Unitarian Universalist Congregational Life
Based on
James Luther Adams’
Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism
Upon which we build our faith
By Connie Goodbread and the Revs. Kenn Hurto and Susan M. Smith
1
Revelation is open and continuous
Hope
Relationships are consensual never coerced
Love
Obligation to work toward a just and loving
community
Courage
Deny the immaculate conception of virtue
Good things come about through the work of human
hands.
Justice
Resources both human and divine are available to us
to help us achieve meaningful changes and a reason
for ultimate optimism
Joy
From On Being Human Religiously from the essay entitled Guiding Principles for a Free Faith
by James Luther Adams, pp. 12-20.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ECHDFQsnNIgC&pg=PA3&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=o
nepage&q&f=false
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR ONLINE RESOURCES
Section #1: Revelation is open and continuous
7
The Art of Religious Leadership #1: Introduction to the Congregationalist Way
8
Cambridge Platform of 1648 Overview
Covenant: Abiding Together in Disciplined Love
Congregational Covenanting Tips
How to Listen Skillfully
The Healthy Congregation #1: Faith Development as the Core Mission of Religious
Organizations
13
Faith: Its Sources, Its Development and Its Uses Outline
Transcendent Center of Values and Power Drawing
Experience of the Holy Exercise
James Fowler’s Stages of Faith Outline
Comparative Chart of Human Development Models
The Truth About Santa: Stories are for Everyone Essay
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences: Eight Kinds of Smart
The Congregation is the Curriculum Essay
The Art of Religious Leadership #2: SHIFT: Introduction to Systems Thinking
28
Introduction to Systems Thinking Outline
A Systems View of Congregational Life Essay
Rabbi Dr. Edwin Freidman’s Seven Laws of Emotional Triangle
Section #2: Human relationships should be consensual and never coerced.
40
The Healthy Congregation #2: Four Aspects of Growth
41
Sustainable Growth Diagram
Rev. Loren Mead’s Four Aspects of Growth Overview
Vocabulary for Situational Leadership by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard
Situational Leadership Diagram
The In-Between Church by Alice Mann: “N” Curve Chart
New Congregation and Growth Resources Overview
Choice Points for Clergy Quiz
Ten Reasons to Avoid Doing Anything New Ever
Growing a Beloved Community: Twelve Hallmarks of a Healthy Congregation
Trends for Serving Children, Youth and Young Adults
Faith Formation 2020 Driving Forces Overview
The Art of Religious Leadership #3: The Self-Differentiated Leader
57
3
Rev. Peter Steinke’s Self-Differentiation Discussion Outline
John Raible’s Anti-Racist Checklist
Cultural and Spiritual Diversity as a Source of Strength Homily
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: A Unitarian “Shero” Homily
Section #3: It is our responsibility to build the just and loving community.
68
The Healthy Congregation #3: Values-based Vision and Mission
69
Words of Wisdom on Mission and Vision
The Ministering Congregation
Who Owns a Congregation? Essay
The Art of Religious Leadership #4: Leading for Change
74
Rev. Gil Rendle’s Rollercoaster of Change Diagram
Everett Roger’s Change Theory Bell Curve
Eight Reasons Why Transformational Efforts Fail Overview
Principles of Adaptive Leadership from Ronald Heifitz and Donald Laurie
Leading for Change Tipsheet
Managing the Being-Doing Polarity Example
Anti-Oppression and Multiculturalism: Tracking Institutional Change Chart
Rules to Promote Rational Thinking
Section #4: Good things are accomplished through hard work by human hands.
85
The Healthy Congregation #4: Stewardship of Time, Talent and Treasure
86
FORTH: A Stewardship Development Program
Faithful Financial Stewardship Overview
Recruiting Volunteers: Guidelines for Preparing and a Step-by-step Guide
Policies and Procedures for Child Safety
Suggestions for Sound Organization and Administration
Responsibilities of a Unitarian Universalist Congregation’s Board
A Model for Unitarian Universalist Congregation Board Meetings
The Art of Religious Leadership #5: Conflict and Controversy
99
Triggers of Anxiety
Rev. Speed Leas’ Levels of Conflict Overview
Group Decision Methods Overview
The Sacred Triangle of Religious Life Chart
Netiquette for Congregations
Section #5: We have the resources human and divine; our confidence is ultimately justified.
110
4
The Healthy Congregation #5: Taking it Home
111
Leadership Inventory Plan Duplicate Copy
What Would Your Congregation Look Like as a Person Exercise
The Sacred Cow Barbeque Exercise
Appendix and Resources
118
5
Section #1
Revelation is open and continuous
6
The Art of Religious Leadership
Session One
Introduction to the Congregationalist Way
7
Cambridge Platform 1648 Overview
Polity
• You’re not the boss of me - no higher authority
• We are all in this together, people of the Covenant
• To work for a just and loving world
The wonderful material that is used to build a house is not a house.
•
•
•
•
•
Covenant
We define ourselves we practice the faith in community
We agree to come together and support one another
We are more together than we are apart
By our works shall they know us
We call ourselves and one another back to our best selves and to the
holy work
Leadership Roles
Elders – the keepers of the spiritual table often becoming the
Teaching or Preaching Elder
The intangible
Deacons – the keepers of the physical table
The tangible
Have we become congregations of individuals who understand their
role as deacon but do not understand our role as elder?
Who teaches our faith?
Unitarian Universalist congregations are covenantal not creedal faith
communities.
8
Covenant: Abiding Together in Disciplined Love
What is a covenant?
• The realization that we truly are all in this together.
• A deep abiding promise between equals – to partner with each other and that which is
bigger than ourselves, to work for a just and loving community.
• Manners
• Deliberate development of cultural norms
• Built on respect and honoring the inherent worth and dignity of every human being
• Laying a foundation upon which to build
Why do we need a covenant?
Behavioral Covenants start with manners and ourselves.
How do we begin?
Begin with Leadership
Staff transitions
o Discussion
o Discernment
o Development
o Practice
•
•
•
•
Discussion - talking to one another about why we would do this - what is the purpose?
Discernment - what are the things we need to list - what do we need to say to each other what are the behaviors we ant to model?
Development - what are words we will use – wordsmithing to get it right - reworking it
and living with it and reworking it again.
Practice - calling ourselves and each other back into covenant over and over.
After a time when leadership has struggled with what a covenant is and how it is best used - we
may begin the process to develop a congregational covenant.
Using the same process:
o Discussion
o Discernment
o Development
o Practice
A covenant is a tool not an end
Unitarian Universalism striving to build communities where faith and acceptance coexist
in harmony.
Is this the way of the world?
9
Congregational Covenanting Tips
Compiled by the Rev. Susan M. Smith, Connie Goodbread and Eunice
Benton
From REACH packet September 1995 by Judith Frediani:
Group Covenant
It is invaluable for any group, what ever it s primary focus, to agree on
expect ations for behavi or in their w ork together. Whether you call those writt en
expect ations cov enants, agreements, or guidelines, they incl ude a range of
issues such as arriving on time, keeping confidential ity, the right to pass, “no
put - downs,” etc. Ongoi ng groups like stan ding committee s can review and renew
their agreem ents annual ly or whenever new members are added.
Short - form covenanting
A time - efficient way to help a group agree to guidelines is to prepare a draft on
newsprint before the first meeting and ask participants to respond . Invite them
to add, delete or modify until everyon e understands and accepts the
expect ations.
Long - form covenanting
Have the group gener ate its guidelines from scratch. Although it tak es a little
longer, it is more participatory and may foster more of a sense of ownership.
One approach is to say something like: “T hink of a time when you were a
member of a productive and safe group. What would m ake this group product ive
and safe for you?” List responses and encourage discussion until consensus is
reached Then ask, “What do you thi nk should happen if our behavior is not in
keeping wi th our agreed - upon guid elines?” Discuss.
Why



bother?
A group coven ant provides at least three benefits:
Expectati ons are clarified so that misunderstandings are less likely;
Th e agreement makes it clear that everyone, not just the leader(s), is
responsible for the effectiveness and enjoyment of the group - experience;
and
 The guidelines provide a valid and specifi c reference for addr essing
problemati c behavior. Leaders or particip ants can speak to a group
member privat ely or within the group abo ut their concern that a behavior
is not in keeping with the agreem ent.
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Notes from Behavioral Covenants in Congregations: A Handbook for Honoring
Difference by Gil Rendle (Alban)
Important points about covenant:
 Covenants are promises to follow, not rules prescribing punishment.
 Covenants describe behaviors, not personality chan ges.
 Covenants are a daily, spiritual practice.
 Covenants can be used to moni tor behavi ors of leaders by periodical ly
reviewing th e covenant.
 Covenants can be used by l eaders to model healthy and fait hful behavior
to others in the congregation and the com munity.
Process:







