“Collaborative Planning, Look How Far We Have Come” is the title of the sermon for our Sunday morning worship service on January 12. Our speaker will be Bruce Wood, Colonel (Retired), USA, who is a lay leader at our church and is also a retired teacher. Bruce’s presentation will explain the spirit and mechanics of values-based collaborative planning. No other process better exemplifies the value of democracy than purposeful, mission-oriented collaboration to the point of reaching consensus. No other organizational decision-making process better demonstrates the values underlying Principle 5 of our 7 Unitarian Universalist Principles, which is: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.

In June and July of 2017, MLUUC used values-based collaborative planning to involve the whole congregation in planning the strategy for remodeling our current building in accordance with our mission as a vibrant UU church. Our congregation transformed our newly acquired building from the remnants of a furniture store into a vibrant house of worship for our growing community of faith through a series of individual inputs and small-group and large-group agreements that built a consensus so strong, broadly supported, and free of conflict that a formal vote was never required for implementing that strategy.

On January 12, we will begin to expand the scope of our successful collaborative planning process beyond infrastructure to map our overall vision of how we will act to honor and exemplify our 7 UU Principles and fulfill our mission of building the beloved community. No committee will write a plan and present it to the congregation for approval. Our congregation will build our vision of a successful future and our strategy for flowing toward that future together through values-based collaborative planning. Visitors are welcome. In accordance with our Fifth UU Principle above, we value your input and feedback, because we value you.