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Tops Picks for Growth at General Assembly

uua_ga2016_logoAre you looking for new ideas to grow your congregation? General Assembly is just around the corner, and there are a dozen workshops on growth to choose from.

Here’s a list, sorted by topic for you to mark in your Program Book or Mobile App.

Small Congregations

    #210 Thursday, 10:45am – 12:00pm E160
    Some small congregations are realizing that the way they’ve been operating is no longer sustainable. What’s next? Is it time to move towards a holy death? Or are you ready to make a vibrant new start with radical re-envisioning? How can you decide which choice is your congregation’s? This workshop will provide a framework and examples for both paths.
    Megan Foley & Rev. Mary Grigolia
    #410 Saturday 3:00pm – 4:15pm CC C226
    Small churches, the heartbeat of our faith, are uniquely positioned to innovate and experiment with new ways of being healthy, vibrant, and relevant – if they put mission and covenant first. Learn to identify your small congregation’s gifts and plan strategically for innovations to grow new possibilities for our faith.
    Rev. Megan Foley & Karen Bellavance-Grace

    #228 Thursday 1:15pm – 2:30pm CC E162
    Many congregations have mastered the process involved in opening their doors for newcomers but are they opening their hearts? What would that welcome look like in our greeting, programs, and emerging ministries? We will consider together how our spiritual baggage could be preventing us from truly being welcoming to all.
    Marie Blohowiak, Rev. Tandi Rogers & Tina Lewis
    #330 Friday 3:00pm – 4:15pm CC C223-225
    Heard the buzz about the Accessibility & Inclusion Ministry (AIM) Program for congregations? Wondering how to bring this new ministry to your congregation? Learn how to form an AIM Team to widen the welcome to people with disabilities. Become an AIM Congregation – moving ever closer to the beloved community.
    Michelle Avery Ferguson, Rev. Barbara Meyers, Michael Sallwasser & Suzanne Fast
    #432 Saturday 4:45pm – 6:00pm CC Union Station Ballroom A
    From the first online search to an in-person visit, emotions are a key part of what makes a visitor stay or go. User Experience (UX) approaches uncover the emotions we’re evoking to create positive and integrated experiences. Learn how to apply UX to your congregation to improve the visitor experience.
    Sarah Gibb Millspaugh & Carey McDonald

    #317 Friday 1:15pm – 2:30pm CC C223-225
    Religion is changing, and just preaching to the choir ain’t gonna cut it. Learn how to reach out to your community as an extension of your congregation’s mission, get the tools you need to move forward, and hear inspiring outreach stories from congregations like yours.
    Carey McDonald
    #422 4:45pm – 6:00pm CC E161
    Emerging ministries are new endeavors that are grounded in our faith and formed by covenant.
    How do some of these innovative ministries fulfill our UU mission in the world? Come learn
    from the stories of a new campus ministry, a network of interdependent communities and a forming congregation.
    Kevin Lowry, Rev. Nathan Hollister &Lori Stone Sirtosky

Innovative Ministries

    #328 Friday 3:00pm – 4:15pm HR Union E
    We’ve featured various models of congregational Partnership & Multi-site over the years: branches, yoked, mergers, etc. This year we’re highlighting Clusters and Partnerships just starting their covenantal relationships, at the beginning of the continuum of collaboration. Especially useful for lay leaders discerning deeply partnering with other UU communities.
    Joan Van Becelaere & Rev. David Pyle
    #352 Friday 4:45pm – 6:00pm CC Hall E
    Many of us are seeking new ways to support multigenerational faith formation in our congregations. Living the Principles is an engaging full-year, theme-based program for congregation-wide exploration of the Unitarian Universalist Principles. This workshop equips professional and lay leaders to use this program, with free online materials, in your congregation.
    Ellen Quaadgras, Ann Kadlecek & Halcyon Westall
    #358 Friday 4:45pm – 6:00pm HR Delaware CD
    This workshop will equip lay and ordained leadership for effective stewardship in our congregations and our Association. This will be a “flash” presentation of the most innovative and successful fundraising ideas. We will close with an inspiring word from Peter Morales.
    Mary Katherine Morn
    #420 Saturday 3:00pm – 4:15pm HR Delaware CD
    This workshop will equip lay and ordained leadership for effective stewardship in our congregations and our Association. This panel of on-the-ground congregational staff and volunteers will discuss their greatest successes in annual fundraising.
    Dr. Marlin Lavanhar, Rev. Trisha Hart & Rev. Peter Friedrichs

ReneeRev. Renee Ruchotzke (ruh-HUT-skee) has served as a Congregational Life Consultant in the Central East Region since September of 2010. As program manager for Leadership Development, she is responsible for providing consultation, programming and training material (including webinars and videos) on various aspects of congregational growth, leadership and congregational dynamics. She writes for the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Blog Growing Vital Leaders and tweets at @Vitalleaders.

How I Made My Congregation’s Website in 90 Minutes

Screen Shot 2016-02-26 at 11.39.13 AM

Websites are the front doors to our faith communities, so it’s important to have an attractive, helpful and welcoming one! As someone who makes this point to congregations all the time, I thought I should take my own advice and try out the UUA WordPress theme, which I helped create through my UUA job, and use it for my home congregation. I made my UU congregation’s website using the UUA WordPress Theme, and rescued it from certain death, all in an afternoon.

Our story today is in four acts.

Think of your website like your building (or physical space). It’s absolutely as important as your building for interacting with the wider community. It requires land to sit on; that’s your hosting service. The WordPress platform works as your building’s foundation, and the UUA WordPress theme creates outside walls, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, all the structural stuff. Once you’ve got your building/site up, you still have to decorate and arrange it with furniture, paint, lighting, etc. That’s your site’s content (and we give you a recommended setup and some furnishing examples with the draft content). The menu operates like internal walls that are really easy to move around and reshape your rooms depending on your furniture/content.

The UUA WordPress theme is like a prefab website house for our congregations, one built using best practices and great design. But to use that prefab house you still have to get the land (hosting), and, like any construction project, you still have to know how to wield a hammer.

I would say I can use a hammer, though I’m definitely not an architect or a general contractor. I’m not a tech guy. But I’ve been working on this website theme project for months, so I wanted to test it out and see if a guy who does some home improvement/website work on the side can pull this off.

My home congregation in Malden has an ok website, but it isn’t responsive, isn’t screen-reader accessible, and it’s hard to get multiple accounts to edit it. Plus, we are paying a lot for hosting, and not even using the full range of services we are paying for (e.g. a custom social network). We decided to switch to the cheaper, easier, more flexible, more accessible and generally more awesome UUA theme. I set aside some time, and rolled up my sleeves to get started.

Act I – Hosting

First, I signed up with Blue Host. I picked BlueHost because they are cheap, reliable, have a solid reputation, and do good work with nonprofits. They also offer easy integration with webmail as part of their hosting package, something we don’t currently have in Malden (that means you can get accounts like or Plus, using a third party hosting company and setting up a new site meant it was easier to meet the technical requirements for using the theme.

