Bending The Arc: Building A Better UU Justice Network
Harvard Kennedy School Policy Analysis Exercise
Submitted to: Rev. Brock Leach, UUSC Rev. Kathleen McTigue, UU College of Social Justice Prof. Tim McCarthy, Harvard Kennedy School Prof. Thomas Patterson, Harvard Kennedy School
Prepared by: Casper ter Kuile Candidate for Masters in Public Policy, 2016 Candidate for Masters in Divinity, 2016
February 17th 2015
This PAE reflects the views of the author and should not be viewed as representing neither the views of the UUSC, UUA, the UU College of Social Justice nor those of Harvard University or any of its faculty.
Acknowledgements
In the process of writing this Policy Analysis Exercise, I have been guided and encouraged immeasurably by those without whom this project would have failed totally. My thanks go to -
Rev. Brock Leach, for being the perfect ‘client’ and collaborator. Particularly for his generosity in including me in numerous related UUSC processes so that I might understand better the context of this project and his belief that this research will prove useful.
Professor Tim McCarthy, for his consistent insight, inspiration and practical assistance.
Rev. Kathleen McTigue and her team at UUCSJ for suggesting interviewees and consistent moral support.
Pam Sparr, Sushma Raman and all the staff at UUSC for their encouragement, logistical aid and guidance.
Rev. Dr. Bill Schulz, for suggesting I work with Brock on the project.
Professor Thomas Patterson, for his guidance and willingness to help me finish the project in a shorter timeframe.
And finally, and most importantly, to all the interviewees who offered their time, expertise and creativity in the hope that we might learn together. My particular thanks go to the many UU ministers who have demonstrated so powerfully how I might unite my own ministry and justice work in the future.
2 Key Terms
AJWS – American Jewish World Service
AME – African Methodist Episcopal Church
CBCO – Congregation-based community organizing/organizations
DRE – Director of Religious Education
FAN – Franciscan Action Network
FCNL – Friends Committee on National Legislation
GA – Unitarian Universalist General Assembly
Gilbert Model – Richard Gilbert’s social justice model developed in Rochester, NY and elaborated on in The Prophetic Imperative. (See Bibliography)
IAF – Industrial Areas Foundation
MCC – Mennonite Central Committee
RE – Religious Education/Religious Educator
Share the Plate – A fundraising effort whereby a partner organization receives half of the funds donated at a worship service.
UCC – United Church of Christ
UU – Unitarian Universalist
UUA – Unitarian Universalist Association
UUCSJ – Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice
UUSC – Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
3 Table of Contents
Executive Summary 6 Introduction 8 Literature Review 12 Methodology 17 Findings 19 Mobilizing Identity 19 National and State Justice Infrastructure 21 Organizing Structure 24 Theology and Faith-Based Action 31 Leadership Development 35 Supporting Leaders 41 Partnership 44 Accountability 49 Beyond Service 50 Justice and Growth 55 Measuring Impact 56 Illustrations 48 Recommendations 51 Cluster Development 60 Building Partnerships: Local 60 Building Partnerships: National 61 Practicing Covenant 61 Telling Stories 62 Youth Leadership 63 Justice Leaders Network 64 Spiritually Sustaining Justice Leaders 65 Measuring What Matters 65 Mass Training 66 Accreditation 66 Appendices 59 List of Interviewees – UU 68 List of Interviewees – External 72
4 Oral Consent Form 73 Sample Interview Questions 73 Full Survey Data 74
5 Executive Summary
The institutions that serve Unitarian Universalists are not adequately feeding their hunger for justice. In part because of budget cuts, lack of strategic coordination and missed opportunities, the quality of congregational justice making is sporadic at best. Despite some impressive successes, ministers are frustrated, leaders burnt out and large numbers of small organizations are competing for the same resources.
The wealth of expertise that sits within the UUA, UUSC and UUCSJ often fails to reach congregations, and certainly fails to reach unaffiliated UUs. Local justice leaders are isolated internally and unable or unwilling to form strong partnerships externally.
Though UUSC’s mission abroad is being fulfilled well, there are significant difficulties in domestic work. UUSC’s mission to ‘advance human rights and social justice around the world, partnering with those who confront unjust power structures and mobilizing to challenge oppressive policies’ is not being fulfilled. Most congregations struggle to develop projects that go beyond service, and fail to confront structural injustices with meaningful, long-term projects. Local leaders partner poorly and very little theological grounding and spiritual nourishment is built into congregational justice work.
This report, commissioned by the UUSC in partnership with the UUCSJ, seeks to identify the ingredients for a successful UU Justice Network and its approach. Drawing on a survey of UUSC members, congregational justice literature and 51 expert interviews, this report provides a snapshot of the current state of justice work within the denomination and recommendations for improvement.
Findings
• Congregations across the country struggle with similar issues. How to develop successful partnerships, develop new leaders, and create meaningful opportunities for social action continue to present difficulties.
• These difficulties are grounded in theological, cultural and structural traditions. Efforts to change justice work often fail to take into account the root causes for attitudes and behaviors. Justice work often remains disconnected from the faith formation and theological development of congregants, and is seen as an add-on.
• Working models exist – both at the center and the margins – that could be replicated and adapted more widely. The lack of investment in social justice clusters, small group justice work, long-term partnerships, and state networks are prohibiting growth and impact. Underinvestment in training congregational leaders has left justice leadership quality patchy and disconnected.
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• There’s a hunger among UU justice leaders for more collaboration, support and training. Many are looking for leadership, which UUSC is well placed to take on.
Recommendations
1. Create a UU Justice Network and widely train justice leaders. Invest in widespread training that is spiritually grounded, privileges the insights of the oppressed, builds genuine covenanted and enduring partnerships and mobilizes for systemic change. House training program within UUSC and UUCSJ to ensure programmatic unity and depth of faith-rooted justice approach.
2. Actively support leaders. Develop a network of support by hosting regional retreats that support leaders practically by sharing resources and strategies as well as emotionally and spiritually, in order to avoid burnout.
3. Invest in scaling solutions and share their story. Those models that are succeeding, such as small group justice ministry and congregation clusters need support to spread. Use UUSC’s current financial health to further demonstrate success and scale by sharing stories of success.
4. Go beyond congregations. Many UUs are unaffiliated but remain passionate about justice work. UUSC/UUCSJ can create a justice network that not only includes unaffiliated UUs and young adults, but depends on them.
5. Develop sharable tools. Many tools need only a one time investment to develop, and can then be continuously shared through the network, such as an impact metric dashboard, resources for Religious Educators, video series of best practices and covenanting guide.
UUs have throughout history been at the forefront of supporting struggles for justice. Now is the time to create the infrastructure, nationally, regionally and locally, to enable those passionate for a better world to make it happen.
7 Introduction
The Context
The Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice (UUCSJ) was launched in 2012 to build the capacity of Unitarian Universalists – individually and collectively – to catalyze justice. It is a collaboration of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA) which serves 1100 North American congregations and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), an independent, non-sectarian international human rights organization founded to advance Unitarian Universalist values of inherent worth and dignity and interdependence and promote the principles of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In partnering to form the College, the UUA and UUSC recognized the need to provide transformative experiential learning and justice education programs for Unitarian Universalists and their allies so that they could become more capable activists and change leaders and more deeply grounded in their faith, whether serving in UU congregations or institutions or other justice organizations. Programs-to-date have included service learning experiences for individuals and congregational groups offered in partnership with community-based organizations from marginalized communities. The topics have spanned disaster relief, economic development, worker justice and immigration reform. In addition, the College has created a spectrum of hands-on justice education programs for high school age youth as well as a wide variety of internships and fellowships for young adults. After almost three years, these programs have generated a growing group of individual alumni who are more motivated, better educated in justice work and more deeply grounded in their Unitarian Universalist identity and tradition.
The Challenge
As an organization for whom most programmatic work is outside the US, and whose foundation is the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (itself written in an age of American superiority) it is not surprising that the focus has not been on domestic justice work.
From its inception, the College has recognized this imbalance and focused on building the capacity for more effective social justice work in Unitarian Universalism here in the USA. Not only does this require providing transformative educational experiences for individuals, which makes up current programming, but also requires UU congregations and other UU justice organizations to become more focused, better organized and more effective in collective action, both as independent entities and as allies working across the denomination. The creation of the College also enables UUs to further the promising moves of taking proactive action on justice issues, rather than reacting to human rights abuses or rights in crisis.
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However, as a denomination founded on the principle of congregational polity – i.e. independent, self-governing congregations, bound in covenant to certain principles but beholding to no central authority – and as one that is comprised of many who prize individual freedom of religious expression, the justice efforts have typically been well intended but diffuse. In aggregate they cover a vast spectrum of progressive interests, from the local to state, national and international, from civil liberties to environmental justice, prison reform, peace and global human rights. There is no formal, and little informal, coordination of this work between the UUA and the UUSC, the denomination’s two largest justice institutions, much less between the State Action Networks, the constellation of issue-specific justice organizations, the geographic districts and regions, or the congregations themselves.
Today the only widespread vehicle for collective UU justice expression is the Standing on the Side of Love campaign that serves to mobilize UUs and provide more visible witness on a range of issues, though the nascent Commit2Respond climate campaign represents the first effort to work on a specific issue across six UU organizations. There has also been some successful collaboration at the state level, for example the UUSC and UU Justice Ministry of California’s work on the Human Right to Water.
Moreover, because the work is so diffuse, much of it is too superficial to have lasting impact and there is little learning from best practices among congregations. Most congregational justice projects are short-term, with few relationships of deep trust built with partner organizations. Many interfaith or organizing efforts are fleeting with only circa 5% of congregations making successful, multi-year commitments that lead to transformative justice work.
There is currently no trained cadre of social justice activists and community organizers; there are few well-placed advocates in capitals, there is little ongoing programmatic justice work focused on building coalitions and advancing long-term solutions; and while many congregations do laudable service and charity work not many have made the transition from doing good service work to doing good service and justice work. That means many are failing to confront their own privilege in service work and do little to dismantle systems of oppression. Poorly done service work leaves little room for transformative relationships to be built, and falls into destructive patterns of ‘rescuing’ rather than mutual aid. Furthermore, there is no well-defined common framework and language in place for thinking about effective and sustained justice work.
Finally, because of the history of the denomination, UUs are by and large whiter, wealthier and more privileged than the average American. This brings up deep questions of the role of UUs as allies in social movements, both across racial and economic class lines.
Despite this lack of collective organizing and action, Unitarian Universalism brings significant assets to justice work. UUs are grounded in a shared faith that humans have both the ability and obligation to bring about a more just and life-affirming
9 world, and they are united around seven principles1 that speak to that vision. Indeed, social justice can be seen as the ‘glowing ember’ at the center of most UU congregations. UUs have a proud history of nurturing leaders who have propelled social movements and helped found storied organizations (e.g. American Red Cross, Goodwill, ACLU, among others), and they have typically been at the leading edge among religious institutions in taking positions on such critical justice issues as abolition, women’s rights, immigration reform and LGBTQ marriage equality. Moreover, they have a meaningful presence with congregations in most communities in America, 160,000 adult members including thousands of passionate activists, and a well-educated, creative class membership that has social and political influence well beyond its numbers.
The Purpose
The ways in which the UUA and UUSC have supported justice work in congregations and beyond has changed over time. Up until 2010-11, when budgets were cut, the UUA national office subsidized Social Justice Empowerment Program workshops for over 200 congregations in a period of over 20 years. Though versions of this training has been offered since to clusters of congregations, this national program of individual congregational justice development is no longer operating.
Over the last decade, working relationships between the UUA and UUSC have improved considerably, and the creation of the College marks a new high point in denominational collaboration. With UUSC financial health and appetite for increased domestic justice mobilization work, the UUA and the UUSC have agreed to explore and envision what a better focused; better-supported; and more cohesive UU Justice Network would look like.
This research project, a first in terms of the scale of stakeholders interviewed, complements previous quantitative surveys led by the UUA. It also corresponds to the creative engagement by UUSC of a taskforce representing ministers, other congregational justice leaders, the leading justice institutions and activists on the ground in envisioning the framework for a future Justice Network. This research helps to identify and prioritize the key elements required to assemble the network and contribute to creating a three-year implementation and funding plan. If the plan were adopted, it would likely combining some existing resources of the parent organizations, while adding funding and staffing for this much larger mandate. The immediate objective is to develop a complete proposal to be presented for approval to the leadership of the UUA and UUSC in the summer of 2015.
The Questions
As defined by Rev. Brock Leach of the UUSC,
1 See Appendix 1
10 1. What are the largest and most urgent identified obstacles/gaps/needs on the way to more effective work as identified by ministers, congregational leaders, activists and other justice organization leaders “on the ground” and how do those compare to other best practice models from the research above? How do the needs identified by these leaders compare to those identified by UUs at large and by UU institutional leaders? Identifying these gaps may help us anticipate challenges in implementation.
2. How does the effectiveness of UU collective justice work compare to other effective religious groups or other social justice organizations in terms of both impact and potential resources? What kind of influence and impact does UUSC/UUCSJ currently have in comparison to what might be possible as demonstrated by other organizations?
3. What relevant best practices exist at the congregation and community level that result in more effective collective justice work? This will involve looking, in particular, at the practices of the most effective UU congregations as well as those of other denominations.
4. What best practices can be found for both supporting community-based and federated justice work while also harnessing collective voice and building collective impact? This will involve looking a similar federated religious institutions as well as leading community-based organizing federations and other justice movements.
5. What are the most critical elements of the future UU Justice Network, in what sequence should they be built, and what should the resulting network look like at completion? Note that network enhancement does not imply centralization of authority; only better defined roles, more effective deployment of resources and harmonization of efforts for greater impact.
11 Literature Review
Much has been written on congregational justice work, both theologically and organizationally. Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School Luke Bretherton articulates the opportunity for communities of faith to strengthen the civic fabric and solve pressing needs in his theology of contemporary Christian community organizing. For Bretherton, the oft-made distinction of service and justice is a false one. He writes, “Pastoral ministries have no explicit political agenda but are more often than not simply a response to an immediate human need. They can be viewed as more a form of humanitarian than political action. Nevertheless, the pastoral ministries of the church have a political discussion because, by seeking to heal, care for, and enable the flourishing of others, the church contributes to the earthly peace of society as a whole.”2 Bretherton is right not to ignore the value of service work. Too often, activists focused on dismantling structures of oppression do not see the immediate need that can be met on their own doorstep. But, crucially, the way in which this service work is done must not abandon the explicit discussion of systemic drivers, and the need for structural changes – including in service providers’ own lives. In this way, service work can be an excellent venue for political education and relationship building.
Inspired by his work as an Anglican theologian and a community organizer in London, Bretherton is no stranger to working across boundaries of privilege. The question for Bretherton is how richer, whiter congregations can find the resources for persistent agitation, to use Saul Alinsky’s phrase. He reflects on this theologically, arguing that God furnishes congregations with this grace through the encounter of strangers. “It is my contention that a basic condition for the health of this kind of conservative-radical politics is hospitality and a commitment to building a common life with others. It is through these that we encounter others not like us and with whom we disagree. Such encounters forestall ‘archaic’ traditions from becoming idolatrous and oppressive repristinations of a dead faith. For Christians, this is part of what it means to live betwixt and between this age and the age to come, simultaneously within the earthly city and the city of God”3 Clearly, Bretherton is writing in his Anglican context, but his reflections will be familiar to any Unitarian Universalist holding on to a decades-old fundraising dinner or riverbed cleanup that is viewed more as a chore imposed on a congregation than an opportunity to engage and empower congregants in meaningful justice work. Or for that matter, will readers of this report recognize the need for more successfully encountering of the other once exploring the answers to this study’s survey and interview responses.
For Bretherton, community organizing is how congregations can most successfully work for justice, while at the same time crossing the borders of race and class. For UUs worried about being lost in the multi-faith, but always Christian dominated,
2 Luke Bretherton, Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness (Chichester: Wiley & Sons, 2010), p31 3 Ibid, p86-7
12 congregation-based community organizing groups, Bretherton advises, “Community organizing is a way of honoring one’s own tradition while at the same time hallowing others among whom one lives.”4 Romand Coles expands this argument and goes further to describe the benefits of faith-based organizing over purely secular work. “In this more responsive and receptive context, relationships are formed and deepened in which a rich complex critical version of a community develops along with the gradual articulation of alternative possibilities… As different positions, problems, passions, interests, traditions, and yearnings are shared, through careful practices of listening, participants begin to develop increasingly relational senses of their interests and orientation in ways that often transfigure the senses with which they began. And as relationships deepen, bonds are formed that are more capable of enduring the rough and tumble of more-agnostic politics.”5
But justice leaders must be prepared for rough and tumble. Harvard Kennedy School Professor Marshall Ganz, a leading organizer with the National Farm Workers Association during the California grape boycotts, and later a leading strategist for the Obama ’08 campaign, stresses the role of leadership development and storytelling to keep people engaged in justice work. His methodology of Public Narrative, in which individuals are guided through a process of discovery and practice in telling their own Story of Self, Story of Us and Story of Now, has been adopted by activist groups all over the world, as well as by the Episcopal Church in the United States. He also spoke at the Providence General Assembly in 2014 to general acclaim. Learning to mine one’s own history and experiences for words that motivate others into action also has the benefit of one’s own spiritual deepening. Indeed, as the son of a Rabbi, Ganz is no stranger to the particular ‘moral sources’ of motivation, to use Charles Taylor’s term, which religion offers. The theologies, narratives and practices are, for Ganz, key resources for religious communities in their organizing, and resources dramatically underused by UU congregations that keep faith formation and social action distinct.
