Planning Your Justice Sunday Event

Coordinate with congregational leadership

Identify a program coordinator and others who might help. Your UUSC local representative, minister, religious educators, and worship and social-action committees should all play a role in making Justice Sunday a meaningful and well-integrated program. Consider inviting UUSC members within your congregation to volunteer for tasks like preparing order-of-service inserts, organizing a local group to join the Get-Together national book discussion and author interview, helping coordinate advocacy and action activities, and participating in the culminating worship.

Plan your Justice Sunday service and activities

UUSC suggests you culminate your Justice Sunday program on March 25, 2012, but choose any date that works best for your program closing. Many congregations hold a service to celebrate their Justice Sunday experience, but you may do anything from a full worship service to a water ritual to a play put on by the congregation's youth! Meet with congregational leaders to consider what your congregation would most enjoy; ideas and resources for services and religious education are available.

Talk with your minister, newsletter/bulletin editor, and others to communicate about the program. Work with your minister or director of religious education to determine how youth might participate. Meet with your social-action committee to explore whether a plate collection could be conducted to support UUSC's work. If you would like a UUSC speaker, plan as far in advance as possible! Find out more about inviting a UUSC speaker to your congregation.

Get Justice Sunday materials

A host of resources are available online. Review the materials and share them with the appropriate people. For instance, share the worship kit with your minister and worship committee. You can download this year's Justice Sunday poster or request a full-color paper poster be mailed to you.

Communicate with your congregation

Throughout your program, let people know what activities are taking place and how they can engage with the human right to water. Publish articles through your church's newsletter, listserv, and website. Make announcements during services. Create effective pulpit editorials and announcements with the help of online samples.

Follow up

Work with your social-action committee or other leadership to provide a way for congregants to continue their involvement! Create opportunities for them to share the actions they took and plan next steps, which could include an after-service dialogue, a film screening and discussion, or an online chat or blog. Your culmination of Justice Sunday is a chance to honor what you've learned and accomplished together so far — and it's only the beginning of your engagement with this critical issue! Share your best practices with other organizers by e-mailing volunteerservices@uusc.org with details of your success.

Celebrate

Be sure to celebrate your congregation's commitment to human rights and social justice by publishing a newsletter or web article and making a pulpit announcement prior to each event during your Justice Sunday program. Then follow up with an update to the congregation after Justice Sunday, again through a newsletter and web article.

Plan ahead for next year

After your program concludes, meet with your minister to ensure that next year's Justice Sunday activities and culminating worship are on your congregation's worship calendar.

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Justice Sunday 2012 aimed to create a deeper understanding of UUSC's water justice work by providing multiple educational materials as well as reflection resources and opportunities for engagement in this issue.
 
Now, we need to hear from you!  Let us know what you found useful and whether we should be doing anything differently. Please click here to complete your online evaluation.
 
Your responses will help us assess this important program and make necessary updates to meet your needs as volunteers and supporters of UUSC.