As part of our series ‘Frontiers of Innovation’ we spoke with Matt Meyer about how the team at Sanctuary Boston has created a UU community that continues to meet the needs of young adults in new, refreshing ways.
Matt Meyer and the Sanctuary Boston Logo
Q: Tell me a bit about your background. What led you into ministry as a lay leader?
I grew up Unitarian Universalist, but I still think of myself as having a ‘conversion experience’ during a UU summer camp when I was in junior high. It was the first place I really experienced beloved community, and the first place I experienced a whole new way of being in the world: loving people unconditionally and building community through singing and shared ritual. After high school I moved to Boston for a music school and got a degree in hand drumming. From 2005 on I’ve made my living as an itinerant worship leader – going around the country to a different church every Sunday – trying to bring that visceral, emotional, embodied aspect of worship that transformed me to other congregations so they can experience it too.
Q: And how did that work intersect with Sanctuary Boston?
I had been doing that work for many years when, nine years ago, I joined up with the planning team for Sanctuary Boston, which at that time was asking these same questions. Namely, how do we recreate this embodied, musical, ritual-centered worship – that feeling some of us had experienced in camps, conferences, or evangelical worship spaces? How do we recreate that emotional pull, but combined with UU values and theology? So we imagined this new kind of community and built it together. I had been on the planning team from the beginning and, four years in, I stepped into my current role of Director of Operations and Community Life.
Q: So is this an explicitly UU community?
We say we’re “grounded in Unitarian Universalism and open to seekers of all kinds.” Over the years we’ve settled into our identity as a UU community and we’re affiliated with the UU Association. Although half of our community members come from other traditions or are new to UU in some way.
Q: How big is this? Like how many members do you have?
We don't actually have “membership,” which is one way we're structured differently from typical UU congregations. Instead, we do an annual survey to stay in touch with our community. We had 114 people fill that out this year. We ask a lot of questions about visioning, who we are, who we want to be, what they get out of the community, what they want to offer to it, how they want to volunteer, as well as whether they want to pledge.
Q: How many people attend your worship services?
We meet every first and third Wednesday evenings. We grew a lot during the pandemic because we offered online access; we used to have 46 people on average for worship, and now we have about 90.
Q: And are there other things, aside from worship, that pull people into the community?
Oh yeah. We also have a small group program that has similarly expanded; we are up to six groups of 6-12 people, partially because we've expanded them out to have more identity-based options. We have two general groups, a feminism for men group, a BIPOC identity group, and a younger adult group for ages 18-25. Prior to Covid, we held two weekend retreats per year. We also offer occasional other programing every few months, like a writing workshop or open mic. Right now we’re exploring doing a mental health first aid training based on the needs of our community.
Q: What would you say to those who see this as just another UU congregation?
I think to describe us as a congregation isn’t wrong, though officially we are a ‘covenanted community.’ To me, whether we're a congregation or not isn't the important question as much as asking ourselves ‘how are we building community?’ Part of what I like here is that we’re experimenting with what it looks like to build community together. For example, the structure of our worship is quite different. We begin with 15 minutes of gathering music, and all of our music is led by a band that's mostly community members. We have something like a sermon that we call the ‘reflection,’ but it's usually only 10 or 12 minutes, and it happens earlier in the service because it's not the main thing. The music and the ritual is the main thing we offer. So the service feels very different.
Q: Do you find that the demographics of people who show up are quite different from those who may attend a typical, legacy UU congregation?
It is, because we were essentially founded by young adults. When we were in person, I would say our community was 85-90% people in their twenties and thirties.
Q: Wow, that’s remarkable! Do you think you're offering something that resonates differently based on people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s etc.?
That’s a question I get asked a lot. I think congregations see how many young adults we have, and they see an evening service, a short sermon, a band, everyone sitting in a circle, listening to Taylor Swift or other contemporary music. Then they turn around and replicate that format thinking, ‘once we build that, the young people will come.’ And it often doesn’t pan out like they hope. Part of our message is: the people you want to be there have to be in the planning process from the beginning. So if you want a diverse organization, you have to have a diverse planning team. If you want non-UUs to attend, then non UUs need to be on your planning team. And I think that's true for racial diversity and age diversity as well.
