values may come to feel and act like a minority group — which seeks mutual support, recognizable in-group styles, viable defense patterns.

Full article: Link.

Spring watch

Three years ago, we lived a mile away from Verrill Farm in Concord, Massachusetts. We used to walk down and buy our vegetables there. In the winter, they’d bring in vegetables from California or Florida, but at about this time of year they would start having some of their own vegetables for sale.

I drove up to see Carol’s parents this afternoon, and I took the route that went by Verrill’s Farm. Sure enough, they had their own spinach on sale, the first vegetables out of their greenhouse: nice, crisp, curly, succulent, bright green leaves of spinach. I bought a big bag of their spinach. By this time in the spring, I’m desperate for fresh local vegetables. The stuff they truck in from California and Florida always tastes a little limp and flat.

It’s a quarter to ten, and I just got back home. I was tempted to cook up some spinach before I went to sleep, but it’s really too late. Now I can hardly wait until tomorrow: spinach salad for lunch, steamed spinach for dinner….

Plan ahead

Anne Principe, the Director of Religious Education at the Unitarian Universalist church in Brookline, Mass., pointed out to me that the Religious Education Association (REA) annual meeting and conference will take place in Boston this year. I have never been able to attend the REA annual meeting due to travel costs, but this will be close enough to commute. And this year’s topic sounds fascinating: “Culture that Matters: Intercultural Explorations in Religious Education.” I’ve already put it on my calendar.

November 2-4, 2007 — Religious Education Association annual meeting, Hyatt Harborside Hotel, Boston.

Link.

Bioblitz in an urban garden

As part of the Blogger BioBlitz this week, I’m looking for biodiversity in an urban garden in downtown New Bedford, Mass. I actually found more biodiversity than you might expect.

Next post on Blogger Bioblitz 2007: Link.
Previous post on Blogger Bioblitz 2007: Link.

Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.