​Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs, one of the founding partners of Unity Consulting, recently sent this message to our congregation, Unity Church-Unitarian, about the connection between covenant and governance. Good governance is not about efficiency, it's about depth. Good governance is a framework for covenant, for the promises to ourselves, to each other, and to the world for the impact we seek to make in the world. And in moments such as the ones we're facing now with the coronavirus pandemic, those promises are more important than ever.

For more about how governance can help us make and keep our promises to each other, and renew them when we sometimes break those promises check out:

• Materials from our workshop at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly on the Promise and Practice of Good Governance.
• Our book The Nested Bowls outlines a congregational covenanting process to understand and articulate our promises to one another in values, mission, and ends policies. Also available from InSpirit, the UUA Bookstore.

Please get in touch if we can support your efforts to use governance well during these challenging times. Be well. Stay safe.

We’ve written extensively about how to write ends in conversation with the congregation and other sources of the board’s authority and accountability. But what happens after the board has set the vision for what will change in people’s lives over the next five to seven years of the congregation’s ministry?

One question that comes up regularly is how to respond to ambitious ends that give very little specific direction for programs and ministries. As one minister said to me, “We could drive a truck through our ends they’re so broad and open.” If you’re accountable for results on such ends, what do you do? Five suggestions:

Celebrate your opportunity. Your board trusts you to appropriately interpret its vision. The board wants your vision to influence and shape how the congregation develops and deepens. Use this opportunity to clarify for yourself, for the board, and for the congregation as a whole what it will mean to make progress together on your ends (see “Write an interpretation” below). How they respond will inform everyone about what’s truly possible for your ministry together. 
Take a second look. Are the ends really as broad as you think they are? Where are they inviting you to challenge the congregation, comfort the congregation, keep the status quo, invite change?
Invite the congregation to consider what the ends are asking of them. This works particularly well in small groups. How would they know their group’s ministry is changing lives in the way the ends identify? How might their group’s work advance the ends?
Look to the future. Most congregations re-write ends every five years. How might you help the congregation clarify and deepen their understanding of their ministry so that the next set of ends are more focused?
Make it formal: write an interpretation. You want to do this for all ends, because it answers two key questions for the board:

1. What does this end mean operationally? You want to identify what more specific outcomes will show the board appropriate progress on the end. This gives you the opportunity to put appropriate boundaries around the end, boundaries that reflect where you are as a congregation now and how far you could reasonably grow. As you get clearer about the more specific outcomes you’re working to achieve, you’ll begin to discover creative ideas for programs and ministries that respond to the end.
2. How will we know we’re making appropriate progress on the end? You want to identify what measures will show the board that you’re achieving those more specific outcomes you’ve identified.

​Want more help? We're convening study groups on writing interpretations in the fall; more information here. Or contact us to arrange for one-on-one coaching.

I’ve been reflecting on the challenges of role clarity as envisioned by Policy Governance® (PG), particularly the way in which board and minister roles ask each for skills that are not traditionally theirs.
 
Consider how trustees, if they are to establish transformational congregational ends, aligned with Unitarian Universalist values, need spiritual grounding and a prophetic imagination more usually assigned to ministers to provide. Why, then, give the task of setting ends to lay leaders? James Luther Adams, perhaps the preeminent 20th-century Unitarian theologian says it best: “The prophetic liberal church is not a church in which the prophetic function is assigned merely to the few.” (112)
 
Trustees can find it uncomfortable to assume the prophetic function, to ensure their church is “the prophetic liberal church . . . in which persons think and work together to interpret the signs of the times in the light of their faith, to make explicit through discussion the epochal thinking the times demand.” (Adams, 112). Policy Governance®, however, provides a structure in which trustees and their fellow congregants can find their prophetic voice together. PG assigns the board the task of linkage, of being in conversation with the people who are the board’s sources of authority and accountability about the future of the church. Through these conversations, the board earns the authority and the ability to:

• Discern what the times demand of individuals and religious community
• Set ends that respond to these demands
• Lead the congregation into new possibilities

Policy Governance® assigns the elected leaders of the church the task of hosting prophetic congregational conversation and doing something meaningful with the information that emerges.
 
To be effective, these linkage conversations need to start with a Powerful Question (see this blog post) a question that helps the congregation reexamine its faith and find its relevance anew. To ask a Powerful Question, the board needs grounding in the heritage, traditions, and ideals of Unitarian Universalism, and trustees need clarity about the meaning of faith in their individual lives and in the congregation collectively. These foundations make it possible to find a question that honors the past and invites the congregation into a challenging conversation about the future.
 