BlueHost requires payment for hosting up front, but I got a year of hosting for $60 (side note – be careful what you subscribe for! I actually picked the $4/month option first, which turned out to be a 3-year package, and had to call them to switch my plan). This is WAY cheaper than our current hosting fees.

As part of signing up for Blue Host, I had to pick a domain name. We decided to change our domain name as part of the process, but you can transfer an existing domain name. If you want to use your current domain name, you will probably want to create a sub-domain to use as your staging/development site (maybe, which you do through your “domains” section of the control panel. From there, you can also add a new registered domain name to your BlueHost account later and transfer your original URL.

Act II – Installation

Bluehost control panelNow that I was logged in to my BlueHost account with a domain set up, I went to the “hosting” section of the control panel and clicked “install WordPress” and then followed the instructions to install on my domain (no need for any of the paid options to help install).

Perfect! Now I had my WordPress site set up. I’m familiar with WordPress from other blogs and sites I mentioned, but if you don’t know WordPress then I recommend the WordPress Support site:

I logged in with my BlueHost account (login at and went to the Appearance > Themes section of the Dashboard. I had already gone to and downloaded the theme, which comes as a ZIP file (don’t do anything to it, just let it be zipped!). I clicked “Add New” and uploaded my zip file and BOOM! I was in business. I followed the prompts and installed all the recommended widgets.

Act II – Setup

WP dashboard theme installThe theme requires some setup, especially for the custom options. So I followed the guidance on and adjusted the theme options (colors, header, etc.), available once you click into the UUA Theme. I followed all the steps listed the initial setup instructions.

Next I installed the Demo Content to get started (I declined to import all the images, since they weren’t specific to my congregation). But the demo content gave me enough to work with to start managing and organizing the site.

I then set up the homepage by going to the Appearance > Widgets menu and added the widgets to the appropriate Homepage boxes (the homepage uses a couple of different widgets to make all those fun options work). This was the trickiest part so far, just keeping track of which widgets go where. But it’s all laid out on the theme documentation site.

I looked at my site. It was beautiful! I stepped back to admire my work, and I was all ready to get started working on my content. But no one’s perfect, eh? Everyone makes mistakes. I’ll tell you about my mistake here so you don’t make the same one, but there are plenty of other mistakes out there for you to explore :). That’s why we’re building up a community of users to help each other.

I got a third cup of coffee for the day.

Act IV – Climactic Disaster

My misstep started when I noticed that the domain was not directing to the actual homepage, it was just giving me the most recent blog posts. Then I thought what all non-techies who are on a roll with tech stuff think, which is “I can figure this out on my own!” I proceeded to poke around and try to fix this by changing the Site URL on the Settings > General menu, which actually means I redirected the site’s directory. Bad move, bro. Suddenly, all the formatting was stripped out of my site, and I couldn’t log in or access any page but the homepage. I had put the site in an endless self-referential loop, like looking into a set of facing mirrors.

Undoing this, or even figuring out what the problem was, involved an hour-long detour through WordPress help forums across the internet. Eventually, magically, I discovered I could log into the PHPMyAdmin listing through my hosting service and replace the directory link with the correct address. Phew! I had made it through the Mines of Moria and out the other side. Then I found the true answer to my question, which (for some reason I don’t understand) involves going to Settings > Reading and changing your “Front page displays.”

Act IV – Denouement
Yes, I set up the site in 90 minutes. And then it took me another 90 minutes to totally break it and fix it again. I should be clear, though, that populating the content took much longer, because truly there’s always more content development to do. I didn’t try to import anything from our old site, I just copied and pasted by hand (we only had 20 or so pages). I spent a solid afternoon just uploading photos, rewriting pages, and adding previous Sunday services through the fantastic custom services plug-in.

Curtain Call

Gee whiz, it’s amazing what we can do with technology these days! I hope my story helps inspire you to give the theme a try. If you feel comfortable working on websites, and want to get some practice in with that hammer, I believe you can do it too. Huge thanks to Chris Wulff, the developer who made this project happen, and thanks to all the work of my colleagues at the UUA, especially Sarah Gibb Millspaugh, who helped shepherd it through. Appreciation for the congregations who beta-tested the theme and provided supporting documentation last summer, the theme was made better by your efforts. And a big high-five to all the congregations who are already using the theme, your sites are fabulous!

cmcdonald_headshotCarey McDonald is the UUA Director of Outreach, total data geek and trend-spotter, as seen in his presentation Future of Faith.

Wanna see First Parish Malden’s new site?

Study Guide for UUWorld Article: Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County (Media, PA)

Congratulations to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County (Media, PA), for being the newest UUA Breakthrough Congregation! Each year the UUA’s Congregational Life Office recognizes a handful of congregations that have “broken through” barriers to achieve exemplary goals.

The UU Church of Delaware County is highlighted in the current edition of the UUWorld, which will be hitting Unitarian Universalist members’ mailboxes at any moment. The following study guide is intended to accompany the article about the congregation. We hope that this enables lively discussions for your congregational leaders.

Picture from

Questions for Discussion and Deeper Study

The UU Church of Delaware County has a culture of saying “yes” and is described as a “congregation that puts themselves on the edge” in bold ways.

Questions for Discussion

  • In what ways does your congregation says “yes?”
  • How might a culture that encourages innovative thinking help leaders and members deepen their own spiritual growth?
  • What is the boldest action your congregation has taken in support of its mission? How did it feel to take a bold step forward and what did you have to “leave behind” to move forward?

Delaware County has an innovative “Growth through Service” program that integrates volunteer service opportunities with faith development. Congregants develop individual goals for spiritual growth and are matched with volunteer opportunities to help them meet those goals.

Questions for Discussion

  • What are some of the ways that your congregation connects volunteers to service opportunities?
  • Is there a process by which congregants can articulate individual spiritual goals and do you see a connection to service within your context?
  • How might such a program help your congregation reimagine the way in which leaders are trained and developed?

At UUCDC, several volunteers identified a target group, young families, and sought permission from the leadership to develop social opportunities for connection that evolved into several small ministry groups.

Questions for Discussion

  • As you think about your congregation, are there groups or ministry areas that are ripe for connection through small group ministry?
  • Is this something you can imagine happening in your congregation? Why or why not?

UUCDC has raised its expectations for members in a number of ways including asking for an increased financial commitment, the Growth through Service program and an overall culture that values “showing up.”

Questions for Discussion

  • What areas can you think of where higher expectations could help your congregation live its mission more fully?
  • How receptive is your congregation to change and how might leaders prepare the congregation for this work? What might be a first step to raising expectations?