Most important to Ganz, however, is the need for developing strategic capacity among leaders, a lack of which is historically bemoaned at the congregational level. He writes, “Strategy matters… The ability to capitalize on opportunities by turning the resources one has into the power one needs that transforms possibility into results… We can create strategic capacity by the skillful assembly of a leadership team and the careful structuring of its members, constituents, and environment.”6 The role of the leader, or perhaps paid staff, remains crucial in developing this capacity. “We tend to think of leadership as individual, strategy is the output of a leadership team far more often than organizational myths acknowledge. The individual leading the team plays a uniquely important role, especially in forming, coaching and sustaining the team.”7
4 Ibid, p87 5 Romand Coles, Beyond Gates Politics: Reflections for the Possibility of Democracy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) p222 6 Marshall Ganz, Marshall, Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p252 7 Ibid, p10
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To develop these leaders, one can turn to Gregory F. Augustine Pierce, a leader of an IAF affiliate in Chicago and his book Activism That Makes Sense. When considering the development of leaders, Pierce argues, “what the congregation should not do is ask for volunteers. And, when it gets them (if it does), it should not expect them to be competent leaders nor expect a crash course in technique to turn them into leaders overnight.”8 Instead, congregations should create a plan that includes three things; first, an idea of whom they are looking for; second, a method for propositioning those people; and finally, an arena in which to train them in the skills that they need. For Pierce, involvement in a congregation-based community organizing initiative can provide all three.
In advice echoed by Rev. Alexia Salvatierra later in this report, the qualities of a good congregational leader are not the obvious traits of eloquence or activist experience. Instead, Pierce points to -
1. Stability: a clear sense of values and self-interest. 2. Accountability: the expectation that saying something will get done will mean it gets done. 3. Power: understanding what’s winnable and what isn’t and the necessity of using power. 4. Anger and humor 5. Patience: listening to others, allowing others to learn from mistakes. 6. Vision: a good sense of what one would like the community to look like.
The only way to involve new leaders with these qualities is to explicitly ask them personally, individually, in a one-to-one setting. It must be in the context of an existing relationship, with clear expectations of what leadership involves, and should be reciprocal in some way.9
For Pierce, these skills are best learned in “direct, corporate, congregational involvement in community organization. [It] can avoid the pitfalls of the other approaches to activism [social service, individual action, action by resolution and electoral politics] while remaining solidly inside the experience of American congregations.”10 But becoming actively involved in congregation-based community organizing is often uncomfortable. “Congregations avoid community organizing because they understand that of necessity it entails controversy, and controversy is the most unwanted commodity in American religious institutions.”11 He especially points to the difficulties that ineffective partnerships can lead to. Therefore, a successful partnership depends on three things; the need to respect the equality of the other group, the need for a clear decision-making process, and a mechanism of accountability for when things turn sour.12
8 Gregory F. Augustine Pierce, Activism That Makes Sense: Congregations and Community Organizing (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 1984), p86 9 Pierce, Activism That Makes Sense, p90-5 10 Ibid, pp16-17 11 Ibid, p70 12 Ibid, p60
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These texts all speak either explicitly to a Christian congregation, or a more generally theistic community. The context for Unitarian Universalists is different enough to merit some further thought. Unitarian Universalist minister and scholar Rev. Richard Gilbert’s book The Prophetic Imperative is the foundational social justice text for most UU congregations. His model integrating worship, religious education, mutual ministry and moral action has been taken up by the UUA in its Social Justice Empowerment Handbook and beyond. The model emphasizes the diverse ways in which justice work can be embedded into congregational life, and how seemingly non-political elements of church life, such as worship, can strengthen or weaken the culture of justice making.13
Gilbert’s model is strongest in illustrating a process for congregations to identify core issues to invest in over the long term, and how to form the task forces that lead on these issues in collaboration with the Social Responsibility Council (SRC), a steering committee.14 Further, Gilbert’s strategic planning model is notable for its inclusion of a statement of religious assumptions – an opportunity for congregations to develop theologically in their justice work, as well as its evaluation process. Summarizing the different ways in which congregations can approach justice work, he lists eight models.
1. The Church as a Community of Moral Discourse: involving the whole congregation in moral discourse, ethics and how the church might apply them. 2. The Church as Staging Platform and Launching Pad: training and preparing congregants to take part in social action elsewhere. 3. The Church as Interfaith Innovator and/or Participant: taking on an issue ahead of the mainstream and working to involve established community groups. 4. The Church as Specialized Ministry: working with others to focus solely on one issue or project. 5. The Church as Creative Minority: working with a small number of influential people over a longer period of time to take action. 6. The Liberal Church as Pathfinder: similar to (5) but focusing on thought leadership. 7. Ecclesiola in Ecclesia: creating small groups of activists that act independently. 8. The Church as Corporate Actor: acting as a church body through community groups, programs or changing church practices such as investment decisions.15
Yet compared to the depth of Pierce’s analysis of congregational organizing, Gilbert’s list feels rather thin with some categories overlapping significantly, and other justice strategies glaringly missing. Furthermore, regrettably, Gilbert
13 Richard S. Gilbert, The Prophetic Imperative: Social Gospel in Theory and Practice (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2000), p121 14 Ibid, p156-9 15 Ibid, p134-149
15 dedicates little effort on some of the most frequently raised difficulties in UU congregational justice work – partnership, leadership development, and even the strategic choice of an issue to work on (rather than the process of choosing it.) This research paper attempts to fill in some of those missing pieces.
16 Methodology
This report rests on four forms of data gathering:
1. Expert interviews with 35 UU justice leaders. These include ordained ministers, lay leaders, UUA staff and community ministers. Congregations represented range in size from family to corporate16 and include all five UUA regions17. 23 women and 12 men were interviewed. 30 interviewees were white and five were people of color. A complete list of interviewees is included in the appendix. Interviewees were suggested by Brock Leach, Pam Sparr and Kathleen McTigue, identified by other interviewees or sought out separately.
Interviewees were emailed or called to set up a time, and all interviews were conducted over video-call or on the telephone. Calls lasted between 25 and 70 minutes. A sample set of questions, including a consent form, is included in the appendix. Although a common set of questions was used for all interviewees, conversations were free to deviate to additional fruitful topics and specific areas of expertise of the interviewee.
2. Expert interviews with 18 non-UU justice leaders. These included ministers from other religious traditions/denominations, staff at faith-based justice organizations and secular advocacy groups. Six women and 12 men were interviewed. 10 interviewees were white, and eight were people of color.
Interviewees were emailed or called to set up a time, and all interviews were conducted over video-call or on the telephone. Calls lasted between 25 and 60 minutes. A sample set of questions, including a consent form, is included in the appendix. Although a common set of questions was used for all interviewees, conversations were free to deviate to additional fruitful topics and specific areas of expertise of the interviewee.
3. Survey of UUSC members. On 31st October 2014, circa 20,000 UUSC members received an email asking them to complete a survey to share their reflections on congregation-based justice work. Anyone completing the survey was eligible to win two free tickets to UUSC’s 75th Anniversary Gala Celebration in April 2015. 325 responses were collected before the survey was closed on December 12th 2014. As the full survey data in the appendix shows, both the UUSC list and the members responding tend to be older and more likely to be female.
16 Using Arlin Rothauge's categorization: average attendance 0-50 adults is a "Family Church"; 51-150 is "Pastoral"; 150-350 is "Program"; and 350+ is "Corporate". 17 Mid America, Southern, Central Eastern, New England and Pacific Western.
17 There was one unfortunate error in the survey set-up by UUSC staff that meant that all respondents skipped the second question. This question sought to differentiate between those already taking leadership in a congregation on justice work, and those who aspired to. As all respondents therefore were given questions related to existing leadership further down the survey, these questions suffer from a diffuse experience of leadership, with a number of answers falling into the category ‘Not Applicable’ or ‘Unclear’. Some respondents understandably also felt as if they were being asked the same question twice. The impact of this on the survey as a whole is minimal, but does result in Question 7 being dominated by responses that are unclear. This error could also have caused confusion for respondents, and contributed to the lower response rates for later survey questions.
The survey was set up to solicit stories that might illustrate some of the known issues in congregational justice work, as well as point me to unknown issues. For that reason I set up to the survey to pose two questions in the same textbox, to try and dig into some depth with the questions. This had mixed results – with some respondents using the prompts productively to share stories, while others’ answers were unclear or only spoke to one of the questions. Nonetheless, useful data was gathered.
Finally, all spelling and grammatical errors in quotes from the survey have been left unedited.
4. Literature review. The review covers both previously published UUA resources for justice making in congregations, individual congregation reports on justice efforts and UUSC planning documents, which are worked into the findings section, as well as relevant academic literature on faith- based justice work, reviewed above.
18 Findings
Mobilizing Identity
“What’s missing is the 400,000 folks who identify as UUs but are not in a congregation. I am convinced many of them would want to be involved in UU-based justice work.” Rev. Cathy Rion Starr, Unitarian Society of Hartford
Peter Morales, President of the UUA, consistently speaks of the need to go beyond congregations. By this he means that there are opportunities for UUs and those sympathetic to UU values, to gather in community in forms that look different to a traditional congregation. Because over 600,000 people self-report as UUs in national surveys, and only 100,000 are members of congregations, we know that there are many to whom their UU identity is important, but who are not yet successfully engaged. This need to go beyond congregations is true also of UU justice work. There is an opportunity to mobilize UUs on their identity, as well as more traditionally, on their congregational membership.
In this, UUs are not alone. Less than a third of American Jews regularly attend synagogue18. Wanting to mobilize Jews in congregations and beyond, the American Jewish World Service has developed a model that reaches practicing and non- practicing Jews who care about social justice. AJWS has hired organizers in five cities19 to organize action teams made up of congregation members, put forward by rabbis, as well as individual supporters. Unaffiliated participants often find the action team because they’ve previously been involved in AJWS programs such as the Global Fellowship (a year-long activist training program). The groups span across age, denominational affiliation and geography within the cities. Each month they gather to take action and plan local campaigns. Leaders also join national strategy calls where staff in New York share updates and partner organizations share stories of struggle.
Senior Organizer Adina Mermelstein Konikoff explains, “Rabbis are really excited by this structure. They don’t have the bandwidth for new campaigns so it’s a win-win for them. They identify two or three people in their community who can develop into a strong congregational justice leader. We at AJWS have a structure that they can plug them into. We’ve only been using this model for just over a year, but we’re starting to see that actually happen.”
AJWS developed this structure in response to a growing need to create a next-step action for people who have been involved in learning journeys. Mermelstein
18 More than twice a month. A Portrait of Jewish Americans, October 1st 2013, http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes- culture-survey, accessed 5th January 2015 19 Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, DC, San Francisco and Chicago.
19 Konikoff’s own journey proves instructive. “I went on service learning trips – they were amazing. But we didn’t have the appropriate structure for when people came back. For teenagers and youth, the trips formed a stronger Jewish identity and developed their care for justice more broadly, but it isn’t enough.”
Bend The Arc, a Jewish group focused on building justice and compassion in the US, also works to mobilize non-practicing Jews. National Field and Campaigns Director Rachel Feldman explains, “A lot of the audience we’re trying to reach are people who don’t lead a religiously Jewish life, but still identity culturally. Our ability to capture that cultural identity, with yard sign candles for example, without hitting people over the head with religion is what we try to do. We want them to be able to take action Jewishly.”
Bend the Arc is structured similarly to AJWS, with local chapters being built by professional organizers. They only launch locally when they have a range of committed leaders – both people who are connected institutionally and people who aren’t. Events are hosted purposefully outside of synagogues as well as in religious spaces, so that all feel welcome. Feldman reports that Bend The Arc is attracting both Jews who want to be more engaged on justice issues than they find in their own congregation, and also non-practicing Jewish activists who want to find some spiritual grounding for their justice work.
The Franciscan Action Network faces similar challenges in appealing beyond religiously practicing Franciscans. FAN hopes to attract many culturally Christian activists who are not members of a congregation. Through the Franciscan Earth Core program, it works with young adults, rotating ecological service and justice activities such as planting gardens, cleaning up parks and organizing trainings. Like both the AJWS and Bend The Arc models, this program is also city-based. FAN frames actions and trainings in clearly Franciscan language, and attracts Christians from multiple denominations, and even some non-religious activists inspired by St Francis.
Though all three programs have been launched within the last three years, early signs indicate that there are real opportunities to mobilize non-affiliated UUs, particularly those who have been raised in UU congregations but have not found a worshipping community as young adults. We know that roughly seven out of eight UU youth do not continue attending a UU congregation when leaving their parental home20. This number is unusually low, as most comparable denominations can still expect at least 50% of their youth to continue to attend church. Here, then, is an enormous opportunity to engage UU youth successfully in justice work, while simultaneously strengthening their UU identity.
20 Christine Wille McKnight, “The Cost of Losing Our Children”, The UU Growth Blog, January 2010, https://uugrowth.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/uua-retention- mcknight-paper/, accessed on 16th February 2015
20 National and State Justice Infrastructure
“We’ve been most effective on local issues, not even state level and certainly not at a federal level. We are a drop in the bucket.” Annette Marquis, UUA
Reaching these unaffiliated UUs demands a strong justice infrastructure to which they can be connected. Made up of national organizations, state networks, regional clusters, local partnerships, congregational campaigns and individual actions, it is a fertile system, if somewhat complex. This should be no surprise. UU justice infrastructure is rooted in a history of independent, autonomous, locally led action. Both in theology, culture and practice, the last two hundred years of Unitarian and Universalist history have seen a strong hesitancy and suspicion of centralization and ecclesiastical control. This has brought great gifts, but also challenges. Today, though the UUs are small in size compared to other faith communities, the privilege that many UUs carry, combined with the passion for social justice, means that UUs could punch significantly above their weight if formed in a cohesive, strategically focused justice network. To achieve that infrastructure, much effort and resource is needed.
Nonetheless, in designing an improved justice infrastructure, it is worth noting that many non-UU interviewees in this study look to UUs as leading very strong justice work! For example, the African Methodist Episcopal Church struggles to mobilize members quickly, and is much more dependent on the support of individual ministers compared to the UUA and individual UU congregations. Speaking soon after the failure to indict Officer Wilson following the Ferguson shooting, AME Rev. Valerie Toney Parker explains, “We’re not doing enough so that when things happen, we’re ready to respond. I got a call after the officer failed to get indicted – we all knew that’s what was going to happen, so why wasn’t there a plan ready?”
The Franciscan Action Network attempts to avert this difficulty by being connected to individual activists rather than congregations, as are AJWS and Bend The Arc. Newsletters, monthly webinars and calls with leaders around the country keep activists engaged and current with campaign or legislative progress.
Communication from the center to the network is also a theme of the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Father Bryan Hehir argues that the Catholic social teaching articulated in pastoral letters remain valued sources of information and conversation, even if parishioners disagree with them. The explicitly moral arguments made in these letters deepen the faith-led nature of Catholic social justice action and provide a resource for parish ministers. Charles Wynder of the Episcopal Church USA offers an example of such a pastoral letter’s impact. In recent attempts by the Episcopal Church to repent for, and reconcile with, it’s historic role in upholding slavery in the United States, Bishop Robert Wright wrote a pastoral letter sent to every worshipping community in his district. It detailed the ways in which the church had supported slavery and repented fully for it. Following the letter, numerous repentance and reconciliation services were held along a ‘Trail of Souls’ at churches and cemeteries in Maryland, as a way for the Episcopal Church to face up to its history of racism.
21
The Mennonite Central Committee is focusing its infrastructure development by building up congregations of color in urban areas. By changing who engages with MCC campaigns, it hopes to shift internal campaign priorities and strengthen their work countering the schools to prison pipeline and gun violence. Historically, the Mennonite base has been in rural and suburban areas so that justice priorities have been swayed by what seems most pressing to those constituents. Peace and Justice Coordinator Curtis Book, explains that “Many times white privilege is to have head-y ideological and theological questions, when people of color are saying ‘be practical!’ A lot of what we do is shift the culture of privileged congregations.”
The views from UU leaders on the state of national justice infrastructure is mixed. The Standing on the Side of Love campaign was particularly appreciated by ministers for its informative and flexible approach. Though initially the idea was to be spread through ministers out to congregations, it became a success when allowed to become open source, proving particularly successful on social media. As the campaign was not set up to be an organizing structure, UUA staff are now working to provide more back-end support for those leading the campaign locally.
Despite some inspiring campaigns and legislative victories, the efficacy of State Action Networks received particularly conflicting feedback. The survey revealed that congregation members often don’t see the impact of advocacy work, and assume that little is being done – even despite cases of real success. The UU Justice Ministry of California is universally regarded as an exemplar of state-level collaboration, but even there, congregations struggle to feel involved, especially when geographically further away from the paid staff. Rev. Julia Hamilton, Assistant Minister at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, shares that, “In California we’re moving toward a cluster model, because the state is just too big. There’s already multi-site ministries and lots of energy for regional clusters, so that’s exciting. A regional staff member would mean hugely increased capacity. State Networks could offer some of the back-end logistics like payroll administration.” Clearly, the mezzo-level organization is crucial in connecting national with local organizing, particularly in partnerships or statewide campaigns.
Rev. Meg Riley, Church of the Larger Fellowship, concurs. “The State Networks are great for places like California – but even there it took five years to really build it into something powerful. In places like Minneapolis, having the four churches here work together is much more effective than trying to create a State Network that would drag them down. One size just won’t fit all – people just need such different things.”
Rev. Katherine Jesch, Community Minister with First Unitarian Church of Portland, sees the struggle of forming a State Action Network, “The nascent Justice Ministry in Oregon is struggling to get leadership to invest in its institutional development. They’re starting to talk about individual membership rather than getting congregations engaged.” Further cause for concern comes from Jesse Jaeger, former Executive Director of UU Mass Action, who sees serious long-term financial difficulties for State Action Networks. “Most congregations think State Action Networks are centrally funded and so are hesitant to give money. Only in a small number of large states are State Action Networks financially viable.” Rev. Lindi
22 Ramsden, the founding Executive Director of the UU Justice Ministry of California agrees. “Doing justice work at a national level is really hard. Even at a state level, the reality is that state networks are underfunded. That’s why the cluster model works well.” But she stresses the necessity of state-level organizing. “Funding follows a demonstration of value like our work on water in California and the marriage equality campaigns in Minnesota and Maryland. We’ve seen the huge opportunities for partnering at a state level in these campaigns.”