Lead a discussion about the behavior al covenants that leaders in your
congreg ation should practic e in the future for the health and faithfuln ess
of your congregati on and as a model of holy manners (civility) for your
members and the comm unity.
Write suggested covenant behaviors on newsprint for the full group to
review as they are offered.
Stress that the covenants are to be positiv e statements of behavi ors that
will be followed and not statements of what is wrong from the past.
Remind participants that they are focusing on behaviors, not on
personality ch aract eristics or individual people.
Have a stat em ent drafted by one or two members, which can be adopt ed
by the larger group.
Decid e if and how to let others know of the covenant.
Decid e how and how often to do a review of the effectiveness of the
coven ant.
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HOW TO LISTEN SKILLFULLY
1. STOP TALKING: To others and to yourself. Learn the still small voice within. You can’t
listen if you’re talking.
2. Imagine the other person’s viewpoint. Picture yourself in her position, doing her work,
facing her problems, using her language, and having her values. If the other person is younger or
more junior, remember your early days in the (church).
3. Look, act, and be interested. Don’t read your mail, doodle, shuffle, or tap papers while
others are talking.
4. Observe non-verbal behavior, like body language, to glean meanings beyond what is said to
you.
5. Don’t interrupt. Sit still past your tolerance level.
6. Listen between the lines, for implicit meanings as well as explicit ones. Consider
connotations as well as denotations. Note figures of speech. Instead of accepting a person’s
remarks as the whole story, look of omissions — things left unsaid or unexplained, which should
logically be present Ask about those.
7. Speak only affirmatively while listening. Resist the temptation to jump in with an
evaluative, critical, or disparaging comment at the moment the remark is uttered. Confine
yourself to constructive replies until the context has shifted, and criticism can be offered without
blame.
8. To ensure understanding, rephrase what the other person has just told you at key points in
the conversation. Yes ... this is the old “active listening” technique, but it works — and how
often do you do it?
9. STOP TALKING. This is the first and last, because all other techniques of listening depend
on it. Take a vow of silence once in a while.
From the “Team Learning” chapter of The Fifth Discipline Handbook, p. 391.
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The Healthy Congregation #1
Faith Development as the Core Mission of
Religious Organizations
Faith Development is All We Do.
The Religion of Unitarian Universalism is All We Teach.
“The Congregation is the Curriculum.”*
*Maria Harris
13
Faith: Its Sources, Its Development, And Its Uses
(Outline by The Rev. Susan M. Smith)
1) Defining Terms according to Wilfred Cantwell Smith
i) "Religion" -- cumulative tradition of expressions of faith
ii) "Faith" -- person's or group's way of "responding to transcendent value & power" as
perceived & grasped through the forms of the cumulative tradition
iii) "Belief" -- "the holding of certain ideas" which arises from effort to translate
experiences of & relation to transcendent into concepts or propositions
2) "Faith" Further Defined
i) Derivation
(a) "Credo" from the root for heart
(b) Hindu translation "to set one's heart on"
(c) An active process but English has no verb form
(d) Always relational ("faith in
")
ii) Emotional State
(a) Loyalty, trust
(b) Commitment
(c) Links us to an identity
iii) Imagery Source
(a) Active mode of knowing
(b) Creates fragmented images as building blocks for unified image of whole
(c) Images as partial expressions of "faith"
(d) Changes in the face of crisis and struggle
3) The Triangle of Faith according to Wilfred Cantwell Smith
i) The High Point/The Peak -- "Shared centers of value and power" (SCV&P)
(a) Can be secular or political as well as religious in nature
(b) Cannot be finite -- "idols"
ii) First Horizon Point -- Others who place faith in this SCV&P
(a) Congregations and other types of groups
(b) Families
iii) Second Horizon Point -- The Self who places faith in this SCV&P
(a) Covenantal relationship formed between Self and Others
(b) Refer for definition, decision-making, standards of behavior to SCV&P
4) Repetition As a Tool of Faith Development
i) Fowler's Stages of Faith
ii) Translating our values into teaching stories
iii) The repetition of teaching stories in the liturgical year
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Wilfred Cantwell Smith
Worship
Witness
Faith
Development
Beloved
Community
WE
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Experience of the Holy Exercise
Rev. Rob Eller Isaacs
(Approximately 40-45 minutes including Introduction)
1. Introduction
The Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs, Co-Senior Minister of Unity Unitarian Church of St. Paul, MN and
President of the UU Ministers Association, often starts this exercise with a quote from
Emerson’s first published essay. Emerson asks “Why should not we have an original relation
with the universe?” Emerson is pointing to what Eller-Isaac’s chooses to call, the experience of
the holy – an experience that is universal. To Eller-Isaacs contemplating experiences of the holy
brings up concepts and words like “union, merger, a sense of letting go of one’s particular
identity in order to experience the unity or deep connectedness some call God. Experience is
absolutely at the center of our faith tradition.”
We invite you into quiet contemplation of an experience in your life that offered a glimpse of the
holy – a moment of spiritual insight that you might describe as holy. Some experiences happen
in church. Many happen elsewhere. [group leader may offer a brief description of a personal
experience you would describe as holy.]
In this exercise we will ask you to reflect for a moment on your own, share your reflections with
a partner, then join the others in your group to work toward deeper understanding and consensus.
This sharing is a form of intentional dialogue in which you will practice the art of deep listening
and speaking for oneself and from the heart. Learning to listen well, engaging life’s essential
questions and trusting those with whom we are in conversation to help us move toward greater
depth and insight are the basic skills of leadership and healthy congregational life.
2. Individual Reflection: (5 minutes)
Take five minutes to reflect on an experience of the Holy in your life. You may wish to jot down
a few notes as you will soon be asked to share that experience with a partner
3. Sharing with a Partner: (10 minutes)
A. (5 minutes) First pair up with someone from another congregation in your group and take 5
minutes (~ 2 ½ minutes each) to share your story with your partner and to listen to your
partner’s story.
•
Ritual – Begin with the person who is practicing deep listening, who says, “I am
here to listen deeply and receive your truth and experience of transcendence. I
will hold it in the chalice of my heart.” Ritual – Then the person who is
practicing deep sharing, “I am here to share my deepest truth and experience of
transcendence. It comes from the chalice of my heart.”
B. (5 minutes) Then, when you’re done, take 5 minutes to create a list of values you see
embedded in your stories. What qualities of this experience are key to the experience being
holy? Does the story speak to an underlying value of independence? Reverence?
Empowerment? Authenticity? Wonder? Freedom? Generosity? Etc. [Leader: maybe
describe a few values that were embedded in your experience]
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C. Make a list of words or very short phrases that capture the values you’re seeing. At the very
end of your five minutes, choose three values that connect both of your stories that both of
you would want to take forward into the future of your congregational life.
That’s not a lot of time, so don’t agonize over it. Tap into the power of the unconscious
wisdom that the author of Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, says we all possess. Work quickly and
see what rises to the surface.
[NOTE to Group Leaders – if there are an odd number of students in your group, then you
will need to participate in the exercise only up to this point, Step 3C, where partners come up
with a set of three shared values.]
Depending upon the size of the group the next part will be either a one-step process (if the
group is six or fewer) or two-steps (if the group is seven or more).
4. Discovering the Group’s Shared Core Values: (7 or 14 minutes)
A. (7 minutes) Tap into that unconscious wisdom again by making a group of 3, 4, 5 or 6
from the partner pairs so that there will be two or three sets of shared values represented.
You will have 10 minutes to choose three values that your new group of all agree you’d
want to carry forward into the future of your congregational life.
You will want to select a scribe, timekeeper and spokesperson for your group. Use a
process of intentional dialogue whereby one person from each partner pair takes up to
one minute to share their set of three values, then one person from the next set of partners
does the same, etc. Then continue around the circle allowing everyone in turn up to a
minute each to comment about which of the values speak most deeply to them. Once
everyone has spoken, check for consensus and choose three shared core values for
your group.
B. (7 minutes - Only if there are 7 or more in the full group) Now your Group should have
two sets of three values. You will do Step 4A again to end up with one set of three
shared core values for the entire group.
Taking this exercise back to your congregation: Have you heard patterns emerge from the lists
of values? After awhile, forming larger and larger groups, your congregation can also reach
consensus on the values it wants to guide its future AND, because they’ve had intimate
conversation about the source of those values and what they mean, your congregation can come
away with a shared understanding of its values and what they look like when lived in the world.
How many of you have conversations like this in your congregation? How about among your
leadership?
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From Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development
And the Quest for Meaning by James W. Fowler
Compiled by the Rev. Susan M. Smith
“Pre-stage” Undifferentiated Faith (Infancy)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: “the seeds of trust, courage, hope and love are fused in an
undifferentiated way and contend with sensed threats of abandonment, inconsistencies and
deprivations in an infant’s environment…the quality of mutuality and the strength of trust,
autonomy, hope and courage (or their opposites) developed in this phase underlie
(or threaten to undermine) all that comes later in faith development.”
EMERGENT STRENGTH: “fund of basic trust and the relational experience of mutuality with
the one(s) providing primary love and care.”
DANGER OR DEFICIENCY: “failure of mutuality in either of two directions...excessive
narcissism.., or isolation”
TRANSITION TO NEXT STAGE: “begins with the convergence of thought and language,
opening up the use of symbols in speech and ritual play.”
Stage 1: Intuitive-Projective Faith (Early Childhood)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: “fantasy-filled, imitative phase in which the child can be
powerfully and permanently influenced by examples, moods, actions and stories of the visible
faith of primally related adults...The child is continually encountering novelties for which no
stable operations of knowing have been formed.”
EMERGENT STRENGTH: “the ability to unify and grasp the experience-world in powerful
images and as presented in stones that register the child’s intuitive understandings and feelings
toward the ultimate conditions of existence.”
DANGER OR DEFICIENCY: “possible ‘possession’ of the child’s imagination by unrestrained
images of terror and destructiveness, or. . . exploitation of her or his imagination in the
reinforcement of taboos and moral or doctrinal expectations.”
TRANSITION TO NEXT STAGE: “emergence of concrete operational thinking...the child’s
growing concern to know how things are and to clarify for him or herself the bases of
distinctions between what is real and what only seems to be.”
Stage 2: Mythic-Literal Faith (School Years or beyond)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: “begins to take on for him or herself the stories, beliefs and
observances that symbolize belonging to his or her community. Beliefs are appropriated with
literal interpretations, as are moral rules and attitudes... Story becomes the major way of giving
unity and value to experience.. .the meaning is both carried and ‘trapped’ in the narrative.”
EMERGENT STRENGTH: “the rise of narrative and the emergence of story, drama and myth as
ways of finding and giving coherence to experience.”
DANGER OR DEFICIENCY: “limitations of literalness...either...an over controlling, stilted
perfectionism...or…an abasing sense of badness”
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TRANSITION TO NEXT PHASE: “implicit clash or contradictions in stones (lead) to reflection
on meanings…The emergence of mutual interpersonal perspective taking...creates the need for a
more personal relationship with the unifying power of the ultimate environment.”
Stage 3: Synthetic-Conventional Faith (Adolescence)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: “Faith must provide a coherent orientation in the midst of
(a) more complex and diverse range of involvements. Faith must synthesize values and
information; it must provide a basis for identity and outlook...person has an ‘ideology’ but…has
not objectified it for examination and in a sense is unaware of having it.”
EMERGENT STRENGTH: “the forming of a personal myth — the myth of one’s own becoming
in identity and faith”
DANGER OR DEFICIENCY: “expectations of others... internalized (and sacralized) (so) that
later autonomy of judgment and action can be jeopardized; or interpersonal betrayals can give
rise to nihilistic despair…or a compensatory intimacy with God”
TRANSITION TO NEXT STAGE: “serious clashes or contradictions between valued authority
sources; marked changes, by officially sanctioned leaders,...; the encounter with experiences of
perspectives that lead to critical reflection on how one’s beliefs and values have formed and
changed, and on how relative they are”
Stage 4: Individualtive-Reflective Faith (Young Adulthood, Later or Never)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: “certain unavoidable tensions: individuality versus being defined
by a group or group membership; subjectivity and the power of one’s strongly felt but
unexamined feelings versus objectivity and the requirement of critical reflection; self-fulfillment
or self-actualization as a primary concern versus service to and being for others; the question of
being committed to the relative versus struggle with the possibility of an absolute. . . typically
translates symbols into conceptual meanings…likely to attend minimally to unconscious factors
influencing its judgments and behavior.”
EMERGENT STRENGTH: “capacity for critical reflection on identity (self) and outlook
(ideology).”
DANGER OR DEFICIENCY: “an excessive confidence in the conscious mind and in critical
thought and a kind of second narcissism in which the now clearly bounded, reflective self over
assimilates “reality” and the perspectives of others into its own world view.”
TRANSITION TO NEXT STAGE: “Stories, symbols, myths and paradoxes from one’s own or
other traditions may insist on breaking in upon the neatness of the previous faith.
Disillusionment with one’s compromises and recognition that life is more complex that
Stage 4’s logic of clear distinctions and abstract concepts can comprehend, press one toward a
more dialectical and multileveled approach to life truth.”
Stage 5: Conjunctive Faith (Midlife and Beyond or Never)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: “symbolic power is reunited with conceptual meanings... a new
reclaiming and reworking of one’s past...opening to the voices of one’s ‘deeper self”…a critical
recognition of one’s social unconscious...What the previous stage struggled to clarify, in terms of
the boundaries of self and outlook, this stage now makes porous and permeable.. . Ready for
closeness to that which is different and threatening to self and outlook..., this stage’s
commitment to justice is freed from the confines of tribe, class, religious community or nation. . .
19
willing to spend and be spent for the cause of conserving and cultivating the possibility of others’
generating identity and meaning.”
EMERGENT STRENGTH: “the rise of ironic imagination — a capacity to see and be in one’s or
one’s group’s most powerful meanings, while simultaneously recognizing that they are relative,
partial and inevitably distorting apprehensions of transcendent reality.”
DANGER OR DEFICIENCY: “a paralyzing passivity or inaction, giving rise to complacency or
cynical withdrawal, due to its paradoxical understanding of truth”
TRANSITION TO NEXT STAGE: “lives and acts between an untransformed world and a
transforming vision and loyalties.., yields to the call of …radical actualization”
Stage 6: Universalizing Faith
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: “exceedingly rare...felt sense of an ultimate environment is
inclusive of all being...incarnators and actualizers of an inclusive and fulfilled human
community…often more honored and revered after death…seem more lucid, more simple, and
yet somehow more fully human. . . particularities are cherished because they are vessels of the
universal, and thereby valuable apart from an utilitarian consideration.”
EMERGENT STRENGTH: “create zones of liberation from the social, political, economic and
ideological shackles we place and endure on human ftiturity.”
DANGER OR DEFICIENCY: “often described as subversive of the structures (including
religious structures) by which we sustain our individual and corporate survival, security and
significance. Many persons in this stage die at the hands of those whom they hope to change.”
TRANSITION TO NEXT STAGE: death?
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Developmental Stages – Ages are approximate
Era/Age
Piaget
Eriksson
Kohlberg
Infancy
0-11/2
Cognitive
Sensor-motor
Pre-operational
Early
Childhood
2-6
Childhood
7-12
Concrete
Operational
Adolescence
13-21
Formal
Operational
Psycho-social
Trust
vs.
Mistrust
Moral
Autonomy vs.
Shame and
Doubt
Initiative
vs.
Guilt
Industry vs.
Inferiority
Identity vs.
Role
Confusion
Fowler
Moran
Faith
Primal Faith
Spiritual
Simply
Religious
Profound
Experiences
IntuitiveProtective
Faith
Reciprocal
Relativity
Mythical
Literal Faith
Conventional
Approval
Disapproval
Orientation
Mutual
Interpersonal
Relationships
SyntheticConventional
Faith
An Ideology
(coherent,
rational,
borrowed &
supported by
external
authority)
Law & Order
Social System
Conscience
Acquiring
Faith
Justice Seekers
Us & Them
Religious
Adult
The
religiously
adult
Stage 4 5
Young
Adulthood
22-35
Adulthood
35-40
Intimacy vs.
Isolation
Post-formal
Operational
Generativity
vs. Stagnation
PostConventional
Social Contract
Orientation
(recognizes
moral conflict)
Self-chosen
Ethical
principles
universal
Maturity 60
Integrity vs.
Despair
Sage 7
Individual
Reflective
Faith
Recognizes
system
Constructs
one’s own
rational world
view
Conjunctive
Faith
Validity of
other system
paradoxical
person is the
individual who
holds in fruitful
coexistence the
rational and
the irrational.
Universal Faith
Lived
perfection of
prior stage,
often prophetic
21
The Truth About Santa
Stories are for everyone. by The Rev. Susan M. Smith
reprinted from The Unitarian Universalist World
The religious phenomenologist Wilfred Cantwell Smith described the faith community as a
triangle: An individual and a community come together in service to a shared center of value and
power. This center might be the concept for which we use the word “God” or “truth” or “justice”
or “love.” Because this is a transcendent center, the individual and community have fragmented
images with which they come together. Faith communities use these images to teach about that
in which they have faith.
So, what must we teach? We must teach stories.
James Fowler in his typology of faith development describes stages of faith during which the
individual continually processes the teaching stories of their particular group. The story remains
the same while we are constantly changing.
I like to use Santa Claus to describe these stages. Everyone has observed that an infant
confronted with Santa Claus rejects this large, loud, brightly-colored stranger and presses more
deeply into the safety of their parent’s embrace. So the foundation of all faith development is
trust in the reliability of those who will teach us these stories.
Later, we learn stories about Santa Claus that we must believe literally to build the foundation
through which any other kind of understanding becomes possible. We ask detailed questions
about Santa. Is it true that he has flying reindeer? Are they only the ones in the poem or are there
more and what are their names? This is Fowler’s Stage Two: Mythic-Literal faith.
This shared story describes who we are. When confronted by some playground apostate who
says that there is no Santa, we reaffirm our sense of our identity by sticking to the story.
At some point though, we see that these stories may not be literally true. We “demythologize”
old Santa. We can interpret this moment as one of entering into an adult way of knowing, or we
may believe that we have been intentionally duped or that the persons who tell this story are
ignorant of this “truth.” This is Fowler’s Stage Four: Individual-Reflective faith.
Later we see that while a teaching story may not be literally true, it is always actually true. When
we have children of our own, we find that in playing Santa we understand his story in a
completely new and deeply meaningful way. In this stage, we are open to the teaching stories of
others and synthesize all of these messages into a more nuanced faith.
22
Fowler describes a final stage that few have ever reached. It is the realm of the Christ, the
Buddha, and the Mahatma. One manifests, one incarnates the transcendent itself. As if one could
be not only Santa, but awe itself, generosity itself, love itself.
When I met James Fowler, he told me that he was familiar with Unitarian Universalists. He said,
“Your problem is that you have Stage Four adults (those demythologizers) teaching Stage Two
children (the literalists). So they tell them a story and then say, ‘But of course, it’s not true.’” He
said, “You must decide on what you wish to teach and by what stories you will teach it, and you
must stand by those stories.”
When we identify a Good Samaritan who helps a stranger, when we express brokenness as a
“Trail of Tears,” we are drawing in a few words on a deep well of meaning. Without this
shorthand, we may never share our understanding of the transcendent in a way that is useful to
the hearer.
Our Seven Principles cannot suffice. They are somewhat dry descriptions of outcomes of our
service to the centers of value and power we share. You may say that we are on a search for
truth, but the story of the blind men and the elephant turns my path toward truth itself.
In this light, there can be no such thing as a “children’s” story in a community of faith. The child,
the youth, the newcomer, the elder all need a constant diet of shared imagery. Teach them
forgiveness by teaching them “Grudgeville.” Teach them abundance by teaching them “Stone
Soup.” Teach them the nobility of the human spirit by teaching about a little girl hiding in an
attic who could say, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
Tell them the story for all ages. Tell them again and again.
Adapted from a panel presentation on the question "What do we need to teach—as best we can—
to children and youth and new members?" at the 2006 General Assembly of the UUA.
23
Gardner's Multiple Intelligences: Eight Kinds of Smart
Linguistic
Logical-Mathematical
Visual-Spatial
Musical
Bodily-Kinesthetic
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalist
Linguistic and Verbal Intelligence
A person strong in this area is good with words. They are often good at writing, reading, and
talking about things. This group often includes writers, poets, lawyers and public speakers.
Logical and Mathematical Intelligence
A person strong in this area is good with math and logic problems. They often enjoy solving
mysteries, reading about scientific discoveries, and like to figure out how things work. They are
also usually good with computers and a variety of other gadgets.
Spatial Intelligence
A person strong in this area is good with pictures and images. They are often good at putting
puzzles together. They appreciate art and photography, like to draw or doodle, notice details,
prefer geometry to algebra, and are good at directions.
Body and Movement Intelligence
A person strong in this area is good with sports and movement. They often talk with their hands,
like to build things, clown around in class, have great balance, and are good at a variety of sports.
Musical Intelligence
A person strong in this area is good with music and rhythm. They can often read music,
remember old songs, notice patterns, and can naturally figure out how to play a tune on an
instrument.
Interpersonal Intelligence
A person strong in this area is good with people. They are good listeners, can read body
language, hate injustice, can see through people who aren’t being honest, hurt when others hurt,
enjoy deep conversations, and often reach out to others who are hurting. Educators, counselors,
salespeople, religious and political leaders all need a well-developed interpersonal intelligence.
Intrapersonal Intelligence
A person strong in this area is good at analyzing things. They often think a lot and are highly
aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They also often keep a journal and think deeply about
life.
Naturalist Intelligence
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A person strong in this area is good at understanding nature. They enjoy the wilderness and like
to read about nature. They also categorize things, collect things, and enjoy studying plant parts.
Schools often favor verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. This is because
most schools are centered around verbal lectures and a core curriculum that puts a lot of
importance on science and math. To cater to all types of learners, schools must strive to find a
balance that incorporates the arts, self-awareness, communication, and physical education.
By teaching students in a variety of different forms, we allow them to become holistic learners.
Three Learning Styles
Visual learners
Visual learners learn through seeing.
They learn best through demonstrations and visual aids. This can include handouts, diagrams,
mind maps, illustrated textbooks, videos, and overhead transparencies. They need to see the
teacher’s body language and facial expressions to fully understand the concepts presented. Many
visual learners prefer to take detailed notes to help absorb the information presented.
Auditory Learners
Auditory learners learn through listening.
They learn best through verbal lectures and class discussions. Auditory learners key in to tone of
voice, pitch, speed, and other visual cues. These types of learners often benefit from reading the
text aloud and using a tape recorder to record the lectures for playback.
Kinesthetic Learners
Kinesthetic learners learn through best through their sense of touch. These are hands-on learners
who learn best by actively exploring the world around them. A kinesthetic learner often speaks
with their hands and uses a number of gestures. They also appreciate physically expressed
encouragement, such as a pat on the back.
Kinesthetic learners are often not tolerated in schools because they need to be moving to learn
effectively and our education system certainly does not cater to kids who need to be moving.
Instead, they cater mostly to auditory learners who learn best through lectures.
By knowing what type of learner you are, you will be able to work towards your strengths. By
knowing what type of learner your kids are, you will be able to help them absorb information in
the most efficient way possible.
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THE “CONGREGATION AS A CURRICULUM”
A MODEL FOR VIEWING THE LIFESPAN LEARNING ORGANIZATION
By Laurel Amabile, Lifespan Program Consultant
Maria Harris, in her book, Fashion Me A People, asserts: “the congregation
does not have a curriculum, the congregation is a curriculum.”
“Curriculum is ‘the entire course of the church’s life,’ the mobilizing of the creative and educative process of
the entire religious community...This view of curriculum is a powerful reminder that we need to pay attention
to what the entire community is teaching the entire community. Using this understanding as a new lens would
not only help us see our counter-productive practices more clearly, it would necessarily enlist the entire
congregation in creating lifespan learning...If implemented, this-church-is-the-curriculum philosophy would
be transforming...”
~ Judith Frediani, The Essex
Conversations
FIVE ASPECTS OF
“CURRICULUM”:
CONGREGATION
LIFE
CAN
COMMUNICATE
ITS
•
Worship- worship services and rituals practiced in groups within the congregation.
•
Community- the people and relationships of the church, pastoral care networks, social events,
community celebrations, and sharing our faith through campus and other community-based
ministries.
•
Social Justice- service projects, social justice activities and public witness.
•
Learning- Formal learning in Religious Education classes, training workshops, adult programs,
as well as the informal learning that comes from engaging in the other aspects.
•
Leadership-Opportunities for all ages to learn and practice leadership skills; also the coaching
and mentoring practices of professional staff and congregation leaders in empowering others.
THREE EXPRESSIONS OF A CONGREGATION’S CURRICULUM:
•
Explicit- Clearly stated or visually representations of beliefs such as Mission/Vision statements,
