“How do we live compassion, justice, love, accessibility, in alignment with this planet and with the people on it? How do we live our values?” –adrienne maree brown, emergent strategy (115).

This is a really important question that we, as a religious organization and spiritual community, must come back to again and again. It is a question that should guide us as we make the decisions that move us into the future.

Our by-laws are like the “DNA” of our organization. I heard that once at a General Assembly workshop and I didn’t fully understand what it meant. But, as we work on amending our by-laws, and being intentional about those amendments, with our values guiding us, this analogy of by-laws as DNA is becoming concrete. We change the language in them to be more inclusive of everyone’s identity. We update our values to reflect who we are and what we have discerned our purpose and covenants to each other and the planet to be. We make changes that reflect our power structure and, consequently, nurture our relationships, or not.

This is why the board and the by-laws committee has suggested we open up our decision-making processes. If we want to move into a church culture that truly values all voices and decentralizes power, then we must not stay bound to one process that has left people out because it only gives power to the majority.

(You can read more about it here in this chapter of the book Breaking Robert’s Rules written by co-authors Lawrence E. Susskind and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank. Lawrence E. Susskind is the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at MIT and head of the Public Disputes Program at Harvard Law School. https://susskindreader.mit.edu/sites/default/files/Pages%20from%20Susskind_Breaking_Roberts_Rule%20Chapter%201.pdf)

Brown also reminds us of this important principle while engaging in social change: “Move at the speed of trust.” Indeed, so as we move into change, we must be mindful of the level of trust, and if that means slowing down and taking baby steps into a new process or way of being, then that’s what we have to do. I’m pretty sure that I can speak not just for myself, but for all UUCL’s leadership when I say that we do not want to leave anyone behind. We want everyone to feel good about being engaged in this community. Please note, this does not mean that we want everyone to think the same thing. Indeed, then we’d be a cult. And that is certainly not what Unitarian Universalism is all about. We want for all of us, with all of our different ways of thinking, to be able move in the same direction, toward a goal and aspiration guided by our values of love, justice, and inclusion. “We don’t have to think alike to love alike.”

If you are interested in reading more about the consensus decision making process, check out these websites (there are many and you can easily do your own Google search!):

https://extension.umn.edu/leadership-development/benefits-consensus-decision-making

https://www.citizenshandbook.org/consensus_in_large_groups.pdf

Additionally, I have ordered a couple books and expect to see them at my doorstep very soon. Feel free to ask me about them!