When State Action Networks are most effective, it is because the network takes on a state-level issue connected to a national priority articulated by the UUA. “It went badly when we were pulled into work on national legislation where our local decision-makers were already on side” says Jaeger.
Aware of these issues, Susan Leslie and her team at the UUA are working with the 22 networks in existence to create a set of standards as to what criteria need to be met in order to be an official UU State Action Network.
Valuable lessons have been learned about the role of UUs in wider movements for justice from some of these statewide efforts. Jaeger shares, “UUs often play a convening role in activist work because, particularly on the left, we are able to convene some of the more progressive faith traditions. That’s what we did at UU Mass Action, particularly in involving UCC churches and Episcopalians. After a number of years, immigrant justice organizations would approach us as the group to get people of faith involved.” Rev. Meg Riley sees a similar opportunity. “Look at Faith in Public Life21 - they’re doing fantastic work to mobilize progressive faith voices on justice issues. That’s what we could be doing!”
The Friends Committee on National Legislation plays a similar convening role in Washington. Jose Aguto explains, “On climate, we knew there’d be little moving in Congress, so we’ve gone outside and sought interfaith delegations to talk about the moral call. Our goal has been to shift soft allies from other faith groups to become more outspoken… We work together with conservative organizations behind the scenes to influence decision-makers who wouldn’t listen to us.”
Clearly, the suspicion of centralized power is keenly felt at the state level, and UUSC will need to continue to work collaboratively if state networks are to succeed. More than anything, the lack of resources hinders effective state level action – both in the legislative process and the engagement of UU congregations around the state. UUSC will struggle to maintain direct relationships with each of the 1100 congregations across the country, necessitating a mezzo-level institutional layer. Though state networks may be appropriate it in some states, there are simply not enough congregations and resources to enable their existence in all fifty. City hubs or clusters, as developed below, can provide a solution here.
21 Faith In Public Life, http://www.faithinpubliclife.org, accessed on January 7th 2015
23 Organizing Structure
“Although there’s a strong tradition of social action in UU congregations, they often want to be activists instead of organizers. In coalition meetings, for example, they’ll see themselves as an individual activist rather than representing the entirety of their congregation.” Lew Finler, Massachusetts Communities Action Network
UU justice work is rooted in congregations. The approaches and quality of this congregational justice work varies widely and is in need of considerable improvement. Frustratingly, there is a wealth of knowledge on what works and what doesn’t – both within the UUA and congregations who are successfully leading justice efforts. The transmission and adaption of these best practices is poor, particularly since budget constraints cut down the individual congregation trainings that the UUA offered until 2010-11. This section explores what organizing structures work in what contexts, relying on both interviews and quantitative date from the survey.
The key question in congregational justice work is, as Rev. Richard Gilbert asks in his book The Prophetic Imperative, how to take “the normal variety of opinions on social issues and become intentional in transforming them from coffee hour chatter into moral discourse and social action.”22 The UUA’s Social Justice Empowerment Program was launched in 1992 to help answer this question and was followed with an association-wide anti-racism initiative in 1997. Though more than two decades old, the advice provided in the Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook is insightful and practical. It specifies different structures for social justice work depending on the size of the congregation, and provides some universal indicators by which justice leaders can measure impact. For example, justice efforts should aim to have 20% of people attending a Sunday service involved, and action groups work best when they have at least five people committed. The Handbook is filled with example stories aimed to inspire and inform congregations into effective justice work.
Despite the high quality of these resources, and the best efforts of UUA staff to support justice leaders, the quality of congregational justice work ranges widely. Unsurprisingly, usually the most strategic and widely engaging justice work takes place when a paid member is responsible for supporting it. There are only circa 20 congregations out of 1100 that have part-time paid social justice ministers of some sort, many of whom are given the broad portfolio of ‘community life’, which includes justice work. Rev. Lindi Ramsden, now Dean of Students and Community Life at Starr King School for the Ministry, puts it this way, “It’s not that it’s impossible to make good justice work happen without paid leadership, but it is way more likely to happen when there is.” Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, Special Assistant to the Bishop for Welcoming Congregations for the Southwest California Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, agrees. “Paid staff is what works.”
22 Rev. Richard S. Gilbert, The Prophetic Imperative: Social Gospel in Theory and Practice (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2000), p135
24 Even with paid staff, however, there are real pitfalls. If the focus of the social justice minister is to lead the work themselves, then congregations are setting themselves up for failure. The focus of social justice ministers must be to develop other leaders, as addressed in the next section. Salvatierra, “The difference is whether the organizers are organizing. A person can work with five congregations if they do it as an organizer not a mobilizer.”
Besides hiring a social justice minister as an individual congregation or forming a cluster with nearby congregations and doing the same, congregations can gain staff capacity by joining a congregation-based community organizing federation such as PICO. This has the added benefit of being comparatively low in cost.
Realizing the growing need for organizing capacity on-the-ground, PICO has changed its structure in the last five years to meet this need. For new federations, instead of demanding a very developed plan and coalition before sending an organizer to work with congregations, Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews, Director of Clergy Organizing, explains, “We pay for the full first year of an organizer’s time, so that the local federation can benefit from their expertise as they build up the coalition. Any additional staff to be hired are then paid for by the federation members. The first staff member is responsible for training leaders from the coalition congregations, often doing this in clusters of congregations. Working in clusters is proving beneficial. Whereas we used to have one organizer for every five congregations, it is now closer to one in 20.”
Congregations that commit deeply to a community organizing approach often flourish. The Community Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, in Kansas City MO is an example. After a growing number of congregants had attended a Gamaliel training on their own initiative, they sought to more actively engage their minister, who was hesitant at best. They convinced Senior Minister Rev. Dr. Bob Hill to attend a weeklong program and through his subsequent active support, have achieved remarkable results. Because of this experience, the church now pays for any congregation member to go on the training (at a cost of $600 a head). All they ask is for the participant to pay for their own travel. Rev. Hill explains, “If the community organizing training and the experience of organizing didn’t also benefit the church itself, we wouldn’t be doing it – but the church has benefited enormously.” Supporting the importance of in-person training, Executive Minister of Justice and Witness Ministries at the United Church of Christ, Rev. Linda Jaramillo adds, “In our most successful justice work, congregations pay for leaders to go to a PICO or Gamaliel training.”
Though CBCOs offer dedicated resources, support staff, a model into which congregations can easily plug, relationships with multi-racial and economically diverse congregations and much besides, being part of an organizing federation can also be restrictive. Rev. Cathy Rion Starr, Co-Minister of the Unitarian Society of Hartford, CT points to the unwillingness for organizing federations to collaborate unless it is in their self-interest. Further, CBCOs will often be slow to react to ‘movement moments’, or let them pass by completely. No doubt, this focus on structured engagement may come up against difficult relationships UU congregations historically have with centralised control – perhaps one reason why
25 we see few congregations engaged in this form of traditional community organizing.
Evidence of this came through the many expert interviewees who joked about the UU propensity to not let any movement moment pass them by, so much so that congregations are known to practice the ‘no cause left behind’ approach. This illustrates the reactive nature of most congregational work, where only when crises emerge are petitions signed and money raised. Rev. Richard Gilbert’s model of congregational unity on justice work was developed in Rochester, NY in response to this tendency. Multiple stories of progress were shared in the interviews, including Rev. Scott Taylor, Director of Congregational Life, UUA and former Co- Senior Minister of First Unitarian Church of Rochester, NY. “Using the Gilbert Model has had also positive impacts elsewhere in the church, so that our issue, immigration, becomes the focus for youth programming and adult education committee. Kristen Kuriga, Social Justice and South Bay Ministry Teams Coordinator at First Unitarian Universalist in San Diego, CA, has also used the Gilbert principles in practice. When she first arrived in San Diego, there were 14 different justice working groups, each with only one or two members. After much hard work, 85% of the attendees on a Sunday have participated in one of five core social justice actions.
Many congregations are in need of this kind of process. The survey responses revealed that the primary barrier to more effective justice work is the process of choosing an issue and coming to agreement on a strategy. These example responses are typical.
Building consensus around what we address and actually finding something that we can do which will make an impact.
Knowing how to prioritize which cause(s), knowing that we possess limited people and other assets. Also believing that if we all got behind one issue as an institution, doing our side work on the side, we would be so much more effective. Maintaining long-term commitment among UU members, and overcoming the "single event" syndrome.
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Finding the right strategy doesn’t just apply to advocacy work. Annette Marquis, LGBT and Multicultural Programs Director at the UUA, points to the need for clear processes around service work also, in order to have maximum impact and avoid the pitfalls of creating patterns of rescuing. “UU congregations that work on homelessness could be using their status as a welcoming congregation to an advantage and lift up the number of homeless LGBT people, for example. Very few others are doing that. It’s crucial that we use our unique context, even in service work.” Of course, Annette acknowledges, choosing one focus is never universally popular. “It’s necessary to have people who are able to step up and say things that are unpopular. That will cause some people to leave and the willingness to let people go is a big, big advantage. The minister has to be willing to say, ‘this isn’t going to be the right place for you.’”
Yet the process to determine what a congregation cares about is far from easy. Rev. Robin Tanner, Lead Minister at Piedmont UU Church, NC, explains, “When you ask congregants what they care about, often they’ll tell you what they think you want to hear. It can easily turn into a consumerist mentality or choosing whatever you want to do. Instead, we should be going out and asking our communities what they need.” Identifying some of these same issues, Kristen Kuriga now looks for answers to four key questions when choosing a congregational justice project.
1. Is there energy for it within the congregation? 2. Does it meet a local need? 3. Is there a partner organization or strong relationship with effected population? 4. Does the congregation add value, particularly through our faith contribution?
Susan Leslie, Congregational Advocacy and Witness Director at the UUA also identifies some aspects of the Gilbert Model that don’t fit congregational demands. “The Model is missing the local angle. It is great at developing consensus and identifying for what project has energy in the congregation, but it doesn’t have a consciousness of the social location of the community.” It is worth repeating that the need for the Gilbert Model’s approach towards a common purpose emerges from the history and structure of UU congregations, where lay leaders are empowered to act individually, and emphasis is placed on individual freedom. This tension is one that justice leaders will need to work skilfully with at all levels of UU justice work.
Susan Leslie and her team at the UUA have developed criteria in the Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook that speaks to the need to go beyond the Gilbert Model and identify these structural complexities. Through exercises like mapping the congregation’s history, resources and relationships and identifying stakeholders, UUA staff use the following four categories to assess the likely impact of a congregational justice projects.
1. Grounding – does the project have a faithful, spiritual tone? 2. Accountability – is it done in partnership with people impacted by the issue?
27 3. Fit – do leaders have the resources, energy in the congregation and partners that can help make it a success? 4. Opportunity – is this a current topic in the public sphere? Is relevant legislation moving? Is this the right time to move?
This list is not dissimilar to the one used by the United Church of Christ, who focus on,
1. Partnerships 2. Prepared Leadership 3. Organizing Capacity
Each of these sets of categories reflect in some way the philosophy of thinking globally (i.e. systemically) and acting locally (i.e. where congregations have most influence.) This doesn’t mean congregations can’t be active on global issues, but it does necessitate them to find a local lever of power which they can influence.
Once an issue and a strategy have been chosen, there is no guarantee that more than the people engaged with the social justice leadership will be part of congregational efforts. Rev. Cathy Rion Starr, “The challenge with the Gilbert Model is how to engage the rest of the congregation.”
Andrew Schwartz, Director of Operations at Union Theological Seminary, and a congregational organizer, identifies a lack of self-confidence as inhibiting engagement. “People of faith see themselves either as victim or anachronistic. What really helped the faith communities that I work with was making people feel like they were important, that the work that they do matters. That they’re as cool as the other kids – even if they don’t get the same recognition.” Justice leaders responding to this study’s survey echo the sense of disillusion with social change, in part because of decreasing confidence in electoral systems.
The biggest challenge for me is wiping away the apathy and helplessness that people feel when faced with structural injustice. I live in Mississippi, and a lot of people want to talk about what needs to happen but very few people actually want to show up when it's time to make a show and do social justice work in the streets. Engagement and retention are my biggest challenges.
Others put it more simply,
I cannot get any followers.
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Lew Finler, Executive Director, Massachusetts Communities Action Network suggests following a traditional community organizing approach and appealing more explicitly to congregants’ self interest. “A lot of it is about self-interest. What is the pain I may be feeling about the world? You need to get people in touch with some part of their own story. Even when they’re in a stable middle class income situation – where in their life or history is that stability not the case?” But doing this in a faith context can backfire. Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, ELCA, explains, “It doesn’t always make sense to agitate on self-interest. I was involved in a campaign where there wasn’t any self-interest! But members of the church considered doing it for the love of their children. Faith communities share the assumptions of profound connection and congruity. Human motivations are more complex than pure self-interest and most organizing models fail to understand that.”
Annette Marquis, LGBT and Multicultural Programs Director at the UUA, suggests a different approach. “Offering multiple entry points is really important. If working on homelessness, for example, both serving meals and applying for grants and doing policy advocacy work can include different people in different ways.” One way to engage new constituencies in the congregation is by working with religious educators. Liz Jones, former Director of Religious Education for First Unitarian Universalist in San Diego, is keen to stress that it needs to be a real collaboration between justice leaders and DREs and that it takes time to develop the relevant age-appropriate materials.
Although Rev. Lindi Ramsden argues that engagement isn’t always necessary, “There is a place for a few lone rangers too, particularly in state networks. You don’t always need to bring the whole congregation with you to do some good work”, there is clearly a consistent difficulty in engaging broadly and developing leaders. The survey responses are further evidence. When asked what barriers they encounter internally, answers include,
Silos that see SJ advocacy as the work of the activists, not OUR work
29 "Lots of talk and not much action." People hear a lecture about (name the problem) and they assume that they've done something useful during the process of listening. At first, the lectures may be helpful. After twenty or thirty years, the lectures may become counterproductive.
Having enough time to handle all aspects of the organizing - which is a symptom of the bigger problem, not enough people who have time to do the research and ground work to facilitate the inclusion of other people.
Members give lip service to the importance of justice work and to the congregation's statement commitment to Social Justice, but neglect to become involved in that work. It probably evolves from the level of busy-ness that most people seem to be faced with today - they can't add one more thing to their "busy schedules" - or is that a smoke screen? We don't know.
This is nothing new. The Congregational Social Justice Survey (October 2011) concluded that overwhelmingly the biggest challenge was lack of participation, followed by volunteer burnout and struggling to move people from ideas to action. One solution identified in the expert interviews in this study is the use of small groups. Whether familiar to activists as affinity groups, or in a faith-formation context, small groups enable congregants to share more deeply their experience and frustrations with social justice work. Rev. Meg Riley, Senior Minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship reflects on her own experience. “When I’ve been boldest in my activism, it’s been in a small group of people who have had my back. You can see the same thing in action in how Marianne Manilov and her team are organizing Wal-Mart workers.” Again, the connection between global issues and local spheres of action is strong.
Rev. Deborah Holder, Community Minister in the Mountain Desert District of the UUA, has been pioneering small group-led social justice work. “The small groups are both a learning community, based on a praxis model and a small group ministry. They engage in campaigns in partnership with a local interfaith organization, where they can bring spirituality into the social change work. When small groups get together, the first hour is spent on developing relationships through shared learning and reflection. The second hour then builds on that learning by moving into action. That’s a huge shift away from the usual task-force model of justice work where we jump straight into the agenda!” Rather than adding additional leadership constraints on ministers, Holder argues, “One of the benefits of the small group model is that the minister can step back and focus on their role as a spiritual and religious leader. There’s less of a pressure to lead the organizing and speaking, but they can bring the spiritual depth.”
Bringing spiritual depth into social justice work demands skill and effort. Co- Minister Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs of Unity Church, Unitarian in Saint Paul, MN shares that though successfully developing small groups of leaders engaging the congregation in justice work, “We also expect the leaders of the small groups to think about how to infuse the experience with spiritual reflection, and many feel incapable of leading in this way. We’re yet to develop the training our leaders need, especially community outreach teams.”
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Clearly, there is no one solution that works in all congregations. Size, location, resources, and uniformity within the congregation – all will shape the internal organizing structure. Nonetheless, the use of small group ministry, the engagement with community organizing federations, and the implementation of the UUA’s guidance all offer valuable opportunities for improved impact in congregational justice work. Rather than developing a new congregational model, UUSC would be better placed to support these existing solutions that are all in need of additional resource.
Theology and Faith-Based Action
“The best moments for theological growth are in campaign defeats – that’s where you can take people to a spiritual place, even secular partners will be hungry for that.” Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
For too long, social justice action has been seen as a separate activity from the heart of congregational life. Though UUism is expressed in many ways – Theist, Humanist, Pagan and much beyond – the role of faith in Unitarian and Universalist justice work in history is strong. For example, early Unitarian and Universalist Abolitionists such as Theodore Parker and Lucy Colman were guided powerfully by their faith, and justice work was seen as a direct expression of it. However, the foundational theology of Unitarianism and Universalism may also have sewn seeds of individual action rather than collective liberation, evidenced by William E. Channing’s theology of self-development. This genealogy traces back further to Protestantism, and particularly Calvinism’s idea of an Elect, which might not be unfamiliar when witnessing many UU congregations’ reaction to the idea of celebrating Veteran’s Day or welcoming Republicans into the congregation.
Yet today, many congregations shy away from theological reflection and faith formation in justice work, partly out of fear of corrupting the world of politics with religion (for fear of mimicking the Religious Right), and partly out of lack of skill. It is worth noting then, that the College has developed a rigorous and sensitive approach to faith-rooted justice education that many congregational justice leaders would welcome.
