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Julia Dodoo
Peter Morales: I saw a fascinating piece of research about growing and declining congregations a few years ago. I have always been intrigued by why some congregations grow and others get smaller. This study looked at a larger number of factors. Things I thought might make a difference, like the age or gender of the minister, made no difference.
One factor had the absolute opposite effect of what I would have guessed. Congregations that described themselves as feeling like a close-knit family were more likely to be in decline. On the other hand, congregations that saw themselves as moral beacons in their community were likely to be growing.
I thought feeling like a close-knit family would be a positive thing. Then somebody pointed out that it is hard to join a close-knit family. On the other hand, congregations that were engaged in the moral issues of their communities attracted new members.
The same thing is true for each of us. If we become preoccupied with ourselves and our immediate circle, we shrink spiritually. When we look beyond ourselves and beyond our immediate intimate circle, when we engage with our world, we come alive. Every great religious tradition teaches us that we truly find ourselves when we lose ourselves in something greater.
What is true for each of us, what is true of our congregations, is also true of our Association. We are best when we reach out, when we engage, when we build relationships. When I think of what I am most proud of over the seven years I have served as your president, it always has to do with forming partnerships that create new possibilities.
That pattern of local and national partnerships has continued in our public witness. UU Ministers and congregations in North Carolina worked closely with the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, and other faith groups in the Moral Mondays movement.
I am so proud of our pioneering work in Entrepreneurial Ministry training. This is a unique, and, yes, entrepreneurial, program for religious professionals that brings in top business school faculty and religious innovators. This is just one of the programs made possible because the UUA is partnering as never before with the UU Ministers Association and business school faculty across the country.
Next month at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley we will have the fourth Summer Seminary, a program for high school students who are considering a career as religious professional. These young people are amazing and inspiring.
Another way we are involving people of all ages and helping them engage our values in the world is the UU College of Social Justice, a partnership with the UU Service Committee. The College provides immersion experiences in justice work and creates a context for crossing boundaries of culture and class.
Creating relationships continues to create new possibilities. Our growing presence in military chaplaincy provides support for military personnel from many faith traditions and for the growing number who identify with no religious faith. Sarah Lammert, our Director of Ministries and Faith Development staff group, is about to become the Chair of the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces. Military ministry is dominated by conservative evangelicals.
And, as you have already seen, we are forming stronger bonds with other faith traditions. We are exploring new ways of working together not only to work for justice, but to reach out to the millions of spiritually homeless in America. We are not in competition with one another. We are in competition with fear, with ignorance, with greed, with racism and with the banality of consumer culture.
I began by mentioning a study that showed that inward looking congregations, congregations focused primarily on internal relationships, tend to decline. Congregations that look beyond their walls and beyond their members tend to grow. They grow because they feed a deep hunger in the human spirit. We are relational creatures.
And so it is with our Association. Yes, we are an association of member congregations. And yet Unitarian Universalism has always been much, much more than a collection of congregations. We are the embodiment, the expression, the incarnation, of a religious vision of interdependence, of openness, of community. We are a living and evolving tradition. We are accountable to more than our current members. We are accountable to our history, to the future, to seekers who long for a spiritual home.
As an association, we need to do two things simultaneously. First, we have to serve the needs of our members. We must strive to be relentlessly useful. That means we must strive for excellence in everything we do to serve our members.
Sometimes I feel we are like an electrical utility. We only notice the utility when the grid goes down or when we get our monthly bill. So much of the essential work your UUA staff does is invisible unless something goes wrong. Here are just a few of things we do that are usually taken for granted:
Your UUA is also called to lead. In a time of unbelievably rapid change, this is vital. That is why we partner with other faiths to explore how to engage the unaffiliated, why we develop a program in entrepreneurial ministry.
Unfortunately, the best work of our Association is at risk going forward. If Unitarian Universalism is to thrive, if we are going to seize the opportunities before us, we have to have a strong association. And if we are going to have a strong association in the future, we need to rethink how we fund it. We need to have an honest conversation about what is fair for everyone. Sadly the system we have now is not fair.
This chart shows the total Annual Program Fund request we make of congregations and the percent contributed. The most important element here is the line that shows that amount of the ask that congregations give has dropped from the low 80s to 71 percent in a decade. That drop is about a million dollars a year.
Even more troubling to me is the fact that 47 congregations contributed nothing at all last year. 175 congregations contributed less than one quarter of their requested contribution, and 279 congregations, or 27 percent, contributed less than half. This is simply unfair.
It is also true that in the midst of the ordinary and extraordinary of congregational life, I was often vividly aware of being held by all of you, congregations, staff, and leaders that are our UUA. Those times when I knew our work in the congregation was truly amplified because of our larger religious movement.
Moderator: The UU Service Committee is a UU Related Organization that while independent of the UUA, it enjoys a very special covenantal relationship to the UUA. The Rev. Bill Schulz is the UUSC President that I am pleased to introduce for his last presentation as UUSC President, and I think he has an introduction to make as well.
I mean that we now can measure exactly how many people we are serving and for how much money. In Haiti, for example, our projects have improved the lives of 20,813 people at an average cost of $77 with more than 80,000 more the indirect beneficiaries of our work.
And I mean that we are touching the lives of Syrian refugees in Eastern Europe; immigrant women and children in Texas; earthquake survivors in Nepal and Ecuador; LGBT folks in Africa; and thousands and thousands more.
UUWF has increased our connections with UU women by expanding our website and facebook presence; by email blasts to the more than 2,500 members of our community; and by creating frequent, timely blogs, written by our affiliated minister, Rev. Marti Keller. These posts inform us about current public policy and cultural trends, from Supergirl to Girl Scout cookie boycotts.
We are working to strengthen partnerships with secular groups that share our values and goals. This has included connections with SisterSong, a group of women of color who are working towards reproductive justice for all women, including their Trust Black Women campaign and links to Black Lives Matter.
This year we focused on a financial contribution to and advocacy efforts on behalf of Planned Parenthood, in light of especially vicious efforts to shut it down. Leaders from SisterSong and Planned Parenthood received Ministry to Women Awards during our GA workshop on Thursday.
I am very pleased to welcome and introduce to you a very special guest to this General Assembly: Rear Admiral Margaret Kibben, the 26th Chief of Navy Chaplains, and the first woman to serve in this role.
Our chaplaincy program under Rev. Sarah Lammert, Director of Ministries and Faith Development is one that I am very proud of and know you are as well. It is good to see our chaplains in uniform supporting the women and men who serve our country around the world.
Moderator: Before proceeding with our business this morning, I want to invite to the stage and introduce you to our new Parliamentarian, Justice Nina Elgo. She is a Superior Court Judge in the state of Connecticut and member of the Unitarian Society of Hartford. You will recognize Tom Bean, our legal counsel and veteran of many General Assemblies who is a member of the First Unitarian Society in Newton, MA.
Susan Goekler: Moderator Key, based on the results of the congregational poll, the Commission on Social Witness submits the following issues from which delegates may select one for four years of study and action as a new Congregational Study Action Issue or CSAI. The text of each proposal is in the program book agenda on pages 93-96.
Moderator: We're now at that point of our agenda where we will take action to decide on which of the four proposed congressional study action issues will appear in your final agenda. They are on pages 93 through 96 as Susan has indicated.
See bylaw section 4-12, statements of conscience, for a complete outline of the process. And I hope you went to the mini assemblies. This is the first step in a process that will ultimately produce a Unitarian Universalist Association statement of conscience that emerges from one of these four CSAIs
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