Photos from the UUWorld pages on Flickr.

pinfanteThis Study Guide creator is Patricia Infante, Congregational Life Staff with the Central East Regional Group. CERG offers many excellent growth resources. Please check them out! Thank you, Pat, for so generously serving our faith.

Faith Forward

Spiritual Practice class photoNewcomers to First Unitarian Church of Dallas arrive at our doors seeking a path. The Unitarian Universalist tendency to tell people they can believe whatever they want and get involved in whatever they want is both overwhelming and insufficient. Visitors from other religious traditions as well as the unchurched want to know how to become part of the congregation, both as members and as leaders. This led us to examine the state of our existing adult membership and ask these questions:

  • Can our adult membership explain what it means to be a church member?
  • Do they have a deep understanding of our church and its role in the community?
  • Are they involved, connected, and excited about church leadership and service?

We learned that we had work to do on how we integrate new people into our church community, and how we develop and deepen the connection of our existing members.

To address this need, we developed the Inquirers Series, 8 rotating sessions about our church and Unitarian Universalist history and practices. Designed for visitors and newcomers looking for a general introduction, these sessions are also appealing to current members who just want to learn more about our church.

Inquirers participants also build connections with each other. They learn that they are not alone in their questions, and many are moved with the realization of all that Unitarian Universalism embodies. It is the first small group a visitor encounters, and serves as a bridge to deeper small-group involvement later. Sharon Thompson, our Director of Membership & Hospitality, says: “I have seen the time between first visit and joining decrease, and our new members are more firmly grounded in the faith, in their convictions and in their support. Prior to Inquirers, we would have 30+ individuals that had indicated they wanted to join, remaining on the list of declared members for over a year without completing the process and joining. Now the membership process is generally complete in 30-60 days.”

Growth in numbers isn’t everything, however, and “signing the book” is not the end of the membership process. We’ve seen these new members connect more quickly and easily at church, becoming engaged within our walls and in the wider community. They understand what it means to be a member of a community. And many find their first service opportunity as a greeter, offering a friendly face for other newcomers.

Yet we found that once people completed the 8 sessions, they wanted more. “What’s next?” they asked. Our answer is “Faith Forward: From Visitor to Leader.” Faith Forward is a comprehensive program for member integration, faith development, and leadership development which helps congregants strengthen their Unitarian Universalist identity, deepen commitment to the church, encourages spiritual growth, and develops church leaders. It is not adult religious education, nor is it a curriculum. It is a path of modular sessions designed for faith development and connection-building and is facilitated by lay leaders with staff support.

One facilitator, church member Rev. Lyssa Jenkens, says: “Faith Forward provides a very intentional and well-developed process of faith development for any member or friend. It fills a yawning gap in UU adult religious education where we often provide a beautiful buffet of classes and activities with little or no guidance regarding what constitutes a healthy meal as opposed to one that is tasty but has rather limited spiritual-nutritional value.”

In addition to the Inquirers Series, we now offer:

  • Inquirers Series (8 weeks)
  • Roots (1 class)
  • Beyond Inquirers (5 weeks)
  • Spiritual Practice (13 weeks)
  • UU History 101 (5 weeks)
  • UU Theology 101 (5 weeks)
  • UU Elevator Speech (3 weeks)

More sessions will be developed around UU history and theology, leadership, polity, and evangelism (sharing the good news of our faith!).

Do these issues around adult faith development and connection sound familiar? At the same time that our members were looking for more, other congregations began contacting us about sharing our membership process, so we decided to pilot the program with a few of them during the 2015-2016 church year. We look forward to learning how Faith Forward works in other Unitarian Universalist congregations, and adapting it for wider use in the coming years.

If you’d like to receive updates about Faith Forward—to find out what we learn from the pilot, gather tips on faith development and hospitality, and stay updated on how to get program materials for your congregation—visit this site, where you can share your interest and contact information.

headshot cropped largeRev. Beth Dana is the Minister of Congregational Life at First Unitarian Church of Dallas, TX, where she works with a great team of ministers, staff and lay leaders on this exciting new path for adult faith development and membership. She is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist, originally from Albany, NY. After bouncing from coast to coast, she landed in the middle! She has crossed the thresholds of many UU congregations over the years, learning lots about welcome and hospitality in the process.

Gingerbread and Engaging Space

Boston Towers Gingerbread Boston Society of Architechture Imagine No traffic Boston Small

On my way to work in Boston I walk past the Boston Society of Architecture.  Its storefront is attractive, but hasn’t been overtly noticeable to me until this holiday season.  I do see people through their big windows meeting or gathering on their ground floor during mornings or evenings. They make this room available for free for use by the public. And people seem to take them up on their offer. And in the process learn a bit about the Boston Society of Architecture.

One night on my way home, I noticed a line forming down the block to get in to an event there. The event was the 4th Annual Gingerbread House Design Competition.

Every year the Boston Society of Architecture develops a theme, a competition, a reception, opportunity for positive press, and new traffic through their public space on the ground floor. Do you see where I’m going with this?… What if your congregation opened up your public space during the holiday season–

Oh, what?  You don’t have a space made available to the public to drop in?  Let’s start there. What if your congregation had a public space where people could drop in for quiet sanctuary from the bustling world?  You know, like other traditions do. Especially in these violent times, people crave a designated holy place to go and light a candle and just “be” in a space where other people of faith gather. I just ask that you consider this. If this makes you nervous, I encourage you to engage your local Catholic church and ask them how they do it.

Back to gingerbread competitions. The connection to architecture and gingerbread is playful and relevant. What could that be for your UU community? And maybe it’s not for winter holidays. Perhaps a celebration featuring Peeps sculptures in spring is your thing.

  • Playful, idea-connecting, values-promoting competition
  • Reception for the public
  • Press releases that weave in the mission of your UU community
  • Intentional community engagement

Bottom line, reimagine space you have access to and how it can be in proactive, relevant engagement with your wider community while promoting your values and mission.  Be playful, playful is so attractive! If you need a thought partner for this kind of adventure, count me in!

Tandi red shinglesRev. Tandi Rogers is the Innovative & Network Specialist for the UUA. Exploring the streets of Boston during the winter holiday season has been an unexpected joy.

I’m Lost, But I’m Making Record Time

I heard the quote in the title of this blog as a young pilot many years ago. A World War II pilot radioed that report in –he had no idea StewDev Blogwhere he was, but he was making great progress somewhere. As a stewardship consultant working with our congregations, I sometimes feel as though that quote is with us. Numbers can seem dry, but they can tell important stories about our our communities. It’s hard to know where you are going if you don’t know where you are.

There are statistics that I believe leaders should know if they are to understand their congregations. 18 data points and 1 more to ignore. I know what you are thinking “18! Is he nuts? Who has all that data and what would we do with it, anyway?” Bear with me – this is a conversation worth having.

The first 10 of these data points almost every congregation has readily accessible. Not enough leaders and members consult them sometimes, but they are easy to generate. The next 7 take a little effort to generate, but the returns can be impressive for congregations of just about every size.