This focus on religious resources is not new, however. UU theology runs richly throughout the UUA’s justice resources, including group exercises and sample theologically grounded justice mission statements. Indeed the Social Justice Empowerment Handbook starts with the UU theological grounding for justice work and makes clear that the purpose of a congregation is not about changing politics, but rather,
“Doing justice work from a religiously grounded place…because it - Sustains us: personally and congregationally - Provides us vision and grounding - Gives us courage to engage in transformative work - Helps us to frame our issues authentically and morally
31 - Reflects our most deeply held values and beliefs - Increases our clarity and effectiveness - Allows us to speak with a religious voice and demonstrate there is a plurality of religious beliefs that can come together for action.”23
Nonetheless, much justice work in congregations is done without a strong foundation of theological reflection, spiritual practice or faith formation. Jesse Jaeger, former Executive Director of UU Mass Action, goes further. “The biggest missing piece for me is the personal sense of mission being supported in the work. This is why I’m moving away from UUism. Our tradition, ritual and theology are so thin. There’s not enough to ground us in the work. Not having the reflection and theological depth that we need, because all our readings in a service are so safe and fuzzy, for example, makes us pretty much the same as the Democratic Party or a union.”
In this, Jaeger is not alone. Rev. Howard Dana, Senior Minister of First Parish, Concord, MA points to the history from which some UU congregations are emerging. “We’re coming from a place where we’d made a golden calf out of social justice. We’ve discovered that it’s not working well as a substitute for actual religion.” Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, Minister of UU Congregation of Phoenix, AZ learned in difficult circumstances. After hosting a universally acclaimed Justice General Assembly, “the Social Justice Committee disbanded in 2013. The Chair moved on, and I formed an immigrant taskforce so that it was organized separately. Frankly, we’ve struggled to get people involved. It’s been a huge lesson – justice can’t be the full mission of a congregation. For a long time I’ve stopped preaching about justice and really focused on spiritual resilience.”
Congregations set the tone for how youth engage with justice also. Alex Kapitan, Congregational Advocacy and Witness Program Coordinator at the UUA, shares his experience as a youth. “My biggest mentors were people who were doing social justice action from a place of anger. Now I’ve learned that anger is useful but toxic, that I need to bring it back to love. That anger can easily spill into frustration with the minister or another target within the church.” Rev. Ned Wright, Executive Director of the UU Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, concurs. “If we don’t make our traditions real for people, we’ll be missing out a chance to give them things that will carry them through.”
The real difference in theologically grounded and secular campaigns comes to light, often when confronted face-to-face with those who perpetrate injustices. Rev. Parisa Parsa, Consultant to the UU Urban Social Justice Ministries Project, “We have to assiduously avoid casting out folks beyond the realm of love. That’s not to say we don’t confront actions or name them as inhumane, but we must believe in the possibility of transformation. That’s what makes us different from a progressive political group or non-profit.” Lew Finler, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Communities Action Network, an affiliate of PICO, concurs in identifying concrete
23 Susan Leslie, “Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook”, Unitarian Universalist Association, October 2011, http://www.uua.org/documents/aw/sje_handbook.pdf, p3
32 differences between faith-based and secular organizing. “With secular groups, what’s lost is the culture of faith-based organizing. Most meetings have prayers and faith reflections, for example. Relational work is much less emphasized in secular culture. Taking time for one-to-ones or simply pausing in a meeting to check-in how it’s going – there’s a lot less of this informal evaluation in secular issue organizing.”
A small number of survey respondents identify theological grounding as an opportunity for growth.
There is so much [justice work] that is haphazard, unfocused, diffuse, not mission- aligned, not spiritually grounded, motivated by individual rather than collective passions and interests or perpetuated because "we've always done this." Congregations miss so much opportunity for faith formation and community building within and beyond the congregation because justice ministry is not aligned with the purpose and programs of the congregation as a whole.
However, the low number of respondents mentioning the role of theological grounding in justice work indicates that for many congregants these two aspects of congregational life are not yet strongly connected. One anonymous expert interviewee puts it bluntly. “When we hear justice and think ‘program’, then we’re missing the point.”
Many non-UU interviewees shared how their organizations depend on explicit theological practices. Charles Wynder, Missioner for Social Justice and Advocacy Engagement with the Episcopal Church USA, shares, “My work is constantly connecting the liturgical to the active work of justice making. Grounding activism in prayer, for example, is central to building space for reconciliation.” Similarly, Chantilly Mers, Seminar Designer with United Methodist Women, “We start each workshop day with worship, Bible study, or something that is rooted in our identity as people of faith. We try to do it in non-traditional ways so that we might read scripture and step into the story to see how systems are operating. It’s not just a Bible verse here and there.” For Rev. Valerie Toney Parker, Director of Social Action at Du Page, IL African Methodist Episcopal Church justice work is itself a practice of theological formation. “As much as my work is about social justice action, it’s also about theological formation. I help them [young people] understand their theology – many of them don’t realize that they have one. Their theology informs how they approach their social action.” At Community Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, in Kansas City, experiences of injustice, struggle and campaign victories are frequently included as testimony in worship.
Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews, Director of Clergy Organizing at PICO, describes the ways in which spiritual practices infuse PICO’s way of working. “We use prayer, reflection, silence, singing, and have a regular practice of someone bringing a faith reflection at the beginning and the end of our time together.” More than that, PICO trains its leaders in cultivating theologies of resistance. “As part of our training, we spend a couple of days helping leaders mine their own faith traditions – what the stories, symbols, texts, songs are that bring meaning to their presence at the training. By doing this, we help clergy disrupt the dominant narrative and build their religious power.”
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Within Unitarian Universalism, too, there are good examples to learn from. Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs, Co-Minister of Unity Church, Unitarian in Saint Paul, MN argues, “Justice needs constant re-enforcement from the pulpit, in music and the liturgy.” Some ministers lead specific sessions to combine justice work with theological development. While working at All Souls Unitarian, in Washington, DC, Rev. Cathy Rion Starr led four sessions exploring despair in social justice work and the spiritual practices that can sustain activists through it. Annette Marquis, LGBT and Multicultural Programs Director, UUA points to ways of engaging in theological reflection practices, even when working with anti-theist UUs. “Not all UUs are going to go to a spiritual place through prayer or singing, but building in reflection to very simple service work can be powerful. For example, after volunteering in a majority students of color elementary school, we sit down with congregants and talk about what it’s like to be there, what it’s like to cross these borders.”
Building in reflection to social justice action can be done in large and small ways. Kristen Kuriga, Social Justice and South Bay Ministry Teams Coordinator at First Unitarian Universalist in San Diego, CA explains, “For a big project, like running a shelter for two weeks which takes about 100 volunteers, we do a training class before and a reflection session afterwards. We light a chalice, check-in, and then use generative questions and close with a song. About one in five come to the reflection session, so I’ll also send out an email with the questions that the others can look at in their own time. For smaller actions, like a beach clean-up, it can be as simple as standing in a circle and debriefing on-the-spot by asking ‘what did you notice?’” Kristen stresses the need for a spectrum of engagement opportunities and the importance of celebrating however far along participants are willing to come. “People burnout because of unprocessed experiences, their grief, their anger – it sits in them and stops them from continuing their work. That’s why the reflection is so important.”
Other ministers see where they have missed the mark. Rev. Vanessa Southern, former Minister of Unitarian Church in Summit, NJ shares, “I know that I’ve missed real opportunities for [theological deepening] in our justice work. Many families in my former congregation hosted families who were homeless or insecurely housed, and of course there were moments of real difference and difficulty. Rather than sitting down with the hosts afterwards to reflect on why this might be, and what it means, we assumed it would be meaningful. Leaving those complicated feelings unprocessed I’m sure limited the success of the work.” Others have had to confront their own misplaced expectations. Rev. Deborah Holder, Community Minister in the Mountain Desert District, UUA, explains, “I’ve had to notice my own prejudice about UUs not being able to talk about their feelings. That was a mistake. I’ve seen tremendous expressions of yearning, pain and suffering.”
Finding ways to theologically deepen justice work also opens up other opportunities for collaboration within congregations. Engaging religious educators, argues Liz Jones, former Director of Religious Education for First Unitarian Universalist in San Diego, is one such opportunity. “DREs are generally not issue experts, so they’ll need some guidance from the justice leaders – and with time to
34 prepare! Most often, people need a process guide of how young people can get involved, paying particular attention to any risks they may incur.”
Being a faith community enables difficult conversations about generational gaps in approaches to justice work, also. Rev. Julia Hamilton, Assistant Minister, Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, CA, explains, “We’re in a unique position as faith communities to avoid generational power struggles and nurture youth leadership. By building eldering and mentoring relationships, we can institutionalize cross- generational conversations that both old and new activists can learn from.”
Rev. Scott Taylor, Director of Congregational Life at the UUA sees a clear role for the College in changing the culture of UU justice work. “I think the College can add the holistic approach to justice work, so that it isn’t just advocacy but also relationship-building and has spirituality at the center.”
Nearly all those interviewed were looking to deepen the role of faith and spirituality in the justice work in their congregation or organization. It seems that the time is right to build into justice work an approach to spiritual development, much as the College has been doing in its learning journeys. Here is a clear opportunity for shaping denomination-wide justice work through training and skill sharing and also in seminarian preparation for ministry. More than simply ‘getting religion’ and adding it into existing justice work, justice leaders can conceive of their faith foundation as a well to draw from, with histories, practices, songs, prayers, strategies and much more that each offer opportunities for stagnant or flaying congregational justice groups.
Leadership Development
“Ministers are up to their ass in alligators on a host of other issues. They can’t also be the ones to train congregants in how to drain the swamp.” Rev. Ned Wright, UU Veatch Program at Shelter Rock
Good justice leadership is transformative. Without strong leadership in congregations, in the community, and in the denomination as a whole, justice work will struggle to have impact. Strong leadership of course doesn’t mean top-down, authoritarian decision-making, though this may be what congregations hear in the phrase, but rather skilled adaptive leadership that can navigate complex systems. Leadership in this context also means capacity to exercise strategic planning, build real partnerships, and cross race and class lines with grace and humility. Perhaps most importantly of all, leadership means the practice of building up other justice leaders, something too often forgotten in congregational justice work.
Leadership development can sometimes revive old concerns of centralizing power for UUs. But despite some remaining pockets of suspicion, Rev. Parisa Parsa, Consultant for the UU Urban Social Justice Ministries Project, argues that, “We are in an era of change in people’s expectations for strong leadership. The story of anti- authority and people not being willing to take direction is an old one. Because people have less time and are more willing to engage, I think it is time for stronger
35 leadership.” It seems that some of the old wounds of fearing anything that resembles traditional religious organizing are waning, and that new organizations like the College and the SALT Youth Leadership Programs, who are all bringing a faith-rooted justice approach, are finding fertile ground.
The survey, too, reveals the real need for leaders to be cultivated, as those who are unable to continue because of age or ill health often carry much of the burden of leadership. Others are simply at a loss as to how to engage their congregation or afraid to be isolated in leadership.
Getting people from my church to take on some leadership role. I want to cycle out and I cannot. It has been too many years.
I'm old and tired.
I am currently a leader, although no longer our Social Justice Committee Co-chair. Frustration with not being able to inspire a broader base of participation is the biggest barrier.
Fear of loneliness.
The biggest barrier identified in the survey that prevents congregants from stepping into leadership is time. No doubt, there are enormous time pressures, especially on young families, but time can also hint at something else. Marshall Ganz, long-time organizer and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, often tells organizers not to make something easy, but to make it meaningful. People will do extraordinary things and commit much more than expected when an action is meaningful to them. Some responses support this view. When asked about the biggest barrier, this respondent answered:
Time and circumstances. Just haven't had the right leadership situation come along.
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Leadership training can be found, but it varies in quality and is hardly consistent. A recent Auburn Seminary report maps the landscape. “The field of educating leaders for faith-rooted justice work is just beginning to blossom. There are four different types of sites with such education programs (a) congregations with deep experience in justice work that offer an education program, e.g. Judson Memorial Church in NYC; (b) justice-focused religious NGO’s with an education program, e.g. Sojourners, CLUE and the Religious Action Center; (c) non-seminary religious leadership training programs with a focus on social justice, e.g. The Beatitudes Society, JOIN for Justice, and the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute; and (d) seminaries with justice- focused educational offerings.” Only a few have successfully integrated pedagogies that combine action with reflection, praxis with theory, field experience with theological reflection. “Educators have yet to share curricula, develop a shared educational vision, articulate competencies, debate best practices or create standards of excellence.”24
In UU congregations, the largest churches are able to invest in training internally. Assistant Minister, Rev. Barbara Prose of All Souls in Tulsa, OK leads multiple trainings a year. “I’ve taken the training we do for pastoral care volunteers, where we cover dealing with conflict in a meeting and understanding local institutions, for example, and repeated it with our justice leadership team.” All Souls also carries out a gifts and talents survey to identify which congregants might be willing to use their professional skills for pastoral care. Prose plans to do the same for justice leaders. All Souls is one of only a handful of congregations with the numbers and budget to make this possible. Rev. Julia Hamilton, Assistant Minister at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara and Board Member of the UU Justice Ministry of California, sees an important role for State Networks in training new leaders. “200- person congregations can’t support a day-long training program, but state networks could. This is especially helpful in rural areas, whereas PICO [and others] operate mostly in the cities.”
Some regional leadership training already exists through the Districts, but this focuses more generally on congregational leadership, and not on the organizing or partner-building skills necessary for effective justice work. One survey respondent in a leadership role illustrates the experience of lacking support. I do a lot. I am the board President of [organization identity kept anonymous]. I am not sure our District supports justice advocacy work… You kind of have to find out on your own what works.
Individual UUs may seek out training opportunities, but without institutional support from their congregation, it can be difficult to implement lessons learned. Matt Friedrichs, Organizer with MOSES, an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, “I’ve more often seen UUs go to a week-long organizing training as an individual…but they don’t have the investment behind them from their church.” Kierstin Homblette. Beloved Community Coordinator for the Denver/Boulder Cluster, shares similar
24 Justus Baird, ‘Educating Religious Leaders for Faith-Rooted Justice Work’, 2014, http://www.auburnseminary.org/sites/default/files/Educating%20Religious%20 Leaders%20for%20Justice%20Auburn.pdf, accessed 12th February 2015, p3
37 learning. “It’s really hard when just one person has a training experience and tries to change things internally. Always bring a team of people to a training, especially if they can be key players from different parts of the ministry.”
Investing in training justice leaders pays off. Susan Leslie, Congregational Advocacy and Witness Director at the UUA, shares an example. “After a Story of Self, Story of Us, Story of Now training, groups that can’t even introduce themselves in two minutes can bring people to tears with the clarity of their story. Especially with us wordy people, there’s a need to learn how to convey emotion.” In North Carolina, Rev. Paula Cole-Jones, Director for Racial and Social Justice, Joseph Priestley District, UUA, has been working with UU congregations working on voting rights advocacy. They have built-in anti-racism training as a mandatory component of the campaigning work. “That represents real progress for our social justice work, especially because those who put this mandatory training in place had themselves gone through similar training years ago.”
Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews, Director of Clergy Organizing at PICO outlines the enormous investment the network makes into leadership development. “Nationally, we bring together leaders for two week-long skills trainings every year – one in the summer in California, the other in the winter in Tennessee. At a state level, we do bootcamp trainings on specific issues, such as mass incarceration or immigration. At the local federation level, training is part of the beating heart of our programming where we bring congregations together.
Throughout these levels, we’re building five core competencies. (1) A clear and bold analysis of racial injustice. (2) An understanding of power and how to build it. (3) The ability to tell our story compellingly in public. (4) Knowing how to build multi-faith and racially diverse coalitions. (5) Developing clergy power – the moral, faith-led reason for doing justice work.”
Amongst UU ministers, those with a community organizing background in PICO or elsewhere, bring a fuller understanding of the role of leadership development. Kirsten Kuriga, Social Justice and South Bay Ministry Teams Coordinator at First UU San Diego, who was a trained IAF organizer before entering the ministry, articulates this understanding most clearly. “The primary role of a social justice leader is to find and develop other leaders.”
Staff at AJWS also are strongly committed to training throughout the organization. Staff participate in leadership trainings led by organizations such as Wellstone, and the Global Justice Fellows Program provides a year-long program to educate, inspire and train key leaders in the American Jewish community, particularly Rabbis, to become activist leaders for social justice. Similarly to the College, it includes a trip abroad to learn from partner organizations in the Global South. Unsurprisingly, fellows from previous years form some of the most active leaders within AWJS’s new city hub action teams.
Jay Godfrey, Seminar Designer with United Methodist Women, is especially focused on the need to train young people. “The Christian Right mentors young leaders, while progressives hire interns. I think what the church needs to do more of is
38 intentional, long-term investment in young leaders.” Elsewhere, young leaders are structurally included in the United Church of Christ’s Justice and Witness Committee. Not only is it currently chaired and vice-chaired by people under 40, but it also has a requirement to have at least one young person on the board. In congregations, the exclusion of youth can also be a problem. From the survey,
No pull for youth in the congregation to become involved. It persists because there are some old timers who don't want to see leadership structure change.
Training within the UCC is done largely through the Justice and Peace Action Network, the oldest UCC network, running for more than 25 years Executive Minister of Justice and Witness Ministries Rev. Linda Jaramillo explains, “It has endured because it’s singularly focused – we only focus on public policy advocacy, and because it has a full-time staff person.” Crucially, it specifically connects trained congregation leaders to local community organizing federations and encourages congregations to seek out other trainings. “Our congregations often get stuck in our theology, which doesn’t help us get real in the community, so we often rely on secular training programs that use popular education models. We rely on those partnerships.” Maintaining the network of volunteer trainers demands full-time support. “The biggest challenge is keeping the network of trainers connected. We host webinars and share a newsletter because we know that it requires motivated, knowledgeable leadership in a local context to really make a difference.”
Knowing which congregants to especially invest in is not always easy. Rev. Robin Tanner, Lead Minister at Piedmont UU Church, NC, “A lot of times, your justice leaders who are really passionate can also alienate people, instead of bringing them along. In our training programs, I try to help my justice leaders understand that justice and spirituality are not mutually exclusive.” Susan Leslie, Congregational Advocacy and Witness Director at the UUA, points to the importance of taking those already engaged “from seeder, to leader. People get written off as a stereotype – that person who can’t stop talking about landmines, for example – but these are often the ones that start things!” However, in the expert interviews in this study, numerous examples arose where those most involved in establishing a new justice project or partnership left the congregation once it had grown to engage the majority of congregants.
Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, Special Assistant to the Bishop for Welcoming Congregations for the Southwest California Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, suggests looking beyond existing activists to find the most effective leaders. “What’s critical is to identify the people who have the gift of justice – and it’s often not the activists. Activists are angry people looking for a place to put their anger. That often makes for a bad organizer… Nobody changes unless they feel loved or love the person who tries to change them.”
The survey reveals some of the instances that Alexia describes, where those in leadership positions are unwilling or unable to build capacity and grow their team.
Our social justice chair is overworked. I was a reporter and editor. She won't give up even the media contact.
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Justice work is seen as the responsibility of the Social Justice Committee, and then that committee is a group of folks with pet projects.
UU justice leaders are keenly aware of the need for leadership development. Rev. Lindi Ramsden, Dean of Students and Community Life at Starr King School for the Ministry, “If I had a magic button, I’d have regional (smaller than UU regions) paid capacity building, so that they could help nurture local leadership. These organizers wouldn’t be leading the campaign; they’d be supporting them by building networks of connectivity.” Rev. Abhi Janamanchi, Senior Minister at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bathesda, MD, agrees. “I would love to see the College provide trainings for community organizing and justice-making work, while providing a spiritual framework. Not just through immersion, but real training on tools and methods. I see that as lay spiritual development as much as organizing skills training.” So too, Rev. Fred Small of First Parish, Cambridge, MA. “We’ve done a better job at raising consciousness among UUs of LGBT rights and anti-racism work, but in terms of training people to go out into the world and make change, I don’t think we’ve done enough.”
Ministerial training is one area for potential development. Rev. Joan VanBecelaere, Regional Lead of the Central Eastern Region of the UUA explains. “When new ministers are trained as organizers, they seem to end up as community ministers. That’s not helping us transform congregations. The most passionate folk end up outside parish ministry because we’ve not done a good job of linking their ministries in the community with the congregations.” This starts early. When Rev. Kierstin Homblette, Beloved Community Coordinator for the Denver/Boulder Cluster, was looking to do her ministerial internship three years ago, there were only three community minister roles available, and none of them were fully focused on community ministry. Yet there is a strong desire from congregations for ministers who can effectively lead justice work. Rev. Dr. Todd Eckloff, Minister at Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane, WA, “When in search, many congregations are looking for a minister who can practically show them how to lead justice work beyond giving money.” Meadville Lombard and Starr King are taking steps to address this need by including Community Studies Seminars in the first year of their Master of Divinity programs so that students are exposed early on to justice work with a partner organization. Nonetheless, an opportunity for seminarian justice leadership development may be found here.
Creating a core curriculum for justice leaders, with the potential to create an optional credentialing process arouses strong opinions. Rev. Lindi Ramsden is a strong proponent of the idea. “If we had a shared curriculum, some core concepts, of what UU justice leaders know, it would benefit other organizations too! Those leaders would doubtless be involved with other movements, so that we’d be feeding broader justice work. At the moment we don’t have a shared language or framework.” Liz Jones, the former Director of Religious Education for First Unitarian Universalist in San Diego identifies some key benefits that DREs have experienced since creating a credentialing process that opponents of the idea may overlook. (1) The assignment of a mentor; (2) A steady network of friendly, helpful colleagues who willingly share their resources; (3) The work is respected more by ministers and the
40 congregation. “Once we had credentialing in place, others saw our work as worth more. The reason why DREs are at the table today when making decisions is because the credentialing process has heightened the position of DREs,” says Liz.
The need for cultivating leaders is clear. The College’s mission is to ‘help Unitarian Universalists deepen and sustain the work of justice in their congregations and communities’. Leadership development should rest at the center of this mission. Because of its theological capacity, legacy of successful leadership development work in its learning journeys and the potential space in which it can move, the College can become the training and leadership hub for the UU movement.
Supporting Leaders
“I felt so isolated. It was way more work than one person could do, and I didn’t pace myself. I burned out and didn’t really have a place to go. If there’d been a support network, I’d have had someone I could talk to.” Rev. Katherine Jesch, Community Minister
Leadership development goes further than training alone. The College could develop programming to support existing leaders also – particularly when it comes to the ‘dark night of the soul’ that every organizer will face at some time(s) in their leadership journey. There is little to support leaders currently beyond informal networks, which many do not have. Gatherings like General Assembly are too infrequent and too geographically dispersed to provide a time for hurting and healing together.
One vital function of Religious Educators network LREDA has been supporting leaders practically, emotionally and spiritually. Liz Jones, “We banded together because we supported each other. We weren’t always respected. For example, ministers didn’t see DREs as colleagues. Importantly, I’ve seen that the people who don’t make connections are the ones who burn out. The people who survive are deeply connected. Our annual conference is central to that, as are the chapters and clusters around the country. Since we’ve set up these networks, we’ve seen the length of time DREs are in place extend on average from three years, to five, now even longer.” Rev. Meg Riley, Senior Minister, Church of the Larger Fellowship, sees LREDA as enabling further support for DREs – namely through UUA funding. “One reason why the previous UUA justice training was cut [scaled back] is because there wasn’t a constituency to defend it. If RE funding was cut, LREDA would fight back, or there would be the perception that they would.”
The lack of support for justice leaders, and the desire for it, was a consistent theme in the expert interviews with UU leaders. Matt Friedrichs, a lay leader in Detroit and an organizer with MOSES, an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, “I haven’t really found much support in justice work in the larger UU network as a whole.” Rev. LoraKim Joyner, Community Minister, agrees. “No way do community ministers get supported - financially, of course, but neither in outreach. Often UU institutions don’t know what to do with us. It would take real infrastructure to support each other. I want to be in communities of accountability.” Even those in staff roles within a
41 congregation, such as Kristen Kuriga, Social Justice and South Bay Ministry Teams Coordinator at First Unitarian Universalist in San Diego, CA, feel the absence of support. “I don’t have a huge network of colleagues, sadly. There aren’t that many other UUs doing similar work in a staff capacity. It would be great to have a network for us!”
Nearly all responses to this idea of networked support were positive. Alex Kapitan, Congregational Advocacy and Witness Program Coordinator at the UUA, “There’s such a lack of trust amongst UU organizations and geographic layers – the history of organizational rivalries, but also a real hunger to change that. Having a chance to gather people together who are working on social justice would be amazing.” Rev. Lindi Ramsden, Dean of Students and Community Life at Starr King School of the Ministry, too, is invigorated by such a network. “I hope one day to see a professional network of people who lead the justice portfolio in their congregation. We have it for musicians and religious educators, so why not justice workers? It provides community, a circle of care, and coaching.”
The circle of care resonates deeply with many justice leaders. As Susan Leslie, Congregational Advocacy and Witness Director at the UUA, explains, these are sometimes already in place informally. “There’s a support network happening informally, particularly those people I worked with during Justice GA. I call them the Phoenix Vets – I can trust them. It’s a cadre of people who make things happen.” But not everyone is so lucky. Rev. Katherine Jesch, Community Minister, reflects on her time leading the UU Minister for the Earth. “I felt so isolated. It was way more work than one person could do, and I didn’t pace myself. I burned out and didn’t really have a place to go. If there’d been a support network, I’d have had someone I could talk to. In those moments you need someone to tell you that you’re not incompetent and that it’s part of the process. Now, when I look at justice work, I see that need all over the place.” Even those ministers inside congregations can feel disconnected. Taquiena Boston, Director of Multicultural Growth and Witness at the UUA shares, “I find that often the partnerships that cross borders come from ministers, and they don’t always have congregational support. The pressure on clergy, and the loneliness in that is difficult.”
UUs are not alone in encountering these pressures and difficulties. Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, Special Assistant to the Bishop for Welcoming Congregations for the Southwest California Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, identifies the same pattern. “There’s a huge need for rest and renewal – that’s a major purpose of our un-network [gatherings of faith-rooted justice leaders]. We have two international gatherings specifically for that.”
Whether inside of outside of the congregation, having leaders in teams or networks of more than one person will mean that the justice work continues, argues Rev. Lindi Ramsden. “Having others invested in the work means you can help each other when you get really discouraged.” To do exactly this, the UU Justice Ministry of California has an annual gathering called Walking the Walk for leaders from around the state. It started as a daylong gathering but has grown into a weekend retreat. “To be with people who understood the joys and sorrows of the work, and not to feel that I had to hold back because I’d shock anyone – that pastoral care connection was
42 really moving… I originally thought that the most valuable part would be the skill building, and though not insubstantial, the community-building and support was the best part.” To gather on a state level demands a lot of work. To be meaningful the gathering should be more than just one congregation’s leadership team, advises Ramsden. A cluster of 5-10 congregations would be an ideal size.
The potential for a supportive network of justice leaders also serves a spiritual function. A large number of interviewees feel like their own worshipping community does not offer them the spiritual nourishment they need to continue in their work, particularly, if their home congregation is not focused on justice work. This is not surprising perhaps for paid staff, for whom the congregation is their workplace, but that justice leaders within a congregation have to go elsewhere to find what they need is a concern. For staff working in clusters this becomes especially difficult, as multiple congregations are their place of work. Kierstin Homblette, Beloved Community Coordinator for the Denver/Boulder Cluster, “One thing I really miss is being part of a worship community. It feels like I can’t become a member, so I’ve been looking outside UU churches to find that place.” Crossing denominational lines was mentioned by non-UUs also. Rev. Valerie Toney Parker, Director of Social Action at Du Page Church, IL African Methodist Episcopal Church, shares, “I find my support at Trinity, UCC because they’re all about justice. If I don’t do that, I’m not prepared to serve my own church.’
For ministers who are passionate about justice work, there is an additional potential cause for burnout. Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs, Co-Minister at Unity Church, Unitarian in Saint Paul, MN, “Churches see their ministers as delegates to the work. For young ministers this can be a call to the heroic and is extremely dangerous.” Spiritual practices are therefore of particular importance especially to justice leaders. Being part of a justice leader community can help embed and deepen these practices. Some powerful examples of justice leaders being supported are to be found in existing learning journeys and pilgrimages. The Sankofa pilgrimage to Ghana from All Souls Church Unitarian, DC in 2013 was a moving one for Taquiena Boston. “It was beautiful to be blessed as we set off on our pilgrimage and then to be welcomed back to tell our story and be heard.”
Nonetheless, some of the most important ways that justice leaders can be supported is practically. Kierstin Homblette, Denver/Boulder Cluster, “It’s really challenging on a half-time position to both do the ministry and sell people [the cluster congregations] on the ministry. It’s an entrepreneurial piece that I’m learning. I need to be able to tell people what I’m doing and why they should fund it.” Even established leaders with national reach have needs go unmet. Rev. Susan Frederick- Gray, Minister at UU Congregation of Phoenix, AZ, “Going part-time leading up to Justice GA was a real sacrifice for the congregation, but one they made willingly for the denomination. What was difficult was the year afterward. I was exhausted, as was the congregation and we had some really tough internal conflict that had grown in part because my focus had been on GA.”
Because of the nature of who they are, justice leaders are often the last to ask for help. It is important that an entity like the College provide opportunities for connection, rest and renewal that don’t necessitate leaders burning out before they
43 ask for help, or are offered it. Whether through hosting retreats, facilitating regional gatherings, offering curricula for time together at a local level, or resourcing continued justice leadership cohorts that support one another through the many years of leadership, there is a clear role to play.
Partnership
“Previously people would have gone straight to drafting a statement of what the congregation thinks, but I’m seeing more and more congregations seek out partners first. Particularly on immigration I think we’ve improved remarkably.” Rev. Julia Hamilton, Assistant Minister of Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara
Partnering well is perhaps the most keenly felt difficulty among UUs. In large part because of the unequal power relations that need to be navigated, congregations are either unskilled in the challenges raised by differences in race and class or are hyper-aware of them, to the point that they are afraid of any partnership in case of missteps. This report uses the word ‘partner’ rather than ‘coalition’ or ‘ally’, not because UUs should not be allies – they certainly should and often are – but because it speaks to the capacity for exchange that exists in deep partnerships. As a faith community, UU congregations bring something different from secular groups, and that is something often welcomed by partner organizations. Learning to bring faith resources of song, story and prayer to meetings, protests, and vigils etc. can be valuable resources that are often warmly received in addition to monetary support.
Indeed, partnership offers both opportunities for transformative justice work and recipes for disaster. Susan Leslie, Congregational Advocacy and Witness Director, UUA, identifies partnership as an issue she is continually asked about. “Starting seems to be the biggest hurdle; crossing that border and knowing what to say. I can understand why it frightens people, because this exact thing happened at my church when we wanted to partner with a local food pantry and youth program. The Chair of the Social Action Committee was worried that asking them for a partnership would be a burden on them, and so decided instead to simply give them a check from our Share the Plate initiative. Sadly, it has set up the pattern for them that we’re a church that only gives money, so they don’t ask us for anything else.
Our partnership with Centro Presente is such a different story. Many of us had been doing anti-racism work for sometime and had been active on immigrant justice issues before. We wanted to partner in an accountable way, so proposed the partnership to our minister and then to Centro Presente. We made clear that we didn’t want to be a burden, but that we did want a real partnership. What’s wonderful is that not only do we support each other’s events and have real relationships – but we’ve influenced the way they work! They’ve started to talk about love and include more songs. A bad partnership is when we just trail behind the partner group. We have gifts to bring as UUs – the movement needs what we have to offer!“
These two partnering efforts within one church community reveal some of the dynamics at play. Both this study’s survey and the Congregational Social Justice Survey (October 2011) indicated that nine out of ten of congregations have a
44 community partnership, though this says little about the quality of engagement. The majority of partnerships are heavily weighted towards service work, with only 12% engaged in CBCOs.25
Aware of the difficulties, the UUA’s Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook lists eight suggestions to meet the challenges of working in partnership or coalition.
1. Honor religious differences between UUs and other religious, particularly theologically conservative, economically liberal congregations. 2. Commit for the long haul; systemic change takes time. 3. Gain experience in organizing around issues of race and class. 4. Deal with the UU propensity toward individualism. 5. Manage growing demands for time and energy. 6. Handle growing financial priorities. 7. Address tensions between middle- and low-income communities and between white and people of color communities. 8. Determine the different orientation of urban and suburban congregations.26
Despite these strong guiding principles, difficulties remain. In this UUs are far from unique. Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, Special Assistant to the Bishop for Welcoming Congregations for the Southwest California Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, says, “The church can be very myopic – that we think we can do it all.” Rev. Ned Wright, Executive Director of the UU Veatch Program at Shelter Rock agrees. “We’re high on righteous indignation, but low on the coalition building that progressive change is going to require… We’re our own worst enemies in being too grandiose in thinking what role we’re going to play.”
This is explained in some part by the culture of superiority that inhibits successful multi-faith work, especially when UUs work with Christian groups. Matt Friedrichs, Organizer with MOSES, an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, explains. “Often partners think of UUs as equally bad as forming partnerships as Catholics. Whereas for Catholic groups having openly gay or lesbian leaders is an issue, for UUs, not affirming our progressive politics means we don’t want you. And that runs into obvious problems if you’re trying to organize with a conservative black Baptist pastor, for example.” Rev. Jay Leach, Senior Minister of the UU Church of Charlotte NC sees the same pattern. “We UUs hardly ever really look for partners, and when we do, the checklist is so long that nobody but ourselves can qualify!” Put more bluntly, “At our worst, UUs are a bit like dogs – we have to sniff, lick and piss on something before we’re willing to commit”, says Taquiena Boston, Director of Multicultural Growth and Witness, UUA.
Yet difficulties stem also from the desire for visibility, not just political or theological disagreement. Rev. Meg Riley, Senior Minister, Church of the Larger
25 Congregational Social Justice Survey: Report of Findings, Office for Congregational Advocacy and Witness, UUA Multicultural Growth and Witness, October 2011 26 UUA, “Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook”
45 Fellowship, “UUs are usually bad at accepting leadership from anyone outside of the denomination. We’re always so keen to put our logo on everything. The Standing on the Side of Love t-shirts now have large UUA branding on them – which wasn’t the case when we started wearing them.” Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs, Co-Minister, Unity Church, Unitarian in Saint Paul, MN sees a similar issue in interfaith settings. “UUs are often more leaven than bread. We quickly rise to leadership, instead of following another’s lead. We need to quell our arrogance and find trustworthy partners with whom we can cultivate humility.”
This tendency was echoed and further emphasized by the ministers of color interviewed. Rev. Paula Cole Jones says it clearest. “At times, our social justice work is self-serving - whether we realize it or not. I think that our attempt to brand ourselves can supersede the needs and the benefits of the partnership. Each justice project probably doesn’t need our brand. There are times when we can stand in solidarity with the Standing on the Side of Love campaign. It’s a wonderful campaign, and very visible! But there are times when I think that showing up in our branded t- shirts does not benefit the message, for example, in the aftermath of Ferguson. Or if you look at the mass incarceration issue, a more accepting brand is ‘The New Jim Crow’ – not Standing on the Side of Love – which doesn’t represent our understanding of the weight of the issue. If social justice leaders are in solidarity with a community that is traumatized, then they need to be careful of the blind spot of putting our compelling campaign before the integrity of the partnership.”
Yet Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews, Director of Clergy Organizing at PICO, has a more generous view. “Although UUs have a very small footprint in organizing (around 20 to 30 congregations in the PICO network), the active ones are very active. They go a long way in shaping the culture of the clergy team and the organization. For us, as a majority Christian network, non-Christian congregations like UUs have become helpful in creating multi-faith settings. I’ve noticed the gifts that UUs bring to our organizing work – especially circle practice, songs about values that everyone in a multi-faith setting can sing, and the large number of female ministers in leadership.”
That partnerships are uncomfortable should be no surprise. Taquiena Boston points to the fact that “partnerships can bring up a lot of shame.” This is echoed in some of the survey responses, sometimes overtly, and sometimes implicitly. When asked about ineffective justice work, respondents answered,
GLBT coalition work. Interference from another congregation.
Our Fellowship is too busy being upper-middle class to get involved with the needy on any regular basis.