principles & purposes, goals, visual symbols used throughout the sanctuary, RE spaces, halls, etc.
•
Implicit- The norms and practices of the congregation that are not articulated fully, but are
evident and communicate much about the customs and values of the congregation. Such as:
children and youth involvement in the worship services or coffee hour, dressing casually, lay
pastoral care practices, etc.
•
Null- The paradox of curriculum that exists because it does not exist; what is absent but
communicates the values of the congregation. For example: a church with no wheel chair access
or sound system, or one with only male elders on the Finance Committee.
Frequently the Explicit Curriculum and the Implicit Curriculum are in conflict, for
example:
A congregation proclaims its commitment to social justice work in the wider community, while making
few resources available for this purpose.
26
The congregation expresses a desire to be inclusive, but does little outreach to those groups not already
present in the congregation,
“CONGREGATION AS CURRICULUM” MODEL APPLICATIONS:
Be aware of the “curriculum” of your congregation and how it is communicated.
Be intentional about how and what you communicate, representing your beliefs, values, and practices.
Look for ways to communicate in explicit ways, remembering that people often find is more difficult to
interpret the implicit customs and norms, and may misinterpret or be hurt by null messages.
Use this awareness in promoting growth, healthy community and a balanced offering of programs.
~Revised 6/2003, LBA
27
.
The Art of Religious Leadership #2:
SHIFT: Introduction to Systems Thinking
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Introduction to Systems Thinking
By Connie Goodbread
General Systems Theory
Ludwig von Bertalanffy proposed General Systems Theory in the late 1940s. It is a way
of organizing phenomena, physical and non-physical, as well as organic and non-organic.
It is a trans-disciplinary theory that created a scientific revolution.
General Systems Theory – a scientific discipline cannot simply look at the individual parts of a
system and understand the system or even the parts completely. It must look at each part and
how the part came into being. Then it must look at how the parts came together and interact as a
whole. Finally, it must look at the environment in which the system is functioning and it’s intake and out-put.
Within General Systems Theory is Chaos Theory - every part no matter the size affects the
system. An example of Chaos Theory is the Butterfly Effect - the wind produced by a butterfly’s
wings in China can affect the wind patterns in east Texas.
Some traits of physical systems
1. Matter is attracted to matter
2. Once the matter forms a system by its attraction, the system is more and stronger than the
individual parts that make up the system
3. The system will fight to maintain the status-quo – Homeostasis
4. Each part, no matter its size, has an effect on each of the other parts and the whole
5. The whole has an effect on the each of the parts
Examples of physical systems that have these traits - the atom – the moon and the Earth
Can you think of others?
Non-physical systems
Many experts working in psychology and family therapy began to think how Systems
Theory applied to their discipline.
Murray Bowen – Came back from World War II and began working with soldiers who
were suffering from Battle Fatigue (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). He found that
many who experienced the very same trauma handled it and were affected by that trauma
in very different ways. Some were stoic and went on with their lives while others were
devastated and paralyzed. Why? He developed the concept of Self-Differentiation. The
basic idea is that the way children are raised, the tools they are given and the way they
are encouraged to see themselves will help them to cope with the experiences that life
throws at them. The more self-differentiated a person is the better they are at maintaining
a stand without being stubborn, setting limits without being emotional cutoff, remaining
an individual when the group is urging them to go with the flow and over coming
adversity by maintaining a vision of the future. – This is also said to be true of the people
who survived the Nazi concentration camps, that they could maintain a vision of the
future even in the face of all the horror.
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His idea focused on the power and abilities that one receives or does not receive from
one’s up-bringing.
Edwin Friedman – Worked with Murray Bowen. He was a Rabbi and a Family Therapist.
He was one of the innovators who took the Bowen idea and Systems Theory into family
therapy. Family Therapy had been focused on the “sick” individual. (as all scientific
disciplines had been focused on the parts not on the whole) The therapist would work on
the “sick” individual, the identified patient, getting their functioning up, fixing them so to
speak, and then sending them back into a broken system. It had very limited success.
Freidman began Systems Thinking as a way of therapy.
In his Family Systems Theory we have five basic concepts.
1. The extended family field – genograms – the people in our families and their
stories – our birth order
2. Differentiation of self – the ability to remain an individual in a group and still be
emotional connected - maturity
3. Homeostasis – the system’s need to maintain the status-quo
4. Emotional triangles – one person giving up their power and/or anxiety in a
relationship to another over a third party
5. Identified patient – the issue or person where the anxiety is focused – may or may
not be the real issue and in all likelihood is not
6.
S -elf Differentiation
H -omeostasis
I -dentified Patient
F -amily Field
T -riangulation
Friedman began to see that these five concepts could be applied to every emotional
system: families, communities, towns, countries and very definitely congregations.
Answer these questions.
What would a congregation look like if its leadership, both lay leaders and religious
professionals, were able to function at their best?
How would that congregation affect its members?
How would those members affect the larger community?
If I say to you, “The congregation is the curriculum.” – Maria Harris – What does this statement
mean from a Systems Thinking point of view?
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A Systems View of Congregational Life
by the Rev. Kenneth Gordon Hurto
In a series of letters written to his children during World War I, Hugh Lofting invents a creature
called PushMePullYou, a fanciful animal that looks like a llama with two heads trying to go
opposite directions at once. It is an apt metaphor for understanding this point: We pull together
to create new life (literally in reproduction, figuratively in all our shared activities). We give of
ourselves for a greater good. We also find out who we are because we are in relationship to
others. Equally, we need to follow our own star, separate from our relationships. When we do,
we are held back by our wanting to belong. It seems becoming a distinctive self threatens the
“us.” Even more, if we follow that star, we become anxious that we may end up all alone.
How can you be you and I be me and we be we, all at once? It’s a classic approach-avoidance
dilemma. It is an age-old question. It is the very nature of our existence. How we manage this
dilemma shapes all that we do.
Dr. Murray Bowen, a Washington, D.C. researcher who studied families in the 1950s, introduced
a theory of the family based on empirical observation. In time, the theory evolved to include
eight interlocking ideas premised on the notion that there are two primary forces that shape our
lives: The togetherness force and the self force. The togetherness force includes all the things we
do to establish and maintain relationships with each other. The togetherness force pulls us close,
favoring sameness and similarity. By contrast, the self force refers to all those qualities and
actions that make us distinct individuals. The self force prizes uniqueness and diversity.
These forces drive our actions as we seek to find a balance between them. Often, they are in
tension, within our own being and with those we love. Theologian Paul Tillich says much the
same when he notes, “What is most characteristically human about us is the tension between the
desire to be ‘free’—self-identifying and self-choosing—and to be ‘related’—to love and to be
loved.”
Bowen’s Theory asks: How is a family—including the extended congregational family—trying
to balance these forces? What is the interplay between connectedness and separateness? How can
a congregation promote closeness so that no one dissolves? How do we help people live lives of
integrity in which no one is violated? How does this family or group cope with the inherent
tensions in the dance of self and togetherness?
This essay provides the reader with an overview of this thinking. Our goal is to offer a way of
thinking about the issues of congregational life and the way individuals and groups function
within them. To the extent that we can take a bird’s eye view of the emotional process of
relationships within the congregation, we can be less reactive when things go wrong and think
more clearly about how to right them. Put differently, we’ll be able to lead more effectively.
We’ll frame right relations in the context of theory more than in a prescribed set of rules and
behaviors.
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When people come together and form relationships, is something truly new is born. We weave
our lives together to create a living process. Our word choices reveal this is something new. At
some discernible moment of closeness, the pronouns we and us appear. Indeed, the word family
is premised on the notion that it is something far greater than the mere sum of its parts. A family
may be comprised of persons, but it has its own group reality. Extrapolating from this notion,
“we” can be a team to which one belongs, one’s class or race, even one’s nation, as in “we
Americans.” Each shared togetherness is as real as each individual self.
Once the “us” comes into being, something interesting follows: Part of my sense of who “I” am
depends on that “we.” I gain a sense of identity. I belong to my family, my congregation, my
country, and so on. I even have T-shirts to prove it. With time and a growing sense of belonging
I cannot even conceive of myself outside of the group identity. I will alter or sacrifice my desires
and ambitions to further this sense of togetherness. Loyalty and team-playing are highly valued
in our society. We prize mutuality and work hard to obtain and nurture it. One for all; all for one!
is not just a romantic slogan; it is the very essence of our humanity. When we have it, life is
good; when we don’t, life is hell.
As long as the things the group does together satisfy my sense of myself, there is no problem.
However, the pull of being a separate self conflicts with the desire to belong. What I want is
often not exactly the same as what someone else wants, nor even what the group declares is
important. “Get off my back!” we shout, in resistance to being absorbed. “Don’t tread on me”
remains a symbol of American independence. “Just leave me alone,” whines the unhappy
teenager. Too much togetherness is no fun.
In family life, our position in the family determines who we are. Each of us is assigned a role
that we play out every day. Because nature loves the quixotic, we are free to move beyond those
roles but not easily or far. The family script can be a blessing or a curse, but it is real. We deviate
from our roles at our peril, risking ostracism or pressure to conform. The togetherness force
keeps us in line and the system in balance.
In a diverse and complex world, this dynamic can be truly confusing because we are also
embedded in our fields of expectations. When we encounter someone whose family constellation
calls for actions markedly different from ours, we wonder how they can possibly think and act as
they do. We think they are strange and perhaps we put them down for being different. In
congregational life, where many family constellations overlap, the ways different people are
“supposed” to act not only diverge they can come into outright conflict and set the stage for even
more tension, reactivity, and hard feelings in shared congregational life.
Unless we can step back and view the system cosmically, such variability is baffling. It’s not a
malevolent or even conscious choice that drives such arrangements. It is just that relationship
systems tend to stay in their orbits, prizing the harmony of today’s togetherness more than the
challenge and promise of new ways of being.
Whenever people come into relationship, an emotional dynamic takes place among and between
them. Intuitively we call that good or bad “vibes.” It can also be called the emotional field. The
emotional field may be compared to an electrical or gravitational field, the dominant feature of
which is that in time it becomes independent of and more significant than the actions of its
32
constituent parts. For instance, gravity holds planets in their orbits around the sun. Once a planet
has entered the system and found its place, the planet cannot adopt a differing orbit of its own
accord—the gravitational field keeps it in place.
Similarly, in family and other intimate networks, once people have found their place in the
family balance, they cannot simply will themselves or others to function differently. While
system change can be initiated by individual members, natural resistance will keep everyone in
their proper orbit. However, if a leader can function steadily in a new way, the other members of
the system will adapt in time to a new emotional field.
Real change is about the whole system, not necessarily any constituent part. In the end, if the
emotional field does not change, the system will return to its original status quo or the emotional
balance before the onset of a change.
A question for anyone studying a congregation’s emotional field is: What scripts are being
played out here? How has this congregation been “formatted” to allow certain things and
proscribe others? Who can do what? How are roles predetermined? And what happens to
someone who does not fit into or who violates that field of expectation?
Dealing with Change
Most of the time, when we try to explain why something happens, we rely on a simple notion
that one event causes a subsequent event, but causality is rarely so simple. A better way to think
of it is that all parts of a relational system cause each other and in turn are reciprocally caused by
each other. The point is that if we are to grasp the dynamics of family and congregational life, we
need to resist simplistic explanations. There is good news, however: When a problem occurs
(more neutrally stated as a change in the status quo), we don’t have to know the precise cause.
Left to its own devices, the system will restore its balance before long. This is why time heals
many wounds.
The theory also suggests that in order to change an emotional field, we can exert pressure
anywhere. In families and in congregations, we tend to focus our attention on something that is
out of sorts. We tend to the “problem child” of the family or organization, which has the curious
effect of organizing the whole system around that child or malfunctioning part.
Thinking relationally, we might be as well off turning our attention elsewhere. Does the choir
sing off-key? Strengthen the religious education program. Your child doesn’t turn in her
homework? Take up a new hobby. Seemingly unrelated actions can lead to profound change
throughout the system. Evidence does support this notion. For instance, when parents work on
strengthening their relationship with each other, their children do better in every way. Likewise,
in congregations, acting up and out is often the anxious result of weak and unclear leadership. If
a minister delivers a strong “Here I Stand” sermon or if the board has exciting priorities, people
might agree to wear their name tags and rumor mongering might stop.
This notion of multidimensional causality also suggests that a period of imbalance or upset is
necessary to change a relationship system. There is a silver lining when things go “wrong.”
33
Possibilities arise that were simply not considered before.
Family events like births, confirmations or bar/bah mitzvahs, marriages, divorce, disease,
changes in work or residence, or the death of a family member change the emotional field. The
members have to find a new balance. The jockeying back and forth, say, to include a new sisterin-law at the family Thanksgiving dinner is an example of what goes on all the time as families
cope with changes in their relationships.
In congregational life times of transition also stir things up and lead to both conflict and creative
thinking. An episode of unprofessional conduct or an upsurge in membership throws everyone
off balance. The natural reaction is to try to restore the old balance. However, if leaders stay
calm, this moment of confusion can lead to better functioning all around. There’s nothing like a
good squabble or a sudden, large bequest to force a group to attend both to how it gets along and
what it values. Instinctively, we understand this by the way we create deliberate unsettling in the
intentional election of new officers every year.
But there is no guarantee that a system will evolve after the emotional field has been upset; a
system can just as easily devolve to a lower level of functioning. In times of great anxiety,
families, congregations, and even nations frequently tear themselves apart before a new
equilibrium is reached. This phenomenon, in which more people act out in increasingly
immature ways, is called societal regression.
Early twentieth-century mathematician Alfred North Whitehead argues that reality consists not
of things per se but the way they interact. This understanding is very much along the lines of
Bowen’s theory. Our relationships, the many forms of “us” that we create over time are the
substance of our reality. Individuals matter, to be sure. But individuals find their selves in
relationships. The way the relational dynamic endures or changes and a person’s place in the
relationship determines how a person functions.
This suggests two mistakes to watch out for: focusing on a person or persons as the singular
cause of events and becoming distracted by the substance or content of an event rather than the
underlying emotional process of the relationship. Far too often when families have difficulties,
they devote their attention to the person exhibiting symptoms (bad grades, a partner’s affair,
inappropriate words or touch, rebellion, irresponsible actions) rather than looking at the system
of relationships and how the many parties involved submit to or even promote the symptomatic
behavior. To illustrate: A congregant lights up a cigarette during worship. No one, including the
ushers, says a word. After services, members complain to the minister or speak ill of the
offender. It’s rare for a parishioner to ask: Why did we silently tolerate this? This simple
example calls for a response such as: “Sir, smoking is not allowed.”
Other inappropriate behaviors are not so cleanly resolved, such as the church’s “party-man”
hugging women at church parties; the parishioner who feels she just has to have a say, and a
negative one at that, every time there is a congregational meeting; or the member who comes to
church unwashed and odorous; or the lonely bachelor who insists that the minister take his phone
calls at dinner time.
34
Systems theory, noting a tendency toward equilibrium, informs us that hurtful behavior continues
because the system tolerates it. Troublemakers need to be called to account. If they go
unchecked, it is not because they are inherently bad people but because responsible leaders have
failed. For things to truly get better, the whole system has to reorganize and understand its own
dynamics.
Emotional Triangles
Any relationship with another creates tension between the self and togetherness forces. The
easiest and most natural way to ease that tension is to talk to a third party. When we talk about
rather than to someone else, we create an emotional triangle. Triangles stabilize the emotional
field. Bowen’s theory says you cannot understand human behavior until you think in threes. The
triangle is the basic molecule of any relational system.
Typical examples of triangles include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
tattling, as when one child complains to a parent about her sister’s unwillingness to share
water cooler belly-aching about “management”
board room lamentation about lazy workers
e-mail exchanges between committee members about other members
gossipy neighbors disapproving of someone else’s new car
church members criticizing the religious education director’s way of telling stories to
kids
Triangles can also be about ideas or events, anything that makes us anxious—the new carpet in
your sister’s house, the government’s inability to balance the budget, or a congregation’s ecology
program.
There’s nothing evil or immoral about triangles; in fact they’re inescapable. Whether you like it
or not, you will both triangle and be triangled; it’s a way of coping. Much of the time, while a
triangle may not resolve a problem, it can serve to provide a release of emotional pressure—
thereby actually allowing one of the partners to approach the problem with less intensity and
more creativity. This is why we hire consultants: We triangle them in to help us think more
clearly.
However, many triangles are pernicious insofar as they are ways of not dealing honestly with one
another. Wary ministers or church leaders will hear alarm bells anytime they hear parishioners
talking intensely about each other lest they find themselves caught up in the drama of an
unattended conflict.
The more intense a relationship is, the greater our need to bring others into the situation. A rule
of thumb suggests that healthy families should have many triangles so the anxiety in the
emotional field does not get stuck in any one person or idea. Living with others is often irritating
as well as a blessing. The more ways we have to dissipate our anxiety, the less stress there is on
any particular pairing. Put another way, the more friends we have, the less likely it is that any
one of them will become excessively important to our well-being. The family unit tends to be
more intense than other relationships; therefore it is more vulnerable to both healthy and
35
unhealthy triangulation.
It’s not easy to tell the difference. One person’s blowing smoke is another person’s vicious
gossip. Sometimes when we’re triangled into a situation, we find ourselves connected but
manage not to take up the stress. Other times we get pulled in despite our best intentions.
One of the most injurious aspects of triangles is that the one talked about has no say (and often
no knowledge) about what is being said about them. Often we’re told that what we’re about to
hear is “just between you and me”—and our perception of the party talked about is forever
changed. Once someone says, “Did you know the head of the preschool has a drinking
problem?” you’ll wonder the next time you see that teacher, whether it’s true or not. This is why
most family therapists and organizational consultants urge direct communication. To the extent
that triangulation perpetuates secrets or promulgates falsehood, it can be a very destructive force.
Hence the assertion “You’re only as healthy as your secrets!”
The secret is to be aware and managing your sense of self in the triangle. Remember that the
purpose of the triangle is to delegate anxiety out of the dyadic relationship. If a person is not
careful and tries to step into the problem, she may find herself on the receiving end of
considerable hostility from her friends, who now blame her for their troubles. This phenomenon
is well known to every police officer called to a domestic dispute; the moment she tries to
intervene, the two warring parties turn all their angry energy on her, putting the helpful officer in
danger.
The first rule of triangles is that anytime you try to fix another’s problems you end up with
stress. You know it’s happened when in a moment of injured puzzlement, you say, “I was only
trying to help.” Anyone in a leadership position is especially vulnerable to this trap. Recognizing
when you are in a triangle and getting unhooked is an important part of congregational
leadership.
Emotional Leadership
Every family, every congregation, and every group needs someone to be in charge. Theories
abound as to what constitutes effective leadership. Typically leadership is described as a set of
character traits like vision, assertiveness, and focus on goals. Bowen Family Systems Theory,
particularly as developed by Rabbi Dr. Edwin H. Friedman, takes a very different approach.
Friedman argues that leadership is an emotional process, not a tactical one. It is not about a
particular set of techniques or tricks. It is not about understanding. It is not about power, per se.
It is not about making others different or persuading or willfully directing them to do anything. It
is about self-regulation within the relationship. Leadership is primarily about the management of
self, being somebody and being present. Leadership requires being aware of and modulating how
you function in the relationships that mean something to you. It is about differentiation.
Using an analogy from biology, every body has to have a head. The head’s function is to be clear
about where it is going. The head defines the goal, the values, and the direction of the organism.
A good head pays attention to what other parts of the body are saying—you cannot ignore a
broken foot—but stays the course in terms of what it values and aspires to. The same applies to
the head of a family or organization.
36
In family life, everyone functions better when there is a head guiding the body. Children always
do better when parents love one another, have clear values, manage their reactivity to life’s
stresses, and pay attention to (but do not focus on) the kids. Child-focused families tend to do
less well, in part because they put the child (the least mature member) in charge of the family
dynamic. In his early work, Bowen began to understand the reciprocal nature of systemic
relationships when he observed that schizophrenic children improved as their parents worked to
make their marriage more satisfying.
Similar things can be said of congregations: When the board is doing its job, the minister is on
top of her game, and committee chairs understand their jobs and tend to them well, programs
prosper, problems are addressed as they arise, chronic symptoms decrease, and acting-out
children of any age do not call the shots. Conversely, when leadership is unclear and weak, the
anxiety in a system is not contained and there is more acting out, more triangulation, less
responsibility and self-regulation, and more conflict.
Leadership as self-differentiation suggests that the leader’s job is to be connected to but not
defined by the emotional field of her family or congregation. The better defined the leader is, the
more she understands what matters and the more she is able to choose wisely from a variety of
options. She is better able to take stands and provide direction.
Moreover, if the leader has her head screwed on straight, she helps others to do likewise. The
leader’s job, curiously, is not to pay too much attention to a family’s or congregation’s
constituent parts (remember, she still has to be present), but to work on being clear about her
own life values and direction. Of course, when the head is poorly defined and unclear, the body
begins to develop symptoms.
For a leader to have a clear head, he must be aware. As we’ve noted, a person’s function is
profoundly shaped by the emotional field in which he finds himself, particularly his family of
origin, his primary family, and his work system (here, the congregation). These overlapping
systems provide endless opportunities for a leader to work on his sense of self. Noticing what
pushes his buttons, what makes him anxious, and how others react to him and trying to be clear
about his life direction and values is the work of self-differentiation and the primary task of a
leader.
Creating Healthy Relationships
Many essential aspects of creating functionally healthy groups and individuals, whether families
or congregations, involve systematic thinking. The following are guidelines for fostering healthy
congregations and families:
•
•
Anxiety is a part of life. A primary task of leadership is to cultivate the capacity to stay
calm and non-reactive amidst anxiety. To the extent leadership works to keep others calm
and value-focused, anxiety will not overtake relationships.
Symptoms (acting out, threatening behavior, chronic squabbles, under-functioning
programs) reveal a lack of boundary regulation within the relational system. The issues
and persons involved in a problem must be addressed in light of a family or
congregation’s values, but care should be taken not to scapegoat individuals
37
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Change is more than a matter of fixing a problem; it is about redirecting the life-course of
the family or congregation.
Leaders can promote change by working on their own issues, clarifying what they value
and the directions they want to go.
As leaders need to work on defining them selves in relation to the congregation, so too a
congregation needs to define itself to itself and to the larger world. This is more than goal
setting; it is the emotional commitment to have a clear head and heart.
Clarity of expectation defines what is acceptable or not acceptable in relationships. It
makes it easier to respect each other and each other’s space.
Boundary regulation requires intentionality. Regularly reviewing policies and goals helps
members become clear about purpose. Explicit rules reduce conflict. Routinely checking
how members of a congregation are together makes it easier to function together.
Creating a healthy congregation requires real change, which will be resisted. You cannot
will others to be different. Leaders need to be patient, thinking organically rather than
programmatically
Life is a work in progress. There is no one way to create health and the tension of self and
