Fort Worth, Texas, at the General Assembly of Unitarian Universalist congregations

The best workshop that I have attended at General Assembly this year by far was “The Electronic Frontier: Growing Unitarian Universalism via the Web.”

At this workshop, we learned that the great majority of our newcomers learn about our congregations through our Web sites. By now, more than 90% of Unitarian Universalist congregations have Web sites. As Deb Weiner put it (she’s the Director of Electronic Communications at the UUA), people who are looking for a Unitarian Universalist congregation should be able to find one if they’re looking via the Web. And right now, hundreds of people visit www.uua.org each Sunday morning looking for a UU congregation near them!

Another highlight yesterday, needless to say, was the meeting of the UU bloggers who are here at General Assembly. One clear thing came up for all of us — at least part of the reason we are blogging about Unitarian Universalism is that we want to welcome those people who might be looking for our liberal faith.

I’m really coming to believe that if a congregation wants to grow these days, it had better pay close attention to its Web site.

When I have a little more time, I’ll try to write more about this topic — but now I have to run off an report on yet another General Assembly event for the UUA Web site. Where am I headed? Off to “The Prom You Never Had.” Ironically, I’m one person who never had any interest in attending my high school prom — that will just mean that I am able to maintain journalistic objectivity.

More about General Assembly tomorrow!

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