Q: So, it sounds like the relationships are far more important than the form of worship?
Absolutely, it’s great to have pop music, a band, evening worship, and a social media presence. But all of that is not as important as having the relational piece from the very beginning.
Q: Given that young adults have shaped the community from the beginning, in what ways does the structure of the organization reflect that?
There are a number of ways. We don’t have ‘membership’ (though we do have a board). In general, we also don’t ask for very long commitments from people. No one on our board agrees to a three-year term, instead everyone is on a one-year term, where they are asked if they’d like to serve again at the end of the year. Also, whenever we’re forming a committee, we always ask ‘how can this be a time-limited thing?’ For example, we might say ‘let’s experiment with this project, just for the Spring, then we’ll reevaluate it.’ This approach works because the fact is younger people just aren’t excited about saying ‘Yeah, I’ll join a committee and I’ll meet every month for the next two years.’
Q: I like that idea of shorter commitments. I think it resonates so much better with the lifestyle realities of our generation.
Yep. We sometimes talk about how, in a lot of churches, there's this escalator of commitment that burns people out. You might join the church, but if you *really* want to join and connect with people then you have to join a committee. Then you go on this escalator of committee, committee, committee, board, burnout, leave. Instead of trying to get the maximum volunteer hours from people in our community, we figure out first, how do they *want* to serve?
Q: But how do you figure out what your community members really want?
Our pledge drive every year is a survey and has a list of things people can opt into. For example we ask: would you be interested in doing outreach? Are you an artist or would you want to do art for our worship? Do you want to do music for worship? Would you want to do readings for worship? Do you want to be involved in other ways? One of our stated, guiding principles is ‘no volunteering without joy.’ And we always remind people ‘I'm not asking you to do these. I'm asking you which of these would bring you joy?’
Q: I love that idea of connecting people to what brings them joy. On a brass tacks level though, how do you financially sustain this community?
The sanctuary survey and pledge drive I just mentioned has been a big part of it. We also got three years of funding from the UU Funding Program, along with funding from our host churches (Cambridge and Boston) at different times. We also asked churches in the area to share the plate with us (our goal every year is to find 10 churches in the Boston area that will share the plate with us). We've also sold greeting cards that artists in our community designed, or hosted webinars for other congregations (to learn what we're up to and to learn from our experiments). All these income sources, combined with having a lot more volunteer leadership, and growing the size of our community, has made it all sustainable.
Q: At the end of the day, how are you measuring and pursuing your definition of success?
On the one hand, the number of people in worship, the number of dollars they pledge, and how many people are stepping up into leadership or taking on new projects is very easy to measure. And I think that reflects community connection because people invest their time and money where they're getting their spiritual needs met. Beyond that though, we look to the testimonials people share in their surveys. I mentioned that 114 people filled out the survey this year, but I didn’t mention yet that 96 of those were one-on-one conversations. We ask people what they get out of our community, what do they *want* to get out of it, and what do they want to offer. So the other way we measure success is seeing how deep those conversations are.
Q: How can others learn more about, and support, the great work you’re doing?
You can learn more about what we’re up to by checking out our social media (links below). But my greatest hope would be that folks visit for worship, particularly now that it's so easy to do that online. We always like to invite youth groups, boards or worship committees to attend as a team. You can pick a Wednesday, log in together, then have a breakout room afterward to discuss what you liked, what you wondered about, etc. We hope the work that we’re doing can continue to benefit any congregation that’s interested in learning new ways of building UU community.
Ways to connect with Sanctuary Boston:
Sign up for their email list.
Subscribe to their YouTube channel to watch recordings of all past online services.
To keep track of future services, you can also subscribe to their worship calendar.