Where does this leave the minister’s prophetic voice? Where it often does in congregational life: out in front, shaping, guiding, framing, inviting. The board and the minister form a crucial partnership in this work. The minister knows at depth what possibilities congregants are ready to try, how much of a stretch those possibilities represent, and what spiritual growth the congregation will need to engage those possibilities. Through its linkage conversations, the board knows what the congregation sees as its strengths and what it longs for in its future. Bringing their knowledge together, and finding language together for the ends, allows board and minister to partner authentically to shape the future of the congregation.
​
Our book, The Nested Bowls: The Promise and Practice of Good Governance provides more details about finding a Powerful Question, grounded in the board’s understanding of our Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, shaped and informed by the minister’s prophetic voice, to guide the board’s linkage work. Find it at inSpirit or Amazon.
 
Works Cited
Adams, James Luther The Essential James Luther Adams: Selected Essays and Addresses. Edited by G. K. Beach, Boston, Skinner House Books, 1998.

Policy Governance® is the registered service mark of John Carver; the authoritative website for the Policy Governance model can be found at www.carvergovernance.com.)

from Laura Park, Managing Director

I was recently in Colorado working with Foothills Unitarian Church, a vibrant, growing congregation with an engaged and thoughtful board. They had completed the congregational conversation process about values and mission outlined in my book The Nested Bowls: The Promise and Practice of Good Governance. One of the exercises in that process asks small groups of congregants to consider what difference they want their congregation to make in people’s lives in the future. These small groups have already discovered their congregation’s strengths and shared their individual wishes for their congregation’s future. This exercise asks them to imagine what might change in people’s lives if the congregation used its strengths to make two or three of the wishes that they all want together to come true. Participants create a magazine cover (or a website landing page!) talking about their future congregation and how it is changing lives.

The magazine covers people create in this exercise are often very powerful, filled with images that are aspirational and yet grounded in the strengths of the congregation as it is. The Foothills board took the images their participants created and made beautiful quilts from them, quilts that they hung around the church to share what congregants saw as possible for the future. The board immersed themselves in these images and used what they learned from them to write ends statements describing what difference the church will make in people’s lives. These ends statements will guide everything the congregation does in the next five years, and the board will be engaged in determining what progress is being made on making the ends statements real.​

If you've worked with Unity Consulting, you'll recognize our metaphor of the nested bowls as the foundation of a covenantal, fruitful governance practice. (If you haven't worked with us, please see below!) How have congregations answered these powerful questions? Here are three examples.

From Unity Church-Unitarian in St. Paul, MN

Core Values:

• Authenticity
• Generosity of spirit
• Mutual respect
• Freedom of thought
• Open, broad embrace 

Mission: 

The mission of Unity Church-Unitarian is to engage people in a free and inclusive religious community that encourages lives of integrity, service and joy.

 

Ends 2014-2018:

• The people of Unity Church-Unitarian value a deeply meaningful, transforming liberal religious experience. 
• Unity Church-Unitarian is a community of welcome, reverence, and deep connection. 
• Unity Church-Unitarian carries out the work of love in community, making a positive impact in our neighborhood and in our world.

See more, including the sub-ends nested inside of these overarching Ends at the Unity Church-Unitarian website.

From the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, CA

Core Values:

• Community
• Courage
• Love
• Diversity
• Generosity
• Joy

Mission:
The Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, a loving community of seekers:

• Living with integrity. 
• Nurturing wonder. 
• Inspiring action.

Ends:
Living with integrity, we:

• Use our heads and our hearts to develop a deep understanding of our individual and collective values, ethics and personal theologies and align our individual and community actions in witness to those commitments.
• Support each other in life and life's transitions with loving care, celebration and gratitude.
• Engage in lifelong learning, utilizing reason in the pursuit of truth.
• Care for the earth and its rich web of life.

Nurturing wonder, we:

• Experience the transcendent that opens us to deep connection and life's expansiveness.
• Develop intellectual and spiritual personal practices that actively engage us with paradox and mystery.
• Invite the wider world to join us in our exploration of the unknown.

Inspiring action, we:

• Pursue justice and equality courageously through bold individual and congregational endeavors.
• Integrate joy and service.
• Develop leaders who shift the larger culture toward justice and compassion.
• Welcome and connect with people across differences of ethnicity, class, sexual identity, religion, politics and education.
• Form partnerships beyond our congregation consistent with our mission and values. 

See more, including the inspiring way the values and Ends carry throughout the congregation's web presence and congregational life, at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara's website.

