FULFILLING THE PROMISE COMMITTEE
FINAL REPORT
June 2001

 

INTRODUCTION

This report to the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations coincides with the 40th anniversary of the organization, created in the 1961 consolidation of the American Unitarian Association with the Universalist Church of America.

Forty years is a significant time period. The Bible knew this; the Exodus took forty years. The generation of founders passes and cannot enter into the land (or time) of promise.

Roughly every forty years our liberal religious forebears here in America seem to have re-examined basic questions of mission and covenant. Unitarians, for example, organized the AUA as an individual membership group in 1825. By 1865 the National Conference convened by Henry Whitney Bellows, recognized the need for an association of congregations. Around 1900 Samuel Eliot combined the two under the AUA name. In the mid-1930s the original Commission of Appraisal laid the groundwork for the period of Unitarian advance led by Frederick May Eliot and A. Powell Davies in the post-war period. Along with consolidation of the early 1960s came the Goals Commission report.

While the Universalists did somewhat less organizational self-examination they certainly improvised their way forward, using models adapted from other Protestant churches. One can detect a similar pattern in their history; a forty-year interval of getting started, 1770 to roughly 1810; an evangelical period, to the 1850s; a duration of limited institutionalization, to the 1890s; an era of rural decline, through the 1930s; followed by a forty-year courtship with the Unitarians.

It has been clear through time that Mission and covenant are vital to the health and growth of religious community.

Appointed as a strategic planning team for the Association, the Fulfilling the Promise Committee has devoted itself not to "top-down" planning, but to helping lay the groundwork for Unitarian Universalists to more fully appreciate our shared mission and covenant. Only if we do so, we are convinced, can we truly fulfill the great promise that Unitarian Universalism has -- to use its own heritage of covenantal pluralism for the mission of helping promote a society in which differences of faith are not only respected, but called to covenantal cooperation for a more just, democratic, and inclusive society.

We have become convinced that our congregations would be healthier and more effective if they saw themselves less as single cells, there simply to serve their own members, and more as covenantal religious communities with an important mission in the world. Members enter into covenant, but the covenant precedes any individual's membership. Covenant and mission can both be redirected over time, but they have roots in a spiritual heritage that stems from our history.

The congregational churches of New England, for example, from which we emerged, aspired to serve not just the members of the church itself, but the whole parish or town surrounding. The original "Unitarian controversy" was, in some respects, as much about the importance of that mission as it was about theology. Universalism preached God's inclusive love with an equally mission-driven purposefulness.

The social contexts of the two movements long differed. One great challenge of Unitarian Universalism since the consolidation has been to combine and balance these two heritages. After 40 years, the overwhelming number of our congregations and their members identify as Unitarian Universalists and not just with one of our two predecessor denominations.

The old Unitarian emphasis on "freedom, reason, and tolerance" has not been lost, but has shifted in interpretation. Freedom has become not just my freedom, but a concern for the liberation of all from oppression. Intellectual reason has been combined with the emotional intelligence that true compassion requires. Tolerance has come to be seen as a minimal achievement for civil society, with mutual respect and cooperation being far more desirable.

Today, Unitarian Universalism is poised, at the beginning of the 21st century, for a more positive sense of its mission and message. What is now most needed, however, is a multi-level understanding of what is required of us to serve liberation, compassion, and cooperation in the world.

The religious community belongs to its mission, not to its member's personal preferences. Congregations in association must assume an obligation to periodically assess their own mission and covenant. It is only when the member congregations do strategic planning that is spiritually grounded, and share with the Association their needs and aspirations, that the UUA can do strategic planning that is rooted in democratic participation.

The Fulfilling the Promise Committee, therefore, does not here offer a full strategic plan for the future of Unitarian Universalism. On this 40th anniversary of our Association, it simply reports on the necessity for such an ongoing process to emerge -- a process of effective review and renewal of mission and covenant throughout the UUA.



COMMITTEE CHARGE

In 1996 the UUA Board of Trustees appointed a committee to create and recommend to the Board a process involving all member congregations in planning the future of the Association. The original committee included five at large Unitarian Universalists, two members of the UUA Board of Trustees, the UUA President, Moderator and Financial Advisor. Over time the committee expanded to include a representative from the Unitarian Universalist Ministers' Association and from Young Religious Unitarian Universalists.