togetherness is never finally resolved. Healthy families expect and allow for change, have
a high tolerance for ambiguity, and work to stay as calm as possible in the midst of
confusing situations as they grow and change.
Finally, it’s all connected. We don’t have to get it all right. Just working to do one thing well
helps everything else go better too.
38
Rabbi Dr. Edwin Friedman’s
Seven Laws of an Emotional Triangle
1. The relationship of any two members of an emotional triangle is kept in balance by the
way a third party relates to each of them or the relationship.
2. The third party it is generally not able to bring real change to the relationship of the other
two.
3. Homeostatic forces often convert the third party’s efforts for change into the opposite more stuck in the place of anxiety.
4. The more the third party tries to bring about change in the relationship of the other two,
the more likely it is that the third party ends up with the stress.
5. Various triangles in an emotional system interlock therefore, efforts to bring about
change to any one of them is often resisted by homeostatic forces in the others or in the
system.
6. One side of the emotional triangle tends to be more conflictual than the others.
7. We can only change a relationship to which we belong. Therefore, the way to bring
change to the relationship of two others (and no one said it is easy) is to try to maintain a
well-defined relationship with each, and to avoid taking responsibility for their
relationship with each other.
39
Section #2
Relationships are consensual and never coerced
40
The Healthy Congregation #2
Four Aspects of Growth
41
Sustainable Growth Diagram
Sustainable
Growth
42
Four Aspects of Growth
Paraphrased by Connie Goodbread and the Rev. Susan M. Smith
From More Than Numbers by Loren Mead
Maturational Growth
The ability of a congregation to challenge, support and encourage each one of its members to
grow in the maturity of their faith, to deepen their spiritual roots, and to broaden their religious
imagination. It is also the ability of the congregation as an institution to go deeper into the faith
while maintaining the welcoming path for newcomers. Question for reflection: If I were a better
UU next year than I am this year, how would I know it?
Organic Growth
The task of building the community, fashioning the organizational structures and infrastructure,
developing the practices and processes that result in a dependable, stable network of human
relationships and systems in which we can grow and from which we can make a difference. It is
also the physical plant and the staff needed for the size of the congregation.
Incarnational Growth
What are the “outputs” of the congregation’s ministry? What is it that the congregation seeks to
export from its life back into the life of the world, the social environment in which it exists?
What are the good works that we are doing that will make the world a better place? Questions for
reflection: If someone were describing our congregation would they mention our core-shared
values? If someone were discussing one of those values in the community, would they think of
including our congregation?
Numerical Growth
Adding new members while maintaining the numbers that are already within the congregation.
Keeping track of losses and understanding why they happen. Understanding that some losses are
healthy or inevitable. Changing the things that need to be changed in order to retain healthy
members. Never compromising ethics, values or principles.
None of these four can be ignored. Maturational Growth (personal, interior) and Incarnational
Growth (corporate, active, public) should frame plans for Organic Growth (infrastructure) and
will drive Numerical Growth (membership and financial). All congregational
mission/vision/strategic planning work must include all four, but a great many include only
Numerical and Organic largely because this is our secular comfort zone.
43
Vocabulary for Paul Hersey and Kenneth H. Blanchard's
Situational Leadership Theory
Group Maturity Definitions and Factors
Group Maturity: The capacity to set high but attainable goals, willingness and ability to take
responsibility, and the education or experience of group members. Related only to the
specific task performed.
Maturity Factors:
Task Maturity (Ability, Competence, Skills, Knowledge, Resources)
1. Past Task Experience
2. Task Knowledge
3. Problem-solving Ability
4. Ability to take Responsibility
5. Meeting Task Deadlines
Psychological Maturity (Responsibility, Confidence, Willingness)
1. Willingness to Take Responsibility
2. Achievement Motivation
3. Persistence
4. Work Attitude
5. Independence
Key Point: The Task Maturity of Any Working Group decreases with the addition of even one
new member to the group.
Behavioral Dimensions of Leadership
Task Behavior: The extent to which a leader engages in one-way communication by explaining
what each follower is to do as well as when, where, and how tasks are to be
accomplished.
Task Function Examples
1. Initiating: Any attempt to get an action or movement started.
2. Regulating: Attempts to order the direction and pace of the group.
3. Informing: Giving or soliciting information.
4. Supporting: Building on the ideas of others.
5. Evaluating: Critiquing the feasibility of an idea.
6. Summarizing: Digesting the discussion of the group at some point.
Also, Goal-setting, Organizing, Setting Time Lines, Directing, Controlling
Relationship Behavior: The extent to which a leader engages in two-way communication by
providing emotional support and facilitating behaviors.
Relationship Function Examples
44
1. Encouraging: Being friendly, warm, approving.
2. Expressing feelings: Sharing one's own feeling or the feelings one senses in the
group.
3. Harmonizing: Attempts to reconcile disagreements between others.
4. Compromising: Modifying one's own opinion or feelings for the good of the group.
5. Gatekeeping: Facilitating the participation of others.
6. Setting Standards: Expressing norms by which the group may operate.
Also, Giving Support, Communicating, Facilitating Interactions, Active Listening,
Providing Feedback
The Four Styles of Situational Leadership
Directing (S1) a.k.a. "Telling" -- High Task/Low Relationship: Characterized by one-way
communication in which the leader defines the roles of group members and tells them,
how, when and where to do various tasks. As the members' experience and understanding
of the task increases, so does their work maturity.
Coaching (S2) a.k.a. "Selling" -- High Task/High Relationship: While providing clear
direction as to role responsibilities, the leader also attempts, through two-way
communication and socio-emotional support, to get the group members to
psychologically buy into decisions that have to be made. As group members' commitment
to the task increases, so does their maturity.
Supporting (S3) a.k.a. "Participating" -- Low Task/High Relationship: The leader and group
members share in decision making through two-way communication and considerable
facilitating behavior from the leader, since the group members have the ability and
knowledge to complete the task.
Delegating (S4) -- Low Task/Low Relationship: The leader allows group members considerable
autonomy in completing the task, since they are both willing and able to take
responsibility for directing their own task behavior.
45
Situational Leadership based on Hersey-Blanchard
(High)
Reflections by Robert W. Smith and the Rev. Susan M. Smith
R
E
L
A
T
I
O
N
S
H
I
P
High
Relationship
And
Low Task
High Task
And
High
Relationship
S1
S3
S1
B
E
H
A
V
I
O
R
S4
High Task
And
Low
Relationship
Low
Relationship
And
Low Task
(Low)
(High)
(Low)
Task Behavior
Low
Immature
M1
Moderate
M2
M3
M4
High
Mature
Maturity/Style of Growing Congregations
S1
Corporate Church (Telling) Highly structured, mass communication
S2
Program Church (Selling) Relationship through programs drives activity
S3
Pastoral Church (Participating) Focus on Relating through Pastor
S4
Family Church (Delegating) Everyone knows role and does it
Ironically, this model would suggest that the members of small congregations are not wrong
when they feel that growth makes their congregation “fall apart” from the perceived better ways
of the past. The group maturity level does decline; the maturity level of leadership must be
maintained. Long tenure of lay, staff, and clergy leaders is vital to that process.
46
The In-Between Church
Navigating Size Transformation in Congregations
Alice Mann - The Alban Institute
When organisms change significantly in size, they must also
change in form
What happens between sizes – the “N” Curve?
Pastor
Centered
Group
Centered
Pastoral
size
Campus
size
Family
size
Program
size
Organism
Organization
47
New Congregation and Growth Resources
Unitarian Universalist Association
"Change is inevitable; misery is optional."
Growth Is Natural and Shows the Welcoming Aspect of Our Identity
If all congregations kept the same members, stayed the same size, retained the same minister and
staff members, and always had the same well-known set of issues, religious life would be easy. It
would also be fabulously boring. It is exciting to welcome new guests, hear new sermons, and
puzzle over new challenges, but it is not easy. Getting used to change is the hardest change of all.
That "change is inevitable; misery is optional" is truer than many of us care to admit. Somehow,
we imagine that it is possible to live without change. Actually, we can no more live and not have
change than we can jump without feeling the impact of gravity. In each case, inevitability links
the two. To live is to grow; to grow is to change. Therefore, to live is to change, and any thought
that we can avoid change in life is pure illusion.
Research on Changes in Congregation Size
People actually study church as an academic subject. Academics examine the subject, and then
consultants turn the findings into models. The serious study of what makes a church work is
known as ecclesiology, from Greek roots meaning "called to assemble" or "a congregation." The
participation of persons in religious organizations is a response to an inner call of sorts.
Congregants become involved in religious congregations because of a faith in the good purposes
they attribute to them—and out of a hope that their lives will become animated by such good
purposes.
Just as individuals find it hard to make lasting changes in their personal habits, congregations
resist changes in their lives as well. The challenges of change in congregations, particularly the
changes that are a part of transitions in size, have been an area of focus for ecclesiologists trying
to help congregations adjust in healthy ways.
Congregation Size Types
Arlin Rothauge, working for the Episcopal Church as a staff officer for congregational
development, developed a model of evaluating congregations' evangelical capacity based on
congregation size. He wrote a small training manual entitled Sizing Up the Congregation for
New Membership Ministry. This manual, intended as an in-house Episcopal document, became
grist for ecclesial study. Today Rothauge's typologies form the basis for much of the consulting
in mainline denominations. The size types, which are based on worship attendance numbers,
follow:
• Family size (0 to 50).
• Pastoral size (50 to 150).
• Program size (150 to 350).
• Corporate (Campus) size ( 350 to 500+).
Although Rothauge intended his book to stir evangelism, it caused a greater stir as a useful
method for explaining why programs do not succeed across all congregations and why
48
experienced ministers can be very effective in one congregation and ineffective in another.
Congregation Size Descriptions and Transitions
Alice Mann, another Episcopal priest, has furthered the study of sizes by examining the
transitions between sizes. Her consideration of the size types and the special challenges that
congregations of each size face in the "letting go" and "taking on" of appropriate practices has
proved richly insightful to congregational leaders, ministers, staff members, and consultants who
attempt to further congregational health. The typologies that Mann defined offer a practical
glimpse into size typologies, but to gain real insight into her contributions, please explore her
very readable books. (Note: Mann differs slightly from Rothauge in her use of types, changing
the lower boundary of corporate size to 400 from Rothauge's 350. Please see the References list
at the end of this document.)
Family Size Congregations
A family size congregation is a small congregation that operates like an extended family (and
that may in fact be a biological family network). Just as in the famous tavern from the television
series Cheers, in a family size congregation, "everybody knows your name." This church
organizes around one or two anchoring figures that Rothauge calls matriarchs or patriarchs to
indicate their tacit authority in the system. Such congregations often have part-time ministers
who tend to adopt the chaplain role— leading worship and giving pastoral care. A minister who
challenges the authority of a matriarch or patriarch, or who presumes to be the primary leader of
the congregation, generally will not stay long.
Pastoral Size Congregations
A pastoral size congregation is a coalition of two or three family and friendship networks unified
around the person and role of the minister. The minister maintains a direct ministerial
relationship with each member by coordinating the work of a small leadership circle, personally
conducting worship, and leading small group programs such as adult religious study. The
governing board usually operates like a committee, arranging much of the day-to-day life of the
congregation. Members recognize each other's faces, know most people's names, and notice if
someone new is present at worship.
Program Size Congregations
The program size congregation is known for the quality and variety of its programs. Separate
programs for children, youth, couples, seniors, and other age and interest groups provide entry
points to congregational life for a wide range of people. The minister’s crucial role is to recruit,
equip, and inspire a small circle of key program leaders—lay and ordained, paid and unpaid.
This ring of leadership might include the choir director, the director of religious education, the
adult education director, and the new member committee chair. Working as a team with the
minister, these leaders reach out to involve others as program participants and as leaders. The
leadership circle shares broadly in decision making (among perhaps fifty people), and the laity
share pastoral care.
Corporate (now called Campus) Size Congregations
Excellence in worship and music, as well as a range and diversity of programs, characterizes the
corporate size congregation. Specialized ministries focus on narrowly identified groups of
49
people; several of these programs have a reputation beyond the congregation for their
excellence. Often, distinct sub-congregations form around multiple worship services. The senior
minister spends more time preparing to preach and lead worship than do most ministers and must
be skilled at working with a diverse staff of full-time professional leaders. A multilayered
structure of staff, boards, and committees make decisions. While ministers continue to provide
pastoral care, especially in crisis moments, most members find their spiritual support in small
groups or from lay visitors.
Important note for searching UUA.org: All UUA resources mentioned are available in the
Leaders section of the web site, in the Leaders’ Library. Please use quotes around the title when
you search to bring up the resource or item you seek.
50
Choice Points for Clergy (and Religious Leaders)
from Alban Institute publications
If your minister has only limited time available in a week how should that time be spent? Select A
or B in each choice
a) Do more visiting to shut-ins
b) Put more time into sermon preparation?
a) Attend a wedding reception?
b) Go on a retreat with parish staff?
a) Call on prospective members?
b) Conduct a training session for church officers?
a) Visit a bereaved family?
b) Help two church officers resolve a conflict?
a) Make a hospital call on a fringe member?
b) Attend a continuing education event?
a) Engage in pastoral counseling with members?
b) Attend a planning event with officers?
a) Do more parish calling?
b) Recruit leaders for parish events?
a) Attend an activity with parish youth?
b) Critique a meeting with a church officer?
51
Ten Reasons to Avoid Anything New Ever
The following are the most effective reasons to give if you wish to stop a good idea in its tracks!
Bring these ten excuses to your next board meeting and you will be able to effectively derail any
changes or improvements presented, regardless of what they are.
1. What about the budget? It will cost money and we can’t afford to do what we want now!
2. I have concerns about our growth. (No matter what size we are, that is the IDEAL size.)
3. What do you want us to do about it? Everyone is too busy already. We will never find anyone
to do what you are proposing.
4. I am still not clear. I need something more in writing.
5. What effect will this have on our existing programs?
6. I still have a lot of unanswered questions.
7. We have a bad history of similar projects. Someone tried to do this a few years ago and it did
not work.
8. This solution does not fix another problem we have (that it was not designed to fix).
9. Other churches have tried this exact thing in the past and it did not work.
10. If we do this, then it will go to the Nth degree, so we shouldn’t even try any of it.
Credit to the DBLE 1999 Organizational Development Pink Group: Mark Westergard, Michelle
Bohls, LuAnn Faulkner-Schneider, Freida Gillespie, Mary K. Issacs, David Johnson, Gay
Lambirth, and Gary Paramore.
52
Growing a Beloved Community:
Twelve Hallmarks of a Healthy Congregation
by the Rev. Tom Owen-Towle
"Rather than focus on the dumb and destructive things our parishes do, which are all too
familiar, I’ve chosen to accentuate the positive, arouse the possibilities, and spur us on
toward the very best we can become." —Tom Owen-Towle
Growing The Beloved Community
1
2
3
Occupy Holy Ground
Welcome All Souls
Care For Your Own
{ The foundation, setting, atmosphere, staging
4
5
6
Give Everyone a Voice
Encourage Unity
Balance Justice Joy
{The dance, movement, motion, timing
7
8
9
Look Back, Around ad Ahead
Spread Our Good News
Practice Respect
{The song, words, rhythm
10 Nurture Stewards
11 Keep Journeying
12 Know that you are not alone
{The play, action, trek, doing
53
Trends for Serving Children, Youth and Young Adults
Search Institute
http://www.search-institute.org/
30-year study on what keeps young people in a denomination.
Findings:
1. The Minister knew my name.
2. My parents were involved.
3. I can articulate what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist.
4. They made room for my leadership.
Two Recent Unitarian Universalist Studies
MOSAIC PROJECT REPORT
An Assessment of Unitarian Universalist Ministry to Youth and Young Adults of Color and
Latina/o and Hispanic and Multiracial/Multiethnic descent
http://www.uua.org/documents/idbm/mosaic/0904_report.pdf
Consultation on Ministry To and With Youth
Summary Report
The Consultation on Ministry To and With Youth is a process designed to be broad and
participatory, engaging youth and adults who have a stake in youth ministry (stakeholders) with
the goal of advancing youth ministry as a vital ministry of our Association of congregations.
http://www.uua.org/documents/youthconsultation/0708_summary.pdf
54
Faith Formation 2020 Driving Forces
http://www.faithformation2020.net/introduction-to-ff-2020.html
What are the driving forces that will most directly impact the future of faith formation in
Christian churches by 2020, and more specifically, the ability of congregations to provide
vibrant faith formation over the next ten years? We cannot know what the future will
hold beforehand. But we can see trends in the present, which, continuing on their current
course, will have an impact on developing faith formation for 2020.
We know that Christian churches are confronted by a number of significant social,
cultural, technological, and generational forces that make faith formation for all ages and
generations quite challenging. There are driving forces that we can be reasonably certain
will shape the worlds we are describing. These “predetermined elements” include the
growing influence of Hispanic/Latino religious faith upon American Christianity, the rise
of a new stage of adulthood—emerging adulthood, increasing numbers of adults sixtyfive and older in American society, and increasing social, religious, and ethnic/cultural
diversity in the United States. For example, it is a demographic certainty, that there will
be more adults over sixty-five years old in the United States population, and in churches,
over the next ten years.
Predetermined elements are important to any scenario story, but they are not the
foundation on which these stories are built. Rather, scenarios are formed around “critical
uncertainties”—driving forces that are considered both highly important to our focusing
issue, the future of faith formation in Christian churches, and highly uncertain in terms of
their future resolution. Whereas predetermined elements are predictable driving forces,
uncertainties are by their nature unpredictable: their outcome can be guessed at but not
known. While any single uncertainty could challenge our thinking, the future will be
shaped by multiple forces playing out over time. The scenario framework provides a
structured way to consider how these critical uncertainties might unfold and evolve in
combination.
By reviewing research studies, analyzing trends, and consulting with leaders, the Faith
Formation 2020 Initiative selected eight significant forces—critical uncertainties whose
future direction is now known, but are already having a significant impact on faith
formation today and it appears will continue to do so over the next decade. These eight
trends may continue on their present course or change direction, but, in either case, it
appears that they will have a significant impact on the future direction of faith formation
through 2020.
1. Declining Number of Christians and Growing Number of People with No
Religious Affiliation
2. Increasing Number of People Becoming More “Spiritual” and Less “Religious”
3. Declining Participation in Christian Churches
55
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Increasing Diversity and Pluralism in American Society
Increasing Influence of Individualism on Christian Identity and Community Life
Changing Patterns of Marriage and Family Life
Declining Family Religious Socialization
Increasing Impact of Digital Media and Web Technologies
56
The Art of Religious Leadership #3
The Self-Differentiated Leader
57
Self-Differentiation: Discussion Outline
The listing below appears in How Your Church Family Works by Peter Steinke, (p. 91 ).
Undifferentiated
Differentiated
Quickly offended, easily provoked, too
sensitive, slow to recover
Reactive, instinctive, automatic
Self-managing, shapes environment, shows
resourcefulness
Responsive, intentional, thoughtful
Underhanded, covert, flourishes in the
dark
Demanding, willful, stubborn, resistant
(especially to reason and love),
unbending
Think in black/white or yes/no,
intolerant of ambiguity, seek final
solution, want all
or nothing
Blame, criticize, displace, fault-find,
have poor discrimination
Uptight, serious, defensive
Competitive, either with or against,
see life as contest, contemptuous
Vague, non-specific, cloaked
Create too much or too little space and
one sided solutions
Open, light-shedding, aware
Resilient, flexible, has a sense of
proportion
Have breadth of understanding, allow time
for things to process
Take responsibility for self, learn when
challenged, define self from within self
Relaxed, at ease, sensible
Take turns, collaborate, stay in touch even
when tension grows
Clear, objective, purposeful
Create space, options, and common goals
For Small Group Discussion: Duplicate the list and distribute to participants. In small groups,
have them discuss how they see themselves. In other words, where are they more undifferentiated
that differentiated, and likewise, where are they more differentiated then undifferentiated.
The Scale of Differentiation
0
25
Poorly
Differentiated
50
Better
Differentiated
75
100
Very Well
Differentiated
“Saints”
58
Anti-Racist Checklist from the works of John Raible
Read through the checklist to get a feel for what constitutes ally behavior on the part of antiracists. Think about how often and how consistently you do any or all of them.
Part 1
_____ I demonstrate knowledge and awareness of the issues of racism.
_____ I continually educate myself about racism and multicultural issues.
_____ I recognize my own limitations in doing anti-racist work.
_____ I raise issues about racism over and over, both in public and in private.
_____ I realize “it’s not about me” personally. I can be objective and avoid personalizing racia
lissues as they are raised.
_____ I can identify racism as it is happening.
_____ At meetings, I make sure anti-racism is part of the discussion.
_____ I use the language of anti-racism.
_____ I can strategize and work in coalition with diverse others to advance anti-racist work.
_____ I attend to group dynamics to ensure the participation of people of different races.
_____ I support and validate the comments and actions of people of color and other allies (but
not in a paternalistic manner).
_____ I strive to share power, especially with people from marginalized groups.
_____ I take a personal interest in the lives and welfare of individuals of different races.
_____ I use my privilege to communicate information from the dominant group to marginalized
groups.
_____ I hold high expectations for people of color and for white people.
_____ I reach out to initiate personal contact with people of different races.
_____ I listen carefully so that I am more likely to understand the needs of people from
marginalized groups.
_____ I can adopt and articulate a person of color’s point of view when it is useful to do so.
_____ I can accept leadership from people of color as well as from white people.
_____ I work side-by-side with people of different races on tasks, projects, and actions.
_____ I debrief with people of different races to give and receive “reality checks” and
affirmations after meetings, events, and actions.
_____ I readily understand—with no explanations necessary—a person of color’s position
or perception.
_____ I have joking relationships with individual people of color and with white people.
_____ I can vent with and be present emotionally when individuals need to vent feelings about
racism.
_____ I debate issues with both people of color and white people and take their ideas seriously.
_____ I take risks in relating to people across lines of difference.
_____ I demonstrate shared values with people from various communities, for example,
impatience with the pace of change, anger at injustice, etc.
_____ I know the private lives of families and friends who are people from different
backgrounds.
_____ I can relax, socialize, and feel at ease with people of color and with whites.
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Part 2 - The following are some problem areas where individuals sometimes get stuck. These
were developed specifically for white individuals. Do any of these apply to you?
_____ I am not clear on the words people of color prefer to use to identify themselves.
_____ When people of color point out racism as it is happening, I feel personally attacked.
_____ I rely on people of color for education about my own (and institutional) racism.
_____ I use meeting time to establish my anti-racist credentials. (e.g., recounting stories about
how I “marched in the Sixties” or about my activist years in college).
_____ It is important to me to point out examples of “reverse racism” when I see them.
_____ I have been told I act in a racist manner without knowing it, but I think I’m being
an ally.
_____ I speak for people of color and attempt to explain their positions.
_____ I focus on mediating between people of color for other whites.
_____ I see my role as interpreting the behavior of people of color for other whites.
_____ I prefer to spend anti-racist time and energy dealing with my personal feelings and issues
rather than moving the anti-racist agenda forward.
_____ I intellectualize about the struggle rather than live it daily.
_____ I wait for people of color to raise white people’s awareness.
_____ I know well fewer than five individual peers of color (i.e., adults, not younger students or
your children’s friends)
Once again, Part 1 of the checklist is intended to identify general anti-racist behaviors that
individuals can take to act as allies against racism. Part 2 details some problem areas to avoid. I
see this checklist as applicable to individuals of all racial or cultural backgrounds. The main goal
is to develop relationships of solidarity, mutuality, and trust, rooted in a praxis of intentional
anti-racist thought, action, and reflection.
Copyright 2007 by John W. Raible. For more information, including permission to reprint, email
[email protected]. http://johnraible.wordpress.com/checklist-for-allies-against-racism/
OTHER RESOURCES:
Two other good checklists can be found at…
http://www.canopyweb.com/racism/tent8.doc
http://www.antiracistalliance.com/allychar.html
An exceptional interactive website for exploring the concept of race is…
http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html
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“CULTURAL & SPIRITUAL DIVERSITY
AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH”
by The Rev. Melanie Morel Sullivan, presented at the
“Pathways to Cultural Diversity-- Strength Through Difference” Conference
sponsored by the Tenn. Dept. of Mental Health, May 18 & 19, 1995
Before I get started with the “meat” of my presentation, I want to tell you a little about
myself so that you will better understand where I’m coming from on the issue of cultural and
spiritual diversity.
My ethnic and cultural background is that of a 5th-generation New Orleans Creole;
before coming to Chattanooga to be pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church, I had lived in
New Orleans for all but 3 years of my life. On my father’s side, my forebears are Cuban, French,