Ministers experience this discomfort also. Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, Minister of UU Congregation of Phoenix, AZ, “Partnership is uncomfortable sometimes! Chaining myself to the jail, and being arrested felt really risky – but the leadership of Puente [the partner organization] had asked us to do it, and so we did. They’d said that it was their job to take us to the edge and a little step over it. In many ways the fact that it was risky is what made the action impactful. When we make actions comfortable, like
46 being arrested outside the White House, we’ve lost the whole point of doing the action.”
This willingness to follow another’s lead and go just beyond one’s comfort zone are some of the ingredients for successful partnership. Another is committing for the long-term. Rev. Valerie Toney Parker, Director of Social Action at Du Page, IL African Methodist Episcopal Church explained, “I’ve seen partnership work well between AME churches and the NAACP on voting rights. There’s a long history of working together, whether it’s to get out the vote, register people to vote – we look to them and they look to us.” Executive Director, Episcopal City Mission Dr. Ruy Costa agrees. “Our most successful partnerships have been on housing because we’ve invested in it for a long time. We can find early examples in our history from the early 1800s.” St Stephen’s Church (Episcopal) in the South End of Boston, MA is an example of a successful multi-year partnership. Following years of neglect, the congregation committed to organize the neighborhood in recovering the Blackstone School across the road from the Church27. By organizing with a diverse group of secular and religious institutions, the church mobilized parents and neighbors to demand resources from the City as well has bringing in large numbers of volunteers to mentor children, staff the library and support teachers in the classroom. The geographic connection, the multifaceted ways in which the church supported the school, and the engagement of other local institutions, transformed the school’s social capital and resulted in a significant funding increase. As Rev. Linda Jaramillo, Executive Minister of Justice and Witness Ministries, UCC, says, “The more connected leaders are to a wider community, the more successful they are.”
Although partnerships can come from anywhere in the congregation, building meaningful relationships with partners over time must be supported by the minister. In an effort to build connections across race lines between his majority white church and a another minister’s majority black church, Rev. Dr. Robert Hill, Senior Minister, Community Christian Church Disciples of Christ, in Kansas City, MO and his counterpart had lunch together each week for a year to lay the foundations of this relationship. Naturally, for any multiracial partnership to work, significant anti-oppression work has to be led beforehand in the majority white congregation.
Partnerships are powerful when congregants build new relationships. Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs illustrates that his congregation “will go to the mat on marriage equality because they have real relationships with people impacted. But the commitment on voting rights or education is nowhere near the same. The farther one is from the social reality, the harder it is to organize.” Therefore his congregation requires each social action team to find a partner organization so that the church continues to be in relationship with the community.
Encouragingly, snippets of successful partnerships emerge from the survey data also. For example,
27 “Blackstone Partnership”, St Stephen’s Episcopal Church Boston, http://www.ststephensbos.org/blackstone-partnership, accessed on 5th January 2015
47
Involvement in the CIW Fair Food Campaign. Because First UUs respect the courage and commitment of the farmworkers and the results they have achieved, they turn out for rallies large and small, in cold, snow, and heat. They donate as a congregation to the CIW's amazing work.
Partnerships between UU congregations can also yield positive results. Rev. Robin Tanner’s congregation in Piedmont, NC partnered with All Souls, Washington DC on voting rights work, as All Souls had experience from previous campaigns. Rev. Jay Leach and his congregation in Charlotte, NC has taken on a teaching role for other local UU congregations to share their experience of organizing internally more effectively on justice work through in-person meetings and online coaching sessions. For Rev. Kiersin Homblette, Beloved Community Coordinator for the Denver/Boulder Cluster, these are exciting developments. “So often it’s easier for us to reach out across lines of faith than it is to work with other UU congregations. Being in a cluster, the congregations I work with are starting to see themselves as part of a larger UUism.”
Partnering on more than just a justice project together can strengthen relationships between two congregations immeasurably. The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Raleigh has partnered with Freedom Temple, a nearby majority people of color congregation on a musical collaboration as well as an environmental project, for example. In this way, more connections are fostered and different sections of the congregations are attracted to be involved.
In some cases, the desire for partnering across difference can become counterproductive. Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, Community Minister at Boston Mobilization and associated with First Parish, Cambridge, MA argues, “Many UUs have learned well that the people most impacted by an issue should lead. Sometimes, though, we’re overcorrecting. Instead of making common cause with middle-class artists of color, we’re trying to make common cause with sanitation workers – even though the potential for strong relationships is much higher with the first group. This, then, perpetuates the question ‘where are the people of color?’ because we’re not seeing what is right in front of us! Let’s start finding the group of black women working for reproductive justice – nurses, lawyers and public health officials – then we won’t be building relationships predicated on the saving complex.”
Finally, in some cases UUs must learn to step back from partnerships in some cases. Douglas Johnson, Director, Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government shared his experience of organizing faith communities during a boycott. “When we wanted to approach mainline and evangelical churches, we’d purposefully not approach UU congregations first. When we did, it alienated others. Having the Presbyterians move first on the Infant Formula campaign meant that more conservative churches didn’t see it as radical.” Rev. Abhi Janamanchi, Senior Minister, Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, MD, sees a difference between partnership and being an ally. “I sorely resisted organizing a vigil for our congregation after the announcement of the Ferguson decision. As a majority-white congregation, I understand our role is to be in solidarity with whom
48 [police violence] is a lived experience. To be out there, and join their vigils, instead of retreating to our sanctuaries.”
Of the areas that could most benefit from further resource development, it is partnership development. Both training and process support for congregational leaders, as well as clear links to the anti-racist work being done elsewhere in the denomination, the capacity for partnership building is crucial. Hearing of successful stories such as First Unitarian Church of Oakland’s partnership with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights can help to break down some of the concerns that skilled leaders may have, while further anti-racism and class consciousness training will enable new leaders to more effectively enter into relationships across barriers of difference. Of course, not all partnerships need be across difference – there is much work to be done between UU communities within a short distance of each other, but these principles of building successful partnership will count for much in all contexts.
Accountability
“One problem that we faced in organizing churches was that they could be a soft push on reconciliation. Nestle would approach churches individually to negotiate, so that they would break the line we’d agreed because of the discomfort with conflict.” Douglas Johnson, Carr Center for Human Rights
Accountability is one of the cornerstones of successful partnerships without which trust breaks, relationships decay and reputations tarnished. It is often spoken of among activists, but can be more difficult to embed into day-to-day congregational justice work where leadership transitions and multiple relationships are held at one time.
Many resources are already in place to support justice leaders, however. The UUA’s Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook features excellent resources on how to be a strong ally to people with marginalized identities, as does the UUA’s Inspired Faith, Effective Action workbook where it forms one of the four necessary criteria for a campaign.
The United Church of Christ has similarly built in accountability to the core elements of national justice work. Executive Minister of the UCC’s Justice and Witness Ministries Rev. Linda Jaramillo explains, “We have four major themes that campaigns need to fulfil. They must be (1) Theologically and Biblically grounded, (2) Mutually accountable – i.e., we’ve asked permission and partnership from impacted peoples, (3) Institutional capacity, and (4) Potential to make impact.”
Because stories form a central component of AJWS’s work in the United States, particularly in fundraising, when using particularly sensitive stories such as in the campaign around homosexuality in Uganda, staff have set up a process to relay back to partners how their stories have been used. This takes significant time and effort, and is not without difficulty, but has been an important step towards building relationships of trust and equity.
49
The United Methodist Women Executive for Social Justice Education team brings stories of affected populations into their training rooms in New York by inviting in speakers. A number of these speakers have experienced, or still do experience, homelessness. Seminar Designer Chantilly Mers explains their process of accountability. “There’s an element of voyeurism in [listening to the speaker], so that in the conversation afterwards we’ll talk openly with the speaker and ask – what is it like to share your story with people who you don’t know? Having participants hear that is important. Then afterwards we’ll talk about what participants heard, what their faith tells them, what ideas might have changed. It’s vital to move beyond the individual and anecdotal and think systemically.”
Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs at Unity Church, Unitarian in Saint Paul, MN also actively seeks out feedback from partners. Each congregational justice issue group has a partner organization in the community. The board annually asks each partner how they experience these congregational groups. Crucially, “We don’t just ask if our people have been helpful, but we ask if they do what they’re told.”
In addition to the resources on partnership, there’s an opportunity to share best practices and strategies for upholding right relationship. The UU practice of covenanting with outside groups, as well as within the congregation, may present a solution – both in terms of providing a structured conversation about promises made, but most importantly, what to do if and when either side fails to uphold that promise.
Beyond Service
We run a great food pantry, which is lead by two strong members of the congregation and has community support. It does not, of course, address the root causes of hunger. Survey respondent
Overwhelmingly, UU congregational work on justice issues takes the shape of service work. The degrees to which it may be called justice work depend on each project, but there are many cases where it falls into the trap of rescuing, simply re- creating the structures of oppression rather than liberating us from them. There is a real danger that congregations will continue this pattern without significant investment in resources and training from justice leaders like UUSC and the College. Conversely, there’s also a risk of leaders dismissing all service work because it is not radical enough. Here, there is a need for education – to clarify that justice work can indeed be liberating, if it is done with the right approach.
Of the five complementary approaches to justice that the UUA’s Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook proposes, the survey respondents overwhelmingly indicate the focus on their work is service. The five listed are;
1. Service: provide a social service to meet the needs of persons in distress. 2. Education: inform people about the importance of a social issue in the context of liberal religious values.
50 3. Witness: make public by word or deed the convictions on a specific issue. 4. Advocacy: work through the legislative process to impact public policy. 5. Community Organizing: build power through relationships in the community to change institutional structures.
Most frequently, this service work takes the form of a food pantry or other service for people experiencing homelessness or hunger. Not only is this work most prevalent, survey respondents also deem this work the most effective, because of the proximity of the need, and the immediate and satisfying experience of being of service. (Note that the second reason is about the efficacy for the congregation, not the group served.)
The second most effective strategy for justice action, as measured in the survey, is partnership. Yet the text answers given by respondents illustrate that these partnerships refer to joint-efforts with a local service-oriented organization. Congregational-based community organizing is only very rarely mentioned.
The survey also confirms the learning from UUSC’s internal Strategic Review on Trend in Volunteerism (November 2014)28, that volunteers prefer short-term, low commitment opportunities.
The most effective work tends to be charitable (backpacks of school supplies in September, food pantry collections, fundraisers). It is "effective" because there is a tradition of doing this work, it requires a low level of sustained involvement, congregants can "drop in" their participation.
Providing a mid-winter homeless shelter. Hands on project that has a beginning and an end.
We prepare a meal for families once a month at the YWCA. There are opportunities for new people to get involved, there is a relationship set with the organization, and people involved feel like they are making a difference.
Raising money for various causes. It's easy and doesn't take much time.
28 “Key Trends In Volunteerism”, UUSC Strategic Review, November 2014 (unpublished)
51
Service work forms the backbone of most congregational justice efforts and can be vital to those making use of it. As Taquiena Boston, Director of Multicultural Growth and Witness at the UUA, counters the idea that justice and service are opposed to one another. “Service can be justice. Poor people have fewer resources, and not having access to resources is a justice issue. Helping one another is different from wanting to rescue – that’s where service becomes unjust.”
Some respondents saw this rescuing pattern at work in their own congregation.
With the homeless shelter project, many members of the congregation express a desire to help but also fear of actually coming into contact with homeless people. So they'll give money or cook a meal but won't participate in any activity that would require them to interact with shelter residents.
The biggest problem is getting people to volunteer to actually do any labor. They'll throw money at various justice issues, but they don't want to show up and do the heavy lifting.
This data reaffirms conclusions from previous studies of UU congregational justice work. In the UUA’s Congregational Social Justice Survey (October 2011)29, when asked about of what justice work congregations were most proud, hunger and homelessness came top, together with LGBT rights. The lowest category, with only 1% of congregations reporting they were proud, was community involvement. Of the 303 congregations responding to the survey, 98% were active on homelessness (through food pantries or meal programs), 70% on environmental justice, 43% on LGBT rights, and 24% on immigration.
Environment remains a high-ranking issue and immigration rises to become a second-tier issue, in terms of efficacy. However, here again the data reveals a focus on service projects like English as a Second Language classes or park and river
29 Congregational Social Justice Survey: Report of Findings, Office for Congregational Advocacy and Witness, UUA Multicultural Growth and Witness, October 2011, (unpublished)
52 cleanups. Nonetheless, there are more initiatives that focus on advocacy and education also. Certainly the work on LGBT rights and dismantling racism, the next two issues deemed effective, are built largely on statewide marriage equality advocacy efforts and congregational education on racism and white supremacy. Survey respondents identify why they believe these efforts to be effective.
I'm excited about the anti-racism work being done in our church. It's a long-term commitment that the community has made and I like that it's reflected in various ways, including sermons, trainings, movie screenings, etc.
Immigrant justice work. Energetic leadership, support by the minister, frequent opportunities to participate, and the congregational disposition to get involved when there is a well defined group being targeted and oppressed.
Organizing for LGBTQ rights. It is effective because many members take the issue personally and speak their personal truth rather than speaking from talking points calculated to appeal to some imaginary middle.
As these quotes illustrate, it is often when congregations have personal relationships with people with oppressed identities that they spring into action.
If the issue can be personalized, i.e. there is a well defined group of victims of exclusion (usually), like women, ethnic and racial minorities, groups identified by sexual orientation, it is easier for our congregation to get involved, at least on a personal level, but more diffuse exclusion and exploitation (e.g. economic oppression of low wage workers) is more difficult for us to rally to oppose. The problem persists because of a deep-seated individualistic perspective that makes just seeing less visible systemic oppression much more difficult. Also, involvement in economic justice issues is even more of a challenge, in part because economic issues are more complicated ("messier"), and an unconscious sense that we have a stake in the system that, for most of us, has provided significant benefits.
IMHO [In my honest opinion] many in our congregation do not recognize the connections between themselves and unjust conditions/situations in society. Many seem to need a personal story spelled out before their eyes, up close and personal, in order to reflect and make connections.
Personal relationships cannot be seen to be the whole solution, however. As Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, Community Minister, First Parish in Cambridge, MA explains. “It can be very hard to undo the racist stereotypes through direct service if the only engagement with people of color is at a soup kitchen.” Successful congregational justice work must go beyond service only. Being part of a CBCO often allows majority-white congregations to be part of a racially and socio-economically diverse group and work together as equals. Unfortunately, one can identify a strong misunderstanding or distrust in the survey of advocacy, witness and community organizing in congregations.
53 The least effective work is physical protesting, picketing, flyering, anything that requires people to show up to some place out of the norm. People make all sorts of excuses to not show up.
We struggle with bigger issues, like political advocacy, environmental advocacy or lobbying elected officials. That requires systemic processes and efforts that rarely have immediate results and people are either intimidated to step forward, cynical about government or not willing to put in the longer term effort to get what some perceive as slow or negligible change. getting people to engage with advocacy. they like to fix the meals, but not to write their representative about the measures that effect those who are receiving the meals.
Much of this has to do with lowering trust in the electoral system, but also with a deep distrust in the role of religion in politics. Many respondents and some expert interviewees speak of the desire to not copy the Christian Right in its aggressive political engagement. However, this is an unfortunate reality and sitting out of the public debate will only strengthen forces of oppression.
When asked what justice work is least effective, survey respondents point to issues that rely most on witness and advocacy such as immigration, racism and environmental action. However, hunger/economic justice/poverty is also considered as an issue where action proves ineffective.
UUs are not alone in struggling to move congregations beyond their service work. Many Episcopal churches have active food banks or day care centers, but don’t engage with structural change. The Episcopal City Mission counters this focus on service only by offering financial and strategic support for these congregations on the condition that they also engage with advocacy and campaigns focusing on systemic change. In 2009, they completed a five-year Affordable Housing Development program to assist parishes interested in creating affordable housing with feasibility study grants and technical assistance. Christ Church (Episcopal) in Quincy, MA has transformed a former rectory into nine units of affordable housing.
54 The easy distinction between justice and service is a false one. Though there is a clear need to support congregations in moving beyond only doing service work, by engaging in their state network, national campaigns or by partnering locally with an advocacy organization, much good can be done if service work is done in such a way that it educates and challenges congregants and strengthens relationships with those outside the congregation. The most effective intervention here is education within the congregation that aligns with the multiple efforts underway to address racism and classism and foster extensive culture change. This has been skillfully built into existing UUCSJ programming, and could further become part of a training hub housed within the College.
Justice and Growth
Many of our visitors want to get involved in social justice issues. Survey respondent
Too often, congregations see justice work as taking away energy from growing a healthy congregation. In fact, impactful justice work is one of the best ways to engage the wider community and attract new members. People are attracted to work that has meaning and that they can see visibly benefiting the community.
For UUs, this hesitancy about the role of the congregation is connected to the lingering sense that the church is a sanctuary to which one escapes when the world becomes too difficult. This example from the survey illustrates this point. Individuals in my congregation are deeply involved in many kinds of justice work not necessarily directly connected with the congregation. They come to church to be renewed and recharged.
Episcopal City Mission Executive Director Dr Ruy Costa stresses that in his experience good justice work leads inevitably to church growth. People want to be part of something that has an impact. Beth Brownfield, Unitarian Fellowship of Bellingham, WA, illustrates this through her congregation’s partnership with the Lummi Nation. “Yesterday was a holiday weekend and we had over 200 people show up to an event. It wasn’t just our congregation’s members, but outsiders were coming. We had to bring in chairs!”
Rev. Joan VanBecelaere, Central Eastern Region of the UUA, agrees. “We do need to shift something in the culture. We need to help our congregations see that they are more effective when they’re working together as a congregation – and with other partners. In order to focus on that, they have to focus on their own mission. Congregations are afraid of doing that in fear that they’ll alienate one or two people. Congregations must be prepared that if they do effective, focused work, some people will leave. But others will come!”
For Lew Finler, Executive Director of Massachusetts Communities Action Network (PICO), “The biggest missing piece is the clergy – they are the gatekeepers. Even when they agree to something, doing it half-heartedly is as bad as saying no. The
55 relationship between the organizer and the minister is crucial – and the organizer needs to understand the minister’s self-interest.”
Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews, Director of Clergy Organizing at PICO also stresses the role of the minister. “A vibrant congregation has a team leading the organizing work, a lead minister who supports this work and who themselves is engaged with other local clergy. They have a sense of who they are in the community around them and strong relationships outside of the congregation.” For Matthews, the skills developed in organizing training helped his Baptist congregation far beyond justice work alone. “By learning how to conduct one-to-ones, research an issue, plan actions, listen to others’ stories and unearthing their pain and motivation, organizing house meetings, holding each other accountable, celebrating together – all of this strengthened our congregation! Leaders stepped up in other areas of church life, worship became more vibrant, we connected generations, we became more welcoming to LGBT folks and people living with mental illness. And we grew.”
Other survey participants make the same connection.
Ministers and congregants don't ordinarily want to be distracted from a focus on their congregation, including SJ issues. But it is not a zero sum game. People will find a way to do more in the issue(s) they are passionate about. The problem persists because it is hard to see beyond the zero sum perspective. If more time is spent outside the church it is not available for church matters. To the contrary, if people feel they are participating in making a difference they will be more generous with time and treasure.
The most effective lever for change here is in seminarian training. Ministers both need to be willing to let go of some congregants in pursuit of focused, results- driven justice work – and to know that one indicator of successful justice work is that new faces show up in the congregation.
Measuring Impact
“The world changes in creeps and leaps. We all need internal metrics to keep track of how we’re doing making external changes.” Rev. Lindi Ramsden, Starr King School for the Ministry
Besides growth, there are numerous indicators that leaders must learn to look out for. Particularly when working on systemic injustices, success metrics are less easy to quantify than a service project that distributes meals, for example.
Every leader and organization surveyed in this study shared the struggle of successfully measuring impact. Often, official metrics proved less helpful in identifying problems or potential improvements during a campaign than rules-of- thumb that leaders develop from years of experience. Of course, formal evaluations proved extremely useful after the completion of a campaign or partnership.
56 Rev. Michael-Ray Matthews and his team at PICO stood out in their ability to monitor progress. They have developed a metrics dashboard for each PICO federation (a collection of tens or hundreds of congregations) that gives a snapshot of progress and is a useful tool between formal evaluations. It includes the cash flow, reputation, civic engagement, staff capacity, commitment of volunteer leaders, depth of multi-faith engagement, leadership gender balance, and other indicators that Michael-Ray and his team have learned, over time, are indicators of on-going success.
Individual indicators were mentioned by other interviewees, grouped together here by (i) capacity – leadership development, (ii) constituency – development of the congregation/base, and (iii) community – connection with those outside of the congregation/base.
Capacity
- How many events are being planned, not by staff, but by volunteer leaders who have been invested in? - What written documents are non-staff leaders producing? (For example; op- eds, strategy memos etc.) - Are non-staff leaders connecting staff with potential allies and partners? - Are non-staff leaders asking new or better questions? - Are non-staff leaders taking on new responsibilities? - What is the quality of facilitation like at meetings? - Have non-staff leaders learned new skills? - How many people are coming to leadership retreats?
Constituency
- Are congregants participating more regularly? - Are congregants having different/richer conversations about justice? - Are congregants being given platforms to share their stories? - Are congregants talking differently about outside groups? - Are congregants supporting state-wide/cluster work? With money? - Are open and click rates on email newsletters meeting targets? - Does someone other than non-staff leaders raise issues of justice in the congregation? - Can congregants explain to their friends and family what justice work the church is leading? - Have congregants changed their minds about a justice issue? - Is the congregation spending more time doing justice work, year to year? - How many congregants are showing up to events? - How much money is being donated? - Are young people engaged in congregational justice work? - Are young people engaged in conversations about justice on- of offline?
Community
- If the building burned down tomorrow, who would notice?
57 - Are community organizations approaching the congregation seeking to work together? - Are there wider ripples because of the action the congregation has taken? - What is the quality of friendships across difference between the congregation and the community? - Do others credit the congregation for inspiring or educating them? - Is care shown towards your building by neighbors? - How many formal or informal partnerships exist with other organizations?
One way in which these metrics could be collected is through a metrics dashboard. This might range from the very simple for distribution amongst congregations, to the very sophisticated monitored by UUSC or the College. Engaging a consulting firm as a pro-bono client is one way in which such a dashboard could be developed at a relatively low cost. Either way, some consistency in metrics will not only help measure progress, but also present UU congregations with a coherent approach as to what to pay attention to in their own congregational projects.
58 Recommendations
The data gathered in this study paints a vivid picture of the state of UU justice work in its many forms and varying degrees of efficacy. Much of it aligns with other internal UUSC research and confirms the need for changes in how UUSC engages with congregations and those UUs beyond. Indeed, the results from the Volunteer and Congregation Support Survey (October 2014), demonstrate that there is a clear desire for more effective volunteer leadership, with 80% response agreement, as well as more professional staff support, with 56%. Training, too, is identified as a need. The proposal of an online UUCSJ-led training on congregational justice leadership, including partnership development and community organizing skills receives strong support. 77% deem it important, and 52% would be ready and interested in participating. This confirms the conclusions from this study, namely the need for leadership training and support, together with broader capacity building for congregational leaders.
Respondents identify their top three issues for justice work as Climate Justice, Economic Inequality and Preserving Democracy, yet most congregations remain unable to move beyond service work of varying standards.30 Again, there is work to do to serve congregations in achieving their hopes for developing their justice work.
Certification isn’t popular with most existing leaders interviewed in the study. Many see in certification a move towards centralization and control, while there is also the sense that certification might come to stand for qualification, so that those wanting to be involved in justice work might be frightened off by the need for a required certification. On the other hand, new leaders are responsive. 34% of survey respondents would be ready and interested to take part in a 30-hour graduate training course with regular continuing education module. 49% would be ready and interested in a congregational certification program. Rev. Lindi Ramsden and Liz Jones’ advice that though such a certification program would benefit justice work, it would do best as a voluntary system, seems well placed. Indeed, anything hinting at centralized control will meet with steady opposition, so that avoiding the language of certification might itself be wise.
The following recommendations are therefore given as a menu of implementable actions that UUSC and UUCSJ can develop with varying levels of ease, ideally, in partnership with the UUA and other UU justice organizations. Care should be taken in combining recommendations, as they are not all designed to be systemically compatible. They are offered as a menu from which to select the most likely to succeed. Further, these recommendations are given in the context of UUSC’s increased resource capacity for domestic justice leadership support, while the UUA has had to limit its capacity. Continuing the productive partnership between organizations remains key.
30 Volunteer and Congregation Support Survey, UUSC
59 Cluster Development
State Action Networks vary widely in quality, struggle financially, and even when in place and operating well in the state capital, find it difficult to have strong relationships with congregations. For those that flourish, notably in California, collaboration and support are sensible. Elsewhere, helping to develop justice clusters will see higher rates of congregational engagement, longer-term financial sustainability, and greater visible local impact. Though clearly one size will not fit all, when four to five congregations lie within an hour and a half driving distance from one another, there is a rich opportunity to develop justice work in a cluster.
1. Written Process Resources. Cluster development takes time and building relationships among ministers, staff and lay leaders is crucial. Providing written resources on the steps needed to be taken to becoming a cluster such as sample retreat agendas, issues to be explored, financial guidance and stories of success would significantly 2. Training For Cluster Leaders. Crucial to cluster leadership is that social justice ministers don’t do for congregations what they can do for themselves. A strong community organizing background will enable cluster justice leaders to maximize impact without over-stretching their own capacity. Developing the spiritual leadership in justice contexts of cluster ministers is crucial. 3. Financial Incentive For Clusters. Working with the UUA, providing financial assistance to congregational clusters wanting to hire a social minister for the first two years, as the UUA has successfully done with incentivizing congregations to hire ministers of color.
Building Partnerships: Local
Guidance on partnership more generally is greatly needed. The frameworks and congregational models exist already, for example in the Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook, but this is a woefully underused resource and needs support in reaching congregational justice leaders.
1. Step-By-Step Video Guide. The partnership guidance in UUA resources is hidden away amongst large manuals that may seem unwieldy to first-time readers. Three-to-five minute videos that each illustrate a step toward building effective partnerships with principles, example stories and top tips, will go to great lengths in disseminating the wisdom already contained in the UUA resources. These videos can be simple to film and very cost- effective to produce. Examples include the New Organizing Institute Video Toolbox. 2. Training: Taking The First Step. Much of the reason for low-quality partnerships is the paralysis justice leaders feel when reaching across lines of race and class. Either because of a mentality of superiority, or a mentality of guilt and subservience, partnerships are rarely transformative. Training that helps UUs identify the gifts they bring, specifically beyond money alone, as well as the ways in which to honor and support the prospective partner
60 would increase confidence and success-rate of congregational partnerships. This should also include the sharing of successful stories such as the First Unitarian Church of Oakland/Ella Baker Center for Human Rights partnership. 3. Supporting State Networks: Use some of the resources available to UUSC to support the state networks with most strategic importance for upcoming justice work and who are in place to become self-sustaining in the future.
Building Partnerships: National
Partnering with a national organization with local affiliates is an ideal way of enabling congregations to find a suitable partner. In practice, a consortium of national or regional partners may need to be found if no one national partner exists.
1. Learning Journeys. UUCSJ already leads strong programming built on justice learning journeys. Expanding this programming to include national partnerships on issues already supported would enable stronger follow-up for participants, as well as deeper relationships with the partner organization. 2. Pick An Issue And Partner. Though comparatively small in numbers, UUs are often forerunners on challenging justice concerns. There is an opportunity to work with a national partner on a wedge issue that mobilizes UUs, particularly if UUs are able to organize other faith communities into supporting the issue. Alternatively, partner with a project that combines service and justice work such as affordable housing development, and develop a program to assist congregations, or ideally clusters, in creating affordable housing through feasibility study grants or technical assistance. 3. Partner With A CBCO Network. UU congregations stand to benefit enormously from being involved with a CBCO. Not only in the staff support and leadership development, but also in building relationships with congregations across race and class barriers. 4. Partner With Anti-Racist Training Network. UU congregations are well placed to lead justice and healing work on racism, particularly in deepening consciousness of racism among white people. Partnering with a training network, or multiple, and using UU congregations as the physical and spiritual homes for mass trainings would leverage current UU commitment to anti-racist work, as well as provide significant opportunities to welcome new people into congregations.
Practicing Covenant
The practice of covenanting forms the very foundations of UU theology and is significantly underused in justice work, particularly in creating and maintaining partnerships. UUCSJ, in bringing a model of reflection and theological grounding to its justice work, is well placed to stimulate renewed engagement with the practice of covenant in justice work. Interviewees in this study, when discussing potential
61 for this are firmly in favor. Rev. Joan VanBecelaere, sees the need also. “Our practice of covenant is weak, and especially in the local community”, while Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen is excited by it’s potential. “The idea of a covenant between First Parish Cambridge and our partner Centro Presente could be really exciting.” In many ways partnership agreements, formal or informal, already go some way to being a covenant, but lack the spiritual grounding or ceremonial potential of a formal covenant. Finally, most partnership tensions arise due to imbalances of power and resources. The necessity of discussion what both parties must do when the covenant is broken will facilitate difficult conversations healthily, and prepare both sides for inevitable struggles during the partnership. Covenanting can help with both:
1. Step-By-Step Guide. Provide written resource on the process of covenanting with external partners, including an early step of asking permission to go through this process them. 2. Leading By Doing: UUSC, UUA and UUCSJ have an opportunity to demonstrate the practice of covenant in justice work by explicitly forming covenants with partners. This will not only strengthen internal learning, but also, if successful, facilitate the spread of the practice organically.
Telling Stories
As the Mennonite Central Committee has demonstrated through its high-impact storytelling tours on gun violence, and American Jewish World Service on gender and LGBT rights around the world, facilitating the telling of stories in congregations helps energize, mobilize and unify congregants on justice issues. According to survey data, for many UUs the distance from impacted populations is one of the barriers to successful action.
1. Speaking Tours. Importantly different from Sunday sermons, a speaking tour allows for more frequent stops in congregations, and ideally congregation clusters, around the United States. Most impactful when combined with a partner organization or local affiliate that can absorb momentum, speaking tours are a powerful way of moving congregants from passive support on an issue into action. 2. Learning Journey Participant Leadership. One particular opportunity is to use the growing network of UUCSJ alumni to host speakers and organize a local event, especially if speakers come from a project that they have visited. It also represents an opportunity for them to host those who have previously welcomed them. 3. Countering Despair And Apathy With History. One of the more surprising conclusions of the survey was the extent to which congregants doubt the efficacy of advocacy. With such a rich history of activism and advocacy within the UU tradition, highlighting the stories of those who have gone before, and the change that they brought about with others, is one tactic to battle the apathy and despair. These stories of abolition, women’s suffrage, and marriage equality could be published, or taken on the road, and would engage a new set of constituents, namely those passionate about history and
62 UU identity. PICO refers to this process of mining one’s tradition as building ‘religious power’, as it helps deepen commitment and attachment to one’s faith tradition. 4. YouTube Channel. Sharing short stories of community-generated content that illustrate lessons learned, top tips and stories to inspire and give courage to other justice leaders.
Youth Leadership
The College has an extraordinary opportunity to position itself as the key support institutions for UU youth-led justice work. Young people are naturally attracted to social change and have important roles to play in organizing and mobilizing. At the same time, young adults are not being successfully engaged by congregations, and those who are raised UU, find themselves doing justice work in secular non-profits, unions or electoral campaigns, or as their work.
1. Youth Justice Core. Following the successful examples of Bend The Arc, AJWS, and PICO, create a city-based youth justice fellowship that trains organizers and then embeds them in cities for a minimum of two years. Organizers then build partnerships with UU congregations and non-UU partners and specifically aims to mobilize UU-raised or affiliated people who are not members of a congregation. Organizers will bring UU cultural and spiritual practices to the justice work, so that it is grounded and healthy, but will ensure to host meetings and actions outside as well as inside UU spaces. The Youth Justice Core can be recruited into from previous UUCSJ interns or Learning Journey participants. Potential beneficial externalities may include more collaboration between UU congregations in a metropolitan area, laying the foundations for future cluster development. 2. Youth Justice Trainings. Partner with a UU retreat center to host week- long youth-focused justice training programs that include introductory programming on organizing, public narrative, strategy, spiritually-grounded approaches to justice, and covenant practice. To avoid generational isolation, include older activists to act as mentors through the week, sharing their stories of success and failure, though clearly in a support category. Benefits of training large numbers of young people include: holding and developing young people within the UU ecosystem at a time (post high- school) when many lose their ties; creating a new ‘standard’ UU experience, much like Coming Of Age program; giving space for young people to lead and make mistakes develops their skills for future UU justice work, demonstrating how to move beyond service work, which mostly likely is what they have experienced thus far in congregations; offering new entry points into UUism for young people passionate about social justice and also hungry for a theological or spiritual perspective and practice to accompany justice work. This program can be built on the successful SALT leadership training programs in California and Massachusetts. 3. Inviting Youth Representatives Onto UUSC and UUCSJ Boards. Embedding a youth perspective institutionally.
63 4. Expanding UUCSJ Internship Program. As a feed-in or next step in association with the recommendations above.
Leadership - UU Justice Network
UUSC and the College have an extraordinary opportunity to take on the work that the UUA has been forced to leave behind in directly supporting justice leaders, and more. Indeed, developing and resourcing leaders will be the most effective way to spread a more robust, impactful approach to creating change.
Justice leaders are burning out, knowledge is not being transferred consistently, and congregations feel isolated in their justice work unless specific campaigns like Standing on the Side of Love connect them. Opportunities to mobilize quickly and coherently in crisis moments are missed in part because of the lack of strong ties between justice leaders around the country. There are too few opportunities for skills training for enthusiastic volunteers, meaning that predictable and avoidable mistakes are often made, isolating activists and demoralizing congregations. Ministers either take on too much justice work, crowding out – rather than building up – other leaders, or leave it aside as something they simply have no time and energy for. There is a real need for justice leaders to be connected and, through one another, empower.
1. UU Justice Network Approach. Develop a framework that is spiritually grounded, privileges the insights of the oppressed, builds genuine covenanted and enduring partnerships and mobilizes for systemic change. House training program within UUSC and UUCSJ to ensure programmatic unity and depth of faith-rooted justice approach. 2. Leadership Calls And Webinars. When congregations are active in national campaigns, inviting leaders of local justice efforts to join national strategy calls, or to hear stories of those impacted by the issue on a webinar is one practiced way to build cohesion, commitment and momentum. This works especially well when working with one national partner organization. However, to maximize impact of these online connections, offline relationships have to be built simultaneously. 3. Justice Network Hub. Following the successful UCC model, employ one person to manage full-time a hub for justice leaders around the country. The hub will include all UU justice materials, organized and categorized for easy retrieval; host calls and webinars (as above); coordinate gatherings, retreats and skill-shares (as below); facilitate connections and introductions between congregations who can partner or learn from one another; serve as a link for congregations seeking expert advice and connect them to UUA staff or other available experts; identify consistent needs not being met and develop new content to meet the need. 4. Supporting Justice Leaders Train The Trainer Model. Use an each-one- teach-one model so that Justice Leaders can themselves train congregational social justice teams.
64 5. Resources For Religious Educators. Develop age-appropriate justice resources with LREDA leaders to coordinate with potential national partnership or other denomination-wide campaigns.
Spiritually Sustaining Justice Leaders
Burnout depends on more than connections alone. UUA, UUSC and UUCSJ have an opportunity to also play a pastoral role in supporting denominational justice work, either by directly facilitating or simply enabling spiritual grounding to become central to congregational justice making.