At its first meeting the committee focused on clarifying its charge and naming itself to reflect its vision for the Association. The result was the Fulfilling The Promise Committee, with a charge to call the member congregations of the Association into a participatory process of ongoing renewal. The goal was that needs and aspirations would be made explicit; a covenant of shared goals, resource commitments and supportive structures would be realized; and Unitarian Universalism would fulfill its promise in the world. Thus began the four-year Fulfilling the Promise process.


OUR PROCESS

We assembled as a strategic planning committee of the Board of Trustees in 1997, but quickly realized that without wide agreement on mission, a traditional strategic planning process would be futile. Instead we needed to call the congregations to articulate a common mission for the Association. We grounded our work by asking Unitarian Universalists to reflect on fundamental questions - Who am I? Why am I here? How will I walk with others? How will I relate to the larger world?

At General Assemblies we increased the visibility of Fulfilling the Promise by capitalizing on the experiences of congregations engaged in the process that were eager to share what they were learning. Each General Assembly offered us an opportunity to set out the next step in the process through the plenary and workshops provided by the General Assembly Planning Committee. To provide focus to this work, the Planning Committee invited us to recommend themes for each GA with scheduled workshops, speakers and worship services that complemented our work. From our GA experiences, outreach to congregational leaders and extra- congregational groups, we learned how to better structure each step of the process.

June 1997 General Assembly - Fulfilling the Promise: A Call to the Process.
In a survey, published in the September,1997 World, individual members of congregations were asked about their religious aspirations and congregational experiences. Our purpose was to stimulate significant conversations within congregations. We developed materials to guide them in their work. The survey asked fundamental questions obtained through questioning hundreds of Unitarian Universalists.

June, 1998 Fulfilling the Promise - Mission and Covenant
Survey results were reported. Scholars Robert Bellah and Amatai Etzioni analyzed for us both the survey and the results in the context of American culture and religious life. We encouraged additional congregations to begin a process of discernment related to mission and covenant.

We offered supporting materials, including the Commission on Appraisal's report, Interdependence, a video of portions of our GA activities and Walter Herz's book, Redeeming Time. We purposefully linked our work with that of the Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Team, asking congregations to reflect on their commitments to inclusiveness and their missions related to healing the world.

The need was recognized to reach out to extra-congregational groups, especially youth and ministers. We invited Chris Trace, who had served on Youth Council and Kenn Hurto, who was a member of the Executive Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers' Association to join our conversations.

We took note of the number of planning efforts underway across the movement and recognized the need to develop lateral relations among groups. We called an "alignment" meeting for October, 1999, and invited representatives of seventeen groups - from theological schools to the President's Council to the Liberal Religious Educators' Association. There was a rich sharing of information about their planning processes and hopes for the future.

June 1999 General Assembly - Fulfilling the Promise: To Help One Another
We learned that congregations practice discernment of mission and covenant in a variety of contexts in addition to strategic planning. Discernment occurs through searches for professional ministry, building programs, and anti-oppression work.

At General Assembly, eleven congregations told stories of developing covenant and mission - identifying what they saw as their promises and their work to fulfill them. These stories were testimonials to the power of mutual effort for common ends - the value of strong lateral relations among congregations. For the coming year we encouraged congregations to ask themselves how they relate to each other and how they might act together for justice in the world.

June 2000 General Assembly - Fulfilling the Promise: Our Common Call
Workshops were held to gather dreams about what our common future might be. We asked fundamental questions: How can we work together to bring UU values into the greater world? What is our mission and purpose as a larger association?

William McKinney of the Pacific School of Religion, asked members to look anew at our movement and its place in the larger world. We were reminded that the dreams of our forebears became our heritage. Now it was our turn to hand on a vision large enough to inspire the imaginations and will of new generations.

From the responses, we drafted language of a common call. It was circulated widely for reflection and response. In final form it is included at the end of this report.

