Belonging and Believing

One of our board members loaned me the book "Growing an Engaged Church" by Albert L. Winseman, a Gallup researcher. While I've become much more attached to narrative and story, my inner quant does love good data and good analysis, which Winseman provides. His data suggests that people choose to become involved in a church (or any group) when they can answer affirmatively two questions: "Am I valued?" and "Do I make a meaningful contribution?". People turn this involvement into engagement because they see clear and relevant answers to these four questions: "What do I get?", "What do I give?", "Do I belong?", "How can we grow?".

Winseman discovers a surprising thing: engagement drives spiritual commitment, not the other way around. "Belonging leads to believing", not "Believing leads to belonging", Winseman concludes. Unitarian Universalists in particular need to take note. While we claim to be non-creedal, we tussle with belief. So many of us come out of other faiths, often rejecting those old belief statements, and we come into this tradition with strong attitudes about belief. We get focused on believing (or unbelieving) and forget about the 'oh so ordinariness' of belonging. Rather that we would focus on how people can be with us, how they can belong, and less on talking about what we all should believe.