“Hey it’s good to be back home again” John Denver’s words were playing in my head as we returned to weekly in person services this month. Live music is back, the children are back… we are coming home!
Thank you to all who came out on June 6. I was on a long anticipated trip to my home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast but I could feel the love a couple of states away.
Six weeks ago, we embarked on a very thoughtful process to determine the next stage and phase of development for Unity of Melbourne. Discovering Our Why was held on May 1 and we are ready for our next step.
Together, we will co-create the HOW and WHAT to go with our WHY statement.
What does that mean?
If any of this seems foreign, I understand. Most organizations begin with what – what do we need to do and how do we need to do it. It’s a process we know and are comfortable with but truly innovative organizations break past that mold to ask why do we exist, what is our purpose for being because that should drive everything we do and then and only then are we authentically living our values.
We did that when we developed our WHY statement which is: We love and accept ourselves and others and heal our world.
Keeping that in mind, our How speaks to our strengths which already exist and are natural to us. This process brings them out explicitly to demonstrate our best selves. One example of a strength is the strong sense of belonging, voiced by so many participants at that May session. Belonging speaks to compassionate service and the importance of connection. Our How is also our guiding principles. Embedded in the content of the storytelling that we heard in May were many themes that this process will bring to life.
After our guiding principles, aka HOW, comes our What which are the physical manifestations of the How. If a guiding principle is connection what programs do we put in place to assure connection happens.
Other specifics our What may include what our structure should look like – do we continue with a traditional board? Do we need a leadership council, a ministry team? Do we need a wisdom or innovation council? How will we organize ourselves to harness the power and energy needed to create these action steps?
How will this work?
There will be two sessions facilitated by Rev. Kelly Isola who has guided many churches through this process. They will be held on:
Saturday, July 10
Saturday, August 7
Please join us. We are especially requesting that everyone who was with us on May 1 participate as the second session is a natural extension.
For those who can’t, please know that you will have other opportunities to use your talents and gifts.
In addition to your participation, we also ask for your prayers as we move through this transition.
We want to involve everyone in an opportunity to write a prayer for guidance to lead us through this time.
We are asking you to consider submitting an original prayer to board@unityofmelbourne.com
Your submission may be selected to become our UOM wide prayer or we may takes parts of several different submissions to develop a custom prayer for UOM.
I’d like to close with a note of thanks for the many blessings you give to this community. We have been graced with so many in just the last few months – gifts of time, talent, and treasure. Every challenge we’ve faced has been met with a blessing.
Our future is bright with abundance. I can’t wait to see what we create together.
In love and gratitude,
Valerie Holloway
President, Board of Trustees