Last month, I missed three weeks of being at East Shore. A combination of Comic Con and Covid kept me from being able to be with my community here, especially on Sunday. I missed you!!! I felt the love and support through emails, texts, and the joys & sorrows on Sunday morning. I also felt it when a member surprised me with a bouquet of flowers delivered to my home. It was the boost I needed to get through the last bit of illness and get back to all of you.
It got me thinking about community and membership. So often we track this by how many people are members, how many people show up on Sunday, how many pledge units, how many… how much… how many more can we get. That’s easy to calculate, easy to measure from year to year. In fact, the UUA requires those numbers for us to complete our annual certification. However, I argue that those numbers don’t show the beautiful picture of East Shore I see.
In an ideal world, we would spend more time looking at the QUALITY of membership. These are hard to measure; we don’t do a satisfaction survey each week or ask people to give us a thumbs up. It’s a measure that takes time and practice to learn. How are your relationships? How involved are you? How important is East Shore to you?
I see each person who walks through the door as a balloon, floating in, worried about being popped, hoping to find a safe place to rest. On Sundays, we can grab them by that string, gently hold them and hope the wind doesn’t blow them away. But each connection they make, every name they learn, every event they come to, group they join is another string that can be tied down. Eventually, so many ties, it makes the wind no longer an obstacle.
Long term members are the same, some of you have hundreds of strings tying you to this community, others less. Sometimes those ties break or come untied… a friend moves away, the project you worked on ran its course, unfortunately even conflict. Does the balloon bobble? Does it fly away? That depends! It takes time to build those ties and make sure they are secure… but it only takes a little snip for them to be cut.
How are your ties? I know some “visitors” in this community who have dozens of ties… they aren’t floating away, heck some are barely moving in the breeze. Yet, they have chosen not to become official members (yet!). They have a variety of reasons, but I’m not worried. I see the ties, I see the relationships they are building, the commitments they are making. People, like balloons, are vulnerable and require gentle care. People come to us looking for safety and connections, especially when the world outside is not safe for them.
If we can do this, be a community filled with balloons and ties, we will grow! We will attract people looking for a space that sees them, loves them, accepts them. But growth starts with each of you. Growth results from nourishing relationships so that we grow internally, deepening our relationships, our sense of belonging, and our ongoing commitment to living our values and building the Beloved Community.
This community has so much to offer. I’ve seen it and experienced it. So, I’m asking you to join me… in creating ties, catching balloons, making them feel loved and supported (though make sure not to pop them), and let’s all worry less about the Quantity and more on the Quality!
With Love,
Nicole Duff, Director of Membership Development