In the interest of brevity, this blog will only list the 19 – you can read the expanded version on the Stewardship for Us blog that provides key aspects on each data point, for those interested in knowing more and seeing how these work to make a whole picture. The only data point discussed here is one to be ignored.

  1. Membership
  2. Sunday attendance, RE Attendance (Adult and children’s RE).
  3. Percentage of budget provided by pledges.
  4. “Average cost per household” to run your church.
  5. Percentage of members pledging, if your bylaws do not ask that of all members.
  6. Mean (average) and Median (1/2 of pledges are larger, ½ are less) pledge.
  7. Number of households that have a pledge/contribution waiver.
  8. Percentage of households/members that are not pledging, only making a Contribution of Record (COR); mean and median COR.
  9. Percentage of pledging friends; mean and median of these commitments
  10. Pledges that have not increased or have decreased over the past 2 years
  11. Number of pledging units self-declared as Fair Share donors
  12. What is the Quartile distribution (see last month’s Stewardship for Us blog)
  13. How many are new pledgers (first 2 years)? Mean and median of new pledges?
  14. Families active in RE and their distribution among pledges and COR population?
  15. Where is your Board in Fair Share Giving and quartile distribution?
  16. Percentage increase/decrease in total pledges/mean/median on last 3-5 years?
  17. When was the last time you employed Visiting Stewards, with good training?
  18. NO-How much of a pledge goes to “UUA dues?” This pops up often, and its harmful. We do not pay “dues;” clubs and fraternities do that. We make contributions to resource the work the Regions and the UUA do in our name. Congregations sometimes ask that a pledge be at least at the level of their per member contribution to the UUA. This makes our contributions to the UUA into an outside burden. Being a member of this association is an integral part of being a UU – don’t treat it as something outside our community. Encouraging pledges at this low level also assures that whatever funds are contributed do not support the congregation locally in any way.

BillBill Clontz, Stewardship Consultant with the Stewardship for Us Team. has been a stewardship consultant supporting the UUA for over five years. He brings over forty years in leadership development and coaching, organizational effectiveness, and strategic planning to this work. He has over 25 years of active participation in UU church leadership and stewardship and 15 years of business development and portfolio management as a corporate officer, including working with nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations. Bill has served in his own congregation in a wide range of positions and he is a regular presenter at UU Regional conferences and the UUA Annual General Assembly. His focus as a stewardship consultant over the last five years has been empowering congregations to have successful stewardship environments, leadership development, and the growth of our movement.

By The Numbers: Religious Education Growth Trends

Last week we looked at the numbers reported in February 2015, a snap shot of this past year. “Who are we now?”

Our UU congregations are created by 180,617 adult members and 56,429 enrolled children and youth across the United States for a total of 237,046 UU people. 23.8% of our communities are children and youth.

This week we look at growth trends in Religious Education Enrollment.  I’ve also included Public School trends from the National Center for Education Statistics.  They currently have statistics publicly published through 2012.

Tip: If you have trouble seeing the numbers, try clicking on the graph/picture and enlarge it on your screen.

RE uua 2005-2015

public school 05-12

And now a look at our regions (note that UUA and US Public School regions are different)…

RE by region 2005-2015

public school 05-12 by region

Next week we’ll go deeper into the growth by region and size of congregation.

Tandi Feb 2012Rev. Tandi Rogers loves numbers because they help us see ourselves more clearly and break down assumptions.

By the Numbers: Religious Education Snap Shot

Happy Friday! It’s time for some numbers. This is the beginning of a series on Religious Education Enrollment. These are self-reporting numbers by UU congregations in the United States representing the number of children and youth enrolled in their religious education programs.

This week we’re looking the numbers reported in February 2015, a snap shot of this past year. “Who are we now?”

Our UU congregations are created by 180,617 adult members and 56,429 enrolled children and youth across the United States for a total of 237,046 UU people. 23.8% of our communities are children and youth.

RE by size 2015

I break down the congregations by 7 different sizes, because I primarily prepare analysis for Congregational Life. I’m a practitioner supporting the work of other practitioners. We recognize that each size category has special needs and characteristics.

RE by region 2015

Next week I will dig deeper into the size differences by region.  This is where similarities and differences are teased out. And after that I’ll begin to shed light on growth trends of Religious Education Enrollment. Stay tuned…

Tandi Feb 2012Rev. Tandi Rogers loves numbers because they help us see ourselves more clearly and break down assumptions.

By the Numbers: where’s the growth?

Last week I posted the global growth numbers. This week let’s look at UU membership growth trends by congregational size breakdown…

(Edited to explain size catagories)  In the following graphs I use 7 different catagories instead of the traditional 4 or 5. The reason is that congregations behave differently and have different needs depending on their size (and other variables.)  The primary audience I prepare data analysis for are practitioners in the field, mostly Congregational Life staff.  And those front-line growth experts that serve and support our congregations use the following size catagories:

Fellowship/Tiny (0-60)
Small Pastoral Congregations (61-160)
Midsize Pastoral Congregations (161-300)
Awkward/Transition Congregations (301-400)
Program Congregations (401-600)
Large Program Congregations (601-800)
Corporate Congregations (800+)

Yes, you read that correctly. There is a category I call “Awkward” — it’s the hardest size to breakthrough. A couple years ago I asked leaders of congregation in that 301-400 bracket if the name was offensive. Most laughed and said, “no, it’s actually pretty accurate.”  There is a Facebook group for the two smallest categories called “Small & Mighty.”  There are just somethings that only congregational leaders in your size category will understand.  It’s good to compare notes, share ideas, learn from the challenges and celebrate the blessings.

UUA Growth Trends ten years

This is a ten year span we’re looking at.  Here’s the raw data:

Fellowship/Tiny: -12.6% (13,991-12,223)

Small Pastoral Congregations: -2% (36,729-36,007)

Midsize Pastoral Congregations: -3.3% (43,894-42,451)

Awkward/Transition Congregations: -6.5% (19,907-18,609)

Program Congregations: 4% (17,578-18,286)

Large Program Congregations: 11.3% (11,205-12,471)

Corporate Congregations: 20.7% (13,726-16,565)

Now watch what happens when we look at a three year span:

UUA Growth Trends three years

Here’s the raw data:

Fellowship/Tiny: Small Pastoral Congregations: (13,170 – 12,223)

Midsize Pastoral Congregations: (43,059 – 42,451)

Awkward/Transition Congregations: (19,188 -18,609)

Program Congregations: (17,855 – 18,286)

Large Program Congregations: (12,241 – 12,471)

Corporate Congregations: (18,283 – 16,565)

Don’t panic about our largest congregations.  The majority of them got real about what it means to be a member of their congregation and “cleaned the membership books.”  I see this as a strong sign of organizational maturity.

These two graphs really hit home what a difference the time span you’re looking at can make.