In October, 2001, we held simultaneous cluster meetings which included every congregation in the Pacific Northwest District. Our purpose was to encourage congregations to do self appraisal and visioning in concert with other congregations. We introduced an assessment tool and process designed by Lawrence Peers of the UUA. Revision needs were noted. Soon the assessment tool will be made available to congregations. There was energy and involvement in the cluster discussions. Commitments were made among congregations to gather again.

June 2001 General Assembly - Fulfilling the Promise: Claiming Our Heritage
A video showing our committee's reflections of the four year process will lead in to delegate discussion of the proposed language of the Common Call. Workshops will focus on the congregational self-assessment tool designed to help congregations identify aspirations, build relationships beyond their walls, and embody their religious ideals. In the end it is our collective dreams which will form the new promise of Unitarian Universalism. Our efforts to fulfill them will be the heritage we Unitarian Universalists hand on to the future.

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED

Our "Grass Roots" Approach

At the beginning of our work, we decided that we wanted to extend our reach to include individual Unitarian Universalists as well as congregations. We understood that "strategic planning" had to be based on learnings about the people and organizations that the UUA is meant to serve. We decided to use a survey sent to all UUs, and to hold our meetings in a variety of locations, affording us a variety of opportunities to understand our movement.

The Survey

The survey, answered by some 8000 UUs from virtually every congregation in the association, gave us important insights about our movement. We do not claim that ours was a "scientific" sample of all UUs in the U.S. and Canada, but our report about the survey results to the General Assembly in Rochester gave us a strong feeling that the results resonated with feelings of a larger UU constituency than simply those who answered the survey.

The Survey revealed the following:

1. There is a remarkable "coherence" in our people. In answer to multiple choice questions, the weight of answers on a given question was remarkably similar across many demographic categories (age, sex, theological orientation, years of membership, etc...) This coherence across diverse categories seemed stronger than previous assumptions about our movement's "diversity" had led us to believe.

2. Theologically, we are a pluralistic denomination. That is, in terms of theological positions, everyone in the denomination is in a minority. No theological label (theist, humanist, etc.) is claimed by as many as 50% of us.

3. We want our congregations to be strongly involved with social justice issues.

4. We want Unitarian Universalism to be better known in the world.

5. People have a deep longing for congregational life to be about more than individuals solely strengthening themselves.

Learnings from our meetings around the country included:

1. Congregational Assessment and Lateral Relations.

We met in Worcester, MA overlapping with a conference in celebration of the Cambridge Platform of the 1600s. At this meeting we deepened our understanding of the need for lateral relationships among congregations. We learned of the historical roots and rationale of the 350 year-old practice of congregations being visited by representatives of other congregations for the purpose of assessing the visited congregation's customs and condition. We have translated that practice into a call for more "lateral relationships" and for "congregational assessment" that includes visitation by those outside the given congregation.

In the Pacific Northwest, we experienced the reality of congregational assessment and lateral relationships. In Seattle, Spokane, Anchorage, Portland, etc. we learned the reality of energy, understanding and even joy, that could emerge when congregations ask fundamental questions about themselves, and ask for feedback from area UU congregations and from non-UU members of a congregation's community.

Our experience with Pacific Northwest congregations reinforced our beliefs that the practice of regular congregational assessment must become imbedded in the life of our movement. It is not enough to conduct a membership "survey." A congregation must reach out to others to help it see itself.

For the record, some of the congregations in the PACIFIC NORTHWEST DISTRICT at first found no reason to ask for an assessment from non-UUs in their community, and thus did not take the time to do it. But those who did ask, found the effort exciting and immensely worthwhile. We came away convinced that truly effective "congregational assessment" requires insights from "outsiders."

2. Multi-layered Planning

We met in the Boston area with representatives of Journey Toward Wholeness, the President's Council, and others with leading positions in the movement, and deepened our understanding that planning and advocacy for change in our movement comes from many sources, and that, appropriately, no one group is "in charge." Rather, planning and change efforts will always be multi-layered and multi-voiced, requiring continuous efforts to reach out for mutual understanding and mutual support.

For example, during our four years of work, we have been immensely helped by the efforts and conclusions of the Commission on Appraisal and the Journey Toward Wholeness Committee. We have found our deliberations overlapping in significant measure, and we have learned to link up with their work.

