Insights from in and around the association
UBA Voices
Virtual Mission Trip
COVID-19 has been a curveball for churches and missionaries alike. For our church, all of our trips were canceled. I am sure your church is in a similar place. The question facing all of us is the same: How do we do missions when we can’t go anywhere?
You go virtual!
Rethinking Planning Beyond the Pandemic
What does it mean to rethink planning? What kind of planning process would be appropriate when we’re still in a pandemic and the future seems so uncertain? A fresh way to engage in planning in this season will be based on these six things.
Thinking for the Future
Being a leader can be hard. Leaders have to model the way for others to follow, inspire a shared vision, challenge processes, enable others to act, and care for those they lead. Being a leader is also hard because you have to live in two times simultaneously. Leading means being present with people in the now, while also thinking further down the road.
Leveraging Our Differences
"More divided than ever." It's a cringe-worthy phrase I hear way more often than I'd like lately—because it seems to be true. Though our culture increasingly rejects labels, it's also become a place where loyalty to one group means a complete rejection of and distance from those outside that group. But is it possible to challenge someone's position while keeping a larger sense of unity? How can leveraging our differences make us better?
Make It Matter—How Collaborative Innovation Helped Provide Durable, Safe Homes
Over 20 years ago, Lynette Francois had the vision to be a blessing over houses and lands spread out across the world. At the time, she wasn't really sure what that meant or even where to start. Over the years, however, God brought the right situations and the right people to work together to impact Haiti. Now, Make It Matter Inc is demonstrating God's love by building durable and safe homes for those in need.
Collaborating Through the Years
I was recently archiving some files and came across some info from 2005. That year, Hurricane Rita followed Hurricane Katrina by just a month to the day and devastated New Orleans. Many of our UBA churches—large and small—were heavily involved in helping those who had fled New Orleans. We’re deeply thankful for the action of churches when disaster strikes and proud of a legacy of innovative collaboration in our association. Join us as we reminisce and celebrate some ways we've been better together.
What Does "Better Together" Really Look Like?
In an age where we're easily divided into camps, churches must fight to remember our common purpose. We must make an effort to be counter-cultural, not only in what we believe but also in the way we live it out. At UBA, we're proud to have several examples of churches doing innovative collaboration, pooling resources, and working together to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here are just a few of those stories:
Preparing to Innovate
In a dramatic scene of the 1987 movie The Untouchables, Jim Malone presses Eliot Ness on what he is willing to do to finally catch Al Capone. Though I'm certainly not advocating for illegal activity as Malone was, I think it's a great picture of what we need to innovate and reach gospel saturation in and beyond our city.
If your way isn’t working where you are, are you prepared to learn a new way? As leaders, we need to be asking ourselves and allowing trusted people in our lives to ask us the same question: “What are you prepared to do?”