Tandi Feb 2012Rev. Tandi Rogers spends about an eighth of her job researching and analyzing data on behalf of the UUA Board, Leadership Council, and Congregational Life staff.  She also serves on the Faith Communities Today interfaith consortium of religious data geeks.

What if membership was a spectrum?

Created by Carey McDonald, UUA Outreach Director, Lori Emison Clair, Consultant, and Marie Blohowiak, Congregational Life Coordinator and UUAMP Vice President
Created by Carey McDonald, UUA Outreach Director, Lori Emison Clair, Consultant, and Marie Luna, Director of Congregational Life and UUAMP Vice President

As Unitarian Universalists, we have a traditionally operated under a model of church that doesn’t acknowledge the changing social norms about religion. Historically, we’ve only kept track of one aspect of involvement in church life, “membership”, which typically means signing a congregation’s membership book and making an annual pledge. But in reality, people interact with faith communities in dozens of different ways beyond the traditional notion of membership, often deepening and stepping back over the course of their lives. If we truly believe that everyone in our faith movement matters, whether they are official members or not, it is clear we need to re-conceive what it means to be connected to Unitarian Universalism.

We created a spectrum to help congregations see that there are distinct levels of belonging to our faith communities. Together, as leaders in the UU Association of Membership Professionals and as UUA staff working on outreach, we offered a workshop at 2015 General Assembly about how to engage the whole spectrum.

Curious Individual

These are the people who know us and are in sync with our values, but not involved in our programs or ministries. Some examples would include those who participate in community activities related to a UU group, follow UUs on social media, share UU content, read UU books, see and/or support UU social justice actions.

Welcomed Visitor

Those who are involved with UU programs or ministries at a basic or fluid level, and may or may not identify as UU, are at this stage. They may attend events hosted by UU congregations, go to Sunday services occasionally or participate in UU community-oriented ministries and programs (e.g. day care, lecture series). Sometimes they have a friend or family member who serves as a tie to the congregation.

Succeeding in the first two stages (outreach)
  • Pay attention to how you show up virtually (website, social media, Yelp/Google/search functions, news media), so you look as beautiful from the outside as you do from the inside.
  • Create multiple entry points that don’t revolve around Sunday morning (get creative! Get passionate!) AND pay attention to visitor experience at all of these entry points.
  • One transition between welcomed visitor and connected friend is the traditional “pathway to membership,” but support is needed for all transitions.
Connected Friend

After attending services several times, those who attend a one time or low commitment activity outside of services have become a connected individual. This gives them better opportunities to meet people and start building relationships. Having several easy opportunities, like a Circle Dinner, one time small group, helping set up at an event or serving coffee give new folks a way to meet others without making a big commitment.

Engaged Individual

When a person gets involved in a regular activity, such as an affinity group, small group ministry, religious education teacher or serving on a committee, they have engaged with the community. All of these programs require ownership in one way or another, an expectations of regular participation and, in many cases, opportunities to share spiritual journeys with each other.

Integrated Leader

At the final stage in the spectrum, individuals emerge as leaders. We have found that as someone steps into the role of a leader they are more than simply engaged with a community, but they are also integrated. And by being integrated they are changing the community. They put their own personal twist on the programs they lead and that is a deeper level in involvement then just showing up, even on a regular basis. You become an integrated leader when you are willing to put your efforts into making the community better. Some examples would be a committee chair, small group leader or religious professional.

Succeeding along the spectrum (welcoming and membership development)
  • Make sure facilitators and leaders of groups know how to welcome newcomers at each stage as people enter the spectrum at different points.
  • Have training in place for leaders to ensure they have healthy boundaries and motives consistent with the mission of your congregation.
  • Have a tracking system in place to know where people fall on the spectrum. This will be an invaluable resource for recruiting for programs and volunteer opportunities, discovering emerging leaders, as well as those who need assistance in connecting.
  • We need to understand that there will be people who move both directions on the spectrum, and even leave our path. We want to support them in their journey and leave room for them to comfortably return should their path bring them back.

Looking at these stages calls us to pay attention to how we help people move from one stage to another. Again, most of us will move up and down the spectrum over time, but transitions between stages will always be important for religious leaders to support (the transition of “bridging” from youth to young adulthood is a great example). We hope this model will inspire UUs to think differently about their faith, from outreach to curious individuals all the way to spiritual enrichment for our integrated leaders. It can even include non-congregational groups, conferences or ministries. Embrace the full spectrum!

Additional Resources

Notes from 2015 General Assembly Workshop

Unitarian Universalist Association of Membership Professionals

Created by Carey McDonald, UUA Outreach Director, Lori Emison Clair, Consultant, and Marie Luna, Director of Congregational Life and UUAMP Vice President


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Saturday, December 26, 2009

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Software (office Package), Hardware knowledge required medium level. Accounting concept exp good for appointment agaphoor@hotmail.com

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publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for August 2020
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-111.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.17 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
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text:
Brawl Stars Hack Online Generator

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Fortnite Free V-Bucks Online Hack Generator

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text:
New RPG - Three Stars of Destiny

For discussion of games by other creators such as Aveyond and Spirited Heart.
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New RPG - Three Stars of Destiny

#1 Post by hanako » Sun Mar 01, 2009 2:15 pm

This is by the same guy who did Laxius Force, however all reports say that it's a vast improvement both in graphics and in writing (and no 'inappropriate' content this time).

Demo can be downloaded here

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#2 Post by wonderlander544 » Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:59 pm

This is a good game but not that good because it is not a major project

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Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:32 am
Location: Kolkata,India

walkthrough for 3 stars of destny

#3 Post by over_cloud9 » Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:08 am

This game is good,there are many secrets rooms and loads of sidequests to complete,quite engaging indeed.

the walkthrough for it and other aldorlea games can be found at-
Link deleted because domain's been hijacked - Spiky
Our newest 3D adventure game: A Sirius Game is now available!

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text:
• May 2, 2019

Hawks Netball collected three wins from three games for the second week in a row in Round 6 of the Bupa Victorian Netball League, with all three teams backing up last week’s strong results with impressive performances against Ariels.

The Hawks’ Championship division team is knocking on the door of the top four after recording their third consecutive win.

Having started the season 0-3, the Hawks have found both form and confidence and are now sitting only percentage points outside fourth position after defeating Ariels 54-45 on Wednesday night.

The teams couldn’t be split in the first half, with Hawks threatening to pull away multiple times but Ariels hanging tough to lead 13-12 at quarter-time, before Hawks closed the gap to square the scores at 24-24 at the half.

The introduction of Nat Billings (five goals from six attempts) into goal shooter helped open things in up the attack end, allowing Hawks to surge ahead early in the third. But a knee complaint midway through the quarter saw Billings forced from the court and the original combination of Shae Gee (36/40) and Tayla Shannon (13/15) reinstated.

