Every UU Church has a different path to membership and joining the congregation officially. When you first arrive at the UUCM, you are greeted by our Greeting Team. If you ever have questions you’d like to ask in person, these are the folks who can help! You can also email membership_chair@uumanchester.org directly. If you are coming from another UU Church, you can skip the introduction to UUism meeting. Below are the steps for our process to join our congregation.

Path to Membership

First Visit

On your first visit, you will be greeted by our Greeting Team and offered a sticker name tag. You will be directed up to our Sanctuary where we hold service, and our Ushers will hand you the Order of Service (frequently called OOS). When service lets out, we regroup downstairs in our Fellowship Hall for coffee, snacks, and conversation. If you feel up for it, we welcome all newcomers to come chat! This is the best way to get to know the congregation and community. Our Membership Chairperson will be standing in the back of the hall next to our Welcome To The UUCM table to answer any questions you may have.

Connection Card

When you feel ready to start the path to membership, our greeters will give you a Connection Card (which you can also fill out online!). This gives us your basic contact information and correspondence preference, and our Membership Chair will reach out to you soon after. If you want to start getting our weekly OOS email or newsletter, our Chair or Admin will add you to the list!

Getting ready to join

Once you’ve attended services for a while and are ready to join, you’ll talk to our Membership Chair about signing the book. We have a record of all members and their join date. We have New Member Meetings scheduled regularly throughout the year which cover more details about joining, the benefits of being a member of the church, a building tour, and a chance to meet our pastor. When you’ve attended the meetings our Membership Chair has talked to you about and are ready to sign, we will have the book ready for you.

New Member Ceremony

Several times a year, we celebrate our new members with our New Member Ceremony. We call up our new members to be welcomed to the congregation, we present you with a personalized card that has our church covenant and your join date on it, and our admin will hand you the Welcome To Church Center packet that gives you all the information to log into our membership directory service.

After Joining

Joining our church is the end of the new member process, but it’s only the beginning of your UUCM journey! Our church is largely volunteer run, meaning there’s plenty of chances for everyone to help out. Members can join committees, volunteer to help out during snack hour, provide office help for our Administrator, help out in our gardens, join the greeting and ushering teams, and much more! If you ever want to get more involved, talk to a member of the Membership Committee, Office Admin, or a service leader!