Irish, and probably (but not proveably) African; on my mother’s, Scots-Irish and Italian. The
religious affiliations represented in my family of origin are agnostic, Roman Catholic, Methodist,
and Jewish. My father was a native of New Orleans, while my mother came to the city from rural
New Jersey.
My parents were both activists for social justice in New Orleans, working in the causes of
organized labor, civil rights, school integration, hunger and homelessness, rights for women, and
representative government vs. entrenched cronyism. Indeed, I often tell people that although my
parents intended to raise us children as Catholics, the real religion practiced in our household
was justice for all people.
By this thumbnail sketch, I guess you could say that I am a living representation of
cultural and spiritual diversity: A Southerner with a Yankee mother; a Creole, with all the mixing
that romantic name implies; a Unitarian Universalist minister who is a former Catholic with
Methodist, Jewish, and “unchurched” relatives; a person who thinks of
New Orleans the way a devout Muslim thinks of Mecca, but who loves Chattanooga as home.
And if I went into all the different theologies and philosophies I believe in, you’d see I am even
more diverse. Call me diverse; call me a hodge-podge; you can even call me Heinz 57 varieties if
you like. Just don’t call me a “melting pot.”
I know, “melting pot” is supposed to be the ruling metaphor for American life. All the
different nationalities, ethnic groups, cultures, and religions go into America’s cauldron, melt
together, and emerge as one thing: Americans all. I know that’s what the accepted picture is—
it’s just that I don’t accept it. In fact, as a New Orleanian, I can’t accept it.
It goes against my heritage, my culture, my up-bringing. A melting pot? Where
everything blends together and becomes one thing? Where all the differences get boiled away?
No, thank you--I’ll take gumbo instead.
Those of you who think gumbo is some kind of New Orleans stew are sadly lacking in
experience. The fact is, no self-respecting New Orleans cook would ever describe a gumbo as a
stew. Stews are literally a melting pot, wherein all the ingredients sort of fall apart together and
everything tastes alike. Gumbo is something completely different; gumbo is mysterious and
wonderful--part African, part Native American, part French, part Spanish, part Gulf coast, part
Cajun, part who-knows-what, the sheer unique mystery that each cook brings to gumbo. Only in
badly over-cooked gumbos do all the flavors run together; a good gumbo maintains the
distinctions of the ingredients, honoring each one’s integrity and wholeness.
There are many people who believe that it is only natural for like to seek like, who think
that people are most drawn to and feel most comfortable with those people who are most like
themselves, who expect the honest reaction to difference to be suspicion or fear. On the other
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hand, we have the example of cliches that clue us in to the fact that humans are intrigued and
attracted by variety. Familiar phrases such as “opposites attract” show us a subconscious
yearning towards difference. How much fun would it be to attend a party where everyone there
looked like you, thought like you, believed like you, and spoke like you? Would it be
comforting--or boring?
In fact, the thing that’s really “only natural” is the innate urge to diversify, to make
changes, to embrace difference. Both farmers and biologists know the dangers to plant life of
monoculture, the cultivation of only one strain or variety of a food crop. When only one kind of
seed is grown, there is a great danger of a predator, pest, or disease wiping out the entire harvest.
Mother Nature loves diversity--look at all the natural variety of living things, even within one
species or subgroup. Diversity is healthy in the plant and animal kingdoms; monoculture is as
dangerous to cities and countries as it is to ecosystems. “Just as eco-systems require a wide range
of organisms to be healthy and effective, cultures work best when they have many sub-cultural
styles and patterns.”1
Unfortunately, in America today; we have achieved “diversity” without yet reaching
“pluralism.” Diversity just means difference, while pluralism refers to a society in which people
with ethnic, cultural, and religious differences peacefully coexist together. In other words,
diversity is merely the state of being or having differences, but pluralism is how different folks
can live together peaceably with difference.
Diana Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University,
is the director of the Pluralism Project, a research effort documenting America’s new multireligious landscape. In an insightful short paper called “Living with True Pluralism,” she
explores the distinction between diversity and pluralism and stresses America’s need for the
latter:
“True pluralism is not just diversity, it is engagement. We cannot sustain a vibrant
society as diverse as ours with anything less... [D]iversity itself is not pluralism.
“More than just tolerance, pluralism is the effort to know and to understand. To
tolerate you does not require that I know you, or that I understand anything about you. I
can tolerate you and still let my stereotypes and half-truths about you operate freely.
Tolerance does nothing to remove one person’s ignorance of another. Tolerance is a fine
virtue, but makes too thin a foundation for a pluralistic society.
“Pluralism doesn’t mean we must relinquish our distinctive traditions of faith or
culture in an undifferentiating twilight where all cats are gray. Instead, in a. pluralist
society we are all invited to be ourselves--with all of our angularities--and yet to be
engaged in critical and self-critical encounters with one another....”2
To my way of thinking, America would be a lot better off--healthier, stronger--if we saw
ourselves as more like a pluralistic gumbo and less like a melting pot. For our own wholeness
and prosperity and that of our children and grandchildren, we need to work towards a society
where differences are honored, not minimized or denied; where the various contributions of each
group and culture are recognized as necessary and helpful. For our own good, we must realize
how much we need each other and how much we crave the healthy interaction of that natural
variety.
New Orleans black Creole poet Sybil Kein, in a poem entitled “La Chaudiere Pele La
Gregue...” or “The Pot Calls The Coffeepot...,” writes about the urge to submerge diversity into
the proverbial melting pot:
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But my friend, do not throw away the spice
Because it is too light or too dark
If you do that you will not have Gombo
Ever again, but a foul melted stew made up of
The denied flesh of your ancestors.3
Although we don’t normally look at it that way, Kein is right: the melting pot metaphor
for American life denies our ancestors. If I refuse to remember that I am Cuban, French, Irish,
Italian, and Scots, if I try to assert that my only cultural identity is that of “American”—I turn my
back on brave Lara Pinto who left Cuba in the 1800s, on adventurous Valentin Duplain who
sailed from France in the late 1700s, on teenage Jimmy Gagliaducci who came from Italy before
World War I. By remembering who I am and where my people came from, I honor the various
strands that, braided intricately together, make ME.
America’s real source of strength lies in our immense diversity: our differing
backgrounds, nationalities, cultures, traditions, and faiths. As the world seemingly shrinks
around us, made ever smaller by advances in communications, education, and transportation, it’s
time we realized that everyone has some spice to add to the gumbo. As New Orleanian Iris Kelso
writes: “. ..[W]e all have gifts for each other. Black and white, Christian and Jew, French, Italian,
Irish, and Vietnamese, we all make a contribution...”4
In my hometown of New Orleans, each new ethnic group brings their distinctive music,
their favorite foods, and their special holidays to the city and all are welcomed. In the gumbo of
cultures that makes up the Crescent City, I sometimes catch glimpses of the America I hope to
live in. When black people in New Orleans speak of having the “luck of the Irish,” when Jewish
people wish their friends Happy Mardi Gras, when Latinos dance the Cajun 2-step, and Cajuns
play the German accordian--I get a taste of the American gumbo I wish for.
Of course, the making of this American gumbo is not without cost, for everything in this
world has consequences and, as my grandmother used to say, nothing worth having comes free.
As in every true conversation, when each person truly listens and hears what the other person is
saying, we risk being deeply changed in our encounters with those who are different from
ourselves. Those who believe they are the only ones right will have to give up some of their
triumphalism; those who fear change will lose a certain sense of security. Professor Eck warns
us:
“Out of this, all of us will change. The language of pluralism is the language of
encounter--of meeting, of traffic, of dialogue, of reflection. [I]t is also the language of
reparation, apology and renewal.
“We might ask ourselves: what would our world be like if we were to think of
those boundaries between us, not as the places where we defend ourselves and guard our
treasures, but as the places where we meet and share them? Here in this dynamic arena-of meeting and sharing, of give and take--here is the seed-bed of pluralism.”5
What kind of country might we be if all of us learned to see difference as interesting, as
intriguing, as something to gain? What if we allowed ourselves to explore what we could learn
from the cultural and religious experiences of those who are different? What if we all decided to
be a gumbo pot instead of a melting pot? We just might find that as a nation and as individuals
we would be stronger and healthier than we ever were before.
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1
Robert Theobold, “Ethnic Mix Is Not a Weakness...” in the New Orleans
Times-Picayune. 12/5/91.
2
Connections. May 1995.
3
From Kein’s book Gombo People quoted in The Myth of New Orleans in
Literature: Dialogues of Race & Gender by Violet Harrington Bryan.
4
“Mardi Gras: Metaphor for the Future?” in the New Orleans Times
Picayune. 2/91.
5
Diana Eck, “Living with Tine Pluralism,” printed in Connections. May
1995.
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Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: A Unitarian Shero
(a homily written and delivered by Qiyamah A. Rahman at the Leadership School in Highlands,
North Carolina, on July 31, 1998 with her Congregational Leadership Group; A revised version
was later delivered to members of Thurman Hamer Ellington Unitarian Universalist Church and
Ministry and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Atlanta on August 2,1998.)
Namaste! The divine in me recognizes the divine in you!
Good morning!
I have had the privilege and honor of being a Unitarian Universalist for approximately six
years. I have embraced Unitarian Universalism with the same passion and commitment I
demonstrate throughout my life.
But in all honesty it was not in my plans to be a Unitarian Universalist. My spiritual
journey led me to this home. I just didn’t expect home to be Unitarian Universalism. Even now
as I say it, “home” it still feels like a new pair of shoes that I sometimes want to discard for my
old shoes that I have clearly outgrown. They are worn and no longer fit. But home is where the
heart is, and my heart is here, with the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism.
Home says Robert Frost, “is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to
take you in.
My gifts to Unitarian Universalists as an African American womanist/feminist and
activist are many. I represent an authentic voice and standpoint. I am a living breathing testament
that African Americans and other people of color are attracted to Unitarian Universalism.
I bring my strong desire to network with other Unitarian Universalists around the
country, and around the world but particularly Unitarian Univeralists of color and to address
some of the issues particular to us, the isolation from other Unitarian Universalists and
sometimes our own ethnic groups to name a few. The nurturing and caring of UU’s of color will
help fortify us to withstand the turbulence of transition, minimize attrition rates and fortify us to
withstand the turbulence of transition into real racial and cultural diversity in our denomination.
I bring credibility to UU’s as a UU woman of color. Your diversity efforts have some
validity because of my presence.
For as long as I am a Unitarian Universalist you can count on me to provide leadership
around coloring up Unitarian Universalism and looking for ways for UU’s of color to be present
in our denomination without some of the accompanying problems that many of us have had to
face. Thus I bring the awareness of diversity to Unitarian Universalism and the possibilities of
diversity.
What do you see when you look at me? I hope you see my brown ebony skin, my kinky
hair, my full nose and lips. And if you don’t, then you are not looking at me, but through me. If
you see none of these things then you render me invisible, often justified with comments such as,
“I don’t see color, I just see a human being.”
Many times I have had to endure the isolation of being the only one. I sometimes have to
take risks and step outside of my comfort zone. I don’t get to hide; my skin color does not allow
me to. I don’t always want to be the one speaking out about diversity issues. It feels too risky. It
feels too easy to isolate and label me or to make me the “expert.” It does not always feel safe to
speak. Like the time I said that our white female member who wanted to be the minister of
Thurman Hamer Ellington Unitarian Universalist Church and Ministry (THE) when our minister
left was not appropriate and that a congregation like T.H.E. that was designed to recruit primarily
65
African Americans, at that time, should have a minister of color. This member left and never
returned. I spoke my truth, and sometimes that is hard for others to hear. The rational part of me
knows she made a choice to leave, but the feeling part of me continues to be devastated and
intimidated by her departure. The message sometimes seems to be, if you tell the truth people
will hate you. If you tell the truth people will stop loving you and if you tell the truth, people will
abandon you. If you tell the truth people will ostracize you.
Since our original minister, Reverend Dan Aldridge, left us we have had a white female
minister, an African minister, and a white male student minister. We are currently without a
minister and our lay minister, Tony Stringer has helped us transition from a congregation
primarily devoted to recruiting African Americans to recruiting a multicultural congregation. Yet
I cannot voice my preference for a minister of color without being perceived as racist by some.
When people say to me I just want a qualified minister, I interpret that to mean somehow my
desire for a minister of color implies they will somehow be less qualified. I am currently endorse
a. “shared leadership” model that will have THE’s ministerial pool reflect the racial diversity we
hope to attract.
So what does all this have to do with Frances Ellen Watkins Harper you are saying? Well
I need some sheroes, you know, like heroes and sheroes. I particularly need UU women of color
sheroes, like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Her gifts were many. She was born 1825 and was
involved in not one but four movements, the abolitionist movement, the suffragette movement,
the temperance movement and the literary movement. She was a member of First Unitarian
Church of Philadelphia, but she also worked at Bethel African Methodist Association.
Harper was one of the first paid lecturers hired by abolitionist associations to lecture and
represent anti-slavery organizations around the country.
I need my sheroes.
Harper supported herself through the sale of her books and sold over fifty thousand
copies. She donated generous portions of her income to other abolitionists and never charged
Blacks for her lectures.
She spent two weeks with the wife of John Brown to provide emotional support to Mrs.
Brown during his trial. If you recall, John Brown and a small groups of black and white
abolitionists attacked the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia on October 16, 1859. Their
plan was to capture the arsenal of weapons and give them to slaves to fight for their freedom.
Harper also dedicated much of her energy towards women’s rights and was a strong
figure in the suffragette movement and formed alliances with Susan B. Anthony.
She gave a moving speech before the National Women’s Rights Convention, demanding equal
rights for all, including black women in 1866. She did not live to see the fruits of her labor and
died nine years before women received the vote in 1920.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was the first known African American woman to publish a
short story, in 1859 entitled, The Two Offers.
She was the second known African American woman to publish a novel in 1892 titled,
Iola Leroy. Harper was easily one of the most popular African American poets of the nineteenth
century since Phyllis Wheatley. Her essays, speeches, and poems appeared with regularity in all
the prominent African American periodicals. She collected over one hundred and twenty of her
poems in eleven slim volumes between 1854 and 1901.
I needed a shero like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper the day I was sitting at my first
General Assembly in Charlotte, North Carolina. Already some controversy had emerged as the
result of the conference planning committee’s request to come in dress appropriate to the era.
What’s wrong with that request you say? Should I and other African American UIJ’s come in
chains and shackles? As a member of the Unitarian Universalists Women’s Federation’s board
66
we sent a letter to the planning committee expressing our concerns and why the Thomas
Jefferson Ball should be cancelled. But they refused. I was getting my first glimpse of the dirty
family secrets. But like the white elephant in the living room, some family members refused to
acknowledge its existence. Those of you that attended the Charlotte General Assembly witnessed
the pictorial chronology of Unitarian Universalist history. At the onset. As I watched it, I waited
for some acknowledgment of Unitarian Universalists of color and their names and contributions.
I waited and waited and waited.
A small voice deep inside of me was saying, “Girl, what have you gotten yourself into?”
At the Service of the Living Tradition, about 50 to 60 plus ministers were ordained that
year. Only one was African American. I remembered my enjoyment as I shattered the polite
applause with raucous cheering and yes I did my famous shrill when the only African American
male walked across the stage. (Shrill)
As African Americans we do not take these small victories for granted. Now don’t make
me have to go to seminary school. I am tired and I need to rest. My children are all grown and I
needs to rest.
Harper worked with The Women’s Christian Temperance Union for almost a decade
from 1878 to 1888 and served as the national superintendent of the Black division for five years.
I needs me some sheroes.
A contingent of African American Unitarian Universalists traveled to Philadelphia, PA in
September, 1992 headed by THE’s then minister, Rev. D. Aldridge and placed a headstone on
Harper’s previously unmarked grave.
Yes I need my sheroes. As the nation engages in Dialogues on Race, some one hundred
and thirty three years after the emancipation proclamation, I need sheroes like Frances Ellen
Watkins Harper to remind me that I stand on the proud shoulders of women who unflinchingly
challenged rigid systems of racism, sexism and classism. A woman, an African American
Unitarian woman that reminds me how to be strong when I forget.
They are my sheroes when I am tired, frustrated and discouraged.
Thank you Frances Ellen Watkins Harper for sharing your gifts.
Ashe’ (Blessed Be and so it is!)
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Section #3
It is our responsibility to build the
just and loving community
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The Healthy Congregation #3
Values-based Vision & Mission Development
69
Words of Wisdom on Mission and Vision
Know & Trust Thyself —Your Mission & Vision are uniquely your own.
Claim your strengths and build on these first.
Remember to study your environment and its needs.
The Process is at least as important as the Results.
The process should be about creating opportunities for conversations about what is most
meaningful — what are the most heartfelt aspirations of members.
Engage as many members as possible in the process.
“The universe is made up of stories, not atoms” (Muriel Rukeyser)
Plan & Prepare the Process
 Articulate why you are undertaking the process
 Lay out the steps — determine whether you will design & facilitate your own process or
bring in a consultant
 Coordinate with the church calendar
 Communicate.., communicate... communicate: newsletter, pulpit announcements,
sermons, town hall meetings, etc.
Focus on “Mission” & “Vision” rather than “statement.”
Remember to monitor progress and report out on a regular basis.
Keep it Fresh (3- to 5-year renewal period)
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The Ministering Congregation
A “ministering congregation” is one that has a communal sense of call, knows the community
that it is aiming to serve, mobilizes its resources and programs to respond to the diverse ministry
needs of its gathered congregation and surrounding community, and provides a formation
process to engage its membership in this shared ministry.
A ministering congregation:
1. is mission focused
2. is committed to spiritual growth and development of its membership and the
congregation.
3. knows its surrounding community and is responsive to the community’s needs for
ministry.
4. is clear about its ministry focus groups.
5. has outreach that is intentionally coordinated with all the congregation’s programs
6. has small groups that are a source of pastoral care, religious education, membership
assimilation, and leadership development
7. conceives its programs as “ministries” to the congregation and the surrounding
community
8. has an intentional and ongoing “shared ministry program” [process for helping lay
people discover their gifts and live out their ministries in the church’s ministries and
in their daily lives]
9. understands religious education as a formation process for the ministry of the laity
10. is able to reach out to and serve more diverse populations within the community
11. is committed in word and action to anti-racism, anti-oppression and to being a
Welcoming Congregation
12. has responsible stewardship and engages in a mission budget process that is informed
by its sense of mission as a congregation within a particular community
13. is “Association-al” and has covenantal relationship with other UU congregations in
the area, district and continent
14. engages with other faith communities in common social ministries, advocacy or
service.
(These materials are from only one of hundreds of resources available at uua.org that explain
The Uncommon Denomination program. Though the advertising component of this program is
the best well-known, the website materials associated with it provide outstanding tips for best
practices in healthy congregations.)
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Who Owns a Congregation?
by Dan Hotchkiss
Comparisons are useful but tricky. New Testament writers compare the church to a human body,
a herd of sheep, a bride, and a vineyard. Synagogues are often likened to a house, a tent, or an
extended family. None of these analogies is meant to be exact or literal—a church may act in
some ways like a herd of sheep, but a wise leader doesn’t plan on it. Poets do exaggerate
sometimes.
In the same spirit of poetic license, at times it may be useful to compare the clergy leader of a
congregation to a corporate CEO, its members to customers or stockholders, or its staff to the
employees of a charity. We can draw many useful analogies between congregations, other
nonprofits, and businesses, but ultimately congregations need ideas and language of their own. It
is easy to say that “the church should run more like a business,” without recognizing that in some
respects the church should and does run very differently. I often ask members of a
congregation’s governing board to describe their job. Someone usually answers, “We’re here to
represent the members of the congregation.” The analogy at work here is political: the board is
like a city council or the U.S. Senate, whose members are elected by the people to make law in
their behalf. Most American congregations elect the governing board by congregational vote. In
New England, churches of the congregational tradition sometimes actually mirror, in their
structure, the town meeting form of government.
Another answer I frequently hear is, “We are ministers alongside of the pastor.” This is a
powerful idea, codified in Reformed theology as the idea of the ruling elder, ordained to lead
alongside teaching elders, or pastors. In current Presbyterian practice, elders are elected, but the
rite of ordination makes them more than representatives; as ministers they “exercise their
responsibilities according to the guidance of their own nurtured consciences and not merely as
spokespersons of particular interest groups.” (Edward Le Roy Long, Patterns of Polity: Varieties
of Church Governance [Pilgrim Press, 2001].) While not so explicit in most non-Reformed
traditions, the idea that a lay board member’s work is ministry is worth considering in any
congregation.
Almost always, when I ask about the board’s job, someone says, “The board is a fiduciary.” And
what might that be? A fiduciary (in Latin, iduciaries, “trust,” from fides, “faith”) is anyone
with a duty to act in faithfulness to the interest of another, even at cost or peril to himself or
herself. A parent, for example, has a fiduciary duty to care for his or her children no matter how
much sacrifice that might require. The board of a business holds the corporate assets as fiduciary
for the stockholders. Since the stockholders’ main interest, ordinarily, is in making money,
corporate boards generally try to maximize stockholder value. If they pursue other goals—
pumping up executive compensation, making sweetheart deals with other companies owned by
board members, or sometimes even trying to be responsible corporate citizens—they can expect
to be accused of failing as fiduciaries.
By this analogy, a congregation’s board exists to represent the owner. But who is the owner?
Often board members answer this question too quickly: “The owner is the congregation!” And
the owner’s interest? Satisfactory worship, education, social action, and so on. The fiduciary
duty of a congregation’s board, then, is to know what the congregation wants and to provide it.
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This way of thinking sometimes produces good results, but in my opinion it is based on a false
analogy. A congregation does exist to serve its owner—but the members are not owners in the
same way stockholders own business corporations. Who, then, is the owner? Jesus? God?
Perhaps, but a more useful answer, I believe, is “The owner of a congregation is its mission.” A
congregation exists to serve its mission. The duty of a congregation’s leaders is to discern the
piece of God’s will that constitutes this congregation’s mission, to articulate the mission well,
and to ensure that what the congregation does will realize the mission. The “bottom line” is not
the balance in the bank (important though that is) but the degree to which the mission is fulfilled.
And what is the mission? The great management consultant Peter Drucker wrote that the core
mission of all social-sector organizations is “changed lives.” The specific mission of a
congregation is its answer to the question, “Whose lives do we intend to change and in what
way?” A congregation that limits its vision to pleasing its members falls short of its true purpose.
Growth, expanding budgets, building programs, and such trappings of success matter only if they
reflect positive transformation in the lives of people touched by the congregation’s work.
The job of congregational leaders—boards, clergy, lay leaders, and staff—is not to “give the
members what they want.” For one thing, if the only mission is to current members, the
congregation will soon die. And so the mission must be not only to change the lives of members
but of others yet to join. A real problem with democracy in congregations is that future members
do not vote. If they did, at every meeting they would make up a majority.
Another reason congregations cannot simply “give the members what they want” is that part of
the mission is to teach people to want things that they don’t want. Members of vital
congregations testify to many ways the congregation has drawn them out of themselves into
voluntary service, sacrificial changes of career, and hard work for social justice. Sometimes I ask
such people, “What would you have done if someone warned you how joining this congregation
would transform your life?” Generally they admit, “I would have run the other way!” Pleasing
people—members, future members, leaders, or anybody else—is not the mission. The mission is
to change lives.
Who, then, is the owner of a congregation? Who plays the role of stockholders in a business?
Not the members. Not the board. Not the clergy or the bishop or the staff. These all are
fiduciaries whose duty is to serve the owner. Symbolically, we might say God or Jesus is the
owner. But God’s whole will is too big to guide one congregation. Instead, the board’s job is to
discern our mission, the small piece of God’s intention that belongs to us. Or to put it differently,
our job is to find the mission we belong to, the real owner for whose benefit we hold and deploy
the congregation’s resources.
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The Art of Religious Leadership #4:
Leading For Change
74
Gil Rendle’s Rollercoaster of Change
T
H
I
N
K
I
N
G
F
E
E
E
I
N
G