We have learned that a future Strategic Planning Committee will need to connect with the thinking and work of many others in our movement, and that the strategic planning will always be a "work in progress" rather than a completed document. A primary task of a Strategic Planning Committee will be to inspire and assist others to "think strategically," instead of coming up with "The Plan" for others.


3. An Extraordinary Energy in our Movement

In Atlanta, when we met with people from a variety of UU congregations, as well as people attending an Interweave conference, we experienced a very strong energy in our UU movement. We have experienced this energy from across the country, but found particular expression of it when we learned of some southeast congregational efforts at strategic planning and congregation-building. We learned that many congregations are asking fundamental questions, in various ways: planning for building expansion or hiring a minister, for examples.

From the FTP survey, from the General Assemblies over the last three years, and from our meetings with diverse representatives of our UU movement, we have learned there is a remarkable "energy" available in UU communities across the continent. Something is in the "air" we breathe at this time in history. The energy comes from individuals searching for more significant community and meaning in their lives, for more experience with the spiritual dimension of life, for more opportunity to change the world. We have learned that people want to help move their congregations and our UU movement to connect more with the larger community.

In all our work people were grateful simply for the opportunity to express their needs, their hopes and their vision, and to tell us of the good Unitarian Universalist work with which they were engaged.


RECOMMENDATIONS

Strategic planning helps an organization assess the environment, both within and without, with a goal of achieving its full potential--its promise. Our recommendations based on our four-years of study are as follows.


1. Individual congregations should periodically review their mission and covenant statements and undertake a process of self-assessment conducted in relationship with another congregation or congregations of comparable size.

Our Association's strength and vitality are directly related to the strength and vitality of individual congregations. As individual congregations achieve their potential our Association fulfills its promise.

Examining fundamental questions of mission, covenant, and self-assessment should become a norm for congregational life. Such examination should be emphasized in all leadership training and supported by field staff.

These review processes can occur naturally when calling a minister or conducting a capital campaign. However, independent of a significant excuse, a congregation should be intentional about reviewing and renewing itself approximately every five years.

Looking at fundamental questions should be undertaken in relationship with another Unitarian Universalist congregation or congregations, and/or another denomination. The important element is mutual questioning between congregations. Others often see us with clearer understanding than we can see ourselves.

2. The UUA Board encourages the development of congregational self- assessment and strengthening of lateral relationships among our congregations. The districts, supported by regional staff, would provide service delivery.

When congregations come together around mutual projects and concerns a synergy is created. Strength and perspective are gained as we move from isolation into relationship. The sense of being part of a larger whole brings us into true Association.

During the four years of Fulfilling the Promise we have met with congregations across the country that were working in lateral relationships. These congregations experienced tremendous excitement and energy from their interactions.

Structurally, within our Association, the promotion of self assessment and lateral relationships among congregations best rests at the district or regional level supported by regional staff teams. Regional teams would pool resources and create better matches among congregations.

3. The UUA Board should appoint a strategic planning committee whose function would be to scan the Association environment identifying key elements for planning needed to fulfill our common call.

The Fulfilling the Promise Committee has worked to position the Association for a more traditional type of strategic planning. It has asked individual Unitarian Universalists to reflect on their deepest religious needs and aspirations. It has fostered the asking of fundamental questions within congregations and encouraged lateral relationships among congregations as key elements necessary for a healthy, vital Association. And it has articulated a vision or mission statement around which future planning could take place.

From the Fulfilling the Promise Committee's four years of discernment we have drafted The Common Call of Our Faith at the Opening of the 21st Century which is the conclusion of this report. It is our recommendation that this statement of Common Call serve as a guide for a future strategic planning committee.

Our four-year experience has taught us that planning and transformation within our Association goes on in a multi-layered fashion involving all parts of the Association. Every part of the organization--board, staff, committees, associate/affiliate organizations - is actively creating the Association's future. Given this understanding, a future strategic planning committee would actively survey the entire Association and identify for the Board initiatives and gaps as we seek to answer our Common Call. This strategic planning committee would keep its finger on the pulse of the Association. Used in this way the strategic planning committee becomes a valuable resource to the Board.