But the Hawks didn’t skip a beat, and with the tireless Lauren Bennett consistently providing avenues to goal, they stretched the score to 40-34 at the final change, before pressing home their advantage in the final 15 minutes to notch a 54-45 win.

The result was all the more impressive, with the the team undermanned in defence. With both Clare Johnson and captain Claire Pettyfor both unavailable for the early game, Division 1 co-captain Chloe Sinclair stepped up for her first full game in Championship and impressed from the outset, winning plenty of ball and earning three votes from the umpires.

The Hawks’ Division 1 team was pushed every step of the way by Ariels, but did enough to hang on for its fourth win in a row.

Hawks trailed for much of the first quarter as they again endured a slow start, before a late surge put them on level pegging at 11-11. However Ariels continued pushing in the second quarter to take a 24-23 lead into half-time.

The introduction of 19/U midcourter Abi Inglis into wing defence in the third quarter began to turn the game in Hawks’ favour, restricting Ariels to nine goals for the quarter, while at the other end the Hawks were battling to capitalise on their opportunities but still managed to put in 12 goals to lead 35-33.

Only a handful of goals separated the teams for much of the last quarter, but it was Hawks who finally broke the deadlock, creeping clear inside the last four minutes to secure a 47-41 result.

The win sees Hawks remain in second place on the Division 1 ladder, setting up a top-of-the-table showdown with the undefeated DC North East Blaze next week.

The Hawks’ 19/under team has claimed its biggest result of the 2019 Bupa VNL season so far, defeating the top-of-the-ladder Ariels in Round 6.

The damage was done in the first half for the Hawks, with a 16-goal first quarter and another 19 in the second seeing them take an 18-goal lead into the half-time break.

Hawks goal attack Hannah Keane (31 from 38) was all but unstoppable, pouring in 26 goals in the first half alone alongside Olivia Morris, while defenders Gemma Thomas and Olivia Spence were standouts in quelling Ariels’ tall goaling lineup.

The half-time lead proved decisive, with Hawks going on to claim a big 53-38 win – their second in a row – and move within half a game of the top four.

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text:
Badcast – Syndrome

Bovi and Andy return to celebrate the release of The Incredibles 2 after a long, 14-year wait, by chatting about the family’s nemesis: Syndrome!

The guys chat about his origins, as well as in depth details on Syndrome’s diabolical plan to both restore, and destroy the world of superheroes, not to mention all his crazy tech!


text:
Discipleship: Learning from Preaching and Teaching

The word “disciple” was the way the New Testament referred to the follower of Jesus Christ. Jesus called His disciples to follow Him, telling them that He would take them through a process which would transform them (Mark 1:17). They were called disciples, because they were Jesus' pupils, students. How would their discipleship come about? How were they to learn? The gospel of Mark narrates that at the beginning of His ministry Jesus was devoted to preaching. Mark 1:14-15 reads

“Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."”

During the time of the writing of the New Testament, the preacher was a herald, one who proclaimed an assigned message. John the Baptist, Jesus and those who would fulfill the task of preaching had a message, the gospel, the good news. They preached with authority because they knew that the message was of utmost importance, that people must hear it and obey. The message of the fulfillment of God's plan, the coming of God's kingdom, and the necessary response of repentance and faith, demanded that they preach with gravity. It is was through their attention to Jesus' authoritative preaching that the disciples learned who Jesus was and how they were to humbly submit themselves to His Word.

The Lord Jesus Christ after spending much time in prayer explained His priority for preaching, saying

“that is what I came for” (Mark 1:38).

He took His disciples with Him so that they might hear the message, recognize the importance of the message and the significance of preaching and participate in this ministry as well (Mark 3:14). These disciples were given the opportunity to preach as well (Mark 6:12). He made it clear that,

“The gospel must first be preached to all the nations.” (Mark 13:10).

The gospel of Mark also tells us that Jesus' ministry of making disciples involved teaching. People recognized Jesus ministry and repeatedly called Him Teacher (Mark 4:38; 5:35; 9:38; 10:17, 20, 35; 12:14, 19, 32; 13:1; 14:14). In fact it was Jesus' teaching that amazed people because He taught as one having authority (Mark 1:21-22, 27). Throughout His earthly ministry people came to Jesus and He taught them (Mark 2:13; 4:1-2; 6:2, 6; 10:1). Jesus recognized that the people were like lost sheep, without a shepherd to lead them, feed them, protect them, and care for them. His compassion for the large crowd moved Him to teach them (Mark 6:34). The gospel narratives contain the written record of Jesus' teachings. Jesus Himself said,

“Every day I was with you in the temple teaching” (Mark 14:49).

Jesus committed Himself to preaching and teaching to make disciples. When He announces the Great Commission, Jesus describes the task of making disciples as involving the task of teaching disciples to observe all that He commanded them.

Overall, if we are to disciples of Jesus, then we must learn from being attentive to faithful preaching and teaching, and living in obedience to His Word. If we are to make disciples, we must devote ourselves to faithfully teaching God's Word to others. Are we devoting ourselves to studying the Scriptures out of a desire to grow in obedience as Christ's disciples? Are we prepared to make disciples of others by teaching others?

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text:
The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics

tags: Holocaust

Edwin Black is the author of "IBM and the Holocaust" and "War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race,"  from which the following article is drawn.

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a co-called "Master Race."

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the Twentieth Century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate and Polytechnic benefactor Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, as well as members of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Stamford, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.

Stanford president David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations.

The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, trumped up confinement or forced sterilization.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California's quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as the Pasadena-based Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations--which functioned as part of a closely-knit network--published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.

Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people only married other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton's ideas were imported into the United States just as Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenic advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.

In an America demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early twentieth century. Elitists, utopians and so-called "progressives" fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton's eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind--and less or none of everyone else.

The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark-haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.

How? By identifying so-called "defective" family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior--the so-called "unfit." The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.

Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 "Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population." Point eight was euthanasia.

The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in America was a "lethal chamber" or public locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, Applied Eugenics, which argued, "From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution… Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated." Applied Eugenics also devoted a chapter to "Lethal Selection," which operated "through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency."

Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to forty percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.

Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first twenty-five years of eugenic legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as "bad girls," diagnosed as "passionate," "oversexed" or "sexually wayward." At Sonoma, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia.

In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 of which were on women. The state's two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.

Even the United States Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…. Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes's words in their own defense.

Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German officials and scientists.

Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti-Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. While Hitler's race hatred sprung from his own mind, the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America.

During the '20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany's fascist eugenicists. In Mein Kampf, published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. "There is today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States."

Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great interest," he told a fellow Nazi, "the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock."

Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenic leader Madison Grant calling his race-based eugenics book, The Passing of the Great Race his "bible."

