The Powerful Governance Question: Whose Are We?

Thousands of Unitarian Universalists gather with their justice partners in Phoenix in 2012 to protest Sheriff Arpaio's "Tent City" jail.

What's the Intersection of Beloved Community and Church Governance?

One of the powerful questions of effective governance is the question of moral ownership. Who are your sources of authority and accountability as a board? With whom do you validate your work as trustees? Whose input do you have no moral right to ignore? In essence: whose are you?

Getting clear about our moral owners was a turning point in the life of Unity Church-Unitarian. In the past, the board had understood itself as deriving its authority from and being accountable to its members. Ten years ago, this policy came up for review, and the board chair wondered if we didn't risk self-perpetuation if the board continued to see its primary relationship being with the church's members, even if those members were the church's legal owners. The board decided to study the theologies of Beloved Community to see if that would better describe their true accountability. 

Unity Church's board now understands its source of authority and accountability as "All those who yearn for the Beloved Community, and see Unity Church as one instrument for its realization. Beloved Community is community at the highest level of reality and possibility, where love and justice prevail."

The board invested six months of careful study, reflection and discernment before they crafted these two simple sentences. Despite their simplicity, these sentences catalyzed a turning outward of the church over the following ten years:

• Board members now actively seek out the values and vision of our community outreach partners when they work to discern Unity Church's future direction. 
• The board wrote a new policy (Policy J) holding our Executive Team accountable for assessing our vendors on their justice and sustainability efforts. 
• The Executive Team reflected on the way in which our building allowed us to connect with all those who yearn for the beloved community, and launched an award-winning remodel of the church to open it more effectively to the community. 
• The church now shares its worship space with an African-American neighborhood congregation, Above Every Name, "an emerging cutting edge ministry. . .created to be a 'Church for the People'. . . a place where God's Creation can Relate, Receive, and be Released to experience the unending measure of God's Love, Mercy, and Grace."  

All this might have happened even without the board's careful work to answer "Whose are we?" There's no doubt, however, that it was much easier with this foundational understanding in place. Contact us if you'd like help catalyzing a similar conversation in your own congregation.