The Fulfilling the Promise Committee considered the composition for a future strategic planning committee and offers these suggestions. There should be regional diversity on the committee. Its members would ideally include:

  1. Someone who connects us with the larger religious world; possible non-UU
  2. An experienced UU leader
  3. Liaison with JOURNEY TOWARD WHOLENESS
  4. Liaison with funding source at Shelter Rock congregation
  5. UUA President
  6. UUA Moderator
  7. Senior minister appointed in consultation with UUMA Exec
  8. Religious educator appointed in consultation with LREDA Exec
  9. Youth/young adult
  10. President's Council representative
  11. Financial Advisor, ex-officio as required by Laws


CONCLUSION

For four years, the Fulfilling the Promise team has sought to fulfill its charge of discerning the larger yearning of Unitarian Universalists at this point in history. We wanted to know what are the shared needs and aspirations of our fellow faith adherents and our congregations.

Over and again, we have challenged you and ourselves to answer fundamental questions of personal, congregational, and associational purpose. Particularly we sought the answer to this question:

What are we Unitarian Universalists uniquely called to be and do at this time?

We close this report with what we believe is our collective answer as a movement.

We offer this declaration as the exclamation point of our work together. It is a summary of our learnings, of what Unitarian Universalists across the North American continent have said matters most. Moreover, we offer it is as an expression of our shared dreams.

Mindful that perhaps some among us would say it differently, choosing a different word or emphasis here and there, we offer this statement as a brief summary of the Common Call for Unitarian Universalists as we enter the 21st century. We pray these words may inspire Unitarian Universalists toward greater witness and that they may provide a guideline to the leadership of our living tradition.

We thank you for this opportunity to be of service. The Fulfilling the Promise team.:

Ms. Kay Aler-Maida, New York; Fulfilling the Promise Team, Convener
The Reverend John A. Buehrens, Massachusetts; President Unitarian Universalist Association, staff liaison
Ms. Denise Davidoff, Connecticut; Moderator, Unitarian Universalist Association, member
The Reverend Kenneth Gordon Hurto, Virginia; Vice-President, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, liaison
Mr. Larry Ladd, Massachusetts; Financial Advisor, Unitarian Universalist Association ex officio
The Reverend Carolyn Owen-Towle, California, member
The Reverend Clark Olsen, North Carolina, member
Ms. Margaret Sanders, Florida & Mid-South Districts; Board of Trustees, Unitarian Universalist Association, member
The Reverend William Sinkford, Massachusetts; Department of Congregational, District and Extension Services, Unitarian Universalist Association, member
Mr. Chris Trace, Alabama; Liaison, Young Religious Unitarian Universalists
Ms. Judy Turnipseed, South Carolina, member

We acknowledge with gratitude the participation of these people at earlier stages of this work:

Mr. Arnold Bradburg, Pennsylvania 1997
Ms. Dorothy Smith Patterson, California 1997-2000
Mr. Herman Boerma, Saskatchewan, Canada 1997-1999


The Unitarian Universalist Association


The Common Call of Our Faith
As We Enter the 21st Century

The Unitarian Universalist Association consists of freely covenanting faith communities serving a religious legacy of truth, freedom, and love. As member congregations, we join together in association to support the health, growth, and witness of our congregations and to promote and advance Unitarian Universalist faith. Our covenants both bind and empower us.


Preamble:

We are grateful for a 400-year-old, living tradition which enriches and ennobles our faith. Valuing this past, learning from its triumphs and shortcomings, and confident of a dawning future, we unite to deepen our understanding and expand our vision of the good life both as a people and as congregations in the Unitarian Universalist Association.

We have inherited a tradition of religious freedom that affirms a radical respect for the dignity and moral agency of each person. Our forebears challenged a world of dogma, superstition, and widespread ignorance with this faith, which remains rooted in freedom of inquiry and expression, tolerance for the multidimensional character of truth, and the fullest exercise of reason in religious life. Yet at this moment in history we must go further than our forebears imagined. Out of a sense of religious calling common among us, we offer the world our declaration of interdependence and challenge ourselves to deepen our religious practice.


Our Common Call:

As Unitarian Universalists, we join hands and hearts to answer this call, that we may fulfill our promise.