Hitler's struggle for a superior race would be a mad crusade for a Master Race. Now, the American term "Nordic" was freely exchanged with "Germanic" or "Aryan." Race science, racial purity and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler's Nazism. Nazi eugenics would ultimately dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live, and how they would die. Nazi doctors would become the unseen generals in Hitler's war against the Jews and other Europeans deemed inferior. Doctors would create the science, devise the eugenic formulas, and even hand-select the victims for sterilization, euthanasia and mass extermination.

During the Reich's early years, eugenicists across America welcomed Hitler's plans as the logical fulfillment of their own decades of research and effort. California eugenicists republished Nazi propaganda for American consumption. They also arranged for Nazi scientific exhibits, such as an August 1934 display at the L.A. County Museum, for the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.

In 1934, as Germany's sterilizations were accelerating beyond 5,000 per month, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe upon returning from Germany ebulliently bragged to a key colleague, "You will be interested to know, that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought.…I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."

That same year, ten years after Virginia passed its sterilization act, Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of Virginia's Western State Hospital, observed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "The Germans are beating us at our own game."

More than just providing the scientific roadmap, America funded Germany's eugenic institutions. By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 -- almost $4 million in 21st-Century money -- to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 to the German Psychiatric Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, later to become the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rüdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler's systematic medical repression.

Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute's eugenic complex of institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the Institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The Institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the Institute, once again, was Hitler's medical henchman Ernst Rüdin. Rüdin's organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others.

Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed.

Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society declared of Nazism, "While we were pussy-footing around…the Germans were calling a spade a spade."

A special recipient of Rockefeller funding was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin. For decades, American eugenicists had craved twins to advance their research into heredity. The Institute was now prepared to undertake such research on an unprecedented level. On May 13, 1932, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York dispatched a radiogram to its Paris office: JUNE MEETING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS OVER THREE YEAR PERIOD TO KWG INSTITUTE ANTHROPOLOGY FOR RESEARCH ON TWINS AND EFFECTS ON LATER GENERATIONS OF SUBSTANCES TOXIC FOR GERM PLASM.

At the time of Rockefeller's endowment, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a hero in American eugenics circles, functioned as a head of the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Rockefeller funding of that Institute continued both directly and through other research conduits during Verschuer's early tenure. In 1935, Verschuer left the Institute to form a rival eugenics facility in Frankfurt that was much heralded in the American eugenic press. Research on twins in the Third Reich exploded, backed up by government decrees. Verschuer wrote in Der Erbarzt, a eugenic doctor's journal he edited, that Germany's war would yield a "total solution to the Jewish problem."

Verschuer had a long-time assistant. His name was Josef Mengele. On May 30, 1943, Mengele arrived at Auschwitz. Verschuer notified the German Research Society, "My assistant, Dr. Josef Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturmführer [captain] and camp physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Anthropological testing of the most diverse racial groups in this concentration camp is being carried out with permission of the SS Reichsführer [Himmler]."

Mengele began searching the boxcar arrivals for twins. When he found them, he performed beastly experiments, scrupulously wrote up the reports and sent the paperwork back to Verschuer's institute for evaluation. Often, cadavers, eyes and other body parts were also dispatched to Berlin's eugenic institutes.

Rockefeller executives never knew of Mengele. With few exceptions, the foundation had ceased all eugenic studies in Nazi-occupied Europe before the war erupted in 1939. But by that time the die had been cast. The talented men Rockefeller and Carnegie financed, the institutions they helped found, and the science it helped create took on a scientific momentum of their own.

After the war, eugenics was declared a crime against humanity--an act of genocide. Germans were tried and they cited the California statutes in their defense. To no avail. They were found guilty.

However, Mengele's boss Verschuer escaped prosecution. Verschuer re-established his connections with California eugenicists who had gone underground and renamed their crusade "human genetics." Typical was an exchange July 25, 1946 when Popenoe wrote Verschuer, "It was indeed a pleasure to hear from you again. I have been very anxious about my colleagues in Germany…. I suppose sterilization has been discontinued in Germany?" Popenoe offered tidbits about various American eugenic luminaries and then sent various eugenic publications. In a separate package, Popenoe sent some cocoa, coffee and other goodies.

Verschuer wrote back, "Your very friendly letter of 7/25 gave me a great deal of pleasure and you have my heartfelt thanks for it. The letter builds another bridge between your and my scientific work; I hope that this bridge will never again collapse but rather make possible valuable mutual enrichment and stimulation."

Soon, Verschuer once again became a respected scientist in Germany and around the world. In 1949, he became a corresponding member of the newly formed American Society of Human Genetics, organized by American eugenicists and geneticists.

In the fall of 1950, the University of Münster offered Verschuer a position at its new Institute of Human Genetics, where he later became a dean. In the early and mid-1950s, Verschuer became an honorary member of numerous prestigious societies, including the Italian Society of Genetics, the Anthropological Society of Vienna, and the Japanese Society for Human Genetics.

Human genetics' genocidal roots in eugenics were ignored by a victorious generation that refused to link itself to the crimes of Nazism and by succeeding generations that never knew the truth of the years leading up to war. Now governors of five states, including California have issued public apologies to their citizens, past and present, for sterilization and other abuses spawned by the eugenics movement.

Human genetics became an enlightened endeavor in the late twentieth century. Hard-working, devoted scientists finally cracked the human code through the Human Genome Project. Now, every individual can be biologically identified and classified by trait and ancestry. Yet even now, some leading voices in the genetic world are calling for a cleansing of the unwanted among us, and even a master human species.

There is understandable wariness about more ordinary forms of abuse, for example, in denying insurance or employment based on genetic tests. On October 14, America's first genetic anti-discrimination legislation passed the Senate by unanimous vote. Yet because genetics research is global, no single nation's law can stop the threats.

This article was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle and is reprinted with permission of the author.

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Dr. Angelito Infinito - 6/19/2010

Just see this page for more links showing nexus between NAZI's and BigPigPharma

Caz tasker - 8/13/2009

Eugenics is back, being instituted in UK schools and elsewhere via the 'Teens and Toddlers Sustainability Replication Programme' now in many schools across the UK, as well as 'Perfecting Eugene' and 'The Designer Baby Dilemma'.

Evidence for this is at this youtube video 'Ark Schools, Academies and Eugenics':

Larry Lau - 12/1/2004

I must disagree on your point about sane eugenicists/geneticists. Although breeding in any species usually results in offspring who fit in the middle of their species profundity - the goal of eugenics was not the immediate betterment of the human race, but rather the long term benefit. To this end, they would have cited Darwin who pointed out that compounding similar characteristics through mating over an extended period of time would have indeed resulted in a change in where the mean of that species was. To this end, eugenicists would have desired the mating of only individuals who existsed in a certain high percentile of the species. Therefore, eugenics from this statistical view was indeed "sane"

-- refer to Glaton, "The possible improvement of the human race" in Essays in Eugenics (1909)

Dave West - 12/13/2003

Josh, et al.