1. Pastoral Letter. Following the age-old Catholic practice, Rev. Kathleen McTigue or another senior minister figure, can share monthly reflections on justice work – both sharing news, but more importantly grounding the work theologically and encouraging spiritual practice amongst justice leaders. There are secular examples of similar letters sent electronically, such as Akaya Windwood’s monthly newsletters to all Rockwood Alumni, which carry a powerful spirituality. 2. National Retreat. Host an annual gathering of justice leaders to focus on making meaning out of the struggles and learning of the past year. Built on the model of the UU Justice Ministry of California’s Walking The Walk retreat, though there is some skills training, the focus is on building spiritual resiliency, and making time to celebrate things, even if it is only the effort that everyone is making. 3. Encourage And Support Regional Retreats. Similar to above, but UUCSJ plays a supporting role to regional/cluster-level organizers, sharing example agendas and logistical tips. Focus is on helping local organizers build in deeply the idea that social justice is a spiritual practice. 4. Training: Spirit In Justice. Equipping ministers and other justice leaders to bring spiritual depth into justice work at a congregational, cluster and state level. Specifically supporting those hosting retreats for the Justice Leaders Network with practices already being implemented in the UUCSJ Learning Journeys. 5. Promote Small Group Justice Ministry. The Beloved Community work being led by Rev. Deborah Holder in the Denver/Boulder cluster builds on much of the learning of this report and mirrors the best practices at work in UUCSJ Learning Journeys. The circles of care or small group ministry model both deepen spirituality and strengthen social action bonds, developing trust and ensuring longer lasting commitments to justice work.
Measuring What Matters
1. Create A Metrics Dashboard. Learning from PICO and the many informal indicators mentioned by interviewees in this study, create a metrics dashboard for use by congregational justice leaders. Can be either a digital tool, or more likely, a simple set of reflection questions and worksheets to be distributed. For a comprehensive dashboard, significant resources will
65 need to be mobilized, though pro bono work might be possible from larger consulting firms.
Mass Training
Training represents the most effective way to share resources, best practices and build relationships on a large scale. The cancelling of congregation-level trainings by the UUA in 2010-11 has had a noticeable negative impact, and there is a real need for high quality justice training according to both expert interviewees and survey data. Certainly, the problem is not insufficient knowledge at the center, but a lack of effective dissemination to the grassroots. Further, we know from numerous participants that training works, that many of the leading justice-focused congregations are so oriented because of previous training, and that the UUA is open to collaborating.
1. UUCSJ Becomes Training Hub. As the UUA is no longer able to support congregational trainings, there is an opportunity for the UUCSJ to fill this gap. Further, through the work outside the USA, UUSC and UUCSJ are in a potentially even stronger position to connect national to international justice work. Trainings could include specific programs for youth (see above), cluster leaders (see above), partnership development (see above), spiritually grounded social justice (see above), leading small group social justice groups (see above) as well as implementing the Gilbert Model and other congregational best practices. 2. Culture As Well As Skills. Not only should UUSC/UUCSJ focus on training skills, but also on supporting changes in UU social justice culture. For example, by developing programs that speak to breaking out of the culture of expertise and isolation and engaging in the theological and cultural questions of individual and collective identities and action. 3. Learning Cohorts Or Partners. Following trainings, UUSC/UUCSJ to enable partnerships or small learning circles to keep in touch and check-in on monthly calls to share learning or coach one another through difficult situations. Similar models are in use at Rockwood and Campaign Bootcamp. An additional benefit is the richer relationship for those involved with UUSC/UUCSJ. 4. Seminarian Programming. Building on the seminarian-specific Learning Journey programming, develop introductory organizing and social change models training to enable fluency in strategy and congregational justice work, focusing particularly on grounding in UU theology.
Accreditation
Although it will raise significant criticism from current justice leaders, recent history, particularly the experience of LREDA, shows that creating some form of accreditation strengthens a function in congregations and gains additional visibility and respect. Agreement with the UUA and other UU organizations would need to be achieved in order to clarify who would be the accrediting body.
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1. Voluntary Justice Leadership Accreditation by UUSC. If developing a multi-unit training program, either in person or online, accreditation to be given to those who successfully complete the program, and potentially requiring a practical module to be completed in their congregation in an action learning model. 2. Voluntary Congregational Justice Accreditation. For congregations who build successful multi-year partnerships, or maintaining issue focus for at least five years can be awarded a prestigious status. 3. State Action Network Accreditation. Work with UUA to create and uphold minimum standards to be fulfilled by State Action Networks.
Key Recommendations
Recommendations Process Financial Impact Ease Cost UU Justice Network High High High UUSCJ Training Hub High High High Local Partnerships Training High High High Supporting Regional Retreats Medium High High Metrics Dashboard High High High
Youth Justice Corps High High Medium Partnering with CBCO Network High Low Medium Covenanting Guide Low Low Medium Stories of Success Speaking Tour High Medium Medium Local Partnerships Video Guide Medium Low Medium
Resources for Religious Educators Medium Medium Low Written Resources for Cluster Medium Low Low Development
67 Appendices
1. Seven Principles
1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
2. Illustrations
These short illustrations of successful justice initiatives are added as a resource for the UUCSJ website to bring to life the best practices.
Deepening Connections Through Storytelling First Parish UU in Milton, MA had participated for a couple of years in the Louis D Brown Peace Institute Mother’s Walk for Peace. Conscious of the impact of having a majority white congregation show up once a year and walk in one large block, Rev. Parisa Parsa asked her congregation to spread out and intentionally engage with others walking to ask why they were there and share their own story. “The impact was huge – both the stories they brought back and the challenging experience of broaching the conversation. The result was an openness about violence in their own stories and family history, a new connection with the issue. It helped get us out of our helping mentality, and into one of solidarity. We had to admit that we needed each other.” The next step after the encounter was to have the congregation talk about their experience with one another. At first, there was resistance. “People thought, ‘I don’t want to talk to my fellow congregant – I already know their story!’ But they didn’t. As a minister, I knew about the issues hidden beneath the surface – addiction, violence etc. Making space for people to share their stories was hugely important.”
Becoming Accountable Allies Before Beth Brownfield joined the Bellingham, WA Unitarian Fellowship, there had been little work to support the Lummi Nation or other indigenous peoples. Having
68 worked for some time on indigenous issues, she sought out events that were open to the public when she arrived in town. At first she asked how she could help and fulfilled the call to collect food for a Lummi food bank. Then, she made contact with leaders to ask for permission to educate non-native people. A partnership was formed and the congregation started to support the Lummi Nation with volunteers and finances as well as learning more about Lummi history and culture. Perhaps most important in becoming successful allies, though, was the honoring ceremony that the congregation hosted. The Lummi Nation had never been acknowledged as the first inhabitants of the land and waters in the area. The Fellowship’s Native Americans Connection Committee invited local mayors to attend and asked for letters from state senators and representatives, all acknowledging the Lummi Nation as first inhabitants. The service included Lummi families sharing their songs and dances and ended with food and opportunities for people to talk. “This laid the groundwork that we would do things differently. We didn’t try to help them; we offered support in what they wanted to do. It hasn’t been perfect, we still make mistakes, but we’ve built a relationship of openness so that we can apologize and learn.”
Working Together At National, State And Local Levels UUs can incubate an issue before it becomes a mainstream justice issue, such as the UU Justice Ministry in California’s work on water. “Having UU-grounded policy expertise at a national level that we could draw on was a real resource. Shelley and Patricia were really respectful of us knowing our state-level context, so there was no pressure to make a cookie-cutter campaign” explains Rev. Lindi Ramsden. The team led experiential learning journeys around the state that helped ground their own education and built real friendships with community partners, much more than the usual conference calls. Taking young adults on these journeys was a great way to help gain congregational interest in an issue that was not a popular one. The team also had elite connections, as many UU congregations will have, with key decision- makers and influencers that came in useful at key decision moments. In these moments of stress, the team benefited from having been able to spend time at retreats together, getting to build the relationships of trust.
Successfully Combining Service And Justice At First Unitarian Universalist in San Diego, Kirsten Kuriga and her team were inspired by Justice GA and the focus on immigration. They asked their community partners what issue they could take action on and settled on detention visitation. No organization was visiting people held in the detention center, but the ACLU and Immigrant Justice Project were supporters of the work. The congregation launched an interfaith effort, and over 100 people in detention requested visits. The need was clear. More than that, the added value of being people of faith was clear – they could bring a listening presence as well as have a moral voice on the issue. What Kristen hadn’t expected was that the stories that her congregants heard in the center began to change them. They started to raise issues facing those in detention, and the authorities suspended the project. Rather than sign waivers that would suspend first amendment rights in order to continue visitations, the congregation raised the stakes. They did extensive media work and took on the National Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency in order to continue the work. They mobilized their Senator and House Representatives and forced the Agency to back
69 down. “That’s the kind of thing where we really make a difference” says Kristen. “We went in believing we were doing witness, or service work, but it became advocacy. We managed to work with others to change significant structural injustices.”
Becoming A Cluster It has taken eight years to get to the current level of collaboration in the Denver/Boulder cluster. After many years of planning, and a significant financial donation from one congregant, they first hired an intern to work specifically on marriage equality. After a year, Rev. Kierstin Homblette persuaded them to include immigration work in her portfolio also, as all seven congregations at the time were active on the issue. After another year, the congregations agreed to turn the role into a part time position (20 hours), now working with 10 congregations, all within an hour and a half of one another. Half of Homblette’s time is spent working within the congregations, and the other half representing those congregations in the community. She now has a Steering Team with one person from each congregation plus leaders from partner organizations and his hoping to become a full-time staff member soon.
Bringing The Dick Gilbert Model To Life Seven years ago, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte, NC had the typical UU justice model of ‘no cause left behind’. Individual members with a passion drove it and although it made people feel good, it neither had a big impact, nor did it engage most members of the congregation. With 700 adult members, the church had to recognize that it would struggle to make an impact alone. So, the congregation decided to move to the Dick Gilbert approach of congregational activism. From the collaborative process, the issue that emerged for the congregation to focus on was affordable housing and homelessness. Rev. Jay Leach explains the mixed blessing of getting specific. “The upside is that we can see the impact we’re having by financially supporting an organization that houses LGBT youth and that leaders in the community are approaching us because they see us making a difference. The downside is I have to say ‘no’ almost all the time. We’ve been very disciplined and there’s a real discomfort in that. What’s most interesting is that agencies who’ve we’ve had to say ‘no’ to have thanked us for being so focused – at least they know where they stand with us and they don’t have to waste time!”
Small Justice Groups With Big Impact At Unity Church, Unitarian in Saint Paul, MN, Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs reshaped the justice work by creating three categories that any justice project needs to fulfil. Any group proposing a justice project must commit to a two-year timeline, and must include elements of (1) Service, which opens people’s hearts; (2) Education, which informs people’s heads; and only then (3) Advocacy, which brings people’s voices to the public sphere. Rev. Eller-Isaacs explains that, “Liberals tend to reverse the order so that advocacy arises unexamined and is driven by a kind of urgency that arises out of a lack of spiritual coherence.” Small groups receive the full staff and financial support once they’ve begun and after two years, are given the choice to continue or let the group close. Each group must partner with a local organization, and the church board checks in each year with partner organizations to assess how the partnership is developing. The structure isn’t for everyone; explains Rev. Eller- Isaacs. “It pisses off the people who want to pursue their pet project. And people do
70 leave.” Leadership for small groups is more than mere secular organizing, though bringing spiritual depth is something the team are working on. “We expect the leaders of the small groups to think about how to enthuse the experience with spiritual reflection, and many feel incapable of leading in this way. We’re yet to develop the training our leaders need, especially community outreach teams.”
3. List of Interviewees – UU
Minister of Beloved Community Deborah Holder Formation UUA, Pacific Western Region Taquiena Bosto Director, Multicultural Growth n & Witness UUA Annette LGBTQ and Multicultural Marquis Programs Director UUA Program Coordinator, Social Meck Groot Director of Justice Ministries UUA, New England Region Joan Regional Lead, Central Eastern VanBecelaere Region UUA Scott Tayler Director of Congregational Life UUA Unitarian Society of Santa Julia Hamilton Assistant Minister Barbara Dean of Students and Starr King School for the Lindi Ramsden Community Life Ministry Hope on the Byways Jesse Jaeger Consultant Consulting Unitarian Universalist Jay Leach Senior Minister Church of Charlotte Cedar Lane Unitarian Abhi Janamanch Universalist Church in i Senior Minister Bethesda, MD Unity Church, Unitarian in Rob Eller-Isaacs Co-Minister Saint Paul, MN Unitarian Universalist John Saxon Lead Minister Fellowship of Raleigh Howard Dana Senior Minister First Parish, Concord MA Fred Small Senior Minister First Parish, Cambridge MA Unitarian Universalist Todd Eckloff Minister Church of Spokane, WA Cathy Rion Starr Co-Minister Unitarian Society of Hartford Social Justice and South Bay First Unitarian Universalist Kristen Kuriga Ministry Teams Coordinator Church of San Diego Barbara Prose Assistant Minister All Souls, Tulsa, OK Church of the Larger Meg Riley Senior Minister Fellowship Elizabeth Nguyen Community Minister First Parish, Cambridge MA UU Urban Social Justice Parisa Parsa Consultant Ministries Project
71 Lorakim Joyner Community Minister Wings of Compassion Kierstin Community Minister/Beloved Homblette Community Coordinator Colorado Cluster Congregational Advocacy and Alex Kapitan Witness Program Coordinator UUA Vanessa Unitarian Church in Summit, Southern Former Minister NJ First Unitarian Church of Katherine Jesch Community Minister Portland, OR Former Director of Religious First Unitarian Universalist Liz Jones Education Church of San Diego U.U. Veatch Program at Ned Wight Executive Director Shelter Rock Congregational Advocacy and Susan Leslie Witness Director UUA Robin Tanner Lead Minister Piedmont UU Church Director for Racial and Social Paula Cole Jones Justice, Joseph Priestley District UUA Matt Friederichs Organizer MOSES, Michigan Bellingham Unitarian Beth Brownfield Lay leader Fellowship Susan Unitarian Universalist Frederick-Gray Minister Congregation of Phoenix, AZ
4. List of Interviewees – External
Legislative Secretary, Sustainable Energy and Friends Committee On Jose Aguto Environment National Legislation Jason Miller Director of Campaigns and Development Franciscan Action Network United Methodist Women Executive for Social Justice Jay Godfrey Seminar Designer Education United Methodist Women Chantilly Executive for Social Justice Mers Seminar Designer Education Mennonite Central Curtis Book Peace and Justice Coordinator, East Coast Committee Adina Mermelstein American Jewish World Konikoff Senior Organizer Service Community Christian Church Robert Hill Senior Minister (Disciples of Christ) Bryan Hehir Secretary for Health Care and Social Services Archdiocese of Boston Rev. M. Linda UCC's Justice and Witness Jaramillo Executive Minister Ministries Andrew Director of Operations Union Theological Seminary
72 Schwartz Carr Center for Human Rights Douglas Policy, Harvard Kennedy Johnson Director School Charles Missioner for Social Justice and Advocacy Wynder Jr Engagement The Episcopal Church Rachel Feldman National Field and Campaigns Director Bend The Arc Special Assistant to the Bishop for Alexia Welcoming Congregations for the Southwest Evangelical Lutheran Church Salvatierra California Synod in America Massachusetts Communities Lew Finfer Executive Director Action Network (PICO) Ruy Costa Executive Director Episcopal City Mission Valerie Toney Parker Director of Social Action Du Page Church, IL (AME) Michael-Ray Mathews Director of Clergy Organizing PICO
5. Oral Consent Form
My name is Casper ter Kuile from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and I am asking you to take part in my research study.
I would like to interview you to learn more about best practices of UU justice work and how to strengthen future justice work. The interview will last about 45 minutes.
You can skip questions that you do not want to answer or stop the interview at any time.
I plan to use the data that I’m collecting in a report for the UU College of Social Justice. If you so request, I will keep your identity anonymous and will not use your name or other identifying information.
I will not share your personal information with anyone outside the research team.
Being in this study is voluntary. Please tell me if you do not want to participate.
If you have any questions, please contact me at [email protected] or 617-501-8685.
6. Sample Interview Questions
• What is working well?
• Examples from congregation/organization?
• What is working elsewhere that we should be learning from?
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• What is missing/what isn’t working well?
• How are you measuring impact?
• Beyond service – where are they on justice spectrum?
• Two or three specific questions about their ministry/experience
• Is there anything you want me to know that I haven’t asked you?
• Who else should I speak to?
7. Full Survey Data
See attached spreadsheet with full data.
74 Bibliography
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“Blackstone Partnership”, St Stephen’s Episcopal Church Boston, http://www.ststephensbos.org/blackstone-partnership, accessed on 5th January 2015
Bretherton, Luke, Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness (Chichester: Wiley & Sons, 2010)
Coles, Romand, Beyond Gates Politics: Reflections for the Possibility of Democracy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)
Congregational Social Justice Survey: Report of Findings, Office for Congregational Advocacy and Witness, UUA Multicultural Growth and Witness, October 2011, (unpublished)
Faith In Public Life, http://www.faithinpubliclife.org, accessed on January 7th 2015
Ganz, Marshall, Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
Gilbert, Richard S., The Prophetic Imperative: Social Gospel in Theory and Practice (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2000)
“How to Be a Strong Ally to People with Marginalized Identities”, Unitarian Universalist Association, August 2012, http://www.uua.org/lgbtq/witness/26942.shtm
“Key Trends In Volunteerism”, UUSC Strategic Review, November 2014 (unpublished)
Leslie, Susan, “Social Justice Empowerment Program Handbook”, Unitarian Universalist Association, October 2011, http://www.uua.org/documents/aw/sje_handbook.pdf
Leslie, Susan, “Inspired Faith, Effective Action”, Unitarian Universalist Association, February 2008, http://www.uua.org/documents/washingtonoffice/ifea.pdf
75 Pierce, Gregory F. Augustine, Activism That Makes Sense: Congregations and Community Organizing (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 1984)
Salvatierra, Alexia, Faith-Rooted Organizing: Mobilizing the Church in Service of the World (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2013)
Wille McKnight, Christine, “The Cost of Losing Our Children”, The UU Growth Blog, January 2010, https://uugrowth.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/uua- retention-mcknight-paper/, accessed on 16th February 2015
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