Thank you for your responses to the Worship Discernment Survey.

In response to the survey, UUCS will continue to offer a single 10:30 Sunday service this fall. Plans are in the works to add an evening weekday service in the new year.

Summary of Survey

Thank you everyone who took the time to fill out the survey and gave such good perspective on how the current worship service model is helping us to find meaning and live more deeply, create connections within ourselves and our community, and to live with wisdom and compassion.
Based on the ratings, it looks the current worship service model is working pretty well in “helping congregants to find meaning and live more deeply as well as to better ourselves and to live with wisdom and compassion.”
Although the “creating connections” scored a little lower, the insightful comments showed the diverse ways that people do connect, through worship, fellowship time, involvement in committees, covenant groups or small and informally making new friends.

Since we are Unitarian Universalists, there were plenty of comments shared, both what was helping to provide meaning as well as thought-out suggestions of how we as a congregation could grow. It takes a village, as they say, to provide and sustain growth and the results of this survey indicate we all are willing and excited about the putting forth the effort to see this growth take place. As was mentioned, all comments have been shared with the people or committees that will best be able to use the information.
To print all of the comments would take a book, so here are some themes that emerged: 
• We greatly appreciate the hard work and time that is put in by both staff and volunteers on a weekly basis to create and make the Sunday worship services successful and meaningful.
• We love our Reverend Richard Davis and find his sermons thought-provoking and compassionate!
• Finding a means to allow for increased contemplative work, in order to find deeper meaning for ourselves would be appreciated.
• We love our Music Director Aimee Amend and how she brings professionalism to the choir! Music has a strong spiritual as well as personal power to it, and there were many ideas of how to expand the potential music has in creating deeper meaning and connection in our lives through the worship service.
• We love getting to know about each other, and wonder about the means of doing that within the worship service itself.
• The functionality of the sanctuary space itself was discussed and how that could affect types of worship service and formatting of services. This shows that the survey was at the right time, as this discussion of the space has already been in the works for a few months.
As previously noted, as a result of the survey we will be continuing the one service, 10:30 on Sunday, going into the fall. Additional formats of services will be looked at and developed during the fall for implementation in 2019. Thank you all again for taking the time to do the survey and rest assured that your voices were heard!
– In Faith, The Worship Service Discernment Task Force Committee – Rev. Rick Davis, Sara Pickett, Steve Rosen, Janet Stevens