From First Universalist Church in Minneapolis, MN

Core Values:
We believe in:

1. The Universalist message of love and hope
2. The sacredness of each person
3. The strength of community
4. The value of spiritual practice
5. The transformation of people's lives in a faith community
6. Being a radically welcoming community
7. Committing to service and working for social justice in the world
8. The interdependence of all creation
9. The power of giving, receiving, and growing.  

Mission:
In the Universalist spirit of love and hope, we give, receive, and grow. 
First Universalist Church.

Visionary Goals:

1. We, the people of First Universalist Church, grow in our UU faith: we are equipped to live out our values and experience worship, spiritual practices, and rituals that challenge, comfort, celebrate, and heal. 
2. First Universalist Church is a home for ageless wisdom. People of all ages find opportunities to engage in an intellectual and spiritual search for deeper meaning and understanding in the UU tradition, both as individuals and in community. We know our roots, find our wings, and apply our knowledge and wisdom to all our endeavors. 
3. First Universalist Church is an intergenerational community of mutual caring and support. We build this community by actively welcoming everyone and encouraging each person to discover, develop and share their gifts.
4. The people of First Universalist Church work to build a just, loving and sustainable world. We are a visible, influential voice, and we act to shape the larger community into a more just and equitable society. 

See more at the First Universalist website where you'll again see how the values and the mission infuse everything happening in the congregation. 

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. 

Alignment and focus. Clarity and commitment. These are just a few of the benefits congregations can realize from a succinct and powerful mission, particularly when established within an effective governance system. Effective governance makes it clear who articulates the mission (the board), what the mission needs to articulate (what's our transcendent purpose-what overarching difference are we here in the world to create and for whom?), and how the means for achieving the mission will be established (through the minister or executive team).  

Effective governance also raises the powerful question, "Whose are we?" Who are our sources of authority and accountability-on whose behalf do we do this work? Is it just our members, or do we draw our authority from and experience our accountability to a broader set of sources? How can we get and stay in contact with these sources as we do this work? Who else needs to inform our articulation in order to do our best work on their behalf?

Despite the clarity effective governance brings, developing a mission isn't easy. How can you have an inspiring and powerful congregational conversation to inform your mission development? How can you take all your congregational input and then say, simply and beautifully, what difference you're in the world to create and for whom? How can you create the powerful alignment that an effective mission can bring to all your congregation's work?

Unity Consulting has worked with several congregations to design powerful congregational processes to inform their mission articulation, and then worked with them on the questions of "Whose are we?" and mission. In the words of one of our clients, "The appreciative inquiry process, which you and your colleagues at Unity Consulting have adapted so skillfully for use in churches, was the perfect way for us to approach the renewal of our mission and ends. The positive nature of the process and its focus on the future were just what was needed. Yesterday's retreat proved that what we had learned from the AI workshops really could be distilled into succinct and powerful values, mission, and ends. And it really did have some "magic" in it!"

Please contact us if you'd like to explore how we might help you tap into the power of mission!

"If someone had told me twenty years ago," the Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs began our workshop The Promise and Practice of Good Governance, presented at the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly in June 2013, "that the most exciting, most inspiring aspect of my ministry had to do with governance, I would have laughed in their faces. But the truth of the matter is that when we are able to align our decision-making, align the way in which we operate with our covenantal theology, leadership is liberated. Lay leadership is strengthened, ministerial leadership is liberated, and congregations can move forward in new and transforming ways."

He went on to say that "Covenantal theology is a becoming. It's better perhaps to refer to covenanting, to use the participle form, because it holds us to a practice, a way of being together religiously. Martin Buber, the great Jewish theologian, taught that covenantal community is made up of promise-making, promise-keeping, promise-breaking, and promise-renewing people. Policy-based governance. . .provides us with a framework for living into the practice of covenant. It's not a thing we do once, for all, it's a way of putting our full faith into a continuing conversation, a conversation which, when practiced with patience, and discipline, when allowed the time it needs, gives form and direction to our faith and helps us remember what matters most. Policy-based governance is a unique way of church which brings our decision-making into alignment with our theology and our heritage." 

If you'd like to learn more about promise-making, promise-keeping, promise-breaking and promise-renewing in congregational governance, more about developing a covenanting practice in congregational governance, check out the following resources on our website:

Participant booklet from The Promise and Practice of Good Governance

Recorded Webinar: Principles of Good Governance

Recorded Webinar: The Nested Bowls of Values, Mission and Ends

Recorded Webinar: Role Clarity for Visionary and Operational Leadership

Recorded Webinar: Leadership Cycle in the Mission-Focused Congregation