Yeah, not exactly. Eugenics is breeding (artificial selection) in the human genepool (so happens my profession is plant breeding, so it tends to be from that perspective that I reflect on these matters).
Perhaps I can illustrate my point with a bit of arcane history.

ISBN 0 00 329345 9

"Coromantees were as a race strong, proud and fierce and were not easily broken to gang labour. They made up the majority of the Maroons and almost every slave revolt was led by Coromantees. The Eboes, on the other hand, had for ages been enslaved in Africa by stronger tribes and were, as a result, docile and rather sad by nature. The women, particularly, made good and willing field labourers."

Certain aspects of contemporary social policy bear a vague (and perhaps not so vague) ressemblance to breeding projects. Talk among yourselves.

Jonathan Dresner - 12/8/2003

Mr. Greenland,

The source of your quotation is none other than Karl Marx. In his history The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, he wrote "Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities in world history reappear in one fashion or another. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce."

As far as I know, nobody has actually identified the Hegel citation in question, though.

But I don't really think that's what Dave West was trying to say, exactly.

Josh Greenland - 12/8/2003

Josh Greenland - 12/8/2003

I don't know who said that, but that seems to sum up your point about how things taken on a different guise the second time around.

I'm told that humans genetically tend to reproduce toward a middle in abilities. Getting two geniuses to mate won't necessarily result in a super-genius, nor two retarded people in a vegetable. I understand that in either case their offspring will tend toward some mean ("normal") level of human intelligence (insofar as intelligence is even measurable). So if some historians have been complicit with the eugenicists, sane, ethical geneticists haven't been.

Dave West - 12/6/2003

One gets the impression people expect things to come in the same guise and be recognizable the next time. But once we have a word for it, it has to alter its form. We now have "genocide" and "holocaust" and "jackboot" so the new incarnation will be "kinder and gentler," shirts blue, not brown. Likewise, it's not necessary to gas the diploid, just warehouse them during the most procreative years to remove their recalcitrant alleles from the population. In time the result is ensured: a docile class of worker cattle. We'll need a rationale. Let's see: how 'bout a non-conforming choice of relaxant. Their approach was, after all, as legal as ours, or for that matter, the Inquisition's.

Elia Markell - 11/29/2003

Good point SMS.

What might forestall the development you fear would be if the debate on American eugenics would include more prominently the fact that it was popular with progressives and was not, or not only, the province of right-wing xenophobes. Feminist idol Margaret Sanger is only the most glaring of those progressives who fused seemlessly their faith in a socially efficient, "progressive" and scientifically planned future with the drive to eliminate inferior stocks.

The very organization you name, the National Council of the Social Studies, is the bastion of a progessive educational ideology that has its roots in this elitist utopianism. The fact that today NCSS celebrates multiculturalism and a more universalistic egalitarianism should not fool anyone. The same elitism is there, if not the eugenics, along with the same stress on using social studies knowledge as a means of social control instead of as susbtantive intellectual training.

You mention Facing History and Ourselves, and you are correct. At NCSS, Holocaust education has very largely been hijacked to serve the purposes of beating up on the West, the U.S. in particular. It does this by focusing on the Holocaust as a simple instance of "fear of the Other," of which all the other instances turn out to be the U.S.'s or the West's responsibility (slavery, Native American slaughters, even the comparatively mild Japanese-American internment of World War II.) Meanwhile, amid all the NCSS conference sessions on Islam designed to teach tolerance toward Muslims (there must have been ten or so at this last conference), not one has yet dealt with the vile, Nazi-inspired anti-Semitism rampant in the Islamic world. Nor were there any sessions on rising anti-Semitism in Europe. As a Jew, I find myself wondering what the social studies profession's Holocaust obsession is worth to Jews today, who are increasingly worried about the next Holocaust now looming on the horizon.

A careful look at American eugenics would also entail a careful reassessment of the elitism and hostility toward the downtrodden embedded in past progressive thinking and still embedded now in liberal condescension. If this happens, the studying of this movement could well merit support.

Jonathan Dresner - 11/26/2003

Mr. Adams,

Of course there are differences, and even a devout multiculturalist like myself has preferences.

But claims of superiority must be made very carefully. And the biological race-nation concept is deeply flawed (i.e. wrong) as an analytic or proscriptive tool. Genetic "improvement" is begging for unintended consequences, either in the form of losing important skills and contributions from "flawed" individuals or in the form of creating "better" people with new and different flaws (not the least of which is the belief that they are better).

Differences can be ascribed to many things, but ascribing differences between societies to purely genetic causes is simplistic. I'd call it silly, if the implications weren't so horrific.

Art Adams - 11/26/2003

Of course you are right - left, no, right.

There is really no such thing as eugenics, natural selection, or biological science. They are delusions of the dominant race. Just are there is no such thing as any substantive difference between Western science, technology, ethics, or governmental systems and the Other. And there is no difference between Iowa and Mexico, or Colorado and Haiti, or Maine and Cambodia...

Grant Jones - 11/26/2003

Do a google search for "utilitarian bioethics."

Grant Jones - 11/26/2003

Let's not forget the collectivism of such European thinkers as Comte.

SMS - 11/26/2003

This is an important book, although much of the story has been familiar to scholars for decades (especially those who have worked on the immigration restriction movement of the World War I era).

The potential tragedy is that this part of the very complex story of the rise of racial eugenics will be twisted by ideologues into claiming that the US was responsible for the Holocaust. The vastly more important role of European and German historical anti-Semitism and the almost universal appeal of "scientific" racism and nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries will be forgotten in the rush say it's all America's fault. This germ has already been planted in materials used by Facing History and Ourselves and it's hard to imagine that the National Council for the Social Studies will be far behind.

Bernard J. Wolfe, Jr. - 11/26/2003

I would refer the author of this story and others to a website, http://www.bjwolfejr.com which raises questions about the continued use of the healtcare system to harass and injure dissidents or persons considered of inferior genetic makeup. The report is quite complicated with many links to copies of extensive corroborative medical records.

Jonathan Dresner - 11/24/2003

The most glaring gap in this article is the leap from mid-19th century European Darwinism to 20th-century American eugenicism: my World History students know (after I tell them, every year) that the link between them is the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer, bolstered by historical tracts treating "nations" (particularly the nations of Europe) as if they were discreet entities.

Combining the Hegelian stage theory of historical development, and an enlightenment certainty in linear progress, with racialism created the rationalization for treating the northern European peoples as superior: they reached the industrial stage first (the first time they'd ever gotten to a new stage first, but that's not something they noticed), so they must be better. Other societies were classified based on the "earlier" stage at which they were "stuck": anthropology and area studies grew enormously in the 19th century and early 20th century and were heavily dependent on stage and nation-race theories.

So eugenics is not a linear result of Darwinism, or a purely medical pseudoscience: it passes from biology through the social sciences before it comes back to medicine again.