The cycle is continuous.
Persons will be at different points in the cycle at different rates depending upon
their level of involvement, control and understanding.
Acceptance of change depends upon persons receiving valid information and
being given informed choice.
It gets worse before it gets better.
It is ineffective to address feelings with ideas & vice versa. Evaluate the content
of the feedback and respond accordingly.
This chart is duplicated from a workshop by Gil Rendle of the Alban Institute
75
Everett Rogers’ Change Theory
76
EIGHT REASONS WHY TRANSFORMATIONAL EFFORTS FAIL
In Chapter 11 of Transformational Regional Bodies, Roy M. Oswald and Claire S. Burkat
cite eight reasons why transformational efforts in various kinds of organizations fail: to succeed.
(See pp. 149-153.) These eight shortcomings are identified, they say, in the work of a Harvard
Business School professor and consultant, Dr. John P. Kotter (March/April, 1995, Harvard
Business School Review, and Leading Change, Why
Transformational Efforts Fail).
Drawing on Kotter’s work, Oswald and Burkat say the eight are:
1. Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency. Kotter says more than half of the
companies he has studied failed because leaders underestimated the difficulties of driving people
out of their comfort zones and into the changes required for making necessary changes.
2. Not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition. Oswald and Burkat: “Without the right
people heading up the transformation effort, the move will not have the respect of the key
players... In addition, unless the key movers and shakers ... are behind the effort, it isn’t going to
succeed anyway.”
3. Lacking a vision. The key characteristics of a great vision, they say, are that it can be
explained to you in five minutes and “at the end of the five minutes you are drawn into the
excitement of where the organization is going.” It should be “simple, down to earth, and doable”
and capable of generating excitement each time it is shared.
4. Sell the vision. Oswald and Burkat say, “Without credible communication, and a lot of it, the
hearts and minds of the membership are never captured.” They suggest teams of laypersons and
clergy, which must, (a) be sold on the change themselves, and then (b.) be sent out to every
congregation for sessions of at least two hours for communicating the vision and gaining the
perspectives of the congregations.
5. Identify and remove the obstacles to the vision. Learn from the process of communication
and revise if necessary.
6. Plan for and celebrate short-term accomplishments. Oswald and Burkat recommend
planning for the accomplishment of “visible, concrete things every year to point to the fact that
some important things are happening” and that the church is “working on an exciting vision.”
7. Hold off, however, on the victory celebration. Until the goal is fully accomplished, keep the
intensity high by reminding people that interim successes leave a lot, still, to be done. Oswald
and Burkat cite St. Paul’s ‘admonition to remember that “we are ... wrestling...against the
principalities and the powers of darkness.” Against such a foe, they note, we can never let down.
77
8. Anchor changes into the corporate culture. The momentum generated by the vision and its
communication needs to be turned into a system that can be “on a continual roll.” That which
demonstrates its usefulness needs to be institutionalized, made a part of the on-going practice.
Oswald and Burkat say a common mistake is to implement some of these eight without the
others. Most often ignored is the first requirement, and, they believe, failing to establish a greatenough sense of urgency dooms transformational efforts. But, they add: “It has ‘become clear to
us that any redevelopment effort will fail if it does not take all eight of these items serious.
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Principles of Adaptive Leadership
Six Principles for Leading Adaptive Work
From “The Work of Leadership” by Ronald Heifetz and Donald Laurie, Harvard Business
Review, January-February 1997.
Get on the Balcony. Understanding the bigger picture: “…leaders have to be able to view
patterns as if they were on a balcony. It does them no good to be swept up in the field of action.”
Identify the Adaptive Challenge. Does the nature of a presenting threat represent a technical
challenge or an adaptive challenge? Would expert advice and technical adjustments within basic
routines suffice, or would people throughout the organization have to learn new ways of doing
business?
Regulate Distress. People can learn only so much so fast. Leaders must attend to three
fundamental tasks:
 Create a holding environment
 Provide a safe environment (provide direction, protection, orientation, managed conflict
and the shaping of norms)
 Personal presence and poise (model the emotional capacity to tolerate uncertainty,
frustration, and pain)
Maintain Disciplined Attention. Diversity is valuable because innovation and learning are the
products of differences. When sterile conflict takes the place of dialogue, a leaders has to step in
and put the team to work on reframing the issues; deepening the debate with questions,
unbundling the issues into their parts rather than let the conflict remain polarized and superficial.
Give the Work Back to the People. Getting people to assume greater responsibility is not easy.
Letting people take the initiative in defining and solving problems means that management needs
to learn to support rather than control.
Protect Voices of Leadership from Below. Giving a voice to all people is the foundation of an
organization that is willing to experiment and learn. But, in fact, whistle-blowers, creative
deviants, and other such original voices routinely get smashed and silenced in organizational life.
The voices from below are usually not as articulate as one would wish.
Resources for Leadership in Adaptive Change
Adapted from Leadership Without Answers, Ronald Heifetz, Belknap Press, 1994.
1. The use of relationships to provide a holding environment for containing the stresses of
their adaptive efforts. A holding environment consists of any relationship in which one party
has the power to hold the attention of another party and facilitate adaptive work. The strategic
task is to maintain a level of tension that mobilizes people (keeping the heat turned up but not
letting the pot boil over.
2. Commanding and directing attention to issues. Attention is a currency of leadership.
Getting people to pay attention to tough issues rather than diversions.
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3. Use access to information – the vantage point of leadership. Because authorities are
expected to know, they are given access to information. They can use that information to gain a
better vantage point and test reality.
4. Controlling the flow of information. Decide what issue(s) the person/group is ready to face
and then frame the issue so it is addressable.
5. Orchestrating conflict and containing disorder. The use of conflict management skills:
separating people from the issues; helping groups learn and understand each other’s “language;”
reforming boundaries to help people engage each other; and searching for “interests.”
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Leading For Change Tipsheet
Connie Goodbread
• Understand the deepest reasons for the existence of the congregation
• Understand yourself who and what you serve, remember you are a servant leader
• Ask, “What happens if we don’t do this?”
• Ask, “What happens if we do this?”
• Act with humility
• Take a principled stand for the good of the whole (the common good)
• Identify the individuals or group(s) that will be the most affected or have the most to
lose
• Involve them in the process early
• Stand with the people as they struggle with their emotions
• Do not stop the process because of discomfort
• Expect, invite and empower additions to the vision
• Expect sabotage and don’t let it take over
• Celebrate success
• Thank people
• Thank them again
• Move forward
• Assess – What did we learn? – How has this changed our plans?
• What is the next principled change that is needed for the good of the whole (the
common good)
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MANAGING THE BEING-DOING POLARITY
Adapted for Religious Educators by
Laurel Amabile, Lifespan Program Consultant
Based on the Alban book: The Spiritual Leader’s Guide to Self Care,
Introduction by Roy Oswald, Sr. Consultant, Alban Institute
Roy Oswald presents the “doing-being tension” as one example of a polarity: “an unsolvable
problem that can only be managed.” In a concept developed by organizational development
consultant, Barry Johnson, called Polarity Management, quadrants are used to represent the
“upside” and the “down side” to each pole of the problem.
On the DOING pole, the upside (+) behaviors include active service in one’s profession. In the
case of religious educators, this would include:
+Planning and implementing programs
+Advocating for the religious education program and its participants
+Involvement in worship services
+Attending training events
+Accountability to the organization and/or supervisor
+Networking
The down side (-) of the pole is DOING too much, which often results in burnout for the
religious professional. This pole is characterized by the following:
-Over-commitment and overwhelm
-Neglecting self, family and friends
-Becoming cynical and/or depressed
-Exhaustion and physical illness
-Humorless and/or irritability
The problems of the down side of DOING are balanced by the upside of BEING:
+Rest, revitalization & spiritual renewal
+gaining perspective
+Setting appropriate limits
+Self acceptance and esteem
+Feeling centered
When the state of BEING is overemphasized (-), the result can be:
-Self absorption and isolation
-A loss of concern for others
-Losing sight of one’s mission or sense of purpose
The way out of this imbalance found in the down site of BEING is to focus on others’ needs and
to engage in service.
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Growing the Anti-Oppressive, Antiracist, Multicultural Community
Tracking Institutional Change: 7 Levels of Readiness
Adapted by Paula Cole Jones, UU Management Consultant [email protected]
from the book Welcoming Resistance by William Chris Hobgood
STAGE
Board of
Trustees
Congregation
Social
Justice
Committee
You
MAINTAINING
Unexamined Status Quo
REINFORCING
Deliberate
intervention(s)
aimed at putting things
back the way they were
ADAPTING
Invitation, response
and engagement
REVISIONING
Goal setting oriented
toward new and/or
shared values
RETOOLING
Learning & practicing
new concepts,
frameworks, tools,
awareness, skills, etc.
RESTRUCTURING
Reorganizing processes
and collaborating to meet
the goals (or needs)
Tools are being used
TRANSFORMING
An internalization of the
changes so that new
norms have been created
and operate in daily life
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Rules to Promote Rational Thinking
By: Martha Davis, Ph.D.; Elizabeth Eshelman, M.S.W.; & Matthew McKay, Ph.D.
Evaluate your self-statements against these six rules, or guidelines, for rational thinking.
The situation doesn't do anything to me.
It doesn't make me anxious or afraid. I say things to myself that produce anxiety and fear.
Everything is exactly the way it should be.
The conditions for things or people to be otherwise don't exist. To say that things should be other
than what they are is to believe in magic. They are what they are because of a long series of
causal events; including interpretations, responses from irrational self-talk, and so on. To say that
things should be different is to throw out causality.
All humans are fallible creatures.
This is inescapable. If you haven't set reasonable quotas of failure for yourself and others, you
increase the prospects for disappointment and unhappiness. It becomes all too easy to attack
yourself and others as worthless, bad, and so on.
It takes two to have a conflict.
Before beginning a course of accusation and blame, consider the 30 percent rule. Any party to a
conflict is contributing at least 30 percent of the fuel to keep it going.
The original cause is lost in antiquity.
Trying to discover who did what first is a waste of time. The search for the original cause of
chronic painful emotions is extremely difficult. The best strategy is to make decisions to change
your behavior now.
We feel the way we think.
This is the positively stated principle behind the first statement in the list. This statement
reinforces the idea that events don't cause emotions - our interpretations of events cause
emotions.
INSIGHT
Recognize that there are three levels of insight necessary to change:
1. Knowledge that you have a problem, and awareness of some of the events that may have
caused the problem.
2. Seeing clearly that the irrational ideas you acquired early in life are creating the emotional
climate you live in now, and that consciously or unconsciously you work fairly hard to
perpetuate them.
3. The strong belief that after discovering these two insights, you will still find no way of
eliminating the problem other than steadily, persistently, and vigorously working to
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Section #4
We deny the immaculate conception of virtue
Good things are brought about by hard work done by human
hands
85
The Healthy Congregation #4:
Stewardship of Time, Talent,
Governance and Treasure
86
FORTH: A Stewardship Development Program
http://www.uua.org/finance/fundraising/forth/development/index.shtml
FORTH is a social networking program to help congregations grow a year round culture of
spiritual generosity.
FORTH encourages a community of congregational leaders to create and share a diverse library
of free web-based materials.
Some of the healthiest Unitarian Universalist (UU) congregations focus more on stewardship
than fundraising. While fundraising refers to money-raising efforts, stewardship is an attitude
that is reflected in all of the congregation’s efforts. As noted in chapter one of Beyond
Fundraising: A Complete Guide to Congregational Stewardship, fundraising emphasized the
need of the recipient; stewardship addresses people’s spiritual need to give.
A demonstration project, with seven participating congregations, was conducted from 2007
through 2011. The FORTH report summarizes that project and lists FORTH best practices.
FORTH: A Stewardship Development Program is based upon those best practices.
FORTH is a stewardship development program to help Unitarian Universalist congregations
grow a year round culture of stewardship. Please see our FORTH Video Introduction that can be
shared with the rest of your congregational leaders. When a congregational leader (lay leader or
professional religious leader) completes the FORTH Congregational Stewardship SelfAssessment, the following materials become available:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Suggested Year Round Calendar
Recommended Stewardship Language
Sample Stewardship Team Job Description
Recommended Stewardship Team Formation and Charge
Stewardship Information and Ideas
Sample Organizational Charts
Annotated Bibliography (currently more than 100 items)
Operational Support for Effective Stewardship
Suggested Four-Year Activities
In addition, we have created FORTH Partners, an interactive community of congregational
leaders who meet online, on the phone, and sometimes in person. FORTH Partners are dedicated
to learning and growing together in the knowledge and practice of stewardship. They use a
suggested four-year stewardship development program and contribute to an ever-growing library
of web-based materials.
To become a FORTH Partner congregation, five leaders (lay and/or professional religious
87
leaders) must complete the FORTH Stewardship Self-Assessment. In addition to all of the
resources listed above, FORTH Partners then have access to the following free FORTH web
resources:
•
•
•
•
Closed Facebook group
Regularly scheduled conference calls
Occasional webinars hosted by UUA congregational stewardship consultants
Updates distributed through Constant Contact
88
Faithful Financial Stewardship Overview
By the Rev. Susan M. Smith
A Culture of Generosity
•
•
•
•
Expectations
Giving as a year-round process
Providing lots of opportunities to give
The congregation as a giver and as a source of assistance
Program Budgets
•
•
•
•
Casting the vision – People give to programs not to budget line items
Computing a program budget
Reporting where the money came from and went last year
Helping members decide how much to give
Short Course in Annual Every-Member-&-Friend Canvassing
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Begin with a budget and a theme
Develop a timeline
Develop informational packets and support mailings
Check your donor list
Recruit and train canvassers
Kick-off events and services, Miracle Sundays, Cottage meetings
Canvass week organization including midweek canvassers’ meeting
Thanking, reporting, and celebrating
Canvassing newcomers
Capital Campaigns
•
•
•
Special multi-year funding for big projects
Using a UUA capital campaign consultant
Same process as regular canvass with a bigger dream
Day-to-Day Stewardship
•
•
How to handle collections and accounts
Balancing confidentiality with gratitude
A comprehensive list of UU resources including the step-by-step manual Fundraising With A
Vision can be found at www.uua.org/giving/apf/beourguest.html
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Recruiting:
Guidelines for preparing and a step-by-step guide
Call at time of day person is likely to be available to talk for 10 minutes.
Call at work, only to find another possible time to call.
Introduce self, including your volunteer position.
Tell why you’re calling, something like:
“I’m calling to talk to you about being involved in our Religious Education
Program/on our adult R.E. committee/on the board/teaching a course.”
Find good time to talk, if now is not good.
Then when you begin the conversation. Tell them you are calling to ask if they are interested in
being involved in Adult Religious Education (or whatever your area is):
“One of the volunteer positions most needed is ___________________
Then go on to describe the position in detail, including:
 what time is involved, both time in meetings, time preparing, telephone calls,
coordination, etc. Be realistic, don’t underestimate, but say it’s flexible if it’s flexible
 what expertise or skills are needed for the position
 what training or orientation or written information is provided by those who are more
experienced
Explain why you’ve called this person, why you think they would be good or would offer
something to your area.
Then say “Does this interest you? Does this sound like something you would like to do?”
Then, no matter what they answer, “yes” or “no”, listen carefully to anything they say about
themselves, as this will give you a due to whether you have helped this person find a good fit or
not.
They might say they don’t think they have time for the position you are asking about.
Then you might ask if there something else they might like to do. What are their interests?
Example for recruiting to a Children/Youth teaching team:
I’m calling to ask you if you’d be interested in being on one of our teaching teams on
Sunday mornings. Could I tell you what’s involved in working with our children or youth
in this way? You would be on a team with two other adults who teach one grade level,
either at 9:30 or 11:30. The time involved is about 14 hours on two out of three Sunday
mornings and about 45 minutes during the week on one out of three weeks. One Sunday
you are the lead teacher, the next you are the helping teacher, and the third Sunday you
are off. The team works together to arrange for being out of town. And we hove
substitutes available if and when there’s a given Sunday when only 1 member of a team
is available. There are prepared step-by-step curriculum lessons for you and a training
session to provide you with the information you need. While there is not a significant
time commitment on a weekly basis, we do ask that our Fall/Spring teaching teams stay
involved for the fall and the spring…so it goes from mid-August to the end of May.
There are about 4 intergenerational services when all teachers are off. Is this something
you’d be interested in?
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Policies and Procedures for Child Safety
Compiled by Connie Goodbread
Purchase Pat Hoerdorfer’s Classroom Safety
Have all of the RE Committee, Council or Ministry take part in reading and discussing
Classroom Safety.
1. Volunteers who work with the children and youth must have been participating members
of the congregation for at least one year.
2. All volunteers who work with the children and youth, including staff, have background
checks. Begin this process with a letter to the volunteers that says what the congregation
is concerned about is violent crimes, pedophilia, or sexual harassment – not childhood
indiscretions or civil disobedience. The findings will be kept in the strictest of
confidence. The first people to be checked will be the Minister(s) and the Religious
Education Professional(s). Background checks are repeated at least every other year.
You keep track of the people you have checked and you run the checks on all the new
volunteers s they come on board. Individuals who fail the background check (meaning
that they have a history of violent crimes, pedophilia, and/or sexual harassment) or refuse
to have a background check will not work with the children or youth.
3. There are two volunteers or staff members working with the children and youth at all
times
4. Classrooms are high visibility areas with windows in the doors, open curtains etc.
5. Minors whose parents are nonmembers have a special registration form that is notarized.
These parents have been contacted by staff and are receiving the newsletter and all other
relevant mailings and information.
6. Classroom facilitator trainings include safe classroom practices. These workshops also
allow time for the discussion of classroom issues and behaviors that are either disruptive
or dangerous.
7. Every minor in the program has a notarized permission slip that includes medical
information and is kept on file both in the Religious Education Office and in the
individual classrooms.
8. There are special permission slips for outings that are also notarized and have medical
information on them. These must be filled out for every minor or they are not taken off
church property.
9. Updates of information on safe classrooms, both Unitarian and outside of Uuism, are
shared at quarterly classroom facilitator and staff meetings. There is also time at these
meeting to discuss classroom issues and behaviors that are either disruptive or dangerous.
10. Each class has a behavioral covenant that they as a class wrote and say together before
class starts.
11. The congregation has a behavioral covenant that they say together often. This is the
beginning of the behavioral policy.
12. The congregation has a behavioral policy that has many steps in it and includes as the
final step the removal of individuals for continued community-breaking behavior
13. All staff members are supported and encouraged by the congregation to belong to
national and district professional organizations. These organizations are groups of their
91
peers who will be supportive about personal and professional issues that arise in their
ministries.
14. Individual staff members understand their roles and do not attempt to be friends with
members of the congregations they serve.
15. Individual staff members maintain healthy boundaries.
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Suggestions for Sound Organization and
Administration in Religious Societies
By Deane Starr, Former Executive Secretary, NH-VT District, UUA
1. Look upon organization and administration as a means to spiritual growth, both for the
community and for the individual.
2. Never ask people to make a decision the first time a new idea is presented. Give them plenty
of time for reflection. Hold public meetings that are solely for the purpose of presentation
and discussion, not for decision making.
3. Encourage people to invest their egos, not in any particular goal or achievement, but in the
process of creative interchange. Remember, while doing this, that “example is better than
precept.”
4. Never force people to take sides among individuals with their particular goals. Keep the
focus upon the process, upon the evolution of mutually-acceptable goals. These will be
superior to any a priori goals that might be imagined.
5. Respect honest difference and dissent. Even when the process has worked its will, do not try
to force everyone to agree. “A person convinced against the will is of the same opinion still.”
6. Guard both against minority control and majority oppression. The rights and values of
everyone concerned must be given due consideration.
7. Remember that everything everyone does for the community is a gift. Be appreciative of one
another.
8. So that individuals and tasks can be wedded without distortion, keep job descriptions
flexible.
9. Insist that nominating committees do their homework, knowing both the jobs and the people,
letting people know, when they are asked to serve, just what will be expected of them. It is
usually a mistake to assure people that “there is really nothing to it.”
10. Be sure that authority accompanies any assignment of responsibility. Responsibility without
authority maketh the heart sick.
11. Keep the lines of authority and responsibility visible for all to see.
93
Responsibilities of a Unitarian Universalist Congregation’s
Board (revised)
(Adapted from The Basic Responsibilities of NonprofitBoards, National Center for Nonprofit
Boards.)
1. DETERMINE (with member input) the congregation’s mission and purposes.
2. FACILITATE the calling of the minister, if there is one, in accordance with the bylaws and
search process.
3. SUPPORT the minister, if there is one, and work together to define ministry in concert with
the committee on ministry.
4. ENSURE effective organizational planning.
5. ENSURE adequate resources (staff, volunteers, and finances).
6. MANAGE resources effectively.
7. DETERMINE, MONITOR, and STRENGTHEN the congregation’s programs and
services.
8. ENHANCE the congregation’s public standing.
9. ENSURE legal and ethical integrity and MAINTAIN accountability
10. RECRUIT and ORIENT new board members, in concert with the nominating committee,
and assess board performance.
In summary, the responsibilities of a congregation’s board are:



Governance and policy
Fiscal responsibility
Communication
94
A Model for Unitarian Universalist Congregational
Board Meetings
The Reverend Kenneth Gordon Hurto, District Executive
Florida District Unitarian Universalist Association
There are many ways you can do a church board meeting. The example below is just one model that I’ve
seen as helpful. The Agenda is in this text. My interpretive comments follow in this text.
Agenda preparation: I suggest the Executive Committee and the Minister [if you have one] meet 10
days prior to the forth-coming meeting of the whole Board. They craft the Draft Agenda. This is
distributed via email to the remainder of the Board for comment. The Board President takes into
consideration any feedback from other Board members. S/he then distributes the Working Agenda along
with all supporting documents and reports to the entire Board 7 days prior to the meeting.
The “Consent Agenda” includes receipt and approval of all reports — including the Treasurer’s —
and any legal matters that routinely require Board approval. Generally, these are received without further
comment. Financial matters requiring the Board’s attention are taken up as an Action Item.
For this illustration, I assume a start time of 7:00pm. And a total time of 1¾ hours. 1½ hours is the
ideal; 2 hours should be the outside limit. The Board should meet around a squared table arrangement, in
a room large enough to easily accommodate all members, ex-officio staff and any potential guests. Guests
should not sit at the Board table.
While not listed here, now and then — no less than quarterly — time should be set aside for Board
members to go around the table addressing the “What’s the buzz?” of the congregation. Think of it as a
temperature or anxiety-level checkup. This may alert the Board to concerns unfolding before they become
critical.
I recommend Board’s operate on 3, 6, and 9-month planning intervals. Thus, every
quarter, the Agenda needs to be modified to accommodate a review of progress toward goals
with ample time for revising the next quarter’s goals. If you’re doing this well, the review should
add but a few minutes of a meeting.
At its annual retreat, a Board will typically lay out its near [months] and longer term [one
or two years] goals. It is desirable to establish an ad hoc strategic planning team for goals three
or more years out. All goals should be assessed against the Congregation’s Mission statement.
A brief note on Robert’s Rules, typically the standard used in congregations: If the Board approves
the agenda, it may then be assumed any resolution brought up as an Action Item already has been
“seconded.” If a resolution is put forward and amended, the maker of the motion, if s/he agrees, may
simply accept any change as a “friendly” amendment to be incorporated in the original motion. If not,
then the amendment must be voted up before the original motion may be acted upon.
95
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Open Sea
34 Swaying Palms Way, By-the-Shore, Florida
Monthly Meeting of the Board of Trustees
Date; Time; Place
Our Mission Statement
The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Open Sea serves as awitness
to love and justice in keeping with the Unitarian Universalist heritage.
Membership as of 1st of Month: ______
Agenda
Clock Time:
Time Allocation, Minutes:
7:00
Call to Order/Certification of Quorum: Chair
1
7:01
Ingathering/Centering Moment/Chalice Lighting: Minister or Board Member
2
A brief spoken or sung reminder of our faith commitments.
7:03
Agenda Review & Update: Approval of Consent Agenda: Chair
2
The agenda, with supporting documents and reports, should be in members’ hands at
least one week prior to the meeting.
7:05
Reminder of the Board’s Working Rules: Vice-President
1
These are typically simple statements of the Board’s shared understanding of how it
wants to conduct their business. A posted display helps.
7:06
Appointment of the Process Observer: Board Member
1
The Process Observer participates fully in the meeting; at the same time, s/he monitors
the tone and spirit of the meeting, how well the leadership team is functioning in terms of
its own rules, and notes what helps or hinders the group’s efforts.
7:07
Personal Check-In: All
8
Each member briefly remarks on what is going on in their lives that may affect their
demeanor in the course of the Board’s meeting. This is not a moment of personal
pastoral need.
7:15
Open-Forum: Chair & Guests
5
From time to time, congregants appear at a Board meeting with a desire to speak to the
whole Board. Such guests are to be welcomed. The Board is not obligated to process
anything that is thus presented.
7:20
Invited Guests: Board Liaison & Guests
10
In this instance, congregants come before the Board for a specific reason, either by their
request or the Board’s invitation. The reason for their appearance should be noted on the
agenda. It may be a simple sharing of information, offering a board-requested report, or
bringing to the Board’s attention concerns the congregants hope the Board might address.
Again, the Board does not act on these offerings unless they are part of the Action items
on the agenda.
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7:30
Action Items Before the Board: Chair
30
Board meetings are decision meetings. It should be noted they are legal meetings of the
Corporation according to state law. Thus, accurate minutes matter.
Discussion should be focused on items for which the Board has had sufficient
background and preparation to clearly understand what the issues are. The President
should summarize the question at hand, ask for discussion, and then seek a formal motion
— even if it is only to ask, “Do we have a consensus here?”
The secretary should be able to record the motion in clear language. It is sufficient to
say, “Moved, [Person A, Person B, 2nd], that …..” Motion Carried/Defeated: # of yeas, #
of naes, # of abstentions].
While 30 minutes typically proves sufficient for routine business, from time to time,
resolving differing perspectives or gaining clarity of intent takes longer. A good rule to
follow is this:
The President summarizes the question at hand, noting what a desired outcome looks
like and then opens the floor for discussion. After 20 minutes, the Process Observer
calls time. The President then asks for a motion. If none is forthcoming, the Board
sits in silence for 1 minute. The President again asks for a motion. Often, someone is
ready. If not, the item is automatically tabled. The President then appoints 2 or 3
members to study the issue further and return the next month with a motion.
8:00
Consent Agenda ─ Acceptance of Reports: Chair
10
All Reports should be written and distributed in advance with the Working Agenda.
Discussion is limited to clarifying or giving future direction. The “Consent Agenda”
accepts all reports in one motion.
Officers
Professional Staff
Board Liaisons
Updates to Legal Authorities
Acceptance of Minutes & the Financial Report
Acceptance of Correspondence
8:10
New Business/Emerging Concerns: Led by an Assigned Board Member
10
Here the Board might discuss up-coming issues, work out calendar planning, schedule
special meetings, remark on the “buzz,” and identify who needs to receive a note of
“thanks” from the Board.
8:20
Board Process: Vice-President
10
Review of Decisions Made
The Vice-President provides a summary and leads the Links discussion:
Communication Links:
Who Needs to Know Directly of Board Actions?
Summary Items to Report to Congregation
Next Steps: Who Will Do What, When?
8:30
Quarterly Review of Goals [add 10 minutes to agenda time.] Led by an Assigned Board Member
8:30
Process Observer Comments: Presented by the Designee for this meeting
3
This is a good time to ask members: “What did we do well at this meeting?”
If you were to add a “What’s the buzz” moment, this might be a good position in the
agenda for that.
8:33
Personal Check-Out: All, ~ 1 minute for each member
9
It is essential to healthy Board functioning not to short-cut this item out of a desire to get
home sooner. Each member ought to say how they have felt during and about the
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meeting, lifting up what needs to be praised, confessing what was disappointing, or
arranging for an off-board follow up conversation to stay in one another’s good graces.
8:42
Closing Words/Extinguishing the Chalice: Minister or Board Member
_________1
8:45
Adjournment
105 minutes
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The Art of Religious Leadership #5
Conflict and Controversy
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Triggers of Anxiety
The fifteen most common triggers of anxiety in
congregations
• Money
• Type of worship
• Issues involving sex/sexuality
• Pastor’s leadership style
• Issues with authority and power
• Old versus new
• Growth/survival
• Staff conflicts/resignation of staff member
• Internal or external focus
• Major trauma, tension, or transition
• Harm done to or by a child/death of a child
• Property building, space, territory
• Distance between the ideal and the real
• Lay leadership’s style
• Boundary issues
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Rev. Speed Leas — Levels of Conflict
Conflict Intensity Chart
A Resource for Committees on Ministry Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Introduction
The Conflict Intensity Chart is intended to provide members of Committees on Ministry and
others with a diagnostic instrument to assist in determining the intensity of a given conflict, to
outline an ongoing training process and to provide relevant resources. Please note the following
features of this chart:
• Purpose is to De-escalate a Conflict:
The purpose of the chart is to provide the skills needed to de-escalate a conflict, and to
lower each level above the first to a more manageable level if possible.
• Levels are not Discrete:
There usually are not clear distinctions between conflict levels, and there is often overlap
of characteristics. Intensity levels will vary from individual to individual and from group
to group, requiring a consultant to examine a broad database before deciding the conflict
level.
Characteristics are Inclusive:
As a corollary to the above note, the diagnosis of a particular conflict level of intensity
ought to be derived from looking at all characteristics, rather than one or two that seem to
dominate.
• Team Approach should be Considered:
The suggested leadership skills acknowledge that no one person may have all the skills
needed to manage a higher-level conflict. Other team members are needed to share
insight and, especially at higher levels of intensity, to share the emotional stress of
conflict intervention.
• Training Required for all Intensity Levels:
It is recommended that all members of a Committee on Ministry be trained to handle
level one conflict. For those persons identified to act at levels two and three, additional
training is required. Level four and five usually require professional outside consultants
in conflict management.
LEVEL ONE — PROBLEM TO SOLVE
Characteristics:
1. Issue = Real disagreement; conflicting goals, values and needs etc.
2. Emotions = Short-lived anger quickly controlled; parties begin to be uncomfortable in
presence of other.
3. Orientation = Tends to be problem oriented rather than person- oriented.
4. Information = Open sharing of information.
5. Language = Clear and specific.
6. Objective = Solving the problem. Move toward unanimous agreement. Utilize collaborative
style.
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7. Outcome = Collaborative agreement if possible. Win/win final resolution with acceptable,
mutually agreed solution.
Skills Needed
1. Trust/rapport building skills.
2. Ability to think theologically.
3. Good listening skills.
4. Working knowledge of the Book of Order and of the church
5. Problem-solving and decision-making skills.
6. Consulting skills
7. Knowledge of available resources
Training Strategies
1. Skills to be taught leadership on a continuing basis.
2. Develop resources using audio, visual and printed materials (including VCR)
3. Use of case studies and roleplaying for skills training
LEVEL TWO: DISAGREEMENT
Characteristics:
1. Issue = Real disagreement; mixing of personalities and issues; problem cannot be clearly
defined.
2. Emotions = Distrust beginning. Caution in association; less mixing with the “other side.”
3. Orientation = Begin personifying problem; shrewdness and calculation begin.
4. Information = Selective holdback of information occurs on both sides.
5. Language = More vague and general; “some people...” “they...,” hostile humor, barbed
comments and put-downs
6. Objective = Face-saving; come out looking good. Tend to move toward consensus. Not yet
win/lose conflict.
7. Outcome = Attempt collaborative solution; or negotiate acceptable agreement; win/win with
real effort.
Skills Needed
1. All skills under level one; in addition;
2. Analytical skills.
3. Understanding of power dynamics and issues.
4. Mediation skills.
5. Self-awareness skills.
Training Strategies
1. Selected persons from Committee on Ministry with additional specialized training/leadership.
2. Regionally-based year-long training in 5-6 segments or,
3. Attendance at weeklong workshop.
4. Use of simulation for training.
LEVEL THREE — CONTEST
Characteristics:
1. Issue = Begin the dynamics of win/lose. Resistance to peace overtures. Focus on persons
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representing the enemy.
2. Emotions = Not able to operate in presence of “enemy”; however, admire worthy opponent.
Not willing/able to share emotions/feelings constructively.
3. Orientation = Personal attacks. Formation of factions/sides Threat of members leaving. Need
third party consultant from Committee on Ministry or outside.
4. Information = Distortion is major problem. Information shared only within factions.
5. Language = Overgeneralizations: “You always...” “We never...” Attribute diabolical motives
to others.
6. Objective = Shifts from self-protection to winning. Objectives are more complex and diffuse;
clustering of issues.
7. Outcome = Decision-making=mediation, compromising, voting. Possible that some will leave
the church.
Skills Needed
1. All skills under level one and two; in addition;
2. Designing and negotiating contracts.
3. Clear recognition of one’s own limits.
4. Understand interaction of personality types.
5. Facilitator in-group process.
6. Skilled in developing clear process of decision-making.
Training Strategies
1. Presbytery-based crisis intervention team screened by Committee on Ministry and trained by
experiential methods.
2. Facilitator’s limits have tested in advanced experiential training.
3. Long-term, continuing training through national and regional training events.
4. Have access to individual trained to administer and interpret instrument for self/other
awareness, e.g., Myers/Briggs Type Indicator.
LEVEL FOUR: FIGHT/FIGHT
Characteristics:
1. Issue = Shifts from winning to getting rid of person(s). No longer believe other can change,
or want to change.
2. Emotions = Cold self-righteousness. Will not speak to other side.
3. Orientation = Factions are solidified. Clear lines of demarcation. Last place for constructive
intervention by third party consultant.
4. Information = Limited only to the cause being advocated; will not accept/listen to contrary
information.
5. Language = Talk now of “principles,” not “issues.” Language solidifies into ideology.
6. Objective = No longer winning; now eliminate other(s) from the environment. Hurt the other
person/group.
7. Outcome = High probability of split within the church with significant number of persons
leaving church.
Skills Needed
1. All skills under level one, two and three; in addition;
2. Ability to assess need for additional skill building.
3. Proven experience (track record).
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4. Knowledge of broader more specialized resources.
5. More formal networking (i.e., Assoc. for Creative Change); knowledge of those qualified to
work in related areas.
6. Careful adherence to the Book of Order.
Training Strategies
1. Ability to determine if a commission is needed.
2. Member of an identified cadre.
3. Practical training based on skills/needs assessment.
4. Acknowledgement at this level, intervention is helpful to “pick up the pieces” and negotiate a
settlement, not to resolve the issue.
5. Use of specialists in networking. (See skills needed #5—above.)
LEVEL FIVE: INTRACTABLE
Characteristics:
1. Issue = No longer clear understanding of issue; personalities have become issue. Conflict
now unmanageable.
2. Emotions = Relentless obsession in accomplishing the objective(s) at all costs. Vindictive. No
objective control of emotion.
3. Orientation = Sees person as harmful to society, not just to the offended group or person.
4. Information = Information skewed to accomplish the objective at any cost.
5. Language = Focuses on words that imply the destruction and/or elimination of the other.
6. Objective = To destroy the offending party/persons; i.e., to see that the fired pastor does not
get a job elsewhere.
7. Outcome = Highly destructive. Use of compulsion to maintain peace. May be necessary to
remove members from church. Possible formation of administrative/ judicial commission.
Skills Needed
1. All skills under level one through four; in addition;
2. Adequate personal support system and strong inner resources. Able to practice personal stress
management techniques.
3. Careful adherence to the Book of Order, especially the Rules of Discipline.” It is
acknowledged that at this level no reconciliation is possible. Consultant’s purpose is to
minimize damage of conflict and enable person/institution/group to be able to function again.
Training Strategies
1. Develop plan for the rebuilding of relationships.
2. Support for all members of the church.
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Group Decision Methods Overview
1. Decisions by Majority Rule (polling or voting)
Most familiar range from informal (polling opinions after discussion) to formal (voting)
Be aware of potential barriers that can hinder implementation of majority rule decisions.
• Minority feeling misunderstood and sometimes resentful particularly if they feel there
was insufficient time of discussion to get their views across.
• Feeling that the vote has created two camps — the losing coalition often not focused on
or sometimes even hinders implementation of decision.
If voting is used, be sure to create a process in which all committee members feel their views
have been sufficiently considered AND where members feel obliged to go along with the
decision of the majority.
2. Decisions by Consensus
Most effective but also most time-consuming method
• Consensus is NOT the same as unanimity — rather it is a state where communications
are sufficiently open and group environment sufficiently supportive so that everyone in
the group feels they’ve had a fair chance to influence the decision.
• Time must be allowed for all in the group to state their position and state it fully enough
so that they feel the others really do understand them. This requires careful active
listening.
• Each individual should be able to accept the group’s decision on the basis of logic and
feasibility and the judgments may be implemented as a group’s decision.
A final test for Consensus:
• Do you feel you have had sufficient opportunity to be heard?
• Do you feel team members have listened to and understood each other’s views?
• Do you feel you have listened to and understood other’s views?
• Do you feel the team has been open and frank in this discussion?
• Do you believe the decision (even if it isn’t necessarily the one you would have chosen, if
deciding alone) is a sound decision?
• Do you “own” this decision?
• Are you committed to actively support this decision once you leave the meeting?
3. Decisions by Unanimity
• Logically perfect but least attainable kind of decision
• Where everyone agrees on the course of action
• Know whether seeking unanimity is necessary for certain key decisions
Source: THE HERRINGTON GROUP, INC — 1995
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The Sacred Diamond Of Religious Life
Ministry Strives to Meet Two Human Needs ∼
Yearning for a Sense of Ultimacy & Meaning
I can’t see this chart. Again, another method?
Hunger for Intimacy & Belonging
On the Vertical axis:
Worship. Transcendent Centers of Valued & Power: Our experience of the Holy. “Soul”
work, apprehending our relation to the Divine/Holy/God.
Witness. Living Our Faith Values: Walking our talk in daily living, individually &
communally.
On the Horizontal Axis:
Faith Development. My evolving understandings of self and belief. “Ego” work.
Beloved Community. My belonging to a transformative community of love. From “me” to
“we.”
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Netiquette for Congregations
by Ian Evison
E-mail and the Internet have become great tools for congregations and their leaders. But
there are times when hastily sent communications, inadvertent spam, and other painful
experiences remind us that these tools need to be used wisely—and at times, with caution.
Ian Evison serves as Congregational Services Director in the Central Midwest District of the
UUA.
A revolution in digital communication has hit many congregations. And, like many revolutions,
this one has its casualties:
• There is the pastor who—after receiving an ornery e-mail at the end of a long and
stressful week—hits “reply all” and then tells everyone exactly how she or he feels.
• There is the congregation that thinks e-mail would be a great way of reaching out to lots
of Gen-Xers and Millenials—and finds itself accused of spamming.
• There is the one board member who does not have e-mail and who does not appreciate
being excluded from online deliberations.
• There is the online community that descends into a flame-out that never would have
happened if the same people had been meeting face-to-face or speaking by phone.
How should congregations respond? It is hard to make general prescriptions. The digital world
changes quickly. Different congregations are in different places in their digital journeys. One of
most interesting things about congregational responses to the digital communications revolution
is their diversity in the face of unique mission challenges.
Consequently, it would not be helpful for all congregations to adopt uniform best-practice
responses quickly. And any advice must be offered from one angle of vision on a changing
landscape.
Yet, we are far enough into the digital communication revolution in congregations that it is
possible to generalize about some casualties, to give an initial inventory of some issues, and to
point towards some helpful responses. We would also be interested in hearing other reports of
creative, faithful responses to casualties of the digital revolution in congregations.
Common types of congregational casualties in the digital revolution seem to fit into five groups:
When virtual communities turn vicious. It has become easy to create free e-lists for
communicating among board, team, or committee members. One common type of casualty arises
when a group sets up such an e-list and then someone either posts a strong opinion or makes a
personal attack. The speed at which such a conflict can escalate is amazing when people don’t
need to wait until next month’s meeting to express themselves.
While the “he said, she said” stage of analysis in a conflict is rarely illuminating, dissecting
flame-outs after the fact often reveals that people perceive the borderline between frank
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exchange and flame to lie in very different places. In this medium, one person can easily
perceive that another has crossed the border into flame and thus feel justified—if only
momentarily—in fighting fire with fire.
All-too-easy digital communication. Every congregational leader has at some time or another
left a meeting sorely tempted to let everyone know exactly how she or he felt. Unfortunately,
electronic communication provides a number of ways to do this easily. It is important to note
here that the problem is not “wanting to vent.” Letting off steam is a time-honored tradition.
Writing out anger so one can see it is good. Anger can provide the energy to finally do
something about an unacceptable situation.
Yet, actually hitting that “send” button might not be wise. An alternative might be to send
yourself the e-mail and read it again in the morning. Or, make an agreement with a colleague
outside the congregation to read drafts of such e-mails, helping to differentiate between useful
initiative and folly. (A ministerial spouse interviewed for this article suggests that spouses should
not be asked to play this role.)
That tricky “reply all” button. When using e-mail for congregational business, there is a
dilemma concerning the “reply all” button. What should I do when I receive an e-mail that has
been sent to a group, but I feel that I should respond only to the sender? It is probably hard to
make a general rule. E-mail (like pagers and cell-phones) is definitely a triangulation tool.
Speaking about one person to another in a divisive way is made all too easy by digital
technologies.
Thus, it might seem that the best practice when replying to a group message would be to address
the whole group. This keeps the discussion in the group. Yet, some people are rather
indiscriminate and send copies to people who are only vaguely or peripherally connected. In
such a situation, “reply all” may load the inbox of people already overloaded.
If anything other than “delete” is appropriate, it would likely be “reply” rather than “reply all.” It
can be hard to navigate the rocky shoals between the Scylla of “triangulation is bad” and the
Charybdis of “bothering people is bad.”
When my outreach becomes your spam. E-mail is a great tool for outreach: It is cheap. It is
fast. It allows people to respond quickly. And amazingly, some people who throw fourth-class
mail into the waste basket will read mass e-mails. Yet, when people receive mass e-mails that
seem like spam, they are rarely in the mood to hear your arguments that your outreach efforts are
not “really” spam.
The last person without e-mail. Many congregations have reached the point where entire
committees or teams are on e-mail. E-mail becomes a marvelous way to review notes before a
meeting, poll a group between meetings, get answers to informational questions, and maintain
momentum on work. But what do you do when not quite everyone has e-mail?
Often groups commit themselves to sending paper copies or phoning those who have not yet
gone digital. In practice, this is a difficult discipline to maintain and is not a substitute for the
immediacy of e-mail. One woman on my congregation’s board said it was like getting day-old
bread—nourishing, perhaps, but not quite the same. The other most obvious solution is to aid the
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straggler to make the digital leap.
How might congregations avoid these casualties? In a way, the answers are simple. Some
problems with digital communication arise because people allow themselves to use the new
media as an occasion for forgetting old rules: “Do onto others as you would have them do unto
you” pretty much covers problems with flame-outs.
While these well-tried rules usually apply, however, they often fail to cover the specifics of
netiquette, the digital highway “rules of the road.” And, while there are some helpful netiquette
guides for congregations, two cautions are in order: First, netiquette (like the Internet itself) is
evolving, and there are legitimate reasons for norms to differ in different groups. Second,
adapting and using digital technology needs to involve a discussion about behavior. Realistically,
there is no reason for the youth group to remember (let alone follow) a sheet of rules for digital
communication unless those rules have become a behavioral covenant that they fully own and
embrace (see Gil Rendle’s book, Behavioral Covenants in Congregations: A Handbook for
Honoring Differences).
This said, out of some painful experiences have come some increasingly standard sets of
netiquette rules that many congregations are using. In fact, after going through a period of
elaboration, the subject of netiquette is developing into special sets of rules. Netiquette has
become enough of an issue that businesses have formed to guide corporations on the subject: see
www.epolicyinstitute.com and emailreplies.com. While it is not yet time to declare any of rules
“best practices,” they are a place to start and to raise the issues that congregations need to
consider.
Copyright 2011, CRG. Permission is given to copy and distribute this document, with the following attribution: “This
document is offered through the courtesy of the Congregational Resource Guide:
www.congregationalresources.org.”
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Section #5
Resources are available –both human and divine –
that can help to bring about the changes we seek
These resources are a cause for ultimate optimism
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The Healthy Congregation #5
Taking It Home
(Or Don’t Act Like You’ve Been to the Mountop)
111
Leadership Inventory & Plan
We expect DBLE to lead to positive differences for our congregations and our Unitarian
Universalist movement through effective training and preparation of congregational leaders.
This means that the most important consequences of DBLE are not what happens here during
this week, but what happens after we return to our home congregations and to our work with the
wider Association. The Personal Leadership Inventory & Plan help us connect the attributes
and experiences we bring to DBLE to what we experience here at DBLE, and then to what we do
and effect in our congregations following DBLE.
Questions congregational leaders ask:
•
What is my role or what are my roles?
•
How does each of my roles serve the wider mission of my congregation?
•
How is my faith expressed through my leadership work? How have my leadership team
and I brought spiritual practice to our leadership work?
•
How does my role(s) relate to others’ role(s)? What are the relationships inherent to my
role and that affect its success?
•
What personal experiences, accomplishments, knowledge, skills, traits or attitudes do I
bring to my leadership role(s)? How can I build on my strengths?
•
What knowledge, experiences and/or skills should I acquire to be more effective in my
role(s)? What are my ‘growing edges?’
•
What factors or conditions energize me in leadership work? Which sap my energy and
enthusiasm?
•
What is success in my leadership work? How would I know I am/we are succeeding?
•
What should I do now and what should I plan and prepare to do in the future for my
leadership work to succeed?
•
Where and to whom do I turn for support and learning to be more effective and satisfied
in my work as a leader?
An important aside about roles -- Most congregational leaders serve multiple roles: Board
member, ministry team chair/member (= volunteer staff), congregant (= many other roles),
delegate, minister, and other professional or paid staff. It helps to be aware of which role we
are serving and when our role shifts; for our role affects our relationships, and our success in
relationships affects the success of our leadership work. Being an effective leader means being
in right relationships.
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The Personal Leadership Inventory and Development Plan on the following pages are tools to
help your growth and effectiveness as a leader. We expect that you take time before coming to
DBLE to reflect on them and to consider them with another leader in your congregation with
whom you work closely. What you learn and experience here at DBLE should cause you to
change and/or add to your responses. We encourage you to take time each day at DBLE to
reflect and make notes in consultation with other participants and staff. One of the most
important benefits of DBLE is the network of leadership support that you can build while here.
Be sure to add to this part of your plan.
Support for Putting our Plans into Action:
When you return home from DBLE share your plan with those you work with in your leadership
role(s), expect to make adjustments. Be sure to identify at least one other leader in your
congregation with whom you will periodically review and refine your plan.
In order to advance the goals of our leadership work and to continue to cultivate the network of
support you have build here at DBLE, I will host and facilitate sets of three quarterly
teleconferences for DBLE 2011 graduates. The purposes of the calls are to share particular
challenges we face in our leadership work and to offer our support and counsel to one another.
Approximately three quarterly calls will be offered by congregational size category. The
three sets of calls will occur in October-November 2011, January-February 2012, and
April-May 2012. You will receive e-mail notification and invitation from me prior to each set
of quarterly calls.
This is an exciting recent addition to the DBLE experience that will hopefully advance the
effectiveness of our leadership and the health and missions of our congregations.
Joe Sullivan
Dean, DBLE 2011
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DWIGHT BROWN LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE 2011
Personal Leadership Inventory
Name:
Congregation:
Leadership roles in congregation or other religious organizations:
When
Current:
Past church-related leadership roles:
Other pertinent experience:
Knowledge, Skills, Traits or Attitudes that I bring to congregational leadership work
Knowledge or Skills
Traits or Attitudes
What fuels or depletes my energy in congregational leadership work
Satisfiers
Dissatisfiers
Accomplishments that have shaped my leadership skills and style
Accomplishment
My Role in the Accomplishment
My personal faith statement or vision:
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Personal Leadership Development Plan
My Congregation’s Mission:
How my leadership role relates to and advances the mission of my congregation?
How my faith is expressed or practiced in my leadership work:
Strengths that I bring to my leadership work:
My leadership ‘growing edges’:
My personal leadership development plan (advancing my leadership knowledge & skills)
What
By When
Action plan to advance the goals of my leadership group (board, committee, ministry team)
What
By When
Support network for success of my personal leadership development and action plans
Within my church:
Outside of my church:
How will I use my support network:
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WHAT WOULD YOUR CONGREGATION LOOK LIKE AS A PERSON?

GENDER?

AGE?

FAVORITE ACTIVITIES/INTERESTS?

GOOD AND BAD HABITS?

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN HIS/HER LIFE?

HOW HE/SHE DEALS WITH DECISION MAKING?

HOW HE/SHE DEALS WITH CONFLICT?

WHAT EXCITES/ENERGIZES?

WHAT SCARES/IMMOBILIZES?

OTHER SIGNIFICANT TRAITS?

WHAT DOES SHE/HE WANT YOU TO DO ABOUT THE ISSUES OF CHANGE
YOU ARE FACING?

WHAT DOES HE/SHE NEED YOU TO DO ABOUT THE ISSUES OF CHANGE
YOU ARE FACING?

HOW DOES SHE/HE REWARD/PUNISH YOU ABOUT ISSUES OF CHANGE?
FROM GIL RENDLE’S ALBAN INSTITUTE WORKSHOP “LEADING CHANGE IN THE
CONGREGATION”
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SACRED COW BARBECUE
Slain sacred cows make great steaks. Dick Nicolosi
What sacred cow would you like to slay in your congregation/board/agency?
Who would you like to invite to the barbecue?
Who would be first in line to eat?
Who might choke on the meal?
FROM GIL RENDLE’S ALBAN INSTITUTE WORKSHOP “LEADING CHANGE IN THE
CONGREGATION”
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Faith Development is all we do.
The Unitarian Universalist Religion is all we teach.
The congregation is the curriculum.
To access additional appendices to these sessions and
lists of resources, please go to
http://www.uusouthland.org/resources.html
http://www.swuuc.org
http://www.uua.org
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Elements of Small Group Ministry
Six Necessary, Defining Elements






Size. The ideal covenant group size is eight to ten people. The group should have at least
three or four people plus the facilitator and never more than twelve, including the
facilitator.
Frequency of meetings. The group should meet at least once a month and may meet
twice a month or even weekly in someone's home or at church (if a quiet, private, living
room-like setting is regularly available).
Format. The format must combine worshipful and/or centering readings or rituals and
personal check-in periods at the start and at the end. (See the recommended format
below.)
Facilitators. A facilitator is a woman or man who has been chosen and trained by the
minister(s) (or in societies with no minister, by someone chosen by a small steering
committee). The minister (or designated leader) then facilitates a covenant group for
facilitators so that the training is ongoing and shared.
Empty Chair. Always keep at least one chair empty, to symbolize those not yet reached
who need us and to suggest the expectation that a new group will be "born from" this
group when membership gets to ten or so.
Covenants. During the second meeting, agree on a behavioral covenant-on how members
wish to be with each other. Later, agree on at least one service to perform for the church
each year. Twice a year, find a way of doing, as a group, something beneficial in the
larger community.
The Every-Meeting Format





An opening reading from a Unitarian Universalist source (our hymn book contains
enough material to sustain a covenant group for many, many months).
A check-in period during which each person is asked to briefly state his or her answer to
a question such as, What's on your mind today? What do you need to leave behind for a
couple of hours in order to be fully present here?
A time for the focus or purpose of the meeting. The topic or activity can be whatever
the group prefers, so long as it is consistent with our Purposes and Principles and the
mission of the sponsoring congregation. The focus should be more on sharing than on
debating.
The closing check-out. The facilitator asks each person for a word or phrase that says
something about how she or he is feeling as the meeting draws to an end.
A closing reading. Again, it should be from a standard Unitarian Universalist source.
Excerpted from The Complete Guide to Small Group Ministry: Saving the World Ten at a Time
by Robert L. Hill. Other resources are available at www.smallgroupministry.net the UU Small
Group Ministry Network and at www.the-ccv.org/